An Analysis of Students' Essay Thematic Structure in English Academic Writing Course

Afrianto Akhmad Mukhamirudin

Abstract


Academic writing has always been a fundamental skill for higher education students, yet it is still perceived to be a difficult skill to acquire. Accordingly, educators are encouraged to find ways to solve this issue. A concept taken from the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) theory, namely thematic structure, can be a solution that provides a detailed description of how cohesion and coherence can be structured in a text. Therefore, this descriptive qualitative research is trying to provide a clear description of students’ thematic structure in English academic writing courses. The primary methodology framework to analyze and interpret the collected data adopted the SFL thematic structures model from Halliday and Matthiessen (2014), named textual metafunction, which identified themes into topical, textual, and interpersonal themes. The findings showed that students tended to employ topical themes, specifically unmarked topical themes, to realize the ideas in their clauses. Conjunctive adjuncts as the textual theme were frequently used by the students to build connections between clauses in the text, while conjunction was barely employed. The interpersonal theme was the least common type of theme employed by the students. However, this situation is quite common in academic writing as personal judgment is avoided to create a more objective text. Thus, future research is encouraged to analyze thematic structure in various texts and contexts


Keywords


academic writing; systemic functional linguistic; textual metafunctions; thematic structure

Full Text:

PDF

References


Alotaibi, H. S. (2020). The thematic structure in research article abstracts: Variations across disciplines. Cogent Arts and Humanities, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2020.1756146

Arunsirot, S. (2015). An analysis of textual metafunction in Thai EFL students' writing. Novitas-Royal (Research on Youth and Language), 7(2), 160–174.

Asyifa, P. A., & Daulay, E. (2024). The influence of grammarly application to improve students’ writing skills in recount text. Allure Journal, 4(2), 97–105. https://doi.org/10.26877/allure.v4i2.19272

Budiana, C. I. (2023). Brainstorming and Mind-mapping: Crucial basic skills duet in building critical thinking for academic composition. Kata, 25(00), 38–41. https://doi.org/10.9744/kata.25.00.38-41

Cecario, K., & Lisdawati, I. (2022). The finding of theme and rheme type in the Jakarta Post article. PROJECT (Professional Journal of English Education), 5(2), 360. https://doi.org/10.22460/project.v5i2.p360-365

Chen, Q. (2019). Theme-Rheme structure in Chinese doctoral students’ research writing —- From the first draft to the published paper. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 37, 154–167. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2018.12.004

Chen, X., & Gardner, S. (2021). L2 Theme development in Discursive and Experimental undergraduate student writing. Register Studies, 3(2), 247–278. https://doi.org/10.1075/rs.20018.che

Creswell, J. W. (2009). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications

Ebrahimi, S. F. (2016). Theme types and patterns in research article abstracts: A cross disciplinary study. International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies, 4(3), 104–115. www.eltsjournal.org

Ebrahimi, S. F. (2017). The realizations of point of departure of message in general English texts. International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, 6(6), 40. https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.6n.6p.40

Erturk, G. T., & Ozturk, K. (2022). Mixed-method research on EFL graduate students’ academic writing practices. English Language Teaching, 15(7), 110. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v15n7p110

Feri, O. Z., Triyono, S., Ashadi, & Dwiyanto, D. P. (2023). Thematic structure in students’ writings: Implications on their Ideas Organization and Development. Register Journal, 16(01), 49–72. https://doi.org/10.18326/rgt.v16i1.49-72

Forey, G., & Sampson, N. (2017). Textual metafunction and theme: What's 'it' about?. In T. Bartlett & G. O'Grady (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics (pp. 131-145). Routledge

Halliday, M. A. K. (1985). Language as a social semiotics. Edward Arnold.

Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. M. (2004). An introduction to functional grammar (3rd ed.). Arnold.

Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. M. (2014). Introduction to functional grammar (4th ed.). Routledge

Hawes, T. (2015). Thematic progression in the writing of students and professionals. Ampersand, 2, 93–100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amper.2015.06.002

Herdiawan, R. D. (2017). Thematic structure and thematic progression in background of the study section of students’ skripsi. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, 8(12), 974–983. https://doi.org/10.14299/ijser.2017.12.006

Hidayah, S. N., Wihadi, M., & Rahmatunisa, W. (2023). Textual metafunction analysis about education news text on selected national online newspapers. Journey: Journal of English Language and Pedagogy, 6(2), 498–504. https://doi.org/10.33503/journey.v6i2.3185

Hilyah, W. Raudhatul, Herdiawan, R. D., & Emiliasari, R. N. (2023). Analysis of theme and rheme on university students’ writing. National Conference on Language, Education, and Technology Proceeding, 2(1), 123–129. https://doi.org/10.32534/nacolet.v2i1.3449

Hosseinpur, R. M., & Pour, H. H. (2022). Adversative connectors use in EFL and native students’ writing: A contrastive analysis. Tesl-Ej, 26(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.55593/EJ.26101A3

Jing, W. (2015). Theme and thematic progression in English writing teaching. Journal of Education and Practice, 6(21), 178–187.

Khalifa, Z. K. K. (2020). An analytical study on theme choices in the academic essays of Libyan EFL undergraduate students. (Faculty of Arts J, 16, 8–32. https://doi.org/10.36602/faj.2020.n16.07

Kuswoyo, H., & Susardi, S. (2017). Problems on SFG thematic progression in ESL academic writing. Leksema: Jurnal Bahasa Dan Sastra, 2(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.22515/ljbs.v2i1.655

Lukitasari, D. R. (2019). The application of textual metafunction in developing EFL learners’ writing materials. Indonesian EFL Journal: Journal of ELT, Linguistics, and Literature, 5(2), 55–67.

Mahriyuni, Tengku Silvana Sinar, T. Thyrhaya Zein, & Nurhaliza. (2023). Thematic structure of students’ anecdote Text. Jurnal Pedagogi Dan Pembelajaran, 6(2), 211–219. https://doi.org/10.23887/jp2.v6i2.62290

Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2024). Theorizing and applying Systemic Functional Linguistics. Routledge

Mudawy, A. M. A. ., & Mousa, A. A. . (2017). Academic writing among Saudi university students: Problems and solutions. International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR), 6(5), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.21275/ART20172929

Raoofi, S., Binandeh, M., & Rahmani, S. (2017). An investigation into writing strategies and writing proficiency of university students. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 8(1), 191–198. https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.0801.24

Saeed, A., Karim, S., & Mughal, S. H. (2021). The impact of theme-rheme progression method on improving textual coherence and cohesion in L2 writing: A study of L2 learners of English. Pakistan Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 9(2), 83–92. https://doi.org/10.52131/pjhss.2021.0902.0115

Sanosi, A. B. (2024). Revisiting cohesion in academic writing: A corpus-based analysis of EFL learners’ use of conjunctions. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 14(1), 64–78. https://doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v14i1.70418

Setiawati, N., Hapsari, I. P., & Priyatmojo, A. S. (2017). Thematic development on students’ analytical exposition texts: A case of the fourth semester students in the academic year 2014/2015. ELT Forum: Journal of English Language Teaching, 6(2), 142–154.

Trung, N. T. (2024). A contrastive study of theme types in academic IELTS essays written by English-majored Students and IELTS Candidates. Journal of Knowledge Learning and Science Technology ISSN: 2959-6386 (Online), 3(2), 30–42. https://doi.org/10.60087/jklst.vol3.n2.p42

Yunita, S. (2018). Theme and thematic progression in students’ recount texts. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(3), 524–530. https://doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v7i3.9797




DOI: https://doi.org/10.26877/allure.v5i2.21085

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2025 Afrianto Akhmad Mukhamirudin

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.