Rheme and Theme in Arabic

Tawfeeq Alghazali

Abstract: This paper is mainly concerned with the notions of theme and rheme as a source for the organization of the clause as a message. It builds on Halliday (1994) who conceives theme as a clause initial element. The framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics focuses on investigating the functions performed by marked Theme. The paper is an attempt to show how the theme is identified in the Arabic clause. The importance of the notion of theme stems from the fact that the flow of information in a sentence from theme to rheme is important to convey the message effectively.

Keywords: Focused Information Unmarked and Marked Theme, Simple and Multiple Themes, The concept of theme and rheme