Thematics

Themes play a central role in our everyday communication: we have to know what a text is about in order to understand it. Intended meaning cannot be understood without some knowledge of the underlying theme. This book helps to define the concept of ‘themes’ in texts and how they are structured in language use.
Much of the literature on Thematics is scattered over different disciplines (literature, psychology, linguistics, cognitive science), which this detailed collection pulls together in one coherent overview. The result is a new landmark for the study and understanding of themes in their everyday manifestation.

Dominic Forest, in Linguist List Vol. 14-2171:
"Thematics: Interdisciplinary Studies", edited by Max Louwerse and Willie van Peer, is obviously an essential book for academics from various disciplines concerned by thematics. The book is well balanced between theoretical and practical aspects. It also demonstrates clearly the importance of an interdisciplinary point of view to the study and analysis of thematics. Furthermore, it presents a good overview of the 'classical' perspective to the problem of thematics. It allows the reader to understand the importance and the complexity of the subject. Researchers concerned by the computational approach to thematic analysis will find in the section "Computational Approaches" very interesting methods of analysis endorsed by relevant experiments.