Abstract :
Earlier studies have assigned significant roles to research article abstracts for the purpose of informing the reader about the content of the article by compressing the most important findings in its writing. It also allows the reader to decide whether to read the entire article or not (Martin, 2003). Therefore, writing a research article abstract needs an initial focus on textual and rhetorical features that constitute an efficacious research article abstract. One of the textual features is Theme (Gosden, 1992). Theme is defined as an element, which serves as the point of departure of the message in a clause and plays a major role in text organization. It helps a text to be communicated and understood clearly (Halliday, 1994). This study aims to investigate the Theme types and patterns used in 120 research article abstracts from the disciplines of Applied Linguistics, Economics, Agriculture and Applied Physics. The gathered data were analyzed based on Halliday’s (1994) model of Thematic organization and Eggins’ (2004) model of Thematic progression. The results revealed disciplinary differences, which generally lead to specificity of selection of the Theme types and patterns used in the writing of the research article abstract.
