An Analysis Of Department Introductions Of British Universities From Functional Perspective

Under the background of globalization, our exchanges with world have beenincreasingly extensive in the field of education. In this new era, Chinese universitiesshould actively open up to the outside world. Apart from the primary requirements, suchas the first-class discipline, top-ranking faculty and management which are essential fora university to establish a good image in the world, introductions to departments ofuniversities on their homepages also play a major role in publicizing universities to thewhole world. As the primary means of external communication, the introductions todepartments directly affect the image and orientation of universities. Moreover, Englishis one of the most widely used languages in the world. Thus, it is of great importancefor Chinese universities to have proper English introductions. This research is of greatsignificance.Theme and thematic progression are of crucial importance for building anddevelopment of every aspect of semantic coherence. Under the framework of thethematic theory and seven thematic progression patterns，this thesis intends to conduct adeep analysis of the English department introductions. Based on the materials selectedfrom the official websites of British universities, this paper explores the themes andthematic progression patterns of English introductions by quantitative researches anddata comparison. Through careful observation and analysis, the main characteristics ofintroductory materials are found out as follows: English department introductions tendto adopt the simple theme, unmarked theme, constant theme pattern and simple linearpattern. Evolved from the main features of the distribution, the author further analyzesthe functions of the themes and seven thematic progression patterns and factors thatmay affect the adoption and distribution of the themes and thematic progressionpatterns.On the one hand, this study can enrich the application of thematic theory andthematic progression on text analysis and further perfect practical guiding significanceof systemic functional grammar. On the other hand, this paper can provide somereference for Chinese universities to write English department introductions and helpthem find the appropriate themes and thematic progression patterns to optimize the goalof the introduction.