Theme Resources Realizing Textual Meanings in a Literary Text: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Analysis

This article explores how theme resources are employed to construct textual meanings in the famous British novel A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. The data for analysis are confined to the novel's chapter 1, “The Period.” The theoretical framework adopted for analysis is systemic functional linguistics (SFL). Findings of the study exhibit a number of interesting textual features of which four stand out. First, the text is organized mainly around simple themes. Second, simple unmarked themes predominate simple marked themes. Third, between multiple unmarked theme and multiple marked theme, multiple unmarked theme accounts for 100 percent of occurrences in the text. Finally, among the four multiple theme patterns—textual + topical theme, interpersonal + topical theme, textual + interpersonal + topical theme, and interpersonal + textual + topical theme—textual + topical theme is the most employed pattern. The study ends with a summary of the salient findings found in the text; a recommendation affirming the relevance of SFL as a theoretical framework for analyzing and interpreting textual meanings of texts in general and literary texts in particular for EFL literature teaching, learning, and research; and some suggestions for further study.