Grammatical metaphor is that type of metaphoric process in which the moving parts […] are not lexical items but grammatical categories. It is the process whereby the congruent form […] is transformed into its metaphorical agnate […] . This is perhaps the single most important source of the power that language has of reconstruing the reality that it has previously put in place.
But given that “system” is simply the name given to the potential that is instantiated in text, when we talk of the system changing what we mean is that the text potential has undergone a shift of some kind or other. This may be quantitative change, a shift in the probabilities of the terms in some grammatical system … ; or it may be qualitative change, as happens when a term disappears altogether … . Quantitative changes may stabilise; or they may move on to become qualitative … .
For the discourse analyst, the main problem has been the lack of any coherent account of the semantic system. A text is a construction of meaning; and while the meaning potential of a language is structured and powered by the lexicogrammar, it is the multidimensional organisation of semantic space that defines the overall topology within which speakers and writers are operating.
For the grammarian (and I should say, by the way, that by “the grammarian” here I understand one who works in lexicogrammar and semantics: the systems thinker on the content plane), the problem has been one that is very simple to state: namely lack of data. The grammarian has never had access to the data that are needed for construing an adequate theory.
… whichever of these rôles we are adopting, we need to observe from both ends. The grammarian, however system-oriented he may be, has to monitor instances of discourse; the discourse analyst, however text-oriented, has to keep an eye on the overall potential. The complementarity means that, unless you shift your angle, you will distort the picture: you cannot know all that is going on if you keep to just one observational perspective.
It is particularly in accounting for different kinds of variation in language — dialect, register and genre, Bernstein’s “code” — that the complementarity becomes important for our understanding; and especially in overcoming those unfortunate disjunctions that we have come to live with, that between linguistics and pragmatics at one level, and that between theory of grammar and theory of discourse at another.
The system observer is viewing language from a greater distance in space and time. Any phenomenon in language can be observed from either end, in its environment within the system or within the text; each stance will afford certain insights — but the phenomenon will look different according to which we choose.
In […] grammar and lexis, […] the complementarity is one of focus, based on the scale, or vector, of delicacy. System and text, on the other hand, form a complementarity of angle, based on the vector of instantiation.
In the most general sense, complementarity is a special form of complexity; one can think of it perhaps as the management of contradiction. … I am using it here as a way of bringing together what are in fact three different types of complexity that we find in language, but which are all based on some kind of contradiction.
In other words, system and text form a complementarity, one that is defined by the vector of instantiation. … What I am here calling system and text are two complementary positions of the observer, two observational perspectives on the phenomenon — in this case, on the phenomenon of language. Thus “text” is the instantiation of the system; or, alternatively, “system” is text potential.
The system and the text are not two different orders of reality … . There can only be one set of phenomena here, not two. But since there are two possible angles from which to approach and observe them, the same question of point of view arises [as with climate and weather]. Consider the phenomenon of functional variation in language. If we look at this from the “instance” end, we will find in our corpus certain groups of texts that are alike in certain respects; we will be able to recognise something that we call a “text type”. If we look at these same phenomena from the “system” end, we will see this as a sub-system, a recognisable alignment of the meaning-making resources of the system; this is what we refer to as a “register”. Either we see a recurrent pattern of linguistic weather, or we see a definable motif within the linguistic climate. Both of these are possible points of view; but they engender rather different modes of explanation.
Like all analogies, that between climate and language is oblique and partial. It is an abstract tool for thinking with, not in any sense a strict proportion. Semiotic systems are not like physical systems. For one thing, an instance of a semiotic system carries value. Instances of physical systems do not. You may prefer one kind of weather to another, but that has no relevance whatsoever to the significance of an instance of that kind of weather to another in relation to the theory of climate. Such an instance is simply to be observed, measured and taken account of like any other. But a text has its own differential value. The value is not something fixed and determinate, in most cases; if it is a recorded text, its value may vary at different times, in different places, or under different conditions.
So the analogy whereby language is to text as climate is to weather is useful to think with — up to a point. It reminds us that there are not two different things at issue here, but only one. What we call “climate”, and what we call “weather”, are the same phenomenon seen from different angles, or different moments of time. So it is with “language” and “text”. But in the case of language, so much misunderstanding has been caused by counterposing these two terms, with language and text being treated as if they were different orders of reality, that I shall not make use of these terms in opposition. Instead I shall talk of “text” and “system”, these being two aspects, or guises, of the single phenomenon “language”: thus, language as system, and language as text. Here I am borrowing “system” from its place in the generalised opposition between system and instance.
In the same — or at least an analogous — sense [as climate being a theory of the weather], language is a theory of the text. Again, it may be a low-level commonsense theory, as when we comment on a particular person’s language, or on the language of advertisers or of politicians. … Or it may be a designed scientific theory, such as we find in learned articles on the grammar or phonology of a given language, or of several languages or even language in general. When this happens we turn the theory itself into a virtual entity and call it “linguistics”, or, in the case of the weather, “climatology”.
I do make a distinction between these two; but it is a difference in point of view, between different angles of vision on the phenomena, not in the phenomena themselves. So we can use either to define the other: “discourse” is text that is being viewed in its sociocultural context, while “text” is discourse that is being viewed as a process of language.
[…] you can, as expected, network through the grammar into the lexis; but what you end up with are not lexical items but lexical features. The lexical item will appear, but it will appear as a conjunct realisation of a number of these terminal features. The features are thus components of the lexical items, but the description differs from a usual componential analysis in two important respects. In the first place, the components are systemic: they are organised in sets of systemic options; and in the second place, more significantly, they are derived by ordered steps in delicacy all the way from the primary grammatical categories.
Each feature (that is, each term in each system) is entered in the network together with its realisation, the contribution it makes to the shape of the final output. In the most general (least delicate) systems, this contribution is typically structural: some change in the functional configuration, like adding new elements or putting them in a certain order. But some items of wording appear as realisations in the network almost from the start: these are the function words of English like the and of and it and and and to. As you move over towards the right, the systems become less general; and more and more of the features get to be lexicalised. First there will be middle order items, those functioning somewhere in between the grammatical and lexical poles: like pronouns, and certain types of conjunction and of adverb; then particular classes of verbs, of adjectives or of nouns.
The vertical axis of the network is unordered; systems are arranged so as to make the two-dimensional representation of the wiring as simple as possible. But the horizontal axis is ordered from left to right on a scale of delicacy, or refinement in detail (referred to in computational grammars as “granularity”). Here the ordering is determined by the interrelations among the various systems, irrespective of how their terms are realised in structure. This is a fundamental consideration: one of the reasons for making the underlying representation paradigmatic was in order to free it from constraints of structure, so that every feature could be located according to its relationship with other features. In other words, describing something, and relating it to everything else (to its agnates), which in a description based on structure are two distinct operations, in a systemic grammar are one and the same operation. Each feature is described by being located in its paradigmatic context.
In a systemic grammar, the most abstract representation takes the form of a system network, modelling the sets of options that the grammar makes available, and the interrelation between one set of options and another: whether they are simultaneous or dependent. The network is a theory of what the speaker can do: what he can mean, at the semantic stratum; what he can say, or “word”, at the stratum of lexicogrammar; what he can say, or “sound”, at the strata of phonology and phonetics. It is a more truly generative grammar, as distinct from the earlier Chomskyan kind of generative grammar which, as Peter Wexler once remarked, should really be called a “contraceptive grammar” since it was all about the enforcement of constraint.
Polarity can be taken as the quintessential example of a grammatical system; it is involved in everything we say — everything that language can turn into meaning. It has a place in all metafunctions — in a sense it is pre-metafunctional; this is why it can be ambivalent, if realised on its own (as yes or no), and can be lexicalised in both ideational and interpersonal combinations (eg allow / forbid; nice / nasty). It provides a model of how meaning gets grammaticalised: no doubt it was central to the evolution of language in the species, though that we can never know; it is the first opposition to appear in the development of language in infancy, in the context of “I want / I don’t want” signalled by sound or gesture.
In principle any meaning can be construed in either perspective. Languages vary, of course, as regards which semantic categories they construe grammatically and which lexically, as well in how the distinction is formally expressed; and any given feature may turn up at different locations along the cline.
Thus in the interpersonal domain, the organisation of meaning into the two regions, the lexical and the grammatical, is less polarised; there is not such a clear demarcation between the general and the particular in the management of human relationships. The two contrasting perspectives are still distinct; but it becomes more apparent that the differences between them is one of depth of focus, not one of discontinuity in the phenomena themselves.
Interpersonally, the same two perspectives come into play. Some interpersonal meanings are highly generalised, like the enactment of dialogic rôles (speech function); Hasan (1992) and Hasan & Cloran (1990) present semantic networks for interpersonal systems of speech function (questions and commands) showing their realisations in the grammar.
With options in the way something is evaluated (“I approve / I disapprove”) or contended (“I agree / I disagree”), the borderline between grammar and lexis is shaded over; systems of appraisal, as described by Martin & White (2005), represent more delicate (more highly differentiated options within the general region of evaluation.
There are then mixed systems where the two perspectives intersect; for example systems of modality, in which the various degrees of probability and usuality have multiple realisations, including those where items which elsewhere function lexically are organised into systemic sets — wordings like certainly, perhaps, I think, I’m convinced and many others.
So the lexicogrammar adopts two contrasting perspectives for construing all this complexity. The one is specific and open-ended; hence flexible, but low in information: this the lexical perspective, good for seeing phenomena as particular. The other is general and systemic: hence high in information, but creating closure: this is the grammatical perspective, good for seeing phenomena as generality. The two perspectives are complementary; any phenomenon can be looked at in terms of either, but they will present two different images of the whole.
Ideationally, the lexicogrammar sorts out the complex world of our surroundings, including the part that consists of our own bodies, our own “selves”. But the things that surround us, and impinge on us, are immense varied and complex. There are particular things; these have to be sorted into classes, by selecting, out of the innumerable ways in which one thing can be like one another, those analogies that seem to be significant. The classes, in turn, are sorted into classes of classes, or taxonomies. But the critical factor in the way things impinge upon us is that of change. As well as things, there are happenings, which give the things their value; the particular happenings also have to be sorted into their classes, but in addition to this they have to be located in the matrix of space and time. At the same time, however, both things and happenings display certain very general features, properties which can be abstracted out of their particulars and construed as features of whole classes of phenomena, or even of all. All happenings have several “moments” in time; all things have certain qualities or quantities; and so on.
Survival depends on both aspects of our existence. Language has to be both a way of thinking, of construing the world, and a way of doing, of acting on and interacting with the people in it. This is in fact another complementarity; language acts out this complementarity, at a more abstract level, by transforming both thinking and doing into meaning. It is this that has shaped the evolution of lexicogrammar.
Every clause in every kind of discourse combines an ideational and an interpersonal strand of meaning. But weaving these two together is an extremely complicated task; and in managing all this complexity, language evolved a third metafunctional component, by which it is enabled to organise itself in the form of discourse. Discourse is what linguists perceive as text; so we call this the textual metafunction. This is what enables a language to function meaningfully in all its multifarious contexts.
But the principle is usually formulated in terms of just one aspect of this relationship, the ideational: the way our language functions to construe our own experience of the world. Yet the human condition is a social one, and our environment is not just ecological — it is eco-social; so our language functions also interpersonally. And here it is performing a more active rôle: it is not just construing but enacting our relationships with our fellow creatures. In terms of the classical model deriving from Plato, there is the “first–&–second person” component of language, that which is organised around the interaction of “you” and “me”, as well as the “third person” component of language, that which is organised around the construal of others, of “him, her, it, them”. These two metafunctional components are at the foundation of every human language, and both evolved under the same conditions. Our social interactions increased in complexity just as did our relations with all aspects of the environment. Neither component can be instantiated without the other.
I have always held the view that language is a probabilistic system. Word frequency is the manifestation of probability in the lexicogrammar — or rather, of one particular aspect of it. Another, more powerful aspect of lexicogrammatical probability is the relative probability of the terms in a grammatical system. A grammatical system, such as polarity, or mood, or tense, is a small set of contrasting options with a defined condition of entry — but it is more than that: it is a set of options each having a certain measure of probability.
A grammar is an evolved system, and evolved systems readily admit complementarity; a grammatics is a designed system, and designed systems tend to be hostile to it (it’s too messy). Twentieth century linguistics has been a monument to either/or-ism; which is one reason perhaps why we still do not understand too well how natural semiotic systems work.
Time is both linear and aspectual (tense and aspect)Process is both extension and causation (transitive and ergative)Matter is both discrete and concrete (count and mass)Causality is both a relation between processes and a single complex process (clause nexus and clause)
Complementarity is what turns “either / or” into “both + and”. …
And one thing is obvious: grammar has no place for “either/or-ism”; it always turns “either / or” into “both + and” …
Then think of agency: how it is that processes are brought about. Either I do something, which may or may not impact on some other entity (I as Actor; plus or minus a Goal); or I do something, which may or may not be caused by some other entity (I as Medium; plus or minus an Agent). Whichever way we choose to model these, whether as extension (“transitive”) or as causation (“ergative”), we cannot know all about how processes with two participants take place.
The grammar of every language is (in one of its metafunctions, the ideational) a construal of human experience: it constructs our “reality” by transforming our experiences into meanings. And in doing this, the grammar often has to choose: to choose either one way of seeing things, or the other. For example, think of time. Either time is a linear progression, out of future through present into past; or else it is a translation from the virtual into the actual. It can’t be both. We may choose to model it (and note here that I am talking about our grammar — not our theory of grammar, our “grammatics”; so we means the speakers of the language, not the linguists) … so let us say our language may choose to model it either as tense, or as aspect;
The point to be made is that one aspect of the complementarity of spoken and written language lies in their different ways of achieving and managing complexity. The complexity of written language resides in its density: the way it packages its meanings into highly condensed, mainly noun-based structures which combine into rather simple clausal configurations. The complexity of spoken language resides in its intricacy: the way it knots together long strands of quite sparsely loaded clauses into intricate patterns of logical-semantic relationships. So the complementarity of speaking and writing is not simply that of their different modes of being and of happening, but rather in the different strategies for the organisation of meaning — as “spoken language” and “written language” — that have evolved to match, and to exploit, these two different modes of existence.
Observed from close up, language appears in the guise of text, instances of spoken or written discourse that can be perceived by the senses — that can be heard or seen. Observed from a distance, language appears as a potential, an open ended network of possibilities with certain statistical properties and having certain kinds of interrelationship with its eco-social environment. The text is a process of selecting, and a product of selection, from within this overall potential.
I feel it is important to refer to the complementarity in these terms, “language as system” and “language as text”, in order to stress that these are two aspects of one single phenomenon — not two different phenomena, as is implied if you use a simple duality like “language and text”, or “langue and parole”. System and text are one and the same phenomenon; the system is simply the potential that is instantiated in every moment of discourse.
The boundaries of any grammatical category are likely to be fuzzy […] — such indeterminacy is a general property of the grammar. The grammarian attempts to define each category as accurately as possible, looking at it from three different angles: its systemic environment (contrast with other term or terms in the system, and the relationship of that system to other systems); its meaning (proportionality in semantic terms), and its form. In other words, the grammarian adopts a “trinocular” perspective on the stratal hierarchy so that every category is viewed “from round about”, “from above” and “from below”. And since the views from these different angles often conflict, assigning instances to a particular category involves some degree of compromise, where criteria will depend on the purposes of the description.
This is the “system” in the sense in which it was formulated and defined by JR Firth (Firth 1957a,b); the system is the paradigmatic relation that “gives value to” the elements of syntagmatic structure. […] It is the system that defines the set of options from which any feature derives its value. […] What characterises the system is the regular proportionality between its terms. The system is closed, so that its terms are mutually defining […]
It seemed to me that the lexis and the grammar were complementary, at least in their reality-construing, ideational function. In principle, any phenomenon of human experience could be construed either way: either lexically, as specific and open-ended, or grammatically, as generalised and closed; and hence, if some phenomenon showed a high degree of complexity, it might be construed in both ways at once.
I had always been interested in the ways in which the “grammars” of natural languages — that is, the lexicogrammatical resources as a whole — parcelled out the immense task of representing human experience. I referred to this as construing, with construe meaning “construct semiotically, transform into meaning”; so the task of transforming experience into meaning.
A text is meaningful because it is an actualisation of the potential that constitutes the linguistic system; it is for this reason that the study of discourse (‘text linguistics’) cannot properly be separated from the study of the grammar that lies behind it.
What the metaphorical interpretation does is to suggest how an instance in the text may be referred to the system of language as a whole. It is therefore an important link in the total chain of explanations whereby we relate the text to the system.
In the most general terms, the purpose of analysis a text is to explain the impact that it makes: why it means what it does, and why it gives the particular impression that it does.
The important point to make is that a piece of wording that is metaphorical has as it were an additional dimension of meaning: it ‘means’ both metaphorically and congruently. … however far one may choose to go in unpacking ideational metaphor, it is important also to analyse each instance as it is.
This kind of nominalising metaphor probably evolved first in scientific and technical registers, where it played a dual rôle: it made it possible on the one hand to construct hierarchies of technical terms, and on the other hand to develop an argument step by step, using complex passages ‘packaged’ in nominal form as Themes. It has gradually worked its way through into most other varieties of adult discourse, in much of which, however, it loses its original raison d’être and tends to become merely a mark of prestige and power.
Nominalising is the single most powerful resource for creating grammatical metaphor. By this device, processes (congruently worded as verbs) and properties (congruently worded as adjectives) are reworded metaphorically as nouns; instead of functioning in the clause, as Process or Attribute, they function as Thing in the nominal group. … What the happens to the original ‘things’? They get displaced by the metaphoric ones, and so are reduced to modifying these…
In spoken language, the ideational content is loosely strung out, but in clausal patterns that can become highly intricate in movement: the complexity is dynamic — we might think of it in choreographic terms. In written language, the clausal patterns are typically simple; but the ideational content is densely packed in nominal constructions: here the complexity is more static — perhaps crystalline.
To measure lexical density, simply divide the number of lexical items by the number of ranking clauses.
Typically, written language becomes complex by being lexically dense: it packs a large number of lexical items into each clause; whereas spoken language becomes complex by being grammatically intricate: it builds up elaborate clause complexes out of parataxis and hypotaxis.
When the realisation of a whole figure is downgraded through metaphor from clause to nominal group, its elements will of course also be downgraded: the process is nominalised and serves as Thing… ; the other elements of the figure are realised either as downranked groups/phrases serving as Qualifier or Deictic… or, by a further step, as words serving as Classifier, Epithet or Post-Deictic.
The incongruent realisation of a figure may retain the clause as the domain of realisation, but downgrade all of the figure as a metaphorical nominal group, creating a new Process.
The incongruent realisation of a figure may retain the clause as the domain of realisation, but downgrade … part of the figure as a metaphorical nominal group.
The incongruent realisation of the figure may downgrade the domain from clause to group/phrase. Grammatically, this is only possible in an environment of rankshift, as when the congruent clause or metaphorical group/phrase serves as the Head or Postmodifier of a nominal group.
With expansion, one figure of a sequence may be realised congruently by a clause, while the other is realised incongruently as a prepositional phrase serving as a circumstantial element within that clause; here the relator of the sequence is realised as the minor Process of the phrase. The relator and the minor Process are matched in terms of subtype of expansion.
With projection, the projecting figure may be realised congruently as a ‘verbal’ or ‘mental’ clause, while the projected figure is realised incongruently as the Range — the Verbiage or the Phenomenon.
With expansion, both figures of a sequence may be realised incongruently as Token and Value in a ‘circumstantial relational’ clause; here the relator of the sequence is realised, also incongruently, as the Process element in the clause. The expansion type of the relator is matched by the nature of the circumstantial process. … Alternatively, the ‘circumstantial relational’ clause is ‘attributive’ rather than ‘identifying’, with expanding figure as Attribute and the expanded one as Carrier.
Relations of internal cause — cause in the sense of ‘x so I think/say y’ — are construed metaphorically by verbs of proving such as prove, show, demonstrate, argue, suggest, indicate, imply in ‘intensive identifying relational’ clauses.
With expansion, both figures of the sequence may be realised incongruently as Token and Value in an ‘intensive relational’ clause; but the relator is nominalised as the Thing of the nominal group serving as Value, and the expanding figure is embedded as a Qualifier. The nominalised relator is a noun of expansion such as time, place, cause, result, reason.
With projection, the projected figure may be realised metaphorically as an embedded ‘fact’ clause serving as Token.
With expansion, the relator in the sequence may be realised incongruently as a noun serving as the Head or Thing of the nominal group and the figure(s) being related as Modifier.
With projection, the projecting figure in a sequence may be realised incongruently as a noun of projection serving as the Head/Thing of a nominal group and the projected figure as a downranked clause serving as Qualifier.
There is always a domino effect: as the realisational domain of the sequence is downgraded, so are the realisational domains of its component parts. At least one of the figures is, in turn, realised metaphorically as a ranking group or phrase, and elements within figures are realised either by downranked groups or phrases or by words.
These successive steps in downgrading are possible because both projection and expansion are motifs that are manifested throughout the grammatical system: a sequence of projection can thus be realised not only by the manifestation of projection in the clause nexus, but also by its manifestation in the clause or the group/phrase. The same principle applies to expansion.
… the general tendency for ideational metaphor is to ‘downgrade’ the domain of grammatical realisation of a semantic sequence, figure or element — from clause nexus to clause, from clause to group/phrase, and even from group or phrase to word. Such downgrading affects both the unit whose domain of realisation is downgraded, and the units of which it is composed: the downgrading proceeds down the rank scale by a kind of ‘domino effect’.
The general tendency is for interpersonal metaphor to ‘upgrade’ the domain of grammatical realisation; for example, while the congruent realisation of modality is a group serving in the clause, the metaphorical realisation is a clause that projects or embeds the clause to which a modal value is assigned. In this way, interpersonal metaphor tends to expand interpersonal systems by adding explicit variants — that is, variants where the subjective or objective orientation is made explicit.
… grammatical metaphor of the ideational kind is primarily a strategy enabling us to transform our experience of the world: the model of experience construed in the congruent mode is reconstrued in the metaphorical mode, creating a model that is further removed from our everyday experience — but which has made modern science possible.
… when a figure is realised metaphorically by a group or phrase, it is deprived of the interpersonal status of a proposition or proposal, making it inarguable. It is thus presented as something already established; and any modifications, including interpersonal evaluative ones, have to be taken for granted.
When a sequence is realised metaphorically by a clause, it is given the interpersonal status of a proposition or proposal, making it arguable. … a ‘propositionalised’ sequence can be modalised, doubted, argued and negotiated interpersonally in numerous other ways.
… a figure, realised metaphorically by a nominal group rather than congruently as a clause, gains access to the textual systems of the nominal group — most significantly, the system of determination. This means it can be treated textually as a discourse referent. It is marked either as ‘non-specific’ or as ‘specific’, in which case the identity is presented as recoverable to the addressee.
When a sequence is realised metaphorically by a clause, this means not only that it is mapped onto the transitivity patterns of the clause but also that it falls within the domain of Theme + Rheme organisation of the clause and also, by extension, that of the Given + New organisation of the information unit. … There is thus a gain in textual meaning in the shift from the congruent mode of realisation to the metaphoric mode.
… when a sequence is realised by a clause rather than by a clause nexus, it will be structured textually into Theme + Rheme and, since a clause is an information unit in the unmarked case, also into Given + New. This means that the figures that make up the sequence can be given thematic or newsworthy status.
The textual and interpersonal effects of ideational metaphor are due to the fact the realignment of ideational patterns […] also means that there is a realignment of the textual and interpersonal environments in which ideational systems operate.
Within the ideational metafunction, the general effect of this realignment in the semantic system is a shift from the logical to the experiential — an experientialisation of experience. Thus logical sequences of figures are reconstrued as experiential configurations of elements.
… the tactic patterns of clause complexing (with the distinction between paratactic interdependency and hypotactic dependency) are not available to sequences that are realised metaphorically as clauses, and the configurational patterns of participant rôles are lost or obscured when figures are realised as groups or phrases.
… the metaphorical mode thus makes available a great deal of further ideational potential that is not accessible in the congruent mode. At the same time, the metaphorical mode also denies access to significant aspects of potential that is associated with the congruent mode: there is a loss of ideational meaning.
… the ideational metafunction is a resource for construing our experience of the world that lies around us and inside us. In the congruent mode, the grammar construes sequences (of figures), figures and elements as the basic phenomena of experience… . In the metaphorical mode, the model is enriched through combinations of these categories: in addition to the congruent categories, we now also have metaphorical combinations of categories — sequences construed as figures, figures construed as elements, and so on. These combinations open up new meaning potential.
The ‘re-mapping’ is possible because semantic motifs such as cause are manifested repeatedly in the different environments of the grammar so that each environment is a possible domain of realisation for such a motif. These motifs are of the two primary types, expansion and projection…
… grammatical metaphor within the ideational metafunction involves a ‘re-mapping’ between sequences, figures and elements in the semantics and clause nexuses, clauses and groups in the grammar. … In the metaphorical mode, the whole set of mappings seems to be shifted ‘downwards’: a sequence is realised by a clause, a figure is realised by a group, and an element is realised by a word.
Just like interpersonal metaphor, ideational metaphor introduces additional layers of meaning that are construed by the grammar as additional layers of wording.
Unlike interpersonal metaphor, the other type of grammatical metaphor, ideational metaphor, is learned later by children and is not part of the grammar of ordinary, spontaneous conversation that children meet in the home and neighbourhood; rather it is associated with the discourses of education and science, bureaucracy and the law. Children are likely to meet the ideational type of metaphor when they reach the upper levels of primary school; but its full force will only appear when they begin to grapple with the specialised discourses of subject-based secondary education.
The expansion of the interpersonal semantic system through grammatical metaphor provides speakers with additional, powerful resources for enacting social rôles and relations in the complex network of relations that make up the fabric of a community of any kind.
The interpersonal metafunction defines the environment in which children first learn the strategy of grammatical metaphor [a manifestation of a more general principle]. No doubt this is partly because interpersonal metaphors tend to make selections more explicit, as when probability is realised by a ‘mental’ clause projecting the modalised proposition (‘explicit’ orientation), and partly because the interpretation of interpersonal metaphors is often both supported and ‘tested’ immediately in the ongoing dialogic interaction.
Both interpersonal and ideational metaphors can be represented in the same way, by postulating some congruent form and then analysing the two in relation to each other.
In addition to metaphors based on ideational projection, there are other kinds of metaphors of mood as well. One prominent type involves a shift in the realisational domain of commands from ‘imperative’ to ‘indicative’ clauses. The ‘indicative’ clause can be either ‘declarative’ or ‘interrogative’; … The ‘indicative’ realisation of proposals has the effect of blurring the line between proposals directed to the addressee and propositions about how the world ought to be.
The potential for negotiation in dialogue created by metaphors of mood is directly related to the contextual variables of tenor. These are usually discussed in terms of status, formality and politeness. What they have in common is a very general sense of the social distance between the speaker and the addressee. Here interpersonal metaphor is part of a principle of interpersonal iconicity: metaphorical variants create a greater semiotic distance between meaning and wording, and this enacts a greater social distance between speaker and addressee.
… just like modality, speech function can be represented as a substantive proposition in its own right; and this proposition is a figure of sensing or saying that projects the original (i) proposal or (ii) proposition… .
On the one hand, an ‘imperative’ clause imposes an obligation; on the other hand, the imperative tag checks the addressee’s inclination to comply… .
Interpersonal projection always involves the speaker or addressee as ‘projector’… . It is always implicit unless it is made explicit through grammatical metaphor, by ‘co-opting’ ideational resources to do interpersonal service.
The metaphoric strategy is to upgrade the interpersonal assessment from group rank to clause rank — from an adverbial group or prepositional phrase serving within a simple clause to a clause serving within a clause nexus of projection.
Systemically, metaphor leads to an expansion of the meaning potential: by creating new patterns of structural realisation, it opens up new systemic domains of meaning. And it is the pressure to expand the meaning potential that in fact lies behind the development of metaphorical modes of meaning. Thus in the system of modality, the system of orientation is expanded by the addition of a systemic contrast in manifestation between ‘explicit’ and ‘implicit’…
…the semantic domain of modality is extended through grammatical metaphor to include explicit indications of subjective and objective orientation: a modal proposition or proposal is realised, as if it were a projection sequence, by a nexus of two clauses, rather than by a single clause. Here the modal assessment itself is given the status of a proposition in its own right; but because the projecting clause of the nexus is metaphorical in nature, standing for an interpersonal assessment of modality, it is also, at the same time, a modal Adjunct in the clause realising the proposition/proposal. This is the general effect of grammatical metaphor: it construes additional layers of meaning and wording.
The importance of modal features in the grammar of interpersonal exchanges lie in an apparent paradox on which the entire system rests — the fact that we only say we are certain when we are not.
The explicitly subjective and explicitly objective forms of modality are all strictly speaking metaphorical, since all of them represent the modality as being the substantive proposition. Modality represents the speaker’s angle, either on the validity of the assertion or on the rights and wrongs of the proposal; in its congruent form, it is an adjunct to a proposition rather than a proposition in its own right.
This is on the fringe of the modality system. It has the different orientations of subjective (implicit only) realised by can/can’t, objective implicit by be able to, and objective explicit by it is possible (for …) to. In the last of these, the typical meaning is ‘potentiality’… . In the subjective it is closer to inclination; we could recognise a general category of ‘readiness’, having ‘inclination’ and ‘ability’ as subcategories at one end of the scale… . In any case can in this sense is untypical of the modal operators: it is the only case where the oblique form functions as a simple past…
The basic distinction that determines how each type of modality will be realised is the orientation: that is, the distinction between subjective and objective modality, and between the explicit and implicit variants… . The third variable in modality is the value that is attached to the modal judgement: high, median or low. … The median value is clearly set apart from the two ‘outer’ values by the system of polarity: the median is that in which the negative is freely transferable between the proposition and the modality… . With the outer values, on the other hand, if the negative is transferred the value switches (either from high to low, or from low to high)… . This generates a set of 4x4x3x3 = 144 categories of modality. … The actual number of systematic distinctions that are made in this corner of the language runs well into the tens of thousands;
If the clause is a ‘goods–&–services’ clause (a proposal, which has no real congruent form in the grammar, but by default we can characterise it as imperative), it means either (i) ‘is wanted to’, related to a command, or (ii) ‘wants to’, related to an offer; in other words, some degree of obligation [‘deontic’ modality] or inclination. … Note that modulation refers to the semantic category of proposals; but all modalities are realised as indicative (that is, as if they were propositions).
If the clause is an ‘information’ clause (a proposition, congruently realised as indicative), this means either (i) ‘either yes or no’, that is, ‘maybe’; or (ii) ‘both yes and no’, that is, ‘sometimes’; in other words, some degree of probability [‘epistemic’ modality] or usuality.
Modality refers to the area of meaning that lies between yes and no — the intermediate ground between positive and negative polarity.
What happens is that, in order to state explicitly that the probability is subjective, or alternatively, at the other end, to claim explicitly that the probability is objective, the speaker construes the proposition as a projection and encodes the subjectivity (I think), or the objectivity (it is likely), in a projecting clause. (There are other forms intermediate between the explicit and implicit: subjective in my opinion, objective in all probability, where the modality is expressed as a prepositional phrase, which is a kind of halfway house between clausal and non-clausal status.)
What’s happened here is that there has been a realignment in the realisational relationship between semantics and grammar. … a modalised proposition is realised as if it was a sequence, by a clause nexus of projection. The effect is that the modality and the modalised proposition are separated, each being realised by a clause in its own right…
…the probability is realised by a mental clause as if it were a figure of sensing. Being metaphorical, the clause serves not only as the projecting part of a clause nexus of projection, but also as a mood Adjunct, just as probably does. The reason for regarding this as a metaphorical variant is that the proposition is not, in fact, ‘I think”; the proposition is ‘it is so’. This is shown clearly by the tag… . It is the fact that a mental clause is a modal clause and serves as mood Adjunct that explains the tag… the Mood tag picks up the Mood element of the modalised proposition… .
The range of assessments assigned to propositions within the domain of the clause and the range of assessments assigned to things within the domain of the nominal group are not, of course, the same. They overlap; but there are kinds of assessment specific to the realm of propositions just as there are other kinds specific to the realm of things. The common foundation is that they are both projections of the speaker’s assessment. This explains why clausal assessment can in fact be transformed into nominal assessment…
The difference between ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ orientation in the ideational manifestation follows from the general difference between a projecting ‘mental’ or ‘verbal’ clause with a Senser or Sayer and a ‘relational’ clause without such a ‘projector’. When the assessment is explicitly ‘subjective’, the Senser or Sayer has to be the speaker I. If it is a person other than the speaker, the clause will still be a projecting one; but it will not be agnate with interpersonal assessment.
The ideational manifestations make explicit the orientation of the assessment: the logical manifestation is explicitly subjective whereas the experiential manifestation is explicitly objective. In contrast, the interpersonal manifestation leaves the orientation implicit…
… projection includes both hypotactic projection of ideas or reports and pre-projected facts serving in a ‘mental’ or ‘relational’ clause. A hypotactic projection is always ‘subjective’; the speaker is represented explicitly the Senser or Sayer. A pre-projected fact in a ‘mental’ clause is like hypotactic projection in representing the assessment as ‘subjective’ — the speaker is explicitly represented as the Senser. In contrast, a pre-projected fact in a ‘relational’ clause represents the assessment as ‘objective’.
Projection can also be manifested interpersonally in the form of a modal Adjunct. … Unlike the logical and experiential manifestations, the interpersonal manifestation does not represent the Sayer or Senser; rather it enacts the speaker’s opinion — an enactment of his or her degree of commitment to the proposition: the proposition is assessed as being projected by someone other than the speaker. This type of assessment is known as ‘evidentiality’: the modal Adjunct is used to indicate the evidential status of the proposition. … evidentiality is related to ‘verbal’ clauses and ‘mental’ clauses of perception.
When the need arises in discourse to attribute information to some source, this can be done logically by means of a nexus of projection; but it can also be done experientially by means of a circumstance of Angle. … the projecting feature has thus been incorporated into the clause as one element of a transitivity configuration.
Like expansion, projection is manifested both logically and experientially within the ideational metafunction; but outside the ideational domain, it is manifested interpersonally rather than textually, thus contrasting with the textual manifestation of expansion. That is, while there are conjunctions marking rhetorical relations of elaboration, extension and enhancement, there are no conjunctions marking relations of quoting or reporting; and while there are interpersonal resources for realising projection, there are no interpersonal Adjuncts or other interpersonal manifestations of expansion.
When the domain of manifestation is a cohesive sequence of clauses, or a paratactic nexus of (free) clauses, the two figures related by expansion are enacted interpersonally as propositions or proposals. This means that each can be negotiated in its own right — accepted or denied, complied with or refused, and so on… . The same is true of the dominant (a) clause of a hypotactic nexus, since if it is a free clause, it realises a negotiable proposition or proposal.
… while the dependent (b) clause supports a proposition or proposal, it does not constitute one itself; and if it is non-finite, it is even further removed from the realm of negotiation.
… when the causal [eg] relation is construed within the Process, it has become propositionalised or proposalised… . Here it is no longer the cause or the effect that is held up for negotiation but rather the causal relation. When they are construed as nominal groups, the cause and the effect are not negotiable at all.
While a conjunction group with a structural conjunction such as so or because as Head is obligatorily thematic, there is a choice for conjunction groups with a cohesive conjunction such as consequently as Head.
In a hypotactic nexus, there is a further textual contrast that is not open to cohesive sequences and paratactic nexuses: the dependent b clause […] may be either thematic or rhematic within the clause nexus.
When the domain of manifestation of expansion is a simple clause, the potential textual status of the manifestation […] depends on how it is manifested — (1) as minor Process within a prepositional phrase serving as a circumstance […], (2) as Process, or (3) as Thing within a nominal group serving as a participant in a circumstantial relational clause.
When it is manifested within a circumstance of Cause [eg], the cause may be given the status of either Theme or Rheme…
When the causal [eg] relation is manifested as Process (either in a hypotactic verbal group complex in a clause of any process type, or as the nuclear process in a circumstantial relational clause), its textual status will most likely be rhematic. More specifically, it is likely to be (part of) the transition between Theme and New.
When the cause [eg] is manifested as Thing in a nominal group serving as a participant, it will have the thematic status assigned to that nominal group as a whole — either thematic or rhematic. But in addition, it will be within the domain of operation of another textual system — the system of reference. This means that it is given textual status as a discourse referent — either recoverable (identifiable) or non-recoverable (non-identifiable), and that it can be tracked in the development of the discourse.
… this move involves a shift in metafunction … [and] the meaning of expansion changes with the change of metafunctional manifestation. For example, the manifestation of cause changes from rhetorical relation (textual: consequently) via logico-semantic relation (logical: so, because) to process or minor process or even participant (experiential: cause, through; cause). This means that the category meaning of ‘cause’ changes …
At one pole, the experience of the flow of events is construed as two distinct quanta of change… . At the other pole, the experience of the flow of events is construed as a component part of quantum of change… . Intermediate between these two poles are various manifestations that represent a move from two distinct quanta of change via two interdependent ones to a single one. The scale is thus one of degree of integration of two quanta of change. This scale of integration is based on the rank scale.
From an ideational point of view, the difference in meaning relates most directly to the question of what is construed as a quantum of change in the flow of events.
… agnation always embodies both similarity and difference. The similarity is the basis for interpreting the patterns as alike, bringing them together in a paradigm, while the difference is the basis for treating them as variant types rather than as tokens of the same type.
… the environments of manifestation can be differentiated in terms of
(i) metafunction — textual (conjunction), logical (interdependency; modification) and experiential (circumstantiation; process type: relational), and
(ii) rank — clause and group/phrase [and below]. …
Collectively they thus construe expansion as a semantic system. This means that for any given type of expansion we want to express, we have at our disposal a range of resources.
On the one hand, expansion is manifested in the augmentation of the clause by circumstances: these circumstantial augmentations cover all three types of expansion, with enhancement being the most highly developed one. On the other hand, expansion is manifested in the relation of a ‘relational’ clause: ‘intensive’ clauses embody elaboration, ‘possessive’ clauses extension, and ‘circumstantial’ clauses enhancement. In the domain of the nominal group, there are also various manifestations of the three types of expansion. Thus the Qualifier may elaborate, extend or enhance the Thing…
… the three subtypes of expansion (elaboration, extension and enhancement) combine with tactic relations to link one clause to another in the formation of clause complexes … [and] … group and phrase complexes. In clause complexes and in group and phrase complexes, expansion is manifested within the logical mode of the ideational metafunction.
The grammatical realisation of figuration is ‘compact’, being confined to the transitivity system of the clause. In contrast, the grammatical realisation of expansion is ‘dispersed’, ranging over more than one grammatical unit. (… compactly realised systems such as configuration [sic] may become dispersed in their realisation through the process of grammatical metaphor.)
For example, the expanding relation of ‘addition’ may be realised
(1) cohesively by a conjunction such as also or
(2) structurally by
(a) an additive paratactic clause complex marked by the structural conjunction and,
(b) a circumstance of accompaniment marked by the preposition with or
(c) an additive paratactic group complex marked by and … .
These realisational variants are distinct in the grammar, since they constitute different grammatical environments; but they are semantically agnate in that they all have the feature of ‘addition’. … One semantic system, the system of expansion, has thus evolved to bring together patterns of wording within grammatically distinct units, thereby extending its overall meaning potential.
… there are semantic domains that are construed in more than one place in the grammar, by more than one system local to one particular grammatical unit. These semantic domains range over two or more grammatical domains, spanning two or more grammatical units. There are two fundamental semantic domains of this kind — expansion and projection.
… there are realignments in the realisational relationship between semantic units and grammatical ones. … a sequence is realised by a clause complex; the combination of a figure, a proposition (proposal), and a message is realised by a clause; … a participant is realised by a nominal group, a process by a verbal group and a circumstance by and adverbial group or a prepositional phrase. But once these couplings between the two strata of the content plane have been established, “cross–couplings” become theoretically possible. For example, while sequences are realised by clause complexes and figures by clauses, it is theoretically possible that, under certain conditions, sequences would be realised by clauses — that is, as if they were figures. This is the possibility of metaphorical realisation … . But the two forms of realisation are not, of course, synonymous, so the effect is one of expanding the meaning potential of the language.
… there are semantic domains that range over more than a single grammatical unit. Thus the semantic domain of modality is construed in more than one place in the grammar; for example, it is construed by clauses such as I suppose and it is possible, by verbal groups with finite modal operators such as may and by adverbial groups and modal adverbs such as perhaps. These modal patterns within different grammatical units are not interchangeable/synonyms; they have distinct values within the overall semantic system of modality. … This means that the semantic system of modality is more extensive than the modal features of any one given grammatical unit would suggest; it is realised not by a single grammatical unit but by a range of units: semantic unit a ø grammatical units m, n and o.
These intermediate patterns are the ones that are very likely to vary from one register to another: there will be variation both in the nature of the patterns and in the degree to which there is a compositional scale between the text and the message/proposition (proposal)/figure.
Figures combine to form sequences; and these in turn may combine to form episodic patterns, as in narratives and other chronologically organised texts or chronological passages within other kinds of text.
Propositions/proposals combine to form patterns of exchange involving two or more interactants … .
Messages combine to form periodic movements of information… . Such phases of messages help construct the flow of information as the text unfolds and we can refer to them simply as information flow patterns.
Messages, propositions or proposals, and figures can combine with units of the same metafunctional type to form more extensive semantic patterns in the creation of text. These patterns are distinct for each metafunction.
This is the region where semantic units are realised by lexicogrammatical ones. … The clause is a multifunctional construct in the grammar, one that realises three different semantic units, one for each metafunction: textual — message, interpersonal — proposition or proposal, and experiential — figure. … The three semantic units deriving from the three metafunctions are all mapped onto the clause, which thus unifies the three metafunctional strands of meaning.
In the grammar, there is a single, generalised compositional scale — the grammatical rank scale … . But in the semantics, it is far from clear whether there is a single compositional scale that is generalised across all registerial varieties of a language.
The upper bound of the semantic stratum is the text: this is the most extensive unit of meaning. The upper bound of the lexicogrammatical system is the clause: this is the most extensive unit of wording. … By saying that they are the upper bounds, we are not ruling out complexes — text complexes and clause complexes … . But complexes are not higher–ranking units but rather expansions of units of a given rank.
A text does not ‘consist of’ clauses (clause complexes) — there is no part–whole or ‘constituency’ relationship between a text and a clause (complex) and there is no single rank scale with text and clause as ranks. Rather, a text is realised by clauses (clause complexes), the two being located on different strata — semantics (the stratum of meaning) and lexicogrammar (the stratum of wording), respectively.
A text is thus a unit of meaning — more accurately, a unit in the flow of meaning that is always taking place at the instance pole of the cline of instantiation.
The patterns that are developed in this way are, however, patterns of meaning, not patterns of wording; they are patterns at the level of semantics rather than the level of lexicogrammar. This is so because text is, as we have emphasised, a semantic phenomenon in the first instance; it is meaning unfolding in some particular context of situation. For example, the grammatical system of conjunction gives speakers and writers the resources to mark transitions in the development of a text — that is, to mark rhetorical relations used to expand the text step by step; and the rhetorical relations that are marked in this way are semantic relations organising the text as a flow of meaning.
Cohesion includes
- the system of conjunction for marking textual transitions in the unfolding text and
- the systems of reference, ellipsis and substitution, and lexical cohesion for manipulating textual statuses of elements in the flow of information.
The logogenetic patterns that emerge as a text unfolds form a transient system that is specific to that text; but from repeated patterns over many such transient systems may in turn emerge a generalised system characteristic of a certain type of text or register.
… in the course of unfolding of text, lexicogrammatical selections create logogenetic patterns at all ranks. This patterning in the text that has nothing to do with composition or size: instead of composition (the relationship between a whole and its parts), the patterning is based on instantiation (the relationship between an instance and a generalised instance type). The patterning represents a slight move up this cline from a single instance to a pattern of instances, as in a news report where one projecting verbal clause after another is selected until this emerges as a favourite clause type.
… although the grammar does not extend its compositional organisation beyond the rank of clause, the resources of lexicogrammar make two fundamental contributions beyond this upper limit of grammatical units:
(i) the creation of logogenetic patterns and
(ii) the marking of cohesion.
This schematic organisation is contextual: it is projected onto the text from the context … in which it operates. At the same time, the text is organised semantically as a complex of rhetorical relations, and it is these relations that are realised by the combination of conjunction and clause complexing.
These two resources complement one another in the grammatical realisation of transitions in text. The general principle of complementarity is this: clause complexing does relatively more work locally, while conjunction does relatively more work non-locally and even globally. Clause complexing ‘choreographs’ the local development of text by means of univariate structure, indicating both taxis and type of logico-semantic relation. Conjunction can work together with clause complexing, reinforcing local relations, but it tends to take over from clause complexing as the relations become less local and more global. Looked at from the point of view of lexicogrammar, this means that local organisation tends to be ‘tighter’, whereas the more global organisation tends to be ‘looser’. At the same time, looked at from the point of view of context, the more global organisation is subject to more contextual guidance in the form of generic structure.