What is a theme?

Adapted from Paillé and Muchielli , 2011.

In a thematic analysis, the analyst will search to identify and organize themes in the corpus. We will call this process the ‘Thematization’ of the corpus. This is a set of words aiming to identify what is covered in the corresponding extract of the corpus text, while providing guidance on the substance of what is said. The extract of the text is called ‘a unit of signification’, i.e. sentence(s) linked to a similar idea, topic or theme. Inference is the transformation of the unit of signification to themes.