A Contrastive Study Of The Interpersonal Grammatical Metaphor In Chinese And American English Editorials

There has been a rising tide of interest in metaphor study for centuries. However,before the1980s, most of metaphor studies concern its rhetorical respect, or ratherlexical metaphor. Even now, metaphor is more conventionally regarded as lexicalwhen mentioned in general. Meanwhile, some scholars did perceive that there existssomething like grammatical metaphor (GM). Halliday’s study of GM can beconsidered the beginning of conscious study of GM in the sense of the presentresearch. Halliday (1985) first brought forth his idea of GM by making an analogybetween the rhetorical transference in lexis and in grammar, noting that lexicalselection is just one aspect of lexicogrammatical selection, or ‘wording’.It is to guide practice that remains the existential significance of theories. So isthe case with SFG. The goal of SFG is its application to discourse analysis.Interpersonal GM, as a subpart of this paradim, contributes a great deal to therealization of interpersonal meaning.Among different kinds of discourse, journalistic discourses have been paid moreattention. A great deal of research has probed into the GM phenomenon in journalisticdiscourse as a whole. However, there is seldom a study of a concrete type of this kind,especially editorial.Engles once said that it is only when you compare your native language withother languages that you can really understand your own tongue (Pan Wenguo,1997).Admittedly, some comparative studies between Chinese and English newspapers havebeen made. Nevertheless, due to the fact that English and Chinese belong to differentlanguage families, we can not just blindly apply English theory (i.e. GM theory in thesense of the present study) to Chinese text. Nevertheless, it’s like a range when youlook at the mountain from the front; but it’s like a peak when you look at it sideways.So this research intends to employ interpersonal GM as a central tool accompanied bysome theories in cognitive linguistics (such as categorization) to make a contrastiveanalysis in Chinese and American English newspaper editorials. This method, to someextent, skillfully evades the above dilemma.There are three specific objectives of this research: firstly, to find out the formsof interpersonal GM in Chinese and American English newspaper editorials; secondly,to figure out the similarities and differences of the realizations of interpersonal GM inChinese and American English editorials; thirdly, to elucidate the reasons for the similarities and disparities of the realizations of interpersonal GM in Chinese andAmerican English editorials.After careful analysis, the research blanks got filled. The similarities are asfollows: First, there are a couple of metaphors of mood in both Chinese and AmericanEnglish editorials. And what’s interesting, almost half of the metaphors of mood thatappear serve as titles of editorials. Second, the vast majority of metaphors of moodthat appear in the editorials are: questions used to make a statement, or rather to giveinformation. Third, the frequency of metaphor of modality in Chinese and AmericanEnglish editorials approximate to each other. Forth, apart from projecting clausewhich is a typical kind of interpersonal GM, nominalization, passive-voiced sentenceand prepositional phrase are also frequently employed constructions, which areregarded as peripheral realizations of interpersonal GM. Fifth, the frequencies ofpassive-voiced construction in the two kinds of English editorials are nearly the same.Sixth, both Chinese and American English editorialists prefer median value modaloperators to show opinions. There are also some differences: First, although bothnewspaper editorials prefer objective projecting clause to show the experientializationof interpersonal meaning, editorials in China Daily shows more objective tendency.Second, there are more objective prepositional phrase metaphors in China Daily andmore subjective prepositional phrase metaphors in Washington Post. Third, modalityexpressed by nominalization appears more frequently in China Daily than inWashington Post. Forth，although both Chinese and American English editorialistsprefer explicit objectives to express their opinion, editorialists of China Daily employmore explicit objective forms than those of Washington Post. Meanwhile, editorialistsin Washington Post use more explicit subjective forms than those of China Daily.Fifth, in spite of the fact that both editorials prefer median modal operators, ChinaDaily employs a little more high-valued ones. Reasons for the similarities derive fromlinguistic universalism and the functions of interpersonal GM play an essential role.Rationale for the disparities originates from linguistic relativism, i.e. the relationbetween language, thought and culture.Theoretically, this study proves the effectiveness of Systemic FunctionalGrammar in analyzing a certain genre and provides a new and more feasibleperspective for contrastive analysis. Practically, this thesis will shed some light oneditorial-working. Journalists can gain some guiding principles in their yieldingtypical editorials to actualize the media’s purposes. What’s more, editorial readers canunderstand the aims of certain editorials through the undercurrent between the lines and make their own judgment accordingly. With regard to second languageacquisition, the point is that both English learners of Chinese and Chinese learner ofEnglish will benefit a great deal from this thesis in reading, writing as well as theiracculturating into a new language community.