An Example Of Characterising Registerial Variation In Terms Of Domains Of Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 355, 356):

Characterised in terms of the general domains of experience construed by figures, weather forecasts fall within being & having. This does not mean that they are completely static — there are phases of being (coming to be, etc.); nor that there is no sense of causation — fronts, weather systems, and pressures can serve as Agent. However, the basic motif is one of states of being without any external causes; put in terms of scale, a weather forecast construes a macro-being — the meteorological state of the environment — consisting of a number of atomic micro-beings which move in and out of existence of their own accord. 

The domain construed in recipes is at another pole of figures — one of doing, where a human acts to impact on the world (within the confines of the kitchen). … A recipe is a kind of procedural text — a sequence of operations for arriving at some well-defined end result …; it is a macro-operation, consisting of a number of atomic micro-operations. It is dominated by procedures (algorithms, figures of doing) that lead to some specific goal: the dominant cause is purposive. An agent or agents try to produce, assemble, repair, etc..

From the interpersonal point of view, the notion of procedure can also be taken as a gloss on the interaction between the writer and the reader, it is a macro-proposal, consisting of a number of instructions or directions to the reader.

Text And Context Are Construed Together Variably

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 354):

…text and context are construed together. There is an important variable here, of course, that we have already referred to as the cline from 'language in reflection' to 'language in action'. In situations of the 'language in action' kind, where the discourse is a relatively minor component of the total activity, the grammar and semantics are obviously less constructive of the whole than in a 'reflection' context such as the present one.

Climate And Weather As System And Instance

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 328):

The terms climate and weather are related to each other as langue to parole: as the system of language is to its instantiation in text. Weather is the instantiation of climate; climate is the system 'behind' the weather. As with language, there is, of course, only one set of phenomena here not two; when we refer to climate we are construing general principles and tendencies that 'explain' the multidimensional microvariation that is what we actually have to live with …

Realisation vs Instantiation vs Delicacy

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 327):

It is important perhaps to make quite explicit the distinction among the three concepts of realisation, instantiation, and delicacy, since each of these is a distinct scale of abstraction. It is easiest to describe them in terms of metalanguage dynamics: what we are doing when we move along these different scales. 

(1) Realisation is the relation of one stratum to other strata (in any stratified system, with language as prototypical); when we shift attention from semantics 'upwards' into context or 'downwards' to lexicogrammar and phonology/ graphology, we are moving in realisation. We can do this at any degree of delicacy, from most general to most specific; and we can do it at any point along the instantiation scale, from system to text.  

(2) Instantiation is the relation between the system and the instance. When we shift attention along this scale, we are moving between the potential that is embodied in any stratum and the deployment of that potential in instances on the same stratum. Again, this move can be made at any degree of delicacy.  

(3) Delicacy is the relation between the most general features and the most specific. When we shift attention from, say, 'recreation' to 'hockey' at the level (stratum) of context, or from 'syllable' to long open nasal syllable' to /pã:/ in phonology, we are moving in delicacy. Again, we can do this at any point along the instantiation scale.

Register As Systematic Variation In Patterns Of Instantiation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 324):

… a semantic space in which meanings are constantly being realigned and new meanings created. In other words, we are describing a register; or, more accurately, a region of registerial variation (sometimes called 'diatypic' variation to suggest the analogy with dialectal variation). Register is systematic variation within the overall meaning potential …

The overall semantic potential is diversified into registerial varieties that emerge as patterns of instantiation.

The Cline Of Instantiation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 323, 324):

Instantiation relates the system to the instance, at any given stratum; thus, at the semantic stratum, instantiation is as shown in Figure 8-2.

First And Second Order Field

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 321, 322):

In most contexts, there is both a first order field and a second order field — the first order field is the social activity being pursued (e.g., instructing somebody in how to prepare a dish, predicting tomorrow's weather, informing somebody about yellow-pages information over the phone) and the second order field is the 'subject matter' the activity is concerned with (e.g., the ingredients and methods of cooking, meteorology, construction businesses, international travel). So for instance, in a context where a telephone operator provides a caller with information there is (i) the social activity of exchanging information as a service and (ii) the area of information, e.g. copying & printing services.

…a full account of field would include a typology of the possible first and second order values that occur in a culture. Such a typology would show how closely various fields are related — how they form families.

Context vs Register

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 321):

Together, field, tenor and mode define the 'ecological matrix' in which particular types of text are processed: there is a systematic relationship between such matrices (particular combinations of field, tenor and mode values) and particular types of text. We can see this clearly with actual instances of text — for example, an individual recipe or weather forecast; but these are instances of general classes, to be characterised in terms of the systemic potential that is instantiated in them. 

That is, there is a correlation not only between a contextual matrix and a given instance of a recipe but also between that matrix and the linguistic potential that is deployed in recipes in general. This latter correlation is known as a functional variety or register of the general systemic potential. 

This much has been known for a long time — the notion of functional dialect was worked out by the Prague School in the 1930s (see e.g. Havranek, 1932, and Vachek, 1964), and systemic register theory has its roots in Firth's (e.g., 1957) work on restricted languages. …

However, we can take one further step, as systemic theory did in the 1970s (see Halliday, 1978a), and recognise that the co-variation between context and language is not undifferentiated — it is differentiated according to the functional diversification of each of the two strata: the variables of context correlate respectively with the metafunctions of the language, field with ideational, tenor with interpersonal, and mode with textual. These pairs are mutually predictive.

Blogger Comments:

This is potentially misleading. A register is the linguistic potential that is correlated with the contextual matrix. That is, a register is not the correlation.

Field, Tenor & Mode

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 320-1):

Just as the semantic system is functionally diversified (into the ideational, interpersonal and textual metafunctions), so the context in which language is 'embedded' is also diversified. The context encompasses both the field of activity and subject matter with which the text is concerned ('what's going on, and what is it about?') and the tenor of the relationship between the interactants, between speaker and listener, in terms of social roles in general and those created through language in particular ('who are taking pan?'). The field is thus the culturally recognised repertoires of social practices and concerns, and the tenor the culturally recognised repertoires of role relationships and interactive patterns.

Now, both these contextual variables are, in some sense, independent of language, even though they are constituted in language and the other semiotic systems of a culture. That is, they concern realities that exist alongside the reality created by language itself, semiotic reality. 

However, there is a third contextual variable that is specifically concerned with the part language is playing in any given context — the symbolic mode, how the linguistic resources are deployed. This covers both the medium (spoken, written, and various subtypes such as written in order to be spoken) and the rhetorical function — persuasive, didactic, informative, etc..

Blogger Comments:

Note that Martin misunderstands field, tenor and mode as dimensions of register, and misunderstands one dimension of mode, rhetorical function, as a dimension of genre. In SFL Theory, varieties of language, whether viewed as register or text type (genre), are modelled as language, not context.

Indeterminacy And Typological Variation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 318-9):

In general, wherever there is indeterminacy within a language, we may expect to find this reflected in typological variation. Let us briefly cite three further examples. 

(1) We saw that in the experiential grammar of the English clause there was a complementarity of perspective between the transitive and the ergative: processes may be construed either as 'one participant is doing something, which may or may not extend to another participant that it is being done to', or as 'one participant is involved in something, which may or may not be brought about by another participant that is the agent of it'. Probably all languages display this transitive/ergative complementarity in their transitivity systems; but at the same time it appears at different depths and in different proportions. 

(2) Secondly, we referred to projection as something that overlaps the 'boundary' between interpersonal and ideational metafunctional space; in English it is typically construed ideationally, though with a close relationship to the interpersonal systems of modality and mood. Other languages locate projection rather differently in relation to this boundary, sometimes foregrounding its interpersonal aspects, for example through a special category of 'reporting' mood. 

(3) Some process types tend to lie on the borderline between major categories, forming mixed and overlapping categories; typical of these are the behavioural and existential processes in English. It is likely that equivalent types of process will be liable to greater typological variation than those that fall squarely within the core categories of material, mental, and relational. …

The phenomena of human experience are held in tension by so many intersecting analogical lines that, while all of us have the same brains and live on the surface of the same planet, such diverse ways of semiotic mapping are not only possible but inevitable.

Increased Elasticity Of Construal Provided By Grammatical Metaphor

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 315-6):

This elasticity of construal is further increased through grammatical metaphor, which also relies on the manifestation of projection & expansion within participants (realised by the different types of modification in nominal groups). We have illustrated the range of options throughout the system at various points, and a schematic example will be enough here:

[i] logical

A happened, so B happened;

A caused B to happen;

[ii] experiential

A happened causing B/ B happened because of A;

A happening caused B happening

A affected B ['cause-happened']

with additional metaphorical variants:

B happened because of the happening of A

the happening of A caused the happening of B

the happening of A was the cause of the happening of B

As we have shown in the context of grammatical metaphor, the choice among alternative construals is made on the basis of both ideational and textual factors. These factors 'conspire' together so that different strategies are favoured in different registers: the congruent form (sequences) in casual speech, the metaphoric form (figures of being & having) in elaborated forms of writing.

Where there is variation of this kind within one language, we may expect to find typological variation across different languages.

Elasticity Of Construal Provided By Projection And Expansion

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 315):

One major source of this kind of elasticity is the manifestation of the very general semantic types of projection & expansion throughout the ideation base. In English, as we have shown, we find them manifested both logically as relations and experientially as elements within figures:

[i] logical manifestation:

as relations between figures in the construal of sequences (realised by clause complexes);

as relations between processes in the construal of figures (realised by verbal group complexes);

[ii] experiential manifestation:

as circumstances within figures (realised by prepositional phrases or adverbial groups);

as circumstantial processes within figures of being & having (realised by relational clauses);

as non-nuclear participants within figures, i.e., participants other than Medium — Agent, Beneficiary, Range (realised by nominal groups with or without a preposition).

One Universal Property Of Language

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 299):

… one property of language which is universal is the stratal organisation of the content plane into semantics and lexicogrammar, with the lexicogrammatical stratum forming a continuum: at one pole are the most "grammatical" features, closed systems of just two or three terms, mutually defining along a single dimension and with very general meanings and contexts of use; at the other pole are the most lexical features, open sets of an indefinite number of items, taxonomically arranged along various dimensions and with highly specific meanings and contexts of use.

Metaphorical Elaboration Is Made Possible By The Fractal Pattern Of Projection/Expansion

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 294-5, 296):

The whole metaphorical elaboration is made possible by a fractal pattern that runs through the whole system. We have suggested that the metaphorical elaboration is a token-value relation; but in order for it to be a token-value relation within the semantic system, it has to be natural in the sense that the token and value domains have to be similar enough to allow the token to stand for the value. For instance, a sequence has to be similar enough to a figure to allow it to stand as a metaphorical token for this congruent value. The principle behind this similarity is the fractal pattern of projection/expansion that we met throughout the semantic system of sequences, figures, and elements.

That is, while grammatical metaphor constitutes a move from one "phenomenal domain" to another — from sequence to figure, and from figure to element, this move is made possible because the fractal types engender continuity across these domains: the metaphorical move from one phenomenal domain to another takes place within one and the same transphenomenal domain. For example, the metaphorical shift from he added and smiled to he added with a smile is a shift from the phenomenal domain of sequence to the phenomenal domain of figure (accompanied by the shift from figure and smiled to element with a smile)', but the transphenomenal domain of 'extension' remains constant: the extending sequence he added and smiled is metaphorically agnate with the figure he added with a smile with an extending circumstance. …

Metaphor As Identifying Relations Between Semantic Domains

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 293, 294, 289):

This diagrammatic sketch is also intended to show that metaphor involves a mapping from one ideational domain to another, construing a value-token relation between the two (cf. Figure 6-16 above). 

For instance, the whole semantic domain of sequences may be mapped onto the domain of figures. The token domain may in turn be the value in a further metaphorical move, such as the move from figures to participants. The metaphorical expansion thus can thus involve multiple planes. …

We also need to take account of local mappings: some more delicate type of figure must be able to be represented by some more delicate type of participant. Thus figures of quality ascription will typically be represented by participants with the quality rather than the process reified as the thing: her speech was brilliant' => 'the brilliance of her speech'.

Metaphorical Elaboration Of The Semantic System

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 293, 294):

These considerations suggest to us that metaphor is best construed as an opening up of a new dimension of the semantic system that allows the whole system to be elaborated by itself along a token-value chain. In other words, what we identified as a simplified way of dealing with grammatical metaphor in the relation between semantics and lexicogrammar in Figure 6-8 we can now recognise as a dimension internal to the semantic system. Figure 6-20 shows this opening up of a metaphorical dimension within the semantic system.

Each 'plane' has the same kind of interface to the textual metafunction. In choosing whether to construe some phenomenon as a sequence of figures or as a sequence reconstrued as a figure, we can thus also compare the implications for the textual presentation of these alternative ideational articulations as quanta of information.

Each plane also has the same realisational potential in the lexicogrammar. Thus if the domain of sequences is construed metaphorically within the domain of figures, the realisational domain in the grammar will automatically be that of the metaphor: it will be the domain of clauses rather than that of clause complexes.

Blogger Comments:

Cf Fig 6-8 (p282):

The Representation Of Metaphor In The System: Requirements

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 293):

We have considered how metaphorical examples might be represented as semantic configurations related to congruent configurations, very likely with several intermediate steps. We now have to take one step further and explore how semantic types can be represented as metaphorically related to congruent types within the overall semantic system. Such a representation has to meet the kinds of ideational and textual demands that we have already considered in our representation of examples:

(i) ideational: the representation has to show that metaphor constitutes an expansion of the semantic system. The expansion is an elaborating one, creating chains of token-value relations; and it increases the semantic potential for construing experience.

(ii) textual: the representation has to make it possible to show how metaphorical and congruent variants are given different values in the text base — in the textual semantics.

Representing The Steps From Metaphorical To Congruent

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 291-2):

It is not difficult to embody these intermediate steps in a form of representation such as the following in Fig. 6-19. This does not incorporate any new features; it merely combines the direction of derivation with the functional labelling. What it does, however, is to model the history of the particular instance, showing what semantic features it has, as it were, picked up along the way. It would be possible to explore many other modes of visual presentation; there is no single ideal form, and the approach will vary according to the purpose of the teacher or researcher. Any picture that brings out the two properties of elasticity and directionality would meet the basic requirements.

The Scale Of Metaphoricity

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 291):

… the metaphorical dimension in grammar is in reality a cline. There are often numerous intermediate steps between the "most congruent" and the "most metaphorical" wordings; indeed it is the scale of metaphoricity that is reasonably clearly defined, not its end points. Given two agnate wordings that are positioned along this scale, we seldom have any difficulty in locating them relative to each other: we know which of the two is the more metaphorical one. But we [are] hard put to it to specify a point at either end where we feel we could go no further.

Metaphor Evokes Its Non-Metaphorical Agnate

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 290):

For most types of metaphor, it is important to take account of the fact that the metaphor represents more than one construction of goings-on; the metaphor adds a further perspective on the phenomenon being represented, without displacing the perspective that is congruent Thus, Ali gave Frazier a punch is like Ali gave Frazier a rose; but it is also unlike it precisely because of its metaphorical status: it evokes a non-metaphorical agnate Ali punched Frazier. There are also grammatical distinctions between the two; for instance, there is no systematic proportion

Ali gave Frazier a rose : Ali gave a rose to Frazier : :

Ali gave Frazier a punch : Ali gave a punch to Frazier

The grammatical metaphor will typically show features of the congruent perspective as well as features of the metaphorical one.

Metaphorical Correspondence Represented As Box Diagram

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 289, 290):

… the metaphorical example Ali gave Frazier a punch can be diagrammed as in Figure 6-18. Note that the metaphorical function of a punch is modelled not on that of Goal but on that of Range — in traditional terms, it is a "cognate object" rather than a "direct object".

The Metaphorical Relation As Intra-Stratal Realisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 288-9):

The metaphorical relation is thus similar to inter-stratal realisation in that it construes a token-value type of relation. Here, however, the relation is intra-stratal: the identity holds between different meanings, not between meanings and wordings. The metaphor consists in relating different semantic domains of experience: the domain of figures is construed in terms of the domain of participants, and so on (just as in a familiar lexical metaphor the domain of intensity is construed in terms of the domain of vertical space). It is the fact that metaphor multiplies meanings within the semantic system that opens up the possibility of metaphorical chains, with one congruent starting-point and another highly metaphorical end-point (A"' stands for A" stands for A' stands for A; e.g. 'engine failure' stands for 'the failing of an engine' stands for 'an engine failed'). The semantic system is being expanded along the dimension of the metaphorical token-value relation; but the expansion is still within the semantic system itself.

Metaphor As A Correspondence Between Two Semantic Configurations

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 288, 289):

The correspondence that is construed through grammatical metaphor is an elaborating relationship: an identity is set up between two patterns, a sequence and a figure, a figure and a participant, and so on. In this identity, the metaphorical term is the Token' and the congruent term is the 'Value': 'engine failure' stands for (means, represents) 'engines fail'. This is the 'core' meaning of the elaborating relation; but it also covers the senses of 'summarise', 'distil' — the metaphor may 'distil' congruent meanings that have accumulated in the text. The identity holds between the two configurations as a whole; but, as our representations indicate, the components of the configurations are also mapped one on to another: see Figure 6-16.

An Alternative Way To Represent Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 287-8):

The alternative is to try to conflate the two into a single representational phase. It is difficult to do this without making the result far too complicated; but an attempt is made in Figure 6-15. What this does is set up distinct junctional categories based on the types of grammatical metaphor … . This kind of approach is perhaps the one to be developed further, since it brings out more clearly the potential of grammatical metaphor as a semogenic resource. But we shall not attempt to pursue it further here.

One Way To Represent Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 286-7):

But let us return to grammatical metaphor that has not become technicalised and retains its character as semantic junction. Here we might want not merely to retain the two phases of representation, that of the metaphorical wording as it stands and that of the congruent wording as it is unpacked, but also to build in some representation of the agnate relationship between them. This can be done with some kind of composite representation as in Figure 6-14. (Such diagrams are considerably more effective if they can be colour-coded).

Technical Terms vs Grammatical Metaphors

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 286):

Almost all technical terms start out as grammatical metaphors; but they are grammatical metaphors which can no longer be unpacked When a wording becomes technicalised, a new meaning has been construed — almost always, in our present-day construction of knowledge, a new thing (participating entity); and the junction with any more congruent agnates is (more or less quickly) dissolved. If for example we said that engine failure had now become a technical term, what would we mean by this? We would mean that the semantic bond with a figure an/the engine fails had been ruptured (it could no longer be 'unpacked'); and that a new meaning, an abstract participating entity or thing 'engine failure' had come into being which had the full semantic freedom — to participate in figures, to admit of classes and properties, and the like.

Showing The Agnation Between The Congruent And The Metaphorical

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 286):

How do we show the agnation between congruent and metaphorical? There are really two distinct parts to this question. One is: do we need two separate phases in our representation? …

[This] raises the issue of metaphorical junction. In our interpretation, the text as it stands, with the grammatical metaphor left in, embodies semantic junction: it is not just a variant form, identical in meaning with its congruent agnate — it also incorporates semantic features from the categories that its own form would congruently construe. Thus engine failure is not synonymous with engines fail; it is both a figure consisting of participant ('engine') and process ('fail') and an element (participant) consisting of thing ('failure') + classifier ('engine'). In other words, we need both analyses in order to represent it adequately. This will always be true whenever the metaphor can be unpacked to yield a plausible more congruent form.

Representing Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 280):

The following are some of the factors to be taken into account when we try to represent examples of semantic structural configurations:

(i) Do we represent the text as it is (metaphorically)?

(ii) Do we represent the text in "unpacked" form (congruently)?

(iii) How far do we unpack it (move towards congruence)?

(iv) If we give two (or more) representations, what relationship do we show between them (how do we show the agnation between congruent and metaphorical)?

Congruent vs Metaphorical Realisations

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 278, 279, 280):

Categories in the ideation base are realised by those categories in the ideational grammar with which they have co-evolved. These are the congruent realisations that developed first in the language, are learnt first by children and tend to occur first in a text For instance, a sequence is realised by a clause complex, and the figures related in the sequence are realised by the clauses strung together in the clause complex: see Figure 6-5. …

… The system then comes to be expanded through shift in rank and in class. Sequences come to be realised not only by clause complexes but also by clauses, and figures come to be realised not only by clauses but also by groups/phrases, as shown in Figure 6-6. They are pushed downwards in complexity and rank relative to their congruent realisations in the grammar.

Metaphors Of Abstract Space Enable Diagrams Of Symbolic Space

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 278):

We have relied in our own discussion on metaphors of abstract space for construing meaning — most centrally, metaphors of semantic networks and semantic space. These metaphors allow us to cross over to diagrams of symbolic space, viz. system networks (as a kind of acyclic directed graph) and topological representations.

The General Phenomenon Of Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 274, 275):

… the general phenomenon of metaphor, as an inherent property of language as a stratified semiotic, is a feature of the system as a whole — of the construal of meaning in lexicogrammatical terms.

… it is the potential for (grammatical) metaphor (itself a product of the stratified ideational resource system) that makes it possible to construe experience in terms of such complementarities and contradictions.

The Reality Construed By Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 274):

And we should stress once again that to describe the "reality" that is construed in this way as being generalised does not imply that it is "coherent", in the sense that it is internally consistent and unselfcontradictory. On the contrary: much of the power of metaphor derives from the tensions and contradictions set up

(a) within the metaphor itself,
(b) between one metaphor and another, and
(c) between the metaphor and other regions of the ideation base.

The Advantage Of Seeing Metaphor As A Lexicogrammatical Process

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 274):

Lakoff's conclusion is that, while we cannot avoid such an all-pervasive outbreak of metaphor, we can learn to recognise it and to understand the harmful effects it may have ("that it can kill", in his formulation); we may also be able to seek more benign forms of metaphor to replace it.

Looking at such examples in our own terms, we would want to add another dimension to the interpretation, by seeing the metaphoric process as essentially a lexicogrammatical one and pointing to the grammatical element in the overall construct. This enables us to do two things. 

On the one hand, we can bring out a further aspect of the semantic picture by pointing to the conjunction of category meanings — an aspect of grammatical semantics — that is involved; and on the other hand, we can relate this particular metaphoric phenomenon to the overall semantic potential of the system — the construal of experience as a generalised ideation base.

Lakoff On The Effect Of Metaphoric Syndromes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 273-4):

Just one instance, or a few instances, would have little or no effect; but when there is a rather massive frame of consistency whereby the same metaphor, or metaphoric syndrome, extends across a major region of semantic space this must play a significant part in our overall construction of reality. So, to cite another example from Lakoff s work, in his (1992) study of the metaphors "used to justify [the 1990] war in the [Persian] Gulf, he identifies a number of dominant motifs — he refers to these as "metaphoric systems" — such as state-as-person, fairy tale of the just war (with "self-defence" and "rescue" scenarios), ruler-for-state metonymy; war as, selectively, violent crime, competitive game or medicine — all of which he finds to have been applied in portraying Saddam Hussein as villain, Kuwait as victim, and in constructing the concept of "victory" ('the game is over'), of the "costs" of war and so on. Lakoff comments "What metaphor does is limit what we notice, highlight what we do see, and provide part of the inferential structure that we reason with".

Lexical Metaphor As Junctional Construct

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 273):

Since we are suggesting that grammatical metaphor is not simply an alternative realisation of the same meanings, but a distinct construing of experience in which there is junction of semantic features (have a bath, do a turn may be "dead metaphors", but in bring about a conclusion there is clearly a junction between the 'process' meaning of 'conclude' and the 'thing' meaning of noun), we could expect to find this same phenomenon in lexical metaphor: that the 'literal' meaning of the transferred term would remain, in junction with the features acquired in its metaphorical environment. Just as, in bring about a conclusion, conclusion combines the category (word class) meanings of verb and noun, so in get a handle on the concept, handle combines the item (word) meanings of handle and idea.

Lakoff & Johnson's 'Metaphors We Live By'

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 273):

Lakoff & Johnson (1980), in Metaphors We Live By, showed just how many of our basic conceptual schemata and reasoning strategies are shaped by their metaphorical make-up in the everyday language. To continue with this same domain: using examples such as you're going around in circles, their argument has holes in it, if we keep going the way we're going we'll fit all our facts in, they demonstrate that the motif of 'argument' is construed by a combination of two metaphors, the 'journey' and the 'container'. Such patterns of coherence (or "frames of consistency", in Whorf s term) across metaphoric regions are typical of the "structuring of concepts" (p. 96) which determine (to quote their own use of this same metaphor) "how human beings get a handle on the concept" (p. 116) and function with it in daily life.

Although they make some reference to particular grammatical categories (e.g. "with few exceptions,... in all the languages of the world the word or grammatical device that indicates ACCOMPANIMENT also indicates INSTRUMENTALITY" (p. 135) — with in English), Lakoff & Johnson's "metaphors we live by" are largely presented as lexical metaphors: that is, in terms of individual words, and sets of words that are semantical!y related. Sometimes however the metaphors of daily life arise rather from metaphoric movement in the grammar: for example, many of our everyday expressions for behavioural processes, like have a bath, take a look, give a smile, do a turn, involve construing the process (congruently a verb) in the form of a noun. Such metaphors are even less accessible to conscious reflection than the lexical ones, and so readily diffuse throughout the system and become the norm.

Blogger Comments:

Unacknowledged by Lakoff & Johnson, the wording Metaphors We Live By was coined by the comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell; cf. his Myths We Live By.

Reddy's Conduit Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 272-3):

It is many years now since Whorf first drew attention to some of the prevailing metaphors in what he referred to as "Standard Average European" languages: such things as the way cognitive processes are typically construed in terms of concrete actions and movements in physical space: e.g. grasp, follow = 'understand', the line or direction of an argument, and so on. In a well-known paper, Reddy (1979) explored this particular domain in greater depth and showed how in English the entire semantic field of saying and sensing is permeated by what he called the "conduit metaphor", according to which meaning is "contained" in thoughts or words and may be "conveyed" along some "channel" from a speaker to a listener.

Metaphor, Elitist Discourse, Status, Prestige And Authority

 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.

Grammatical Metaphor And Pedagogy

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 271-2):

Metaphors are dangerous, however, they have too much power, and grammatical metaphor is no different in this respect. Because it leaves the relations within a figure almost totally inexplicit, this demands that they should be in some sense already in place. In the typical rhetorical context for the highly favoured 'backgrounding' type, as we have seen, the configurational relations have been established in the preceding discourse: cf. ... if one takes alcohol one's brain rapidly becomes dull. Alcohol's rapid dulling effect on the brain... Here by the time we reach the metaphor they are already in place: we know that rapid dulling effect means 'causes ... rapidly to become dull', not any of the other things it might mean such as 'has an effect which soon becomes dull, or blunted'. 

But this is an idealised example, constructed for the purpose. Usually the configurational pattern will have been built up over long stretches of the text, or (especially if it is a technical form of discourse) over a great variety of different texts — for example, a series of textbooks used in teaching a science subject throughout a school. Very often the learner has to construct the configurational relations from various sources without their being made fully explicit in any one place; and in the limiting (but by no means unusual) case they have never been made explicit at all, so that the figure has to be construed from the metaphor — a very difficult task indeed.

Metaphor As Junctional Construct

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 271, 272):

Thus grammatical metaphor is a means of having things both ways. An element that is transcategorised loses its original status because of the nature of the semantic feature(s) with which it comes to be combined (e.g. 'like ...' is a quality; so when we say mousy 'like a mouse' this is only a quality — it has none of the thing-ness of the original mouse). A element that is metaphorised does not lose its original status. Its construction is not triggered by its being associated with any new semantic feature. If it has a new semantic feature this is as a result of the metaphorising process. So failure is both process and thing: it is a process construed as a thing (or rather, a phenomenon construed as a process and reconstrued as a thing); its initial status as process remains, but because it has been nominalised, and the prototypical meaning of a noun is a thing, it also acquires a semantic status as something that participates in processes: see Figure 6-4. It has become a 'junctional' construct, combining two of the basic properties that the grammar evolved as it grew into a theory of experience.

Summary Interpretation Of Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 270-1):

We can then summarise our interpretation of grammatical metaphor as follows.

(1) There is an increase in textual meaning, since participants have the most clearly defined status as information: in particular, they can be construed (by the thematic and information systems) into a 'backgrounded + foregrounded' pattern which maximises the information potential of the figure.

(2) There is a loss of experiential meaning, since the configurational relations are inexplicit and so are many of the semantic features of the elements (e.g. engine failure : an engine / engines // the engine / the engines; failed / fail / will fail &c.)

(3) There is a further loss of experiential meaning, since the categories of experience become blurred (failure is not most obviously felt as a 'thing', otherwise it would have been construed as such in the first place); the construction of reality becomes a construction of unreality, detached from ordinary experience and hence inaccessible and remote.

(4) There is however a gain in the potential for experiential information, because the participant, more than any other element, can be expanded in respect of a wide range of semantic features; this enables anything construed as a thing to become part of an experiential taxonomy which embodies far greater generalisation about the overall nature of experience.

Metaphor In Registers Intermediate Between The Everyday And The Educational

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 270):

Another type that is also not specifically associated with learned discourse — with the registers of educational knowledge — is that of be/go + minor process => process: for example:

her speech covered five points ('was about')

the road skirts the lake ('goes alongside')

shall I accompany you? ('go with')

this replaces the one you had before ('is instead of)

who does she resemble most? ('is like')

These are not in the language of a pre-school child; they are learnt as the written language of the primary school, intermediate between the commonsense language of daily life in the home and the technicalised educational discourse of the secondary school.

The Basis Of Metaphorical Shift In Everyday Spoken Discourse

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 269-70):

In English, then, the metaphoric movement is from the logical towards the experiential and, within the experiential, from processes to things … a shift towards a more highly taxonomised way of meaning. But the basis for such a shift is found in the ordinary spoken language of everyday discourse. Consider the following series of examples:

You made three mistakes.

That was his biggest mistake.

Give it another big push.

She gave him one of her most heart-warming smiles.

Can't I have just two little bites of your cake?

That last dive was the best dive I've ever done.

All these are instances of grammatical metaphor, with 'mistake' (verb err), push, smile, bite, dive turned into things (nouns) and the 'process' taking the form of a lexically very general verb give, have, do, take, make which retains the full semantic potential of a figure (tense, modality, &c.). The effect of nominalising these processes is to open them up to all the 'quality' potential that is associated with things: they can be classified, qualified, quantified, identified and described. This range of grammatical metaphors has become fully codified in English and is, in fact, used by children almost from the start.

Grammatical Metaphor Viewed Semantically

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 269):

We can say therefore that grammatical metaphor is predominantly a 'nominalising' tendency. But if we look at it semantically we can see that it is a shift from the logical towards the experiential: that is, making maximum use of the potential that the system has evolved for classifying experience, by turning all phenomena into the most classifiable form — or at least into a form that is more classifiable than that in which they have been congruently construed. 

We saw in discussing have a look, make a mistake &c. that if you make look, mistake into nouns you can expand them within nominal groups: have another good long look, don't make the same silly spelling mistake again! We now have classes of mistake (spelling mistake); properties, both experiential (long look) and interpersonal (silly mistake), quantities, and identities (that same mistake, another look, three mistakes). The same principle holds when any process is reconstrued metaphorically as a thing.

The Effect Of The Secondary Motif Of Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 268-9):

This perturbation of the dominant pattern has the effect of making a participant more abstract. In the engine failed, the engine is set up as a thing. In engine failure, it is as it were deconstructed into a mere characteristic of some other 'thing', a way of classifying failure into its various contrasting kinds, such as crop failure, power failure and heart failure. The engine has lost its identity — it has no Deictic (note that it cannot be individuated any longer — only the failure can: this engine failure, the earlier engine failure, any future engine failures, etc.); and it has exchanged 'thingness' with an ephemeral process, that of failing. But it is still within the compass of a participant in the figure; grammatically, it is within the nominal group.

The Secondary Motif Of Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 268):

The "secondary motif" is that whereby a 'thing' (congruently construed as a noun functioning as Thing in a nominal group) is metaphorised on the model of some quality — qualifying, possessive or classifying. This represents a shift one step 'backwards' along the logical–experiential scale. It is thus contrary to the prevailing general tendency, since something that is congruently a participant on its own terms is now treated as existing only by virtue of some other participant.

This type of shift occurs only in syndromes, where the process is reconstrued as a participant; and as a corollary, the participants in that process become its 'qualities'. For example, Griffith's energy balance approach to strength and fracture, where the participants strength and fracture and energy balance have become 'qualities' expanding the metaphoric 'thing' approach — compare the more congruent Griffith approached strength and fracture in terms of (the concept of) energy balance.

Reasons For The Metaphoric Instability Of Relators

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 267-8):

It is clear that, among the various elements involved, the relators are the most unstable in terms of their susceptibility to metaphoric transformation. They are, as it were, the first to leave; and they travel farther than the rest.

We can perhaps link this property of relators to their status in the overall ideation base. Relators construe the highly generalised logico-semantic relations of expansion that join figures into sequences: elaborating, extending, enhancing. We have remarked already on the fact that these relationships of expansion pervade very many regions of the semantic system: they are manifested in the organisation of figures of being, in the types of circumstantial element that occur within a figure, in the taxonomy of 'things', and elsewhere, as well as of course in their 'home' region of the construal of sequences, as links between one figure and another. This led us to characterise the categories of expansion as "transphenomenal" and as "fractal":

• transphenomenal in the sense that they re-appear across the spectrum of different types of phenomena construed by the ideational system; and 
• fractal in the sense that they serve as general principles of the construal of experience, generating identical patterns of organisation of variable magnitude and in variable semantic environments.

It is these characteristics of relators that make them particularly liable to migrate: to be displaced metaphorically from their congruent status (as paratactic and hypotactic conjunctions) and to appear in other guises in other locations — as minor processes (in circumstantial elements), as processes, as qualities and as things. Thanks to this metaphoric instability, relators are able to play a central part in the re-construal of experience that is a feature of the discourse of the sciences — that makes these discourses possible, in fact, and hence provides the semiotic foundation for the construction of scientific knowledge.

The Motive Behind The Primary Motif Of Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 267):

Thus in English the more structure that is to be imposed on experience the more pressure there is to construe it in the form of things. But things are merely the end-point of the metaphoric scale. Processes, though more constrained than things, still have more semantic potential than relators: they accommodate categories of time and phase, among others, and are construed in open lexical sets, whereas relators form closed systems. So there is also a pressure there too, to metaphorise conjunctions into verbs: then, so, because, before, therefore becoming follow, result, cause, anticipate, prove. (Circumstances are something of a special case because most of them already contain participants in minor, subsidiary processes — prepositional phrases in the grammar.) But it remains true that things are the most susceptible of being classified and organised into taxonomies; hence the primary motif of grammatical metaphor is that of construing a world in the form of things.

The Metaphorical Potential Of Relators

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 266-7):

Relators show the least organisation of any, since they are experienced only indirectly in the form of logical relations between other configurations; they share some of the systematic features of minor processes, but other than that they display only the contrast between the two relative statuses they assign to these configurations, as being equal or unequal (paratactic/ hypotactic, in the grammar) — a then x / x after a // b so y / y because b &c. Thus a relator can be metaphorically reconstrued into any other category:

— whereas a process can be reconstrued only as a participant (quality or thing), and a quality only as a thing.

The Taxonomic Limitations Of Minor Processes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 266):

The minor processes that form circumstances (realised as prepositions in English) are even less taxonomisable; they are intermediate between processes and relators, and only the spatial ones (spatio-temporal) display any real paradigmatic organisation (to/from // towards/away from; inside/outside // into/out of; before/after // in front of/behind &c.).

The Taxonomic Limitations Of Processes Exemplified

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 265-6):

Processes do resemble other processes, but they share different features with different others; no single line-up is dominant enough to form the basis for permanent hyponymy. For example, if we consider a small subset of the words expressing verbal processes offer, tell, promise, threaten, recommend, warn:

(1) offer, promise, threaten have the feature 'offer'; tell, recommend, warn have the feature 'command'

(2) offer, tell are neutral in orientation; promise, threaten, recommend, warn have the feature 'oriented to addressee'

(3) within the addressee-oriented, promise, recommend have the feature 'desirable', threaten, warn have the feature 'undesirable'.

(4) offer, promise, recommend take direct participant ('propose to give ... to Receiver'; 'propose that Receiver should obtain ...').

(5) tell, warn take circumstance of Matter 'about...'.

Processes thus have much less potential than participants for being characterised and taxonomised. For example, with a process like decide we can add a circumstance to it, saying he decided quickly or he decided on the spur of the moment; but if we want to identify the occasion as unique we have to say this decision, the previous decision, the only good decision he ever made. We can say his absurd decision but not he decided absurdly — at least not in the same sense, since absurdly could only characterise the figure (how he carried out the act of deciding), not the quality of the process of deciding as such.

The Taxonomic Limitations Of Processes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 265):

Processes are realised by verbal groups, where, typically, the only lexical material is the verb itself, functioning as Event (material action or event, conscious or verbal process, or relation). Apart from the adverbial complement of a phrasal verb, which may serve to construct a distinct lexical item e.g. make out (I can't make out the difference), come to (she'll come to in a minute), let on (don't let on about this), &c., all contrasts made by the verbal group are grammatical ones — tense and other quasi-temporal systems, and modality. There is no lexical expansion classifying processes into taxonomies or assigning them sets of contrasting qualities.

Blogger Comments:

Importantly, although a Process is realised by a phrasal verb, the 'adverbial complement' of a phrasal verb is not a constituent of the verbal group.

Why Metaphoric Shift Is Towards Thing

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 265):

Participants are realised by nominal groups, which allow more or less indefinite expansion (through the univariate structure of modification). This expansion is the grammar's way of constructing taxonomies of things: grouping them into classes, assigning properties to them, quantifying them and then uniquely identifying any individual thing, or any number, set or class of things, in relation to the 'here-&-now' of the speech event. 

The expansion involves open sets of things and qualities, realised by lexical items; but it can also capture a circumstance, realised by a prepositional phrase, or an entire figure, realised by a clause, and put it to use as a quality in describing or identifying such a thing or set of things, e.g. this unique 20-piece handprinted china dinner service with optional accessories never before offered for sale at such a bargain price.

Qualities are attached to things, and so contribute to this overall expansion. They also have possibilities of expansion of their own, by submodification (at least for intensity, but sometimes along other lines as well: very long, longest; dark blue, red hot). … 

This grammatical potential for taxonomising is complemented by the lexical potential of the nominal group for construing feature networks. So by construing any phenomenon of experience as a thing, we give it the maximum potential for semantic elaboration.

Metaphoric Shift As A Shift Towards The Experiential

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 264):

… we can summarise the principle of metaphoric shift as in Figure 6-3 …

We can see from this figure that the drift towards 'thinginess' is the culminating and most clearly articulated form of a shift which can be characterised in more general terms as a shift towards the experiential — towards that mode of construing experience that is most readily organised into paradigmatic sets and contrasts. Things are more easily taxonomised than qualities, qualities than processes, and processes more easily than circumstances or relations. Since the 'noun-ness' is being used to construe phenomena that start out as something else than a noun, metaphors will inevitably be abstract. If the surgeon makes an incision, instead of cutting, the cut is being presented as a more abstract version of the experience. This is further reinforced if, as is often the case, the metaphorical term comes from the more highly valued lexical stockpile of Latin and Greek roots.

Two Predominant Motifs In Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 263-4):

It is possible to distinguish two predominant motifs in the phenomena characterised here: one major or primary and one minor or secondary one.

(i) The primary motif is clearly the drift towards 'thing'.

(ii) The secondary motif is what appears as a tendency in the opposite direction: the move from 'thing' into what might be interpreted as a manifestation of 'quality' (qualifying, possessive or classifying expansions of the 'thing').

Interpretation Of Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 263):

In the semantic construction of experience, 'process' and 'participant' emerge as prototypical categories; and there is a broad agreement among different languages both about the nature of this distinction and about which particular phenomena should be assigned to which category. 

But as in any semiotic endeavour there are always some domains of uncertainty: are rain, wind, thunder processes or things? are fear, worry, regret processes or qualities? Examples like these prevent the categories from being too reified and rigid, and provide a kind of gateway of analogy through which a phenomenon can drift or be propelled from one category to another. 

In transcategorisation some other semantic feature triggers the propulsion; e.g. dark + make/become = darken, flake + like/composed of = flaky. 

In metaphor, however, the phenomenon is reconstrued as another category; what is being exploited is the potential that arises — but only after the categories have first been construed as distinct; not otherwise — of treating every phenomenon in more ways than one. In this process the original interpretation is not supplanted; it is combined with the new one into a more complex whole.

Metaphors Of External And Internal Conjunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 262-3):

At the same time, a further distinction has evolved between two kinds of logical-semantic relation: 

(i) a relation 'in rebus' between two experiential events, 

(ii) a relation 'in verbis between two stages in the discourse; 

e.g.

(i) Political pressures brought about his downfall. Major changes ensued.

(ii) This section illustrates the main argument. Further discussion follows.

These correspond respectively to the 'external' and 'internal' types of conjunctive relations in cohesion (Halliday & Hasan, 1976: Ch. 5).

The Favourite Type Of Clause In Modern Scientific English

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 262):

These two syndromes [see previous post] — really variants of a single syndrome — define the type of clause that might well be considered as the favourite type of modern scientific English.  

The metaphorical 'things' are packaged processes or qualities that have thematic or informational value in the text, construed as Theme in the clause or New in the information unit (N-Rheme in the clause: see Fries, 1992).  

The metaphorical 'process' is one of the typical semantic relations that link figures into a sequence: 'cause* & 'time' are the prototypical relations in question, but in modern writing 'identity' has tended to take over as the central type — often by a further metaphorical step whereby causes becomes is the cause of, results becomes is the result of.

Syndromes Including Both Class Shift And Rank Shift

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 262):

We have shown that the typical manifestation of grammatical metaphor in discourse is as a 'syndrome' of features including both class shift and rank shift. Let us now recall two of the frequently occurring syndromes described earlier, noting where these features occur:

(1) Their frequent dismissal of personnel does not inspire people's confidence 

[class shift]:  process 'dismiss' as thing, relator 'cause' as process ['inspire'], quality 'confident' as thing
[rankshift]: sequence as figure

[congruent variant]: Because they frequently dismiss personnel, people are not confident [in them]

(2) Rapid bonding resulted 

[class shift]: process 'bond' as thing, relator 'cause' as process
[rankshift]: none (figure as figure)

[congruent variant]: As a result [the substances] rapidly bonded.

Note that in (2) the other term in the relation is to be presumed from the preceding text.

Rank Shift As An Alternative To Metaphorical Class Shift

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 261):

… we find that rank shift sometimes operates as an alternative to class shift of this metaphorical kind. In examples A-1 and A-2, there is metaphorical class shift:

A-1 a cow is a ruminating quadruped [verb: adjective; process => quality]

A-2 your escape was a miracle [verb: noun; process => thing]

In B-1 and B-2, on the other hand, there is rank shift but no class shift; these are the agnate congruent forms:

B-1 a cow is a quadruped that chews the cud/ that ruminates

B-2 it was a miracle how/that you got away/ you escaped

Here 'ruminate' and 'escape' remain as process, without shifting in class. This now helps to explain the meaning of forms such as C-1 and C-2:

C-1 a cow is a cud-chewing quadruped

C-2 it was a miracle you/your getting away

These represent a kind of semantic compromise, a means of having it both ways. The junction is now as it were symmetrical, with the time line removed, so that 'chew + cud', 'you + escape' are simultaneously both figures and (parts of) elements. What the grammar is construing here is an exchange of functions without shifting class; the figure takes on a special kind of clausal structure which conserves the transitivity relations.

Metaphorical vs Non-Metaphorical Class Shift

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 260-1):

Class shift becomes metaphorical when the "shifted" term creates a semantic junction with the original. A good way of illustrating this is to bring together two instances of the same lexical item, used once as (non-metaphorical) transcategorisation and once as grammatical metaphor. Let us return to a previous example:

More congruently, this would be many (pieces of glass) fail after the cracks have slowly extended, or often the cracks slowly extend and then the glass fails. The congruent form is a sequence of two figures linked by a relator; in the metaphoric form, each figure becomes a participant and the relator becomes a (relational) process to which two participants subscribe. Here, then, failure is an instance of metaphorical class shift; there is a semantic junction between two features:

(1) 'process' (class meaning of verb fail),

(2) 'thing/ participant' (class meaning of noun failure).

Note that there is an asymmetry between the two — a time line, such that the feature 'thing' is as it were a reconstrual of the original feature 'process': we could gloss it as "a process reconstrued as a participant".

Contrast this now with failure in a technical expression such as heart failure; in origin this was no doubt a grammatical metaphor for the heart fails, but the metaphorical quality has since been lost, or at least significantly weakened (the metaphor is "dead"), and heart failure is now the only congruent form.

Likewise contrast he regretted his failure to act, agnate to that he had failed to act (or that he had not acted ), where failure is a grammatical metaphor, with he always felt that he was a failure, where failure is now the congruent form and this is not a metaphorical agnate of he always felt that he had failed.

Metaphor And Rankshift

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 259-60):

Rank shift is not inherently metaphorical. There is a parallel here between rank shift and class shift. In origin, both these could be described as metaphorical semogenic processes: a verb or adjective is metamorphosed into a noun (a shift of class, e.g. strong : strength, lose : loss), a clause is metamorphosed into a group (a shift of rank, e.g. they went bankrupt : their bankruptcy). 

But as a synchronic relation neither of these necessarily involves metaphor; there may be no systematic alternation such as there is between a metaphoric and a congruent form. We have already discussed non-metaphorical forms of class shift, under the heading of transcategorisation. Similarly, in the following examples of rank shift, where a clause is rankshifted to function either as Head (1,2) or as Qualifier (3, 4) of a nominal group, no grammatical metaphor is involved.

1. [[Not having a proper job]] made my life unbearable

(semantically) non-projected figure as participant

(grammatically) clause (as Head of nominal group) functioning (as Agent) in clause structure: "act" type

2. [[How they escaped]] was a mystery

(semantically) projected figure as participant

(grammatically) clause (as Head of nominal group) functioning (as Carrier) in clause structure: "fact" type

3. That woman [[(who was) sitting behind the desk]] reminded me of Tracy

(semantically) non-projected figure as quality

(grammatically) clause functioning as Qualifier of nominal group ("defining relative" clause)

4. The idea ([that anyone would visit/ of anyone visiting]] seems incredible

(semantically) projected figure as quality

(grammatically) clause functioning as Qualifier of nominal group

The Overall Effect Of Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 258-9):

The overall effect of the grammatical metaphor is that semantic relations between one element and another, and between one figure and another, become progressively less explicit as the degree of metaphoricity increases. We can illustrate this by taking a text example and relating it to more congruent and more metaphorical variants:

Notice how the semantic information construed by the grammar in the most congruent version is gradually lost at each step in the course of metaphoric rewording.

The Phylogenetic Codification Of Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 258):

Like lexical metaphors, so also grammatical metaphors may become codified in the language and 'take over' as the normal mode of expression. We shall refer below to two instances of this type in English: those like have a look, take a step and those like span, cover, accompany. There are other features of the grammar that are in origin metaphorical (many of the uses of the possessive form, such as [he didn't approve of] my leaving home), but whose origin is so obscured by the natural evolution of the language that all sense of their metaphoric nature has long since been lost.

Degree Of Metaphoricity

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 256-7):

… metaphoricity is a relative matter. We can take a pair of agnate expressions and order them with respect to each other, showing that one of the two is more congruent But if we are rewording in either direction — 'packing' or 'unpacking', to use the (lexical) metaphor that was adopted for this by the students to whom it was originally presented —, there is no clearly definable point where we say 'now we have reached the end'. Obviously we cannot go on for very long; the actual number of steps taken will in fact be extremely limited. But any sequence that is reasonably complex in its semantic patterning will be likely to show considerable elasticity at both ends of the continuum.

Illustration Of Steps In Unpacking Elemental Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 255-6):

It would take many pages of discussion to follow through such examples discursively in any detail. Instead we will present one brief example with step-by-step unpacking of all the grammatical metaphors simultaneously, using a form of graphic display (with labelling of grammatical functions) which will give a sense of the overall metaphorical space that may be covered in a single instance of this kind: see Figure 6-2. 

Figure 6-2 Step by step "unpacking" of metaphorical wording

Example Of Steps In Unpacking Elemental Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 255):

Very often, however, in deriving any one element we should have to take two or more steps in the course of unpacking. For example, in the development of our understanding, we can unpack to our understanding develops. However, our understanding is itself a metaphorical entity consisting of a 'thing' derived from a process; and a 'possessor' derived from a participant; so it can be unpacked further to we understand, giving something like [the way] we understand develops. We then might want to consider develops as (be/ become) quality => process, so [the extent to which] we understand becomes greater, i.e. we understand more and more.

Elemental Metaphor Syndrome: Figure With Process ==> Figure With Process As Thing

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 254-5):

(III) Figure With Process ==> Figure With Process As Thing

They surveyed the property ==> (They) did a survey of the property

They started to survey the property ==> (They) started a survey of the property

They discussed in the early afternoon ==> Their discussion took place (in the early afternoon)