Thematic Progression: A Comparative Analysis of SocialScience Research Articles Written by Pakistaniand BritishResearch Scholars

Abstract

Cohesion plays a crucial role in shaping the texture of a text through appropriate thematic choices. Recognizing the issue of cohesion, the researcher conducted a present study to address this problem. The study focused on analyzing social science research articles authored by Pakistani and British research scholars, employing thematic terminologies and emphasizing the textual metafunction. The objectives were twofold: first, to explore and compare the thematic meanings expressed in Pakistani and British social science research articles, and second, to elucidate the functional interpretation of the identified themes. The researcher conducted a qualitative analysis of the data in three steps: (1) dividing the text into clauses, (2) identifying theme components, and (3) tagging the components according to their types and sub-types of themes. The results revealed that the prominent sub-types of themes were the unmarked topical theme (UMT), finite, continuatives, and conjunctions in the topical, interpersonal, and textual themes, respectively. The topical themes served as noun groups, while the textual themes connected new information with prior information. The qualitative analysis focused on studying the patterns of cohesion, leading the researcher to thematic progression and explaining the relationship between theme and rheme within a text. This relationship and its interpretation demonstrated that cohesion relies on thematic choices. Furthermore, the study found that British research articles exhibited greater cohesion compared to Pakistani research articles.