Abstract
This paper aims at presenting the results of a study carried out in order to investigate whether learners of English as a second language (L2) recognize, implicitly and / or explicitly, the existence of the functional / cognitive principle of distribution of information in a text. The study also aimed at investigating whether learners were aware of the processes involving some syntactic arrangements, relative to the thematic and informational structure of a text, which are used to meet specific communicative demands. The theoretical background relies on the principles of functional-cognitive linguistics, relative to how discourse impacts linguistic choices (Halliday, 1973; Chafe 1995). The corpus of this research consisted of a series of exercises that were administered to undergraduate students, English majors. The findings shed light to the fact that learners are still unaware of most processes involving grammar arrangements and the discourse flow, as they are not very conscious of how grammar can impact the communicative intent of a written text.
theme and rheme; given and new; discourse