An Analysis Of Interpersonal Metaphors In Friends

Metaphor, as a common language phenomenon, is one of the most critical and vital methods to know the world. The great ancient philosopher Aristotle first started the research about metaphor, and he was also the first scholar who adopted the systematic way to study the metaphor. However, the previous scholars at home and abroad had concentrated on the research about metaphor from the perspective of lexical level.It is M.A.K. Halliday who first focuses on the grammatical level. It is regarded as a real beginning of the study on grammatical metaphors.Compared with traditional metaphors, grammatical metaphors are about different expressions of a given meaning. Halliday states that interpersonal metaphors are the metaphorical phenomenon which occurs in people’s daily conversations and their emotional expressions. It is very common to classify the interpersonal metaphors into metaphors of mood and metaphors of modality, which correspond with two systems that are mood system and modality system in the interpersonal metafunction.The research about the interpersonal metaphors had been done by linguistic scholars from different fields in the past decades. However, the scholars just pay their attention to the classifications and representations of grammatical metaphors. It is very necessary to point out that although some scholars have started to explore the functions of interpersonal metaphors in different kinds of discourse, for instance, news, political address, reports and poetry, all of the researches are just confined to the written discourse rather than spoken discourse.Therefore, the author tries to analyze the spoken discourses based on the American TV series Friends. The thesis makes an attempt to explore the functions of interpersonal metaphors which are frequently adopted in the conversations among characters in Friends based on Halliday’s interpersonal metaphors theory. The author mainly concentrates on two problems:first, we need to find out if interpersonal metaphors are a common and familiar phenomenon in people’s daily interactive communication; second, we want to know what functions interpersonal metaphors can realize in people’s daily conversations through analyzing the conversation in Friends.There are five chapters in the thesis. Chapter One is an introduction of the thesis, and the research background, the aim and significance of this research, the methodology, the thesis organization are stated by the author in this chapter. Chapter Two is a brief account of the history of the development of metaphor theories both in China and abroad and the later development of grammatical metaphors. In Chapter Three, the author makes an attempt to illustrate the Halliday’s interpersonal metaphors theory.The essential and core part of the thesis is Chapter Four. Chapter Four demonstrates the functions of interpersonal metaphors which are employed in the American TV series Friends. According to the functional analysis about the two problems, the author can reach the conclusion that interpersonal metaphors are frequently employed in the conversations among characters in Friends, which could effectively promote the success of the interactive communication and the maintenance of interpersonal relationship. Besides, different grammatical categories are playing different roles in interpersonal communication. Metaphors of mood mainly involve the transference of speech functions, and it leads to the combination of two speech functions. The transference of speech functions could realize the implicit speech functions that the speaker really wants to express. Metaphors of modality could realize its function through the transference of modal elements in the clause into the carriers beyond the clause. So the realization of metaphors of modality makes it possible to express the polarity explicitly. What’s more, metaphors of modality mainly involve the subjective realization or the objective realization of modal elements.Chapter Five is the conclusion of the thesis. The summary of the thesis, major findings, limitations, and further suggestions for the research work concerning interpersonal metaphors are stated in this part.It is very necessary for people to express their subject attitudes or objective attitudes appropriately and accurately in the daily conversations. Furthermore, the author makes an attempt to explore the functions of interpersonal metaphors in Friends, and the author finds that interpersonal metaphors are not only making great contributions to adjusting speech moods, expressing subjective and objective orientation, but also playing an important role in prompting the coherence of people’s daily communication and achieving the success of interaction.