La defensa ante la violencia de género

The analysis presented in this chapter considered the ratio of use of the marked Theme and accounted for the functionality of the marked Theme as a point of departure of the clause message and the reasons why the interlocutors chose to use marked Theme in the map task interaction. The analysis on the use of the marked Theme, approaching the clause message from an unusual angle, showed that marked Theme is very unusual structure. The examples presented above on the use of marked Theme illustrated its functionality in the map task dialogue. The interlocutors used marked Theme to foreground a previously mentioned location due to its importance to better organise the message and more easily guide each other to landmarks on the map and aided them in the interaction about the route consequently contributed to the success of/smooth running of the interaction. The interlocutors of the map task foregrounded a previously introduced location to introduce new landmarks and new details about the route, repair meaning, check understanding, check the availability of landmarks, and refocusing on it to describe the location of another landmark that its location is not yet agreed on. The use of these functions varied in frequency of use and with relation to the speakers’ role. Some of the functions were used more than the others; some of them were typical of the instructions givers, others were typical of the instruction receivers while some others were used by both.

The analysis also showed that marked Themes occur in sequence and in clusters. Taking the location of a given landmark as a point of departure provides the interlocutors with relevant details (that are basically related to this landmark and the area around it: next,

below, above, to the left to the right etc… of it) at a given point of the interaction regarding

the description of the route and landmarks’ location. The relevant details contribute to establishing the common ground between the interlocutors that is important to maintain the interaction. Therefore, the interlocutors take them as point of departure leading to the occurrence of marked Theme in sequence or use them after the first Circumstantial Adjunct within the marked Theme as an elaboration of the point of departure of the clause message. The occurrence of the marked Theme in sequence or clusters facilitates the description of the route.

The examples on the use of the marked Theme presented above showed that the previously introduced location was: 1) location of a landmark, for instance a ‘stone giant’ in Example 5.2 above; 2) world knowledge related to the spatial locations and directions

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(i.e. inherently introduced information), for instance ‘diagonally’ in Example 5.11 above; 3) information available in the physical context of the map task interaction, for instance ‘the map task sheet; the instruction giver and the instruction receiver; the route line) as in Examples 5.5 and 5.12 above. The examples showed also that the previously mentioned information is reintroduced within the marked either through: 1) repeating it, for instance ‘old mine’ in Example 5.6 above; 2) using an anaphoric reference expression to refer to it, for instance ‘that’ in Example 5.1 above; 3) reintroducing it only in the first marked Theme and omitting it from the other marked Themes when a sequence of marked Themes occur, for instance ‘old mine’ in Example 5.11 above is mentioned in the first marked Theme and is omitted from the second and third marked Themes.

In the following chapter, Chapter Six, the findings of the analysis of the prosodical realisations of the marked Theme are considered. Marked Theme is used to reintroduce previously mentioned information as illustrated in this chapter. As the previously introduced information is not made information focus (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014) as noted in 3.3, p. 423, the analysis in the next chapter focuses on how the reintroduced information in the 59 marked Themes is realised prosodically

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6.1 Introduction

As noted in Chapters One and Five above the present study explores how marked Theme contributes to structuring map task dialogue. To reveal the contribution of the marked Theme, the 59 marked Themes used in the data generated by the map task are structurally and prosodically examined. Chapter Five above presented the findings of the structural analysis of the marked Themes (i.e. accounting for marked Theme’s contribution as a point of departure of the message and as a device that orients the clause message to rest of the discourse in structuring the map task dialogue). The current chapter presents the description of the prosodic analysis of the marked Theme. The purpose of this analysis is to reveal how the 59 marked Themes were realised and how they contributed to structuring the map task dialogue from a prosodic point of view. The prosodic aspects that are examined in the current study which are reviewed in Chapter Three above are tonality, tonicity and key. As described in 1.1 above, tonality is the segmentation of speech; what the speakers decide to present as a piece of information (Tench, 1996). Tonicity refers to the focus of information; “it expresses what the speaker decides to make the main point or burden of the message” (Halliday, 1970: 40). Key is the pitch height of the onset, the first prominent syllable within the tone group whether high, mid or low (Brazil, 1997).

The research question explored in relation to examining prosody of the marked Themes is: how do tonality, tonicity and key choices of the 59 marked Themes of the map task dialogue aid the map task’s interlocutors in describing the route and the location of the landmarks? So the following sections detail how these prosodic aspects are identified in the current research and describe how the interaction between marked Theme and its prosody contribute to the completion of the map task dialogue.