Analysis Of Interpersonal Grammatical Metaphor In Slumdog Millionaire

Halliday (1985, 1994) indicated that language had three metafunctions: ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function and according to this division he divided Grammatical Metaphor (GM) into ideational Grammatical Metaphor and interpersonal Grammatical Metaphor. Interpersonal Grammatical Metaphor refers to the grammatical metaphorical phenomenon that happens in the realization of interpersonal meaning and it can be divided into metaphors of mood and metaphors of modality.This thesis is a try to explore the functions of interpersonal GM through the analysis of interpersonal GM appearing in the movie Slumdog Millionaire. The author used quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze the interpersonal GM in the movie. First the quantitative method was used to calculate the numbers of metaphors of mood and metaphors of modality respectively. Two tables were made to show the occurrence and frequency of the two kinds of metaphors. This indicated that the interpersonal GMs existed in this movie. Then the qualitative method was used to interpret the functions of metaphors of mood and metaphors of modality. By using metaphors of mood, the speakers not only have more expressions to realize their interpersonal functions, but also give prominence to some special moods. And this will show the characteristics of the speakers and their social relations among them. The explicit subjective metaphor of modality will emphasize subjectivity to show the speaker's uncertainty on what he or she has said, and the explicit objective metaphor of modality can create objectivity to disguise the speaker's personal opinion. Thus the speaker's opinion seems to be a thing or a fact, which is hard for others to query.This thesis indicated that systemic functional grammar provided a helpful theoretical framework for movie discourse analysis, which will help us have a better and more comprehensive understanding of the movie.