| Systemic-functional stylistics, based on Halliday's (1973) Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), aims at analyzing a text as a realization of particular choices of meanings. SFG is a system of meanings associated with three metafunctions—ideational, interpersonal and textual, each indicating how the language is structured. Textual metafunction of language"enables the writer or speaker to construct texts"(Halliday, 1970, p.143) and one of the two important structural resources which contribute to the creation of discourse is thematic structure (Halliday & Hasan, 1976; Halliday, 2004). An array of studies has been conducted on the thematic structure of various genres of discourses in English language, but few of them are related to English-medium experimental medical research articles (RAs). The present research aims to analyze the thematic choice in English-medium experimental medical RAs and explore the relationship between the thematic choice and the conventionalized styles of English-medium experimental medical RAs, especially those in the Methods section and the Discussion Section. The theoretical framework of the thesis is Halliday's thematic theory.In our study, a pretest to attest the feasibility of the research was first conducted in five medical RAs selected from the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association, both of which were indexed by the Science Citation Index (SCI). Following the pretest, a larger corpus of 25 medical RAs was established by a two-round stratified random sampling. The journals for the corpus were selected in terms of their reputation, representativity and accessibility, and the selected medical RAs were organized in the format of"Introduction-Methods-Results- Discussion".The major findings of our study were as follows:1) Simple themes were most frequently used (80.9%) and much more frequent than multiple themes (10.9%) and clausal themes (8.2%) in the experimental medical RA. As the obligatory element in the theme, topical themes (100%) were always employed in each clause complex. Textual themes took up a low proportion (8.9%) and interpersonal themes were least frequently used (4.2%). Unmarked themes (76.8%) were much preferred to multiple themes (23.2%).2) Distinct preferences were observed in the thematic choice in the Methods section and the Discussion section of the English-medium experimental medical research articles in our corpus. In terms of the structural complexity, the percentage of simple themes in the Methods section was much higher respectively than those in the Introduction section, the Results section and the Discussion section (92.5% vs. 81.8%, 76.4%, 72.8%). The percentage of multiple themes in the Discussion section was markedly higher than those in the Introduction section, the Methods section and the Results section (20.3% vs. 10.6%, 2.7%, 10.4%). In terms of textual themes, conjunctive adjuncts occupied the lowest percentage (11.6%) in the Methods section but the highest percentage (49.5%) in the Discussion section. Additive adjuncts were most frequently used in the Methods section (58.3%), while the adjuncts of adversative were most frequently used in the Discussion section (36.4%). Interpersonal themes were the least frequently used in the Methods section (0.7%), but the most frequently used in the Discussion section (62.2%). As for markedness, the percentage of unmarked themes (81.6%) in the Methods section was higher than its percentage (71%) in the Discussion section. The percentage of marked themes (29%) in the Discussion section was higher than its percentage (18.4%) in the Methods section.From the results above, we have drawn the following conclusions:1) The thematic choices in the medical RA contribute to the realization of some conventionalized styles of the experimental medical RA. While the genre analysis of the structures in the medical RA gives medical writers a clear picture of the discourse functions and types of information to be presented in the medical RA, the thematic system offers the medical writers proper means to be employed in the realization of these discourse functions of the genre structure in the experimental medical RA.2) The preference in choosing different types of themes may be related to the rhetoric purposes and stylistic requirements of the different sections of an experimental medical RA. The distinct preference of the thematic choice in the Methods section and the Discussion section may be associated with the differences in rhetoric purposes and stylistic requirements of the two sections. In line with the different stylistic features as well as goals of the different sections of experimental medical RAs, medical writers employ different types of themes to objectively and accurately present detailed information in order to persuade the readers to accept their ideas.The present study examined the choices of theme in English-medium experimental medical RAs and their realization of some conventionalized styles of medical RAs. The information provided by this study may help medical writers to better construct appropriate English-medium experimental medical RAs for the publication. |
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