Research On Grammatical Metaphor Distribution In College English Integrated Course Book1-4

Traditional metaphor concept considered metaphor only belongs to the rhetorical expression on sentential and lexical levels. Based on traditional method of metaphor, Halliday approached grammatical metaphor from different perspective. Halliday (1985) extended the metaphor from different perspectives. He stated that grammatical metaphor is a kind of transformation which transfers one grammar category or grammar structure into another one, which means he discussed metaphor at grammatical level. He classified the grammatical metaphor into two types which are ideational metaphor and interpersonal metaphor. Halliday (2000) also pointed out that metaphorical expressions are characteristics of various adults’discourses. Obviously, grammatical metaphor expression is the reflection of language skill.Based on the Halliday’s grammatical metaphor, the thesis investigated the features and changes according to the distribution patterns of GM in College English Integrated Course Book1-4. The research questions are:1) Are there lots of usages of GMs in college English Integrated course books1-4? If there are, which is the favourite type of GM usage?2) Are there obvious changes in GM distribution rank from Book One to Book Four? If there are, what are the distributions patterns like?The data involved in the thesis are32passages with2,547clauses from College English Integrated Course Book1-4, which are chosen from part two, text A of each unit. In the course of data analysis, both quantitative and qualitative approaches are adopted. The analysis of each variable in samples has the following findings:Firstly, there are lots of grammatical metaphor expressions in college English Integrated course book1-4. And the favorite type of text books is ideational grammatical metaphor.Secondly, there are raising distribution patterns of ideational grammatical metaphor expressions from Book One to Book Four; the distribution pattern of interpersonal grammatical metaphor is up-down-up tendency.After the analysis, there are some suggestions for English teachers who use this series English text books to teach non-english major students. Firstly, teachers should help students compare the structure difference between Chinese and English. Secondly, teachers should help students to enhance cognitive thinking ability of learning second language. Thirdly, English teachers should help students to improve their reading comprehension, only let students read more texts and obtain more reading skills, then they can apply them into their practice.After the analysis, there are also some suggestions for the future improvement of this kind of English text books, which more interpersonal grammatical metaphor should be edited.