A Contrastive Study Of Grammatical Metaphor Distribution In Textbooks: Advance With English Vs Senior High English

The earliest studies on metaphor can date back to ancient Greece. And the traditional researches on metaphor mainly focus on the variance on lexical level. On the one hand, Halliday first put forward that metaphors generate variance not only on lexical level but also on grammatical level, which is called grammatical metaphor(hereafter GM). Moreover,previous studies found that the complexity of a text is in proportion with its GM expressions. On the other hand, English textbooks are the most frequently used language learning materials. Under the policy of "One Guideline Multiple Text", a lot of English textbooks have sprung up so it is important to conduct comparison and contrast research on them, which can not only provide references for learners when they select textbooks but also have implications for the different users now.In this situation, this thesis compares and contrasts the GM distribution in two sets of English textbooks for senior high students for better understanding and for selection. Its theoretical foundation lies on Halliday's GM theory. Three questions are explored: 1. Are there any significant changes in grammatical metaphor distribution ranking from English textbooks in Grade 1 to Grade 2? If yes, what are they? 2. What are the differences and similarities between the two sets of textbooks in terms of grammatical metaphor? 3. What reasons can account for different distribution patterns in the two sets of textbooks?To tackle those questions, this thesis takes Yilin edition Advance with English and Beijing Normal University edition Senior High English as research objects. And 78 reading articles from the two sets of textbooks, totally 2170 sentences, are selected as samples. Qualitative analysis combined with quantitative analysis is applied to analyze GM distribution in textbooks.The findings are showed: 1) There are significant changes in GM distribution from module 1 to module 11 but only confined to ideational metaphor; 2) The similarities: the number of ideational metaphor in textbooks surpasses that of interpersonal metaphor, the tendency of ideational metaphor distribution always follows the rise pattern. The differences : in Advance with English,interpersonal metaphor distribution presents the rise pattern while in Senior High English, the tendency of it firstly rises to the peak point in Grade 2 then decreases; 3) Different text genres cover different kinds of GM and due to different requirement of complexity, the selected articles will contain GM in different numbers and categories.The implications for teachers and textbook compilers are also explored: 1)Teachers should cultivate their GM awareness since there are lots of GMs in the textbook; 2) Teachers should make full use of GM distribution to identify the teaching difficult points; 3) Ideational metaphor needs extra attention compared with interpersonal metaphor and teachers should provide supplementary materials rich in it;4) For textbook compilers, incremental augment of GM in textbook can increase the difficulty level; 5) Compared with Advance with English, Senior High English covers less GM and text genre, which textbook users should pay attention to.