A Study On Ideational Grammatical Metaphor In Discourse Of English For Science And Technology

This study aims to investigate the stylistic value of ideational grammatical metaphor(IGM) by exploring the distributive feature of IGM in the discourse of English for science and technology(EST) and the reasons of the feature.By quantitative research, it has been found that1. There are three types of IGM in EST discourse, namely nominalization grammatical metaphor(GM), adjectivalization GM and conjunction-preposition GM. Nominalization GM in EST discourse includes verb-noun and adjective-noun. Adjectivalization GM in EST discourse includes verb-adjective and noun-adjective.2. Nominalization GM dominates in terms of frequency in EST discourse(74.6%), and there is a significant proportion of verb-noun nominalization GM in EST discourse(62.7%).3. Topic and English proficiency of the authors do not interfere with distribution of IGM in EST discourse.By qualitative research, it has been found that significant proportion of nominalization GM is attributed to the following reasons.1. From the cognitive perspective, the context of EST discourse specifically the tenor evokes cognitive mechanism of nominalization GM.2. From the semantic perspective, the meaning of metaphorical form of nominalization GM contributes significantly to EST discourse.3. From the perspective of text linguistics, metaphorical form of nominalization GM helps to create coherence of EST discourse.It is hoped that the research methodology, research content and analytical perspective of this study could, to some extent, enrich the scientific study on GM and help English learners comprehend EST articles better.