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CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY
The present study aims to investigate theme types and their functions in the narratives produced by Taiwanese senior high school students. To explore how the students employ English theme in their narratives, we base our criteria of analysis on the independent sentence, which is believed to make “the main contribution” to the thematic structure (Halliday, 1994, p.61). Moreover, the focus is on declarative sentences since they represent the written mode of narratives.
The participants in our study were 111 students from a municipal senior high school in Taipei. To test the feasibility of our study, we conducted a pilot study prior to the formal one. The pilot study was a miniature of the formal experiment in which we tested our theoretical assumption of theme and formulated our criteria of analysis for the formal one. To elicit narrative writing, the students were instructed to write a story based on a series of picture prompts (Appendix A). The data were then collected and scored by two English teachers, who were trained to be familiar with the rubric
(Appendix B) prior to the rating. In the formal study, three levels of writing proficiency were identified and 10 compositions from each group were selected randomly for the theme analysis. A quantitative and a qualitative analysis of theme in the students’
narratives were conducted in accordance with the criteria established.
Pilot Study
To test the feasibility of our study, a pilot study is conducted prior to the formal one.
The pilot study was conducted on September 15, 2010 on a class of 12th graders who went to the same school as the participants in the formal study. The total number of students participated in the pilot study was 35. For the data to reflect the students’ true writing
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ability, the students were not told about the writing task beforehand but were simply instructed by their teacher to complete a narrative based on a picture prompt and submit their work as a regular in-class assignment.
The Writing Task
The writing task is composed of a picture prompt (Appendix A), which is identical to that in the formal study. The prompt is adopted from the writing section on the Scholastic Ability Test (SAT), administered in the year of 2010. We had the instruction printed on the composition paper along with the writing task, which also specified a minimum of 120 word requirement. The written instruction encouraged students to observe the pictures carefully and to do their best to complete a story encompassing all the happenings in the pictures.
The prompt was a four-frame cartoon composed of three pictures and a blank square and was intended to elicit narratives. In one of the picture, the setting was a noodle stand and there were three characters in it. In another picture, the same scene of the noodle stand was repeated while one character was missing and a new item was introduced into the scene. In the third picture, the scene was a train station and the character missing in the previous picture was present. In the last frame, there was a question mark in the middle of a blank square. The students were asked to provide their thoughts on what happened next in the story. The reason for us to adopt a writing task based on pictures is that it may provide a common contextual ground for comparing the narrative production by different participants (Ripich & Griffith, 1990).
The students were allowed a class period of 45 minutes to complete their
compositions and all of them finished the task ahead of time. At the end of the task, 7 compositions were selected from a total number of 35 samples for scoring and theme analysis. The same raters who would also participate in the formal study conducted the
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rating, from which we obtained 2 HI compositions, 3 MID ones and 2 LOW samples composed by 4 female and 3 male students. The 7 compositions were composed of 94 sentences, which were then analyzed in accordance with the criteria established on our theoretical assumption.
Analytical Framework
In the following sections, we will first detail our analytical framework adopted in identifying theme types. Then we will report the findings on theme in the pilot study.
The Identification of Theme Types
Based on our assumption of theme, in the initial stage, each independent sentence was located and numbered and sentence output by the three groups of writers was
computed. Sentential initial elements before the main verb were coded as thematic units.
In the next stage, grammatical configuration of theme was identified and recorded, which included the noun group, the adverbial group, and the adverbial clause. The following example adopted from one of the student compositions in the pilot study demonstrates the detailed procedures being administered1.
(25) 1One day, Jack did his homework at his mother’s restaurant. 2There were only Jack, his mother and a stregh man who sat besides Jack. 3The man is little fat and 4he dressed a old suit. 5When he was eating his meat slowly, he looked to have a lot of pressure. 6After eating his noodles and paied for money, he went away but leave a bag beside his seat. 7Jack opened the heavy bag and 8he found many money. (P-7)
The above excerpt identifies eight independent sentences. Sentence by sentence, the initial elements were categorized and coded. They include elements from the noun group such as the common noun the man in sentence 3, the pronoun he in sentence 4 as
1 Grammatical and spelling errors in students’ texts are ignored so that we may preserve the authenticity of our data and record the actual performance of our students.
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well as sentence 8, and the proper noun Jack in sentence 7. The other types include existential there in sentence 2, the adverbial group one day, Jack in sentence 1, the prepositional phrase after eating his noodles and paied for money, he in sentence 6, and the adverbial clause when he was eating his meat slowly, he in sentence 5. Figure 3.1 exhibits all the theme types identified in the pilot study.
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Figure 3.1 Examples of theme from the pilot study.
Note. Proper N = proper noun; Com-N = common noun; Pron = pronoun;
Others = marked structures such as wh-cleft, anticipatory it, or existential there.
Type 1 theme is composed of NP and it serves both as the first constituent and as the subject of the sentence. Except for type 1.4, all the themes in type 1 category have the
Theme types Category Examples
1. Noun phrase
Jack opened the heavy bag.
The police had been waiting for him.
He was in panic.
At that moment, a policeman entered the restaurant.
After having his meal, he payed the bill in a hurry without carring his bag.
To my surprise, there were at least 200 thousand dollars in the bag.
In the train station when the man ready to buy a ticket, he found his bag was gone.
Suddenly, David found that there was a mysterious bag between the man and him.
Then the boy and his mother found the bag.
Maybe he was a thief.
Needless to say, there was something wrong.
One day when I ate noodles in a restaurant, I saw a big bag next to my seat.
However, he forgot to take his bag.
5. Adverbial
When he found the bag still on the table, the man had arrived in the train station.
Because he had many things to did, he looked so pressurious.
To cure my curiosity, I opened the bag carefully.
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unmarked status of theme. Theme types 2 to 6 involve the fronting of other elements before the subject and we assign these themes the marked status. Type 2 represents themes initiated by the PP. Type 3 includes themes led by the Adv. Type 4 begins with a Conj2. Type 5 is set off by an Adv C while Type 6 is fronted by a Non-fi C. We did not find any themes composed of Proper N following the initial PP, Conj, Adv C or Non-fi C, and nor did we locate any instances of Non-fi C + Com-N theme. However, considering the occurrences of these theme types may characterize theme use in the students’ narratives, we decided to incorporate them in our framework in order to present our data in a holistic and consistent manner. The following table exhibits our finding on theme types from the pilot study.
Table 3.1 The distribution of theme types in the pilot study.
Note. NP = noun phrase; PP = prepositional phrase; Adv = adverb; Conj = conjunction;
Adv C = adverbial clause; Non-fi C = non-finite clause.
We identified 54 (57.4%) instances of theme containing initial elements formed by NP, 15 (16%) by PP +3 NP, 15 (16%) by Adv + NP, 5 (5.3%) by Conj + NP, 4 (4.3%) by Adv C + NP, and 1 (1.1%) by Non-fi C + NP. The statistics showed that the students employed a significantly high percentage of unmarked themes (57.4%) followed by
2 Fries believes that conjunctions in paratactically related clauses such as and, or, but, so represent weak thematic choices because they can be “expressed by other words which are not required to occur initially”
(1983, p.119). In the present study, these types of conjunctions are excluded from analysis unless they appear in sentence initial position marked by a capital letter.
3 The + sign refers to theme elements following the first sentence initial constituent.
Statistics
Theme types Percentage Freq
1. NP 57.4% 54
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marked themes fronted by PP (16%) or Adv (16%). Meanwhile, the occurrences of conjunction theme (5.3%), Adv C themes (4.3%) and Non-fi C themes (1.1%) were rather low. Detailed examination also revealed that marked structures such as wh-cleft,
anticipatory it, and existential there were also rare. In fact, we only recorded three instances of these constructions. Nevertheless, considering these theme types crucial to narrative writing, we decided to keep these categories in our framework in case they show up in the formal study.
The Establishment of Theme
Based on our findings on theme types in the pilot study, we proceeded in this stage to identify the functions performed by these theme types. The procedure by which we administered our analysis is outlined as follows.
a. Establish theme-theme connection by linking theme in the present sentence to the theme in the preceding sentences.
In example 26, pronoun he in the second sentence refers to the man in the previous sentence. As illustrated, the theme functioning in this setting either repeats or is derived from the theme in the preceding sentences.
(26) 1The man is little fat and 2he dressed a old suit.
b. Establish rheme-theme connection by linking theme in the present sentence to the rheme part in the preceding sentences.
In example 27, the theme it in the second sentence is derived from part of the rheme a big bag in the first sentence. As shown, the theme involved in the rheme-theme connection is picked up from the rheme in the preceding sentences.
(27) 1One day, when I ate noodles in a restaurant, I saw a big bag next to my seat.
2It belonged to the man who was next to me.
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c. Introduce a new participant in the rheme.
As explained in the literature review, a new participant or topic may be introduced through introductory themes. These devices replace the subject in the initial position and push the topic to the rheme position, where it may then be picked up and presented as given information in the subsequent sentence. In example 28, sentence 1 is set off by an introductory there, which enables the presentation of a new participant a stregh man in the rheme position. In the following sentence, the man is picked up and it becomes the topic for the ensuing text.
(28) 1There were only Jack, his mother and a stregh man who sat besides Jack.
2The man is little fat and 3he dressed a old suit.
d. Provide background information for the interpretation of the following text.
In example 29, themes in sentence 1 and 2 provide temporal background for the
development of the subsequent text. The adverbial clauses when he was eating his meat slowly and after eating his noodles and paied for money in the sentence onset perform the function of identifying the sequence of events on a time axis.
(29) 1When he was eating his meat slowly, he looked to have a lot of pressure. 2After eating his noodles and paied for money, he went away but leave a bag beside his seat.
e. Signal a transition in the text unit.
In example 30, the theme However in sentence 2 represents an important transition in the development of the text, which gives the direction for the interpretation of the subsequent text. In addition to providing a referential link with the previous sentences, this theme type also signals a change in the flow of the information.
(30) 1He quickly pay money for his meal, dashing out in panic. 2However, he forgot to bring his bag.
f. Introduce a new participant or a break.
In example 31, sentence 2 introduces a new participant a policeman, which has no connection with the theme or rheme in the preceding sentence and is not retrievable from
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the prior text. In such a case, bigger connecting units are needed to indicate the big gap in theme-rheme continuity.
(31) 1Jack and his mother open the bag and found large amounts of money.
2A policeman entered the restaurant and told they a thing.
Primary analysis confirmed that our framework was able to accommodate all the theme types in the student texts and we were able to identify the role theme plays in the text. However, the identification of theme types alone is not sufficient to address our second research question: How do theme types contribute to the quality of writing in the high-rated, middle-rated and low- rated narratives composed by Taiwanese senior high school students? We must also take into account the effect theme exerts on the coherence between sentences. Moreover, since the function of theme can only be understood in relation to the rheme and the neighboring sentences, we find it necessary to recount our data in a sequential, sentence by sentence manner so that we may gain a complete picture of how theme types contribute to the quality of the students’ writing. It was thus decided that these important measures would be incorporated into the formal study.
In general, the pilot study enabled us to clarify what theme types to be included in the formal study and to formulate our criteria and procedures for thematic analysis.
Furthermore, it helped to facilitate our practice in the formal study and shed light on the direction of our further investigation.
Formal Study
In this section, we will first provide background information for the participants in this study. Next, we will demonstrate the procedures in administering the writing task and illustrate the method in training raters and scoring the student compositions.
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Participants
Three classes of students from a municipal senior high school in Taipei participated in the study. They include 111 students from 3 classes, of which 65 were females and 56 were males. Two of the classes were composed of students who will major in social science in college while the remaining one class of students will major in natural science.
These students were 12th graders and were instructed by the same English teacher, who is a native Chinese. All the subjects had learned English for at least nine years. Prior to our study, they had received instruction on English grammar and sentence structures and had been taught general concepts of paragraph organization. Nevertheless, most of these students had not practiced writing a complete text until they reached the 12th grade when it became necessary for them to sharpen their writing skills to fulfill the requirement for the college entrance examination.
Administrating the Writing Task
The main study was conducted on September 23 and 24, 2010. Before the writing task, the teacher was inquired whether her students had practiced with the prompt and the teacher’s reply was a negative. Similar to our practice in the pilot study, the students were not informed of the task beforehand and the task was administered by their English teacher as a regular in-class assignment. In the main study we followed the same procedures as the pilot study to allow the students sufficient time for idea development and organization. All the students completed the task within a class period of 45 minutes.
Training for Inter-Rater Reliability
The same two raters from the pilot study graded all the essays independently and assigned each essay a holistic score in accordance with the criteria established by the
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College Entrance Examination Center (CEEC). The raters were English instructors from the participants’ school. Both of them had a bachelor’s degree in English-American Literature and had been trained as raters for GEPT4 by The Language Training and Testing Center.
Inter-rater reliability was established through the procedures suggested by Weigle (2002). In particular, the scoring was conducted in two phases: rater training phase and the formal rating phase. In the rater training phase, the raters read the criteria and practiced scoring. First, the researcher and the two raters read through the rating rubric (Appendix B), which described the features and distinctions between different scale points. Then, the raters read a set of benchmark scripts retrieved from CEEC website, which were used to familiarize the raters with the rating scale and to exemplify key features of the rubric. The raters then discussed and resolved any questions or disagreements regarding the scripts or criteria.
Prior to the formal rating stage, the two raters practiced assigning scores to a set of scripts released by CEEC. The results of their rating were compared and discussed.
The formal rating did not begin until a high degree of agreement was reached in the results of the initial rating. Finally, in the formal rating phase, the raters performed the rating independently.
In the process of rating, we encountered several instances where there was a major discrepancy by 6 points (criteria established by CEEC) between the two raters. These essays in question were reviewed by the two raters and the researcher in a group meeting.
They discussed and resolved the issues before a final score was agreed on and allocated to these compositions. The end results from the scoring by the two raters were run on Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient and the value was 0.74, which indicated a
4 GEPT stands for General English Proficiency Test, which is a criterion-referenced test developed and administered by The Language Training & Testing Center in Taiwan.
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high degree of agreement between the two raters.
Scoring Student Compositions
Each essay was marked in accordance with the scoring scheme (Appendix B) established by the College Entrance Examination Center (CEEC). The full score of the compositions is 20 points with content accounting for 25%, organization 25%, grammar 20%, diction 20% and mechanics 10%. For the purpose of the present study, the participants were categorized into three proficiency levels: the high (HI), the middle (MID), and the low (LOW). Those compositions receiving a total point from 15 to 20 were marked HI, from 14 to 8 were marked MID, and from 7 to below were assigned LOW. The raters were informed of the division and scoring standards across different levels. Each essay was scored by the two raters, and the final grade was the average of
Each essay was marked in accordance with the scoring scheme (Appendix B) established by the College Entrance Examination Center (CEEC). The full score of the compositions is 20 points with content accounting for 25%, organization 25%, grammar 20%, diction 20% and mechanics 10%. For the purpose of the present study, the participants were categorized into three proficiency levels: the high (HI), the middle (MID), and the low (LOW). Those compositions receiving a total point from 15 to 20 were marked HI, from 14 to 8 were marked MID, and from 7 to below were assigned LOW. The raters were informed of the division and scoring standards across different levels. Each essay was scored by the two raters, and the final grade was the average of