'Theme' and 'Marked theme' in Literary Narrative

摘要

This study attempts to apply the concept of theme -rheme and marked theme to literary narrative. By seeking the notion of "marked theme" of "thematic organization" or thematic structure") in a literary narrative, it will argue that for theme in literary narrative, a sentence is more appropriate as the unit of analysis than a clause. It will also suggest that narrative tends to have a more marked form in comparison with other rhetorical modes such as exposition, argumentation, and description by adopting a sentence as the unit analysis. This is because narrative fictions seek dynamic ways to draw readers into involvement with the process of story events.