英语有标记主位及其修辞作用

Marked Theme in English and its Rhetorical Functions

一个英语句子常可以披切分为主位(Theme）和述位(Rheme）两个部分。主位是话语的出发点，是置于句首的成分；述位是话语的核心内容，是置于主位后面的成分。从信息传递的角度看，主位传递的是已知信息（Given Informatlon），述位传递的是新信息（New Information）。在一般情况下，句子的主语充当主位，谓语部分充当述位。例如:

R. Quirk et al points out; 'Theme is the name we give to the initial part of any structure when we consider it from an informational point of view' The theme o?an information unit, coming first, usually conveys a given information while the rheme, locating after the theme, conveys a new information. When the theme overlaps the subject of a sentence, this theme is marked. When any part of a sentence which usually don't appear at the thematic place is purposely placed at the beginning of a sentence, this initial part is called the marked theme. We choose to use the marked theme, which .is different from the theme in a grammatically inverted sentence, because it has its rhetorical functions. It can help to lay an emphasis to certain parts of a sentence, to connect closely the meanings between paragraphs, sentences or clauses, to give a more vivid description to some scene, action or appearance of a character etc, to balance the structure of a sentence and to fun-tion antithetically in parallelism.