Saturday 9 March 2013

Macrophenomenon (Expansion) Vs Metaphenomenon (Projection)


Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 440-1):
[Consider] we saw that the boats had been turned.  If I say I can see the boats turning, this is an event.  A process ‘the boats are turning’ is being treated as a single complex phenomenon — a macrophenomenon … .  If I say I can see that the boats are turning, this is a projection.  The process ‘the boats are turning’ is being treated as the projection or idea of a phenomenon — a metaphenomenon, something not just bigger but of a different order of reality.