The Theme-topic Interface

Book excerpt: The Theme-Topic Interface (TTI) gives a useful catalogue of approaches to the concept Theme in the analysis of Natural Language. The book is written with both theoretical and descriptive goals and aims to synthesize and revise current approaches to pragmatic functions. In addition, TTI explains that different thematic constructions in natural language reveal different discourse strategies related to point of view and speaker subjectivity, which shows the mutually supportive role of form and discourse function vis-á-vis each other. The book's value is enhanced by the use of natural language corpora, the Lancaster IBM Spoken English Corpus (LIBMSEC), and by running multivariate statistical tests, taking into account both segmental and suprasegmental features. The bibliography lists more than 600 publications providing ample material for further research into an integrated theory of language and its use. The indexes provide easy access to most authors mentioned and to the major concepts covered.