A Comparative Study of Thematicity in High-Graded and Low-Graded Compositions Written by Persian-Speaking Learners of English

An overarching consideration in academic writing is cohesion, which helps enhance text unity. In this vein, the theme/rheme construct is a very important cohesive element at discourse level. Considering the importance of thematicity in academic writing, this study aimed to explore the theme choices and thematic progression patterns of high- and low-graded argumentative compositions. Seventy Iranian bachelor students of English Language and Literature and English Translation and 28 masters students of English Language Teaching and English Language and Literature from Shahid Chamran University participated in the writing test and the interviews of this study. The compositions were rated and then analyzed based on the Hallidayan (1994) model of thematicity and Daneš model of thematic progression (as modified by McCabe, 1999). The results showed qualitative and quantitative differences in terms of thematic properties in the high- and low-graded writings. Similarly, qualitative and quantitative thematic differences were detected in both the students compositions and the argumentative native texts which were used as a criterion measure in this study. Moreover, the answers gleaned from the students in the interview showed that they were not cognizant of the concept of theme. Findings also suggested that the existing rating criteria have not been designed to explicitly assess the thematic quality. Thus, researchers interested in this area should design a rating scale to evaluate the thematic properties of the students writings at university level. Further research is needed to identify other thematic properties that specify texts that represent other genres.