An Analysis Of Nominalization In English From The Perspective Of Functional Grammar

Since the publication of Metaphor We Live By by American linguists Lakoff & Johnson, there have emerged some articles introducing and doing research on metaphor. Metaphor has become a subject of general interest. With Halliday taking the lead, the School of Functional Grammar holds the view that metaphor also involves grammatical metaphor, thus opening up an approach for the research on metaphor. When we use nouns to express actions, or to employ verbs to convey some concepts, this is in marked contrast to our expectation, thus generating what functional grammar labels grammatical metaphor. Metaphor comprises lexical metaphor and grammatical metaphor. It can also be subdivided into ideational, interpersonal, and textual metaphor. Some scholars, such as Hu Zhuanglin (1996; 2000), Zhu Yongsheng (1994; 2000) and Yang Xinzhang (1998), have written articles on grammatical metaphor. According to Halliday (1994: 352), "Nominalizing is the single most powerful resource for creating grammatical metaphor" . It is a pity that so far no thorough and detailed research has ever been conducted in this regard. As a result, this paper attempts to make an analysis of nominalization, and puts forward some viewpoints with regard to the unresolved subjects, thus promoting the research on nominalization.This paper falls into five chapters, with a conclusion at the end.Chapter 1 is an introduction to grammatical metaphor, nominalization and the relevant concepts. We will identify the distinction between lexical metaphor and grammaticalmetaphor, between congruent form and grammatical form, and introduce such concepts as lexical metaphor, ideational metaphor, congruent form and metaphorical form. In addition, we will look at the relationship between nominalization and ideology.In Chapter 2 we mainly investigate the semantic features of nominalization, and some defects as a result of this structure. This chapter consists of four sections: (1) Nominalization enjoys a dual semantic feature. (2) Delexical structure is a typical occurrence of nominalization. (3) Nominalization arises as relationalization in scientific English. (4) Nominalization may result in some defects.Chapter 3 takes the formal feature of nominalization into consideration. Generally speaking, both suffixation and conversion contribute to the establishment of nominalization, where suffixation is the principal one.In Chapter 4 we will look at the relationship between nominalization and written language, suggesting that nominalization is a typical occurrence in written language. This chapter is made of two sections: (1) the relationship between lexical density and grammatical metaphor. Lexical density is characteristic of written language, and nominalization is one of the principal means to realize it; (2) embedding and hypotaxis. Nominalization does not belong to hypotaxis, but to embedding.Chapter 5 examines the applications of nominalization, which can make contribution to thematic connection, encapsulation in scientific English, and conciseness of the grammatical structure.The last part is the conclusion, hi which a brief summary, the limitation of this thesis and the further prospect for the investigation of nominalization are presented.