Thematic Structure in Reading Comprehension Texts in English Textbooks

Theme choice in academic texts plays an important role to the reader's comprehension as it facilitates the coherence and cohesiveness of the text. However, research on thematic structure in academic settings in developing world has still received less attention. This paper reports findings on the use of thematic structure in four English textbooks in a book series used in tertiary education in the Vietnamese context. It employed functional grammar as the main theoretical framework to the analysis of different types of themes including simple themes, multiple themes and clausal themes in the 24 reading comprehension texts across four levels, specifically elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate and upper-intermediate. The analysis revealed three main findings.