A Study Of Grammatical Metaphors In Faulkner's Novels

The publication of Halliday's Introduction to Functional Grammar in 1985 marked the progress of the research category of metaphor from the lexical level of traditional rhetoric to the grammatical level,and created a new perspective of systemic functional linguistics.The study of grammatical metaphor is mostly focused on non-literary texts,and the research results of metaphor in literary works are relatively few,especially novels.Therefore,based on the relevant research of metaphor in the past,this paper takes the theory of grammatical metaphor as the framework from the perspective of system functional linguistics,and studies the phenomenon of metaphor in literary works with Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying as the material.This paper attempts to explore the following questions: how to embody all kinds of metaphors in novels,and what functions metaphors play in novels.Through the analysis of the types and functions of metaphors,it is found that the grammatical metaphors in As I Lay Dying is based on the narrative needs of the novel and serves the plot,characters and theme.The author uses conceptual metaphor to express experience in an unconventional way.Using interpersonal metaphor to display abundant interpersonal information.Compared with consistency,metaphor has more functions of making speech humorous,euphemistic communication and expressing implicit meaning.This study enriches the study of grammatical metaphor theory in terms of practicality and applicability,and to some extent also provides an example for the study of literary works from the perspective of metaphor as a starting point.