Misrepresenting Rhematic And Ellipsed Subjects As Theme [4]

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 277-8):

And then we shift focus again, via another marked Theme, to the rescue on shore:

Blogger Comments:

The authors' analysis is misleading. On the one hand, since the first clause has a marked Theme, the Subject many survivors is not thematic, but falls within the Rheme (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 105). On the other hand, since the final clause has an ellipsed Subject, it has no Theme. The absence of elements through ellipsis marks lack of textual prominence, and the analysis of ellipsed elements as Themes misrepresents them as textually prominent; see Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 635).