Abstract—Taking political and science speeches as subjects,
the writer makes an attempt to analyze the similarities and
differences between political speeches and science speeches on
the basis of Halliday’s theme theory and Zhu Yongsheng’s
thematic progression patterns. The quantitative analysis shows
that, as to thematic structure, simple themes are used most in
political speeches, whereas multiple themes contain the largest
proportion of science speeches, and both of them rarely use
clausal themes; in addition, interpersonal themes account for a
larger percentage in political speeches, whereas textual themes
occur more in science speeches. With regard to thematic
progression patterns, both of them consist largely of same
Theme pattern and continuous pattern, while same Rheme
pattern and crossing pattern are rarely employed. This study
expands the scope of research on thematic progression patterns
and has implications for speakers and English learners.
Index Terms—Thematic structure, thematic progression
pattern, political speech, science speech
Mao Yi and Lei Xiaolan are with School of Foreign Studies,
Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, CO 710129, China.
*Correspondence: maoyi@mail.nwpu.edu.cn (M.Y.)
[PDF]
Cite:Mao Yi and Lei Xiaolan, "A Comparative Study of Thematic Structure and Progression Patterns in Political and Science Speeches," International Journal of Languages, Literature and Linguistics vol. 9, no. 6, pp. 495-499, 2023.