The function of Theme in Spanish

Abstract The main objective of this paper is to outline the system of theme in Spanish starting from its realisation in texts ( Martin 2013 ). In order to do this, Halliday’s definition of Theme is revised and the distinction he proposes between the definition of a function and its means of realisation is followed ( Halliday 1985 , 1994 ). Then, a brief corpus of text instantiating different genres is analysed, considering different options of mood in the clause. The perspective assumed is language typology in systemic functional linguistics ( Martin 1983 ; Caffarel et al. 2004a ; Quiroz 2013 ; Martin et al. 2023 ), which highlights the peculiar characteristics of the language at stake based on patterns found in actual discourse and observes the phenomenon under study from above, from around and from below ( Matthiessen and Halliday 2009 ).