Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 272):
So the more the extent of grammatical metaphor in a text, the more that text is loaded against the learner, and against anyone who is an outsider to the register in question. It becomes elitist discourse, in which the function of constructing knowledge goes together with the function of restricting access to that knowledge, making it impenetrable to all except those who have the means of admission to the inside, or the select group of those who are already there.
It is this other potential that grammatical metaphor has, for making meaning that is obscure, arcane and exclusive, that makes it ideal as a mode of discourse for establishing and maintaining status, prestige and hierarchy, and to establish the paternalistic authority of a technocratic elite whose message is 'this is all too hard for you to understand; so leave the decision-making to us' (see Lemke, 1990b). Even those who most exploit its potential for organising and constructing knowledge — theoretical physicists and other specialists in the natural sciences —- are now finding that they have had 'too much of a good thing' and are seeking ways of overcoming it and carrying it to less extreme manifestations.