| Grammatical Metaphor has drawn a lot of attention since it was put forward by Hallidayin1983and was used to analyze particular discourses. As a mass medium, news is read bymillions of readers every day. Usually, news conveys information quickly through clear forms,simple sentences, and many nominalization structures. By analyzing nominalizationphenomena, metaphors of modality and metaphors of mood, it is possible to discover thehidden information in news discourses and help readers to improve their critical readingability.The thesis selects randomly30English news discourses from New York Times and30Chinese news discourses from People’s Daily and Ecns.cn respectively on six topics includingpolitics, business, sports, science and technology, world, and society, each with5discoursesand made a quality research on them.According to Halliday’s grammatical metaphor theory, the thesis analyzes thenominalization phenomena, metaphors of modality and metaphors of mood in English andChinese news discourses. The grammatical metaphor refers to the grammatical transference,i.e. the transference from a congruently grammatical representation to a metaphoricallygrammatical representation including the ideational metaphor and the interpersonal metaphor.The former refers to the transference between material, mental, relational, verbal, existentialand behavioral processes. In terms of parts of speech, it involves transference from verbs,adjectives, prepositions and conjunctions to nouns, transference from verbs, adverbs,prepositions and conjunctions to adjectives, transference from minor sentences, conjunctionsto verbs, transference from conjunctions to prepositions and transference from nouns to others.The interpersonal metaphor consists of the metaphor of modality and the metaphor of mood.The former means speakers or writers express personal attitudes and estimations in other forms in instead of modal verbs, modal adverbs and the extension of predicates. The metaphorof mood refers to the expressions of speakers’ mood with sentences which are usually used toexpress other moods.The nominalization often exists in those English and Chinese news discourses. The moreprofessional the discourse is, the more nominalization structures there are. There isnominalization from verbs to nouns which leads to transference between material processesand mental, verbal, existential processes, the transference from material processes to relationalprocesses and transference between different material processes. Nominalization fromadjectives to nouns involves in the transference from relational processes to material, mental,verbal, existential processes and the transference between different relational processes.Nominalization from prepositions or conjunctions to nouns results in the shift from minorsentences to noun phrases. Nominalization structures act as participants and circumstances ina process.Besides, the thesis studies metaphors of modality and metaphors of mood, i.e.interpersonal metaphors in English and Chinese news discourses. The metaphors of modalityalways express usuality, possibility, obligation and inclination with minor sentences, mentalverbs, nouns and prepositional groups. The metaphors of mood include those declarativesentences expressing questions or commands and those interrogatives expressing theindicative mood.In conclusion, grammatical metaphors commonly exist in English and Chinese newsdiscourses. Nominalization structures are adopted to make news discourses more formal andprofessional. Besides, they can condense a lot of information within limited space and enhancecohesion and coherence of news discourses. There are more kinds of metaphors of modality inEnglish news discourses than in Chinese news discourses where some authoritative statementsare placed at the beginning of the whole paragraph, leading the rest content so as to make news discourses more objective and creditable. In this way, journalists spread personal opinions andenhance cohesion and coherence of an article. The metaphors of mood could increase theinterests of a discourse and enhance affection between readers and writers. |
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