Thematic Progression Analysis of Student English Hortatory Text

Thematic progression is a major aspect of the way that speakers construct their messages in a way which makes them fit smoothly into the unfolding language event. While studies have illustrated the usefulness of observing thematic progression to identify English learners’ writing difficulties and suggested that thematic progression should be included in English writing lessons to help students write more coherently. This research took place in SMAN 1 Porong whose subjects are the eleventh grades students who had enrolled to write hortatory texts. This research analyzed 12 hortatory texts during the even semester in academic year 2018/2019. This research used the qualitative method to present the findings about the thematic progression in students English along with the discussion of the word which contains thematic progression. Two types of patterns were examined: those which enhance the coherence and those which obscured coherence. The former included reiteration, zig-zag, and multiple patterns while the latter included brand new theme, empty use of there, and the use of dummy it. The finding of this research indicates that the most frequent type of thematic progression patterns which enhanced coherence is 20 reiteration patterns, followed by 6 zig-zag patterns and then 10 of multiple patterns. Then, the most frequent of thematic progression which obscured coherence is 47 brand new themes, then followed by 4 of empty use of there and zero of the use of dummy it.