| Ideational grammatical metaphorhas been frequently studied by plenty of scholars. The majority of the existing papers focus on the discussion about its definition and classification, characteristics and textual functions. It has been applied to foreign language teaching and learning, and translation as well. Although, there are, actually a couple of studies that is comparative, these comparative studies are between other languages but not between English and Chinese.This paper will carry out a comparative study of ideational grammatical metaphor use in technical texts between English and Chinese newspapers. Adopting both quantitative method and qualitative method, it collects ten English technical texts and ten Chinese technical texts from The Guardian and Science and Technology Daily. First, it will calculate the instances and figure out the classification and distribution of ideational grammatical metaphor. Meanwhile, its characteristics and textual functions will be summarized. Then the writer intends to find out the similarities and differences between English and Chinese ideational grammatical metaphor. Finally, the paper will explain the underlying factors that resulting in these similarities and differences. This paper mainly explores the following three questions:(1) How are ideational grammatical metaphors distributed in both English and Chinese technical texts?(2) What are the similarities and differences of ideational grammatical metaphors between English and Chinese technical texts?(3) How are ideational grammatical metaphors represented in English and Chinese technical texts?The paper discovers that English and Chinese ideational grammatical metaphors enjoy both similarities and differences. Material process, holding the highest percentage, is the dominant textual force in both English and Chinese technical texts. The appropriate use of ideational grammatical metaphor increases the compactness, economy of technical language as well as enhancing its formality, objectiveness and technicality. The metaphorical form of expression is more formal and objective as well as more interesting and more colorful in comparing with congruent one. However, the number of English ideational grammatical metaphors doubles that of Chinese ones, enjoying more classifications and textual functions. This is because there exists distinct features between English and Chinese in linguistic system. What makes a real difference are two basic factors, one is the different degree in specificity of phonological system between English and Chinese; the other is the different arrangements of grammatical elements within clauses.Furthermore, this study is of practical significance. Detailed comparison enables us to get a more systematic knowledge of the characteristics of English and Chinese technical texts. This, in a certain degree, helps with the reading, writing and translation of the technical texts. |
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