Theme-Rheme and Thematic Progression in
Obama’s Speech and Its Translation
A Research Paper
Submitted to the English Education Department of the Faculty of Language and Arts Education of the Indonesia University of Education as Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements for Sarjana Sastra Degree
by
Mufti Rizky Oktaviani
0801271
English Education Department
Faculty of Language and Arts Education
Theme-
Rheme and Thematic Progression in Obama’s
Speech and Its Translation
Oleh
Mufti Rizky Oktaviani
Sebuah skripsi yang diajukan untuk memenuhi salah satu syarat memperoleh gelar Sarjana pada Fakultas Pendidikan Bahasa dan Seni
© Mufti Rizky Oktaviani 2013 Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
Juni 2013
Hak Cipta dilindungi undang-undang.
PAGE OF APPROVAL
Theme-Rheme and Thematic Progression in
Obama’s Speech and Its Translation
By
Mufti Rizky Oktaviani 0801271
Approved by
Main Supervisor, Second Supervisor,
Drs. Ahsin Mohammad, M.Ag. Susi Septaviana, S.Pd.,M.Pd
NIP.19540817189031002 NIP.197609042009122002
The Head of English Education Department Faculty of Language and Arts Education
Indonesia University of Education
ABSTRACT
ABSTRAK
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ... 1
1.1 Background ... 1
CHAPTER II THEORITICAL FOUNDATIONS ... 8
2.1.1 Types of Translation ... 9
2.1.2 Process of Translation... 9
2.2 Ideology in Translation ... 10
2.3 Thematic Structure ... 12
2.4 Theme and Rheme ... 13
2.5 Types of Theme ... 14
2.5.1 Textual Theme ... 16
2.5.2 Interpersonal Theme ... 18
2.6 Theme and Mood ... 22
2.6.1 Theme in interrogatives ... 22
2.6.2 Theme in Imperatives ... 23
2.6.3 Theme in Exclamatives ... 24
2.7 Theme and Text ... 29
2.8 Theme and New Information ... 29
2.9 Method of Development ... 31
2.10 Speech ... 32
2.11 Previous study ... 33
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 35
3.1 Research Method ... 35
3.2 Research Problems ... 36
3.4 Data Collection ... 37
3.5 Data Source ... 37
3.6 Data Analysis ... 38
CHAPTER VI FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ... 39
4.1 Findings ... 39
4.1.1 Theme-Rheme Analysis of Source Language ... 39
4.1.1.1 Participants as the Topical Theme ... 41
4.1.1.2 Conjunction Structural as Textual Theme... 44
4.1.1.3 Circumstantial of Time as Topical Theme ... 46
4.1.2 Theme-Rheme analysis of Target Language ... 48
4.1.2.1 Participants as the Topical Theme ... 50
4.1.2.2 Conjunction Structural as Textual Theme... 53
4.1.2.3 Circumstantial of Time as Topical Theme ... 57
4.1.3 Thematic Progression in Source Language ... 60
4.1.4 Thematic Progression in Target Language ... 61
4.2 Discussion ... 62
CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ... 66
5.1 Conclusions ... 66
5.2 Suggestions ... 67
BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 68
LIST OF TABLES
Table 4.1 Distribution of Types of Theme in Source Language ... 40
Table 4.2 The Rank of Types of Theme Appearance in Source Language ... 40
Table 4.3 Distribution of Types of Theme in Target Language... 49
Table 4.4 The Rank of Types of Theme Appearance in Target Language ... 49
Figure 2.1 Process of Translation ... 10
Figure 2.2 Theme Components ... 24
Figure 2.3 The Zig-Zag Pattern of Thematic Development ... 31
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
In an English clause there are two points of prominence, the beginning (theme) and
the end (rheme). The beginning of a clause is where we put information which links the
clause to what has come before. This information is contained in the first nominal group in
the clause. (Gerot & Wignell 1994, p. 102)
Related to translation, the theme-rheme and thematic progression can be used to
analyze the worldview of the translator in the target text. One of the texts that can be
analyzed by using theme-rheme and thematic progression and that may contain translator‟s
worldview is a speech. The researcher chooses Obama‟s speech in Indonesian University,
January 2011 to be analyzed. It is because everyone has their own worldview. Obama, as the
President of America also has his own worldview which is easily spread to people through
his speech. Therefore, the present study attempts to reveal the worldview delivered by
Obama.
The term „ideology‟ is defined as the overall perspective from which one sees and
interprets the world (The New Oxford Dictionary of English). The process and product of
translation are closely interdependent, so the process can trace the worldview of translation.
The ideology of a translation, according to Tymoczko (2003), will be a combination of the
content of the source text and the various speech acts represented in the source text relevant
to the source context, layered together with the representation of the content, its relevance to
the receptor audience, and the various speech acts of the translation itself addressing the
2
Furthermore, there are several studies which are related to the present study, such as a
research conducted by Vasconcellos (1997) entitled “Can the Translator Play with the
System, too? A Study of Thematic Structure in Some Portuguese translation”. She uses the
theme and rheme in analyzing the study in Portuguese language. There is also a research
conducted by Downing (2001) entitled “Thematic Progression as a Functional Resource in
Analysing Texts”. She concludes that all of these texts are instances of professional writing
whose rhetorical purpose ranges from entertainment to persuasion. Danes' model (1970) appears
to be fully applicable in helping to reveal the internal organization of the text. An awareness of
the types of thematic progression as expounded by Danes also raises interesting questions for
language teaching pedagogy which cannot be dealt with here. Meanwhile, Ghaelasadi (1992)
also conducted the research entitled “Thematization in Romantic in Criminal Short Stories in
English and Persian: Implications for Second Language Reading”. The analysis showed
overall similarities across the stories in both languages. These similarities were attributed to
the same genre family. Moreover, the results confirmed that the theme/rheme construct could
be a powerful and down-to-earth method for analyzing texts, including stories, and that it
contributes to reading and comprehending stories with case of text processing. In addition,
the researcher also finds the research conducted by Wang (2007), entitled Theme and Rheme
in the Thematic Organization of text: Implications for Teaching Academic Writing. Her
research has explored the insights gained from the relationship between Theme and Rheme to
improve cohesion at the level of discourse. Teachers need to look beyond the traditional
grammar of the clause when teaching writing. The paper shows that Theme and Rheme
patterning can be effectively applied in classrooms to diagnosis students‟ weaknesses.
Thus, this study is concerned with the theme-rheme and thematic progression in
3
text) that aims to discover the differences in worldview and the theme which is most
frequently used in SL and TL that is reflected by the translator.
1.2 Research Question
The following questions are proposed to be answered by the study. The questions are:
1. What themes which are the most frequently used in the source language and the target
language texts?
2. Are there any differences in worldview between the source language text and the
translated texts?
1.3 The Aims of The Study
The aims of this study are:
1. To find out the theme which is most frequently used in SL and TL texts.
2. To find out differences in worldview between the source language text and the
translated text.
1.4 Scope of The Study
This study focuses on the analyses of theme-rheme and thematic progression proposed
by Halliday (1994), and developed by Eggins (2004) and Gerot and Wignell (1994). The
theme-rheme and thematic progression analyses can be used to reveal the worldview of the
translator in the target text. One of the texts that can be analyzed by using theme rheme and
thematic progression and that may contain translator‟s worldview is speech. The researchers
choose Obama‟s speech in Indonesian University, January 2011 to be analyzed.
4
This study employed a descriptive qualitative method. The present study analyzed
Obama‟s speech and its translation to Indonesian using theme-rheme and thematic
progression analyses, so that the translator‟s worldview can be revealed.
1.5.2 Data Collection
The researcher chose the scripts as speech in English and bahasa Indonesian as the
main data. After collecting the scripts, the researcher compiles the theory related to the study.
The data of the research was taken from Isi Pidato Lengkap Obama di Kampus UI. 2010.
http://vivanews.com. The transcript was taken from Transkrip Pidato Obama di Universitas
Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia. 2011.http://herilhalim.wordpress.com.
1.5.3 Data Analysis
In analyzing the data, the researcher utilizes the theme-rheme and thematic
progression. The data of the research was analyzed in several steps. The first step is
collecting the transcribed speech in the source text and the target text, and then, breaking
down the text into clauses. The third step is analyzing each sentence using theme-rheme and
thematic progression proposed by Halliday (1994) which is developed by Eggins (2004) and
Gerot and Wignell (1994). The result from the analysis is then interpreted, so that the
translation‟s worldview can be revealed.
1.6 Clarification of Key Terms
1. Ideology:
Mason‟s (1997) understanding of ideology as the set of beliefs and values which
inform an individual‟s or institution‟s view of the world and assist their interpretation
5
systematically organized sets of statements which give expression to the meanings
and values of an institution. (Mona Baker, 2010)
2. Theme Rheme :
Theme is, broadly speaking, what the clause is going to be about. Or in terms of
theme and rheme, theme represent „this is what I‟m talking about‟ and Rheme is „This
is what I‟m saying about it‟. In terms of looking at a clause as a message, the theme
looks backwards, relating the current message to what has gone before. The rheme
points both backwards and forwards by picking up on information which is already
available and adding to it and by presenting information which was not there before.
The intercation of Theme and Rheme governs how the information in a text develops.
(Gerrot and Wignell, 1994).
The expression of or the ability to express thoughts and feelings by articulate sounds
or a formal address or discourse delivered to an audience (Oxford Dictionaries)
5. Thematic Progressioin :
F. Daneš distinguishes between different patterns of thematic progression depending
on whether a theme remains constant, is split up, or changed from one sentence to the
6
1.7 Organization of Paper
This study is organized into five chapters. Each chapter details the different
information that is needed to construct the idea of the paper.
CHAPTER I
The first chapter contains introduction that consists of background, research problem, scope
of the study, aims of the study, research method, as well as organization of the paper.
CHAPTER II
The second chapter covers theoretical foundations related to the study, namely Systemic
Functional Grammar, and the theory of representation.
CHAPTER III
The third chapter deals with Methodology which covers formulation of the problem, research
design, data collection and data analysis.
CHAPTER IV
The fourth chapter recounts analysis, finding and discussion of the study.
CHAPTER V
The paper ends with the fifth chapter which contains conclusions and recommendation
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CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This chapter deals with the methodology of the study. It covers the formulation of the
research which clarify the main issue under discussion and questions that guide the current
study. It also describes the research design which covers the theoretical framework used in
the current study. Data collection and data analysis are also discussed in this chapter. At last,
this chapter also discusses the research procedure which explains the step-by-step processes
in conducting this research.
3.1 Research Method
This study used descriptive qualitative method. It is relevant and appropriate since the
study described the findings on the worldview through textual analyses using theme-rheme
and thematic progression theory. Descriptive qualitative method is used to describe the
findings in detail. In regard to the content of the study which is in form of text, this study
applied content analyses to analyze the theme which is most frequently used in SL and TL
text and differences in worldview between the source language text and translated text.
3.2 Research Problems
This study raises an issue about how a translator puts different worldview between the
source language text and the translated text. The different worldview itself can be found by
analyzing the vocabularies chosen by the translator. The present research used speech as the
media, it is because the speech have different language diction and style. Language diction
31
3.3 Research design
The study was conducted by employing descriptive qualitative approach in the
identification in the speech of President Barack Obama in the source text and the target text.
This research also includes a descriptive study.
Research Question
The following questions were proposed to be answered by the research. The questions
are:
1. What is the theme which is most frequently used in the source language and the
translated texts?
2. Is there any different worldview between the source language text and the translated
texts?
3.4 Data Collection
The researcher chose the scripts as speech in English and bahasa Indonesian as the
main data. After collecting the scripts, the researcher compiles the theory related to the study.
The data of the research were taken from Isi Pidato Lengkap Obama di Kampus UI. 2010.
http://vivanews.com. The date of speech was on Wednesday, 10 November 2010. The speech
was transcribed by Bonardo Maulana Wahono. The transcript was taken from Transkrip
Pidato Obama di Universitas Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia.
2011.http://herilhalim.wordpress.com. Posted by Haeril Halim on January 9,2011 in Transkip
Pidato-Pidato Penting. The researcher chose Obama’s Speech because at that time, his
visiting to Indonesia was waited by Indonesian people. Besides that, many people watched
his speech in a variety of media.
32
The data of this study was downloaded from two sites. The source language was
Obama’s speech which was transcribed by Haeril Halim and downloaded from
http://herilhalim.wordpress.com. Meanwhile, the target language was downloaded from
http://vivanews.com Isi Pidato Lengkap Obama di Kampus UI. The speech itself tells about
President Barack Obama’s chilhood in Indonesia. Besides that, Obama also told about the
relation between Indonesia and America.
3.6Data Analysis
In analyzing the data, the researcher used the theme-rheme and thematic progression
proposed by Halliday which is developed by Gerot and Wignell (1994) and Eggins (2004).
The study was done in several steps. The first step is breaking down the speech into clauses,
and then, analyzing the clauses using theme-rheme. After anlysing the theme rheme of the
clauses in the speech, the analysis of thematic progression was applied to these clauses. The
result from the process of analyzing the text was used to find out the worldview in translation
and to find out the theme which is most frequently used in SL and TL that is reflected by the
57
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTION
In this chapter, the researcher presents the summary of the main discussions of the current
study. This chapter ends with the suggestions for future research.
2.10 Conclusions
From the analysis, the researcher found that participant, conjunction and
circumstantial of time are most frequently used theme in SL and TL. However, there are
different percentages of their appearances in the texts which mean that the translator put his
own worldview in his translation. It is seen that the source language uses conjunction more
important than the target language, meanwhile the target language considers participant and
circumstantial of time more than the source language does. Furthermore, the source language
prioritizes continuity so much, while the target language prioritizes process as theme. From
these findings, it can be concluded that in this research, it is not proven that English native
speakers are more discipline to time than Indonesian native speakers.
In thematic progression, both texts use theme reiteration and zigzag pattern in which
the target language uses more theme reiteration, and the source language uses more zigzag
pattern. It is clear that the source language has better thematic development than the target
language.
2.11Suggestion
Based on the process of analysis and result of the study, the researcher would like to
offer several recommendations. The researcher suggests that every language learner,
particularly those who take translation studies should have comprehensive knowledge
58
target language. Furthermore, if there is a researcher that would like to continue this research,
it will be better if the research considers another aspect, outside the theme-rheme and
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