| Academic writing relies heavily on the use of Ideational Metaphor,which has been found to be positively correlated with writing quality.However,there are various areas that have yet to be fully explored,such as an insufficient examination of all types of grammatical metaphor,the limited authority of selected journals,a narrow scope of study,and a lack of interdisciplinary comparisons.As a result,this study aims to investigate the distribution patterns of Ideational Metaphor across different disciplines and their respective disciplinarity.Additionally,it seeks to explore the functions and roles of Ideational Metaphor in contributing to the disciplinarity of academic discourse.Using the UAM Corpus Tool 6.2e software,this study individually annotates 60 texts from top English journals in the fields of biology,mechanical engineering,education,and sociology according to a proposed grammatical metaphor annotation scheme and analyzes the results.The data analysis reveals significant differences in the deployment density of Ideational Metaphor across different discipline categories.Specifically,hard disciplines exhibit significantly higher density of grammatical metaphor than soft disciplines across multiple types,including clause metaphor,9types of word metaphor(type1,type2,type3,type5,type6,type9,type10,type11,and type13),and overall density.Furthermore,pure science disciplines demonstrated significantly higher density of Ideational Metaphor than applied disciplines in several types,including clause metaphor,6 types of word metaphor(type2,type3,type5,type6,type9,type11),and overall density.In addition to quantitative analysis,this thesis offers a comprehensive qualitative analysis of each type of Ideational Metaphor.The analysis of clause metaphor indicates that hard and pure science disciplines tend to employ syntactically simple,yet semantically complex expressions compared to soft and applied disciplines.The analysis of process metaphor reveals that the discussion section of academic discourse tends to transform dynamic material processes into static relational and existential processes.The analysis of word metaphor highlights that hard disciplines tend to minimize transitive processes in academic discourse,employ noun determiners to metaphorically replace environmental components,substitute logical conjunctions with verbs,use prepositions(phrases)instead of subordinate clauses,and utilize expressions with high semantic complexity but low grammatical complexity.Furthermore,compared to applied disciplines,pure science disciplines are more inclined to use noun phrases instead of clauses,decrease transitive processes,metaphorically replace environmental components with noun determiners,and replace logical conjunctions with verbs.This thesis identifies numerous functions of Ideational Metaphor in regulating the level of conceptualization of propositions and narratives in academic discourse,aligning them with the “knowledge-knower” structure of knowledge construction in different discipline categories.Moreover,this thesis offers a detailed analysis and discussion of how Ideational Metaphor contributes to the “persuasive function” of the discussion section in academic discourse.The analysis reveals that clause metaphor can simplify the grammatical structure,increase semantic complexity,and enhance formality.The process metaphor analysis demonstrates that the discussion section in academic discourse tends to shift toward static existential and relational processes to enhance stability and credibility.Additionally,the analysis of word metaphor uncovers that Ideational Metaphor can increase noun density,generate academic terminology,decrease personal pronoun use,obscure logical relations,reduce material processes,simplify grammatical structures,and augment semantic complexity.These effects can bolster the overall stability of academic discourse,increase its formality,and even cause readers to overlook certain logical relations,ultimately enhancing the credibility of the discourse and fulfilling its intended“persuasive function”.The findings of this study offer important insights for academic discourse reading,academic English teaching,and academic English writing and research. |
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