Grammatical Metaphor--An Analysis Of Metaphor From The Systemic-Functional Perspective

The origin of metaphor study can be traced back to the rhetorical studies in the ancient Greece. Since then, countless philosophers, writers, rhetoricians and linguists showed great interest in metaphor, and the tradition of metaphor study has never stopped. When it came to 1970s, with the rise of analytic philosophy, western philosophy showed a trend to the linguistic analysis. More and more philosophers, psychologists, semioticians, linguists, cognitive scientists, and even psychological analysts showed their interest in the study of metaphor; hence it has become a cross-field study. In his systemic-functional grammar, M. A. K. Halliday proposes the difference between lexical metaphor and grammatical metaphor. The concept of grammatical metaphor means that the phenomenon of metaphor happens not only on the lexical level but also on the lexicogrammatical level.This thesis is an attempt to analyze the phenomenon of metaphor in the background of systemic-functional grammar theories, and to reveal the nature and cognitive values of grammatical metaphor. It consists of seven parts, including the Introduction, five chapters and the Conclusion.The Introduction starts with the traditional metaphor studies and the tendency in modern metaphor theories. It proposes a new approach to metaphor analysis, i.e. from the lexicogrammatical level, and introduces the concerned background theories.Chapter One gives a brief retrospect to the history of metaphor study and relates to the beginning of the study of grammatical metaphor. Traditional studies treat metaphor as a rhetorical device on the lexical level while in modern theories it becomes a subject of multi-field studies. The studies of some American functionalists, such as Givon, Heine and Matisoff, on iconicity and grammaticalization that are concerned with the realization between semantic meaning and language form touched the metaphorical nature of grammar. Then Halliday proposes two different realizing relations between the semantic level and the lexicogrammatical level: the congruentform and the incongruent form, the latter being the same as metaphorical form.Chapter Two tries to define and classify grammatical grammar on the basis of some theories from the systemic-functional grammar. The language system is composed of three strata: the semantic level, the lexicogrammatical level, and the level of phonology. The relationship between the levels is that of realization. The process of realization involves different modes, including the incongruent transference across domain, which is regarded as grammatical metaphor. According to the theory of metafunction, a language consists of three metafunctions: the ideational metafunction, the interpersonal metafunction and the textual metafunction; and grammatical metaphor is so classified into three categories: ideational metaphor, interpersonal metaphor and textual metaphor. In turn, the ideational metaphor consists of experiential metaphor and logical metaphor, and the interpersonal metaphor consists of metaphor of mood and metaphor of modality.Chapter Three deals with the ideational metaphor. The ideational metafunction consists of two sub-functions, experiential and logical, accordingly the ideational metaphor is divided into experiential metaphor and logical metaphor. The realization of experiential metaphor is related to the transitivity system, which includes participant, process and environmental elements. In the transference of process, the functional roles of participant and environmental elements change and their realizing forms (e.g. nominal groups, verbal groups and adverbial groups) also change on the lexicogrammatical level. According to J. R. Martin's model, the logico-semantic relation is classified into two groups: the external relation - relation between clauses, and the internal relation - relation between clause complexes. The logical metaphor appears in the realization of the external relation.Chapter Four copes with the interpersonal metaphor. The interpersonal metafunction is mainly rea...