On the Role of Theme in Textual Cohesion and Interpretation

Cohesion is a semantic relationship and a powerful approach to textual development.Theme,as the starting point of a message,is the carrier of several textual functions.Different choice of theme can create four basic modes of textual cohesion: topic maintenance,topic progression,topic transference and topic protruding,all of which can greatly contribute to textual coherence.In addition,different choice of theme can affect the reader′s interpretation of a text in that an appropriate theme can help him/her understand what the writer really wants to convey,otherwise the reader may be either misled or confused.