An analysis of thematic progression patterns: Opinion section texts of The Jakarta Post

Thematic progression is a salient aspect in the study of Systemic Functional Linguistics as it can function as a cohesive tie. The study of thematic progression has been vastly conducted for various purposes (including revealing the thematic progression in newspaper editorials and in translation texts) revealing the role of thematic progression in cultural (academic) writing system. This research focuses on investigating the pattern of thematic progression of the texts of the opinion section of The Jakarta Post in an attempt at revealing those patterns and relating them to the patterns of argumentative texts. The findings of this investigation indicate that the most frequent type of themes and thematic progression patterns are topical theme and simple linear theme. The results of this study may be facilitative in composing coherent and cohesive texts.