Thematic selection and progression patterns in L2 theses abstracts from humanities and science

This paper discusses the internal logico-relations of the theses abstracts from humanities and science, written in English as a second language (ESL). A research abstract is an academic text designed to attract and get the readers to read the research study which it summarises; thus, the coherence of ideas presented in it presumably affects the possible evaluations from the readers. Previous studies have examined the Theme/Rheme constructs as important cohesive elements at the level of discourse, with less attention to the sentential analysis of the thematic selection and the progression patterns in second language (L2) theses abstracts. Therefore, this paper aims at investigating and comparing the thematic markedness and its progression patterns as sources of the cohesive information in L2 humanities and science theses abstracts. In this paper, 60 PhD theses abstracts from the Premier University, Nigeria, are analysed. Quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis are applied. The abstracts from humanities and sciences (30 abstracts each) were purposefully selected and syntactically analysed, in terms of the Systemic Functional Linguistics’ model of textual metafunction. The findings show that the theme unmarkedness, as well as the constant theme progression pattern, prevail in the two disciplines, although they feature varying frequencies.