THEME AND RHEME IN NEWS STORY TEXTS OF THE JAKARTA POST

This study presents a research conducted Theme and Rheme in News Story Texts of The Jakarta Post. The objectives of the study are to find out the uses of Theme and Rheme found in the news story texts of The Jakarta Post, to describe the Theme and Rheme developed in the news story texts of The Jakarta Post, and to investigate some reason of why the Theme and Rheme developed the way they are. This study was conducted to descriptive qualitative design. The sources of the data were The Jakarta Post where there were six news story texts in different editorials. The findings indicate that firstly, the uses of Theme and Rheme are to examine thematic structure and thematic progression. In analyzing the Thematic structures, there are three kinds of Themes: textual, interpersonal, and tpical/ideational. The textual theme are analyzed through conjunctive and continuative, and ideational Themes are further categorized as unmarked and marked. Unmarked Themes are grammatical sentence subjects in declarative clauses, and can be realized as simple and complex nominal groups. The marked Themes are further subcategorized into three types: circumstantial adjunct, subordinating clause and attributive clause. Secondly, Theme in the News Story Texts of The Jakarta Post can be developed through Thematic Progression. Finally, the reasons why they are developed through thematic progression are to have the potential in developing the flow of information in the texts and improve writing skills more efficiently. In this study, there is a new finding, there are eight kinds of development thematic progression found in news texts in the Jakarta Post. They are Constant, Linear, Split, Combination Constant With Split, Combination Linear With Split, Combination Split With Constant, Combination Split With Linear, And Combination Constant, Split, and Linear.