A Functional Perspective on the Relationship between Grammatical Metaphor & Mode in English Political Discourse
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17722/jell.v15i1.1230Keywords:
Systemic Functional Linguistics, grammatical metaphor, mode, lexical density, grammatical intricacy, English political discourseAbstract
This study aims to explore the relationships between GM and mode in English political discourse through an analysis of a corpus formed by 15 texts based on Halliday’s GM framework, and these texts construct three text types distinguished in mode, namely, political reports, political speeches and political interviews. After defining the mode scale and the GM distribution scale, the study then examines how GM deployment connects with mode in two steps: (1) establishment of mapping relationships between the lexical density scale and the ideational GM deployment scale; (2) interpretation of the mapping relationships from functional perspectives. It is found that the lexical density scale and GM distribution scale of three text types are well mapped onto each other, which indicates that ideational GM distribution strongly correlates with the lexical density. Such mapping relationships suggest that the deployment of GM is related to mode because the use of GM has distinctive effects on the complexity, organization and ideologies of texts in different modes.
References
Chilton, P. and Schäffner C (eds). 2002. Political as Text and Talk: Analytic Approaches to Political Discourse Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Eggins, S. 2004. An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics London: Continuum.
Fairclough, N. 1992. Discourse and Social Change Oxford: Polity Press.
Fairclough, N. 1995. Critical discourse analysis: the critical study of language New York: Longman Publishing.
Fetzer, A. 2014. ‘I think, I mean and I believe in political discourse: Collocates, functions and distribution’ Functions of Language 21: 67–94.
Fowler, R. 1991. Language in the News London: Routledge.
Goatly, A. 1996. Metaphor We Die By Manuscript.
Halliday, M.A.K. 1978. Language as Social Semiotic: the social interpretation of language and meaning London: Edward Arnold.
Halliday, M.A.K. 1985. An introduction to functional grammar London: Edward Arnold.
Halliday, M.A.K. 1987. ‘Spoken and Written Modes of Meaning’ in J J Webster (eds) On Grammar London: Continuum. pp. 323-351.
Halliday, M.A.K. 1994. An Introduction to Functional Grammar London: Hodder Arnold.
Halliday, M.A.K. 1998. ‘Things and Relations: Regrammaticizing Experience as Technical Knowledge’ in J J Webster (eds) The language of science London: Continuum. pp. 49-101.
Halliday, M.A.K. and Matthiessen, M.I.M. 1999. Construing Experience through Meaning London and New York: Cassell Wellinton House.
Halliday, M.A.K. and Matthiessen, M.I.M. 2004. An Introduction to Functional Grammar London: Hodder Arnold.
He, Q. S. and Yang, B. J. 2018. ‘A corpus-based study of the correlation between text technicality and ideational metaphor in English’ Lingua 203: 51-65.
Lakoff, G. 2003. ‘Metaphor and War, Again’ UC Berkeley. Available at: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/32b962zb accessed 14 April 2018.
Liardét, C. L .2016. ‘Grammatical metaphor: Distinguishing success’ Journal of English for Academic Purposes 22: 109-118.
Martin, J. R. 1984. ‘Language, Register and Genre’ in F Christie (eds) Children Writing: A Reader Geelong, Vic: Deakin University Press. pp. 21-30.
Martin, J. R. 1991. ‘Nominalization in Science and Humanities: Distilling Knowledge and Scaffolding text’ in E Ventola (eds) Trends in Linguistics: Functional and Systemic Linguistics New York: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 307-337.
Martin, J. R. 1992. English Text: System and Structure Philadelphia/Amsterdam: John Benjamin’s.
Ravelli, L. 1985. Metaphor, Mode and Complexity: An Exploration of Co-varying Patterns (BA thesis). University of Sydney, Department of Linguistics.
Ravelli, L. 2003. ‘Renewal of connection Integrating theory and practicein an understanding of grammatical metaphor’ in Simon-Vandenbergen, et al. (eds) Grammatical metaphor: views from systematic functional linguistics Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp. 37-64.
Van Dijk, T. A. 2008. Discourse and Power New York: Palgrave Macmilla.
Van Dijk, T. A .(ed.) 2011. Discourse Studies: A Multidisciplinary Introduction 2nd edn. London: SAGE.
Yang, Y. N. 2008. ‘Typological interpretation of differences between Chinese and English in grammatical metaphor’ Language Sciences 30: 450–478.
Yang, Y. N. 2015. Grammatical Metaphor in Chinese Sheffield: Equinox.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Journal of English Language and Literature (ISSN: 2368-2132)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
