Elemental Metaphor Syndrome: Sequence ==> Figure

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 252-4):

(II) Sequence ==> Figure

Here the syndrome occurs in a more general environment, that of construing a sequence on the model of a figure — grammatically, the sequence is construed not as a clause complex but as a clause.

They shredded the documents before they departed for the airport ==> (They shredded the documents) before their departure for the airport

They shredded the documents before they departed for the airport ==> Their shredding of the documents preceded their departure for the airport

These examples of a 'sequence ==> figure' metaphor both involved a sequence of the expansion type. However, this type of metaphoric shift also occurs with projection sequences; for example:

The colonel declared his innocence.

— where the congruent form would be a projection, either hypotactic or paratactic:

The colonel declared that he was innocent.

The colonel declared, "I am innocent".

Elemental Metaphor Syndrome: Figure ==> Element

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 250-2):

(I) Figure ==> Element

Here a figure is being construed metaphorically on the model of a participant: grammatically, the figure is construed not as a clause but as a nominal group. There is a shift in rank from figure to element, and concomitantly a shift in status among the elements making up the construction.

he was arrested by the police ==> his arrest by the police

(...) bond rapidly ==> rapid bonding occurs

the group decided yesterday ==> yesterday's decision by the group

the accused appeared to be innocent ==> the apparent innocence of the accused

he argues cogently ==> the cogency of his argument

Types Of Elemental Metaphor Syndromes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 250):

These syndromes of elemental metaphors fall into three general types, not very sharply distinct but worth using as a conceptual framework. The distinction relates to the rank where the metaphoric reconstrual takes place: 

(I) from figure to element, 

(II) from sequence to figure, 

(III) from figure with process to figure with process as thing.

Syntagmatic And Paradigmatic Dimensions Of Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 249):

… we identified individual types of grammatical metaphor, such as "process => thing". For analytic purposes we treated these as isolates having just the two values "congruent/ metaphorical". We now need to consider two respects in which this is an idealised, oversimplified account of what actually happens. We need to add a dimension of complexity on both syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes.

Syntagmatically, instances of grammatical metaphor typically occur not in isolation but in organic clusters or "syndromes". Paradigmatically, there will typically be other wordings intermediate between an instance of grammatical metaphor and its "most congruent" agnate variant.

Types Of Elemental Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 246-8):

Table 6(3) gives a more detailed description of the types shown in Table 6(2) above, together with an example of each. Several of the numbered types identified in the previous table have been differentiated further into subtypes, represented by Roman numerals. The first two columns present the metaphoric shift as a grammatical phenomenon: (1) as a shift of (word) class and (2) as a shift of function (in clause, phrase or group, as appropriate). The third column gives examples of each type. The last two columns show the metaphor as a semantic relationship between types of element: (4) the domain of the congruent variant, then finally (5) that of the metaphorical variant. It should be remembered that almost every one of the metaphoric categories is immensely variable. Wherever possible, examples have been drawn from texts cited in the discussion in the present chapter; but they are just examples, and should not be read as glosses describing the category as a whole.

Domains Of Elemental Metaphors

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 244-5):

The elemental metaphors are mappings from a congruent categorial domain to a metaphorical one. The primary types are set out and exemplified in Table 6(2) below. For example, the categorial domain of 'process' can be reconstrued metaphorically in terms of the domains of (i) thing and (ii) quality. (We have added "Ø" under "congruent domains": this signals that a metaphorical process may be added, to which there is no corresponding congruent form, as part of a syndrome in which the original congruent process has been metaphorised as a thing.) 

Table 6(2) shows that there are clear patterns in the metaphoric shift. For example, the 'relator' can be reconstrued metaphorically in terms of any of the other types of element; but it cannot itself be a target domain in metaphors. Such particular patterns are part of more general metaphoric motifs.

Syndromes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 244):

… instances of grammatical metaphor do not typically occur in isolation. When we find grammatical metaphors in discourse, they nearly always cluster into what we are calling syndromes; these are typical clusterings of metaphorical effects among which there is some kind of interdependence (for example, in the government decided => the government's decision, there is an obvious relationship between decide => decision, process as thing, and the government => the government's, participant as possessor of the thing). Nevertheless there are two metaphorical effects here, not just one; and they have been treated separately …

Junctional (Metaphoric) Elements vs Ordinary Elements

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 244):

It seems to us necessary to identify the types of grammatical metaphor and characterise them explicitly in relation to the semantics as a whole. We therefore introduce a general distinction between metaphoric (elements or features) and others. Metaphoric elements, as we said above, are junctional in that they embody a junction of two semantic categories. In the previous chapters, 3-5, we dealt just with elements that could be assigned to a single category: process, thing, quality &c. We shall refer to these as 'ordinary' elements, and contrast them with 'junctional' elements which are those that embody grammatical metaphor. Junctional elements will always have two categories in their description, e.g. 'process thing', 'circumstantial quality', 'relator process'.

The Origin Of Junctional Elements

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 243):

From Transcategorisation To Junctional Elements

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 242-3):

If we now relate [transcategorisations] to the types of element, we find that in some instances the semantic nature of the transcategorisation is clear. For example, 

flake - thing: 'turn into flakes' - process; 

shake – process: shaky 'tending to shake' – quality, 

shaker 'that which shakes (= vessel in which dice is shaken)' - thing; 

awake - quality, awaken 'cause to become awake' - process; 

analyse - process, analyst 'one who analyses' - thing. 

We can gloss these in everyday terms, without recourse to technicality. In other instances, however, the nature of the change is less clear. What for example would be the semantic interpretation of shakiness, awakening, analysis, development? Here we find ourselves using precisely the terms of our own metalanguage in the definition: 'quality of being shaky', 'process of being awake, or causing to become awake', 'process of analysing, developing'.

When this happens, it is a signal that a phenomenon of this other kind — quality, or process — is being treated as if it was a thing. The grammar has constructed an imaginary or fictitious object, called shakiness, by transcategorising the quality shaky; similarly by transcategorising the process develop it has created a pseudo-thing called development. 

What is the status of such fictitious objects or pseudo-things? Unlike the other elements, which lose their original status in being transcategorised (for example, shaker is no longer a process, even though it derives from shake), these elements do not: shakiness is still a quality, development is still a process — only they have been construed into things. They are thus a fusion, or 'junction', of two semantic elemental categories: shakiness is a 'quality thing', development is a 'process thing'. All such junctional elements involve grammatical metaphor.

Transcategorisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 242):

The phenomenon of transcategorising elements would seem to be a feature of the grammar of every language. This implies two things: 

(i) that each etymon belongs inherently to a major class; 

(ii) that at least some etymons can be transferred to another class — by some grammatical means, syntactic and/or morphological.

Thus in Indo-European languages there is typically a battery of derivational morphemes whereby a root can be transcategorised; for example in English,

All these are means of shifting a lexeme from one class to another.

Ideational Metaphor Expands Interpersonal Potential

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 241-2):

In a similar way, phenomena in the ideation base also map onto constructs of interpersonal meaning. For example, a congruent figure maps onto a move in a dialogic exchange; it is enacted interpersonally as a proposition or a proposal. It follows that when phenomena are reconstrued metaphorically within the ideation base, there are also interpersonal consequences. For instance, the figure 'atomic nucleus + absorb + energy' can be enacted interpersonally as a proposition that is open to negotiation: The atomic nucleus absorbs energy — Does it? — Yes, it does — No, it can't. 

However, when this figure is reconstrued as the participant 'absorption (+ of energy) (+ by atomic nucleus)', it no longer has the potential for being enacted interpersonally as proposition; rather, it would be taken for granted in discourse. You can't argue with the absorption of energy by the nucleus since it is not enacted as an arguable proposition. Such interpersonal differences can have a powerful rhetorical effect in persuasive discourse. (There is an analogous effect with respect to proposals in regulatory discourse.)

Ideational Metaphor Expands Textual Potential

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 241):

Ideationally, grammatical metaphor is a resource for reconstruing experience so that, alongside congruent configurations, we also have alternative metaphorical ones. At the same time, these different configurations map onto different textual patterns. For example, a figure maps onto a message; but a participant maps onto part of a message, so that a figure construed as if it was a participant can be given a textual status within that message.

Ideational Metaphor Expands Ideational Potential

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 241):

The metaphors we are considering here are in fact all shifts within the ideational realm — from sequence to figure, from figure to participant, and so on — and their primary effect is ideational. They constitute a resource for reconstruing experience along certain lines, redeploying the same categories that have evolved in the congruent mode of construing experience. 

Thus when experience of a quantum of change has been construed as a figure consisting of 'atomic nucleus + absorb + energy', it can be reconstrued as if it was a participant: 'absorption (+ of energy) (+ by atomic nucleus)'. Here the process element of the figure is reconstrued as a thing; and the participants involved in that process are reconstrued as qualities of that thing. Since they are qualities, they are no longer "obligatory"; like any other thing, 'absorption' need not be further specified by reference to qualities. 

The metaphoric shift does not mean that the natural relationship between meaning and wording is destroyed; rather, this relationship is extended further when new domains of realisation are opened up to semantic categories through metaphor. The shift does however create a greater distance from the everyday experience; the metaphorical mode of construal makes it possible to recast that everyday experience, retaining only certain features from the congruent wording but adding others that it did not include.

The Motivation For Stratifying The Content Plane: Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 237, 238):

Why then in our present interpretation have we to recognise two parts, one a lexicogrammar and one a semantics? Because the system continued to evolve beyond that point, enriching itself (i.e. engendering a richer model of experience) by forcing apart the two 'facets' of the sign so that each could take on a new partner — sequences could be realised by other things than clause complexes, processes could be realised by other things than verbs, and so on. …

It is this step that gives rise to grammatical metaphor. When a sequence is realised as a clause complex, or a process as a verb, this is congruent: it is the clause complex, and the verb, in the function in which it evolved. When a sequence is realised as something other than a clause complex, or a process as something other than a verb, this is metaphorical. Some other grammatical unit is supplanting them in these functions.

Semantics And Lexicogrammar

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 237):

What was described above was the congruent pattern: 'congruent' in the sense that is the way language evolved. Of course, what we are recognising here as two distinct constructions, the semantic and the grammatical, never had or could have had any existence the one prior to the other; they are our analytic representation of the overall semioticising of experience — how experience is construed into meaning. 

If the congruent pattern had been the only form of construal, we would probably not have needed to think of semantics and grammar as two separate strata: they would be merely two facets of the content plane, interpreted on the one hand as function and on the other as form.

Congruent Patterns Of Realisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 236-7):

In the congruent form the pattern of realisation is as follows:

Looking at these from the standpoint of the evolution of language, when we say they are the congruent forms we are claiming not merely that they evolved first but that this is why they evolved. One of the contexts in which grammar came into being — one of its metafunctions — was that of construing human experience; and, as we have seen, the model that emerged was one which construed the continuum of goings-on into taxonomies: taxonomies of parts (meronymic) and taxonomies of kinds (hyponymic). The central construct was that of the 'figure'; figures could be further constructed into 'sequences' and also deconstructed into 'elements'. 

How did the grammar construe this hierarchy of phenomena? — as clauses, clause complexes, and elements in the structure of the clause:

The elements making up a figure were of three kinds: a process, participants in that process, and circumstantial features. How did the grammar construe this classification? — as verbs, nouns, and other things:

The circumstance could be either some quality of the process or some participant that was indirectly involved: 

The Directionality Of The Congruent–Metaphorical Continuum

  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 235-6):

On all these grounds we have to acknowledge that the metaphorical relationship is not a symmetrical one: there is a definite directionality to it, such that one end of the continuum is metaphorical and the other is what we shall call congruent. Thus given the pair 

 

we shall locate the two with respect to each other on a metaphor scale as above. The expression engine failure evolved after the expression the engine failed in the evolution of industrial discourse; to explain in times of engine failure to a child you gloss it as whenever an engine failed (as one of the authors had to do to his 7-year-old son); the text would be likely to progress from loads were reduced, engines failed to reduced loading, engine failure rather than the other way round. 

And when we derive one from the other, we find ambiguity in one direction only: reduced loading might be agnate to loads were reduced, had been reduced or were lighter than usual; engine failure might be agnate to an engine failed, the engine failed or engines failed, and to ... failed or had failed in each case.

The Derivational Priority Of Congruent Wording

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 235):

We have also seen that there is a derivational priority because of the loss of information: given she announced that she was accepting we can derive the announcement of her acceptance, but given the announcement of her acceptance we do not know who made the announcement, she or someone else ('they'); whether she had accepted, was accepting or would accept; or whether it was a case not of her accepting but of her being accepted — twelve possible rewordings in all.

The Semogenetic Priority Of Congruent Wording

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 235):

If we view a set of metaphorically agnate wordings synoptically, any member of such a set appears metaphorical by reference to all the others. Given the announcement [was made] of his probable resignation and he announced that he would probably resign there is no reason to say that either is the less metaphorical. But if we view them dynamically, taking account of their relation in time, then in all three histories the same one precedes: he announced that he would probably resign comes before the announcement of his probable resignation. It evolved earlier in the language (phylogenesis); it is learnt earlier by children (ontogenesis); and it typically comes earlier in the text (logogenesis).

Lexical And Grammatical Metaphor Go Together

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 234):

Thus in many instances, not unexpectedly, lexical and grammatical metaphor go together. What we are most likely to be told, after the performance, is that the audience gave thunderous applause. In she felt a flood of relief there is not only the lexical metaphor of flood but also the grammatical metaphor of a flood of relief where intensity is represented as a Thing and the emotion as its Qualifier, contrasting with very relieved, with intensity brought in as Submodifier very to the Epithet relieved. 

Similarly, in the example of grammatical metaphor increased responsiveness may be reflected in feeding behaviour there was also the lexical metaphor reflected. But they are not automatically associated, and in most instances of grammatical metaphor, if we reword in a less metaphorical direction, we can retain the same lexical items, merely changing their word class (often with morphological variation, e.g. we act effectively / the effectiveness of our actions).

Lexical Metaphors Have Grammatical Implications

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 234):

As Whorf s examples illustrate, lexical metaphors have grammatical implications: they occur at a lexical degree of delicacy in the overall system, but precisely because grammar and lexis form a continuum related by delicacy, lexical domains are in fact more delicate elaborations of grammatical ones. 

So for example, if understanding is construed metaphorically as grasping, it follows that a high degree of understanding can be also construed according to the same material model: understand very well ==> grasp firmly, as in she grasped the principles firmly. 

Similarly, if intensity is construed metaphorically in terms of location or movement in abstract space, this lexical reconstrual also has grammatical consequences, e.g. in terms of circumstantial elements within metaphorical figures: prices fell sharply, prices rose to a new high, costs hit the ceiling, and so on.

Whorf On Lexical Metaphor In Standard Average European

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 233-4):

More than half a century ago, Whorf (1956. 145-6) provided a revealing account of the metaphorical construction of the domains of duration, intensity, and tendency in English and other standard languages of Europe:

To fit discourse to manifold actual situations, all languages need to express durations, intensities, and tendencies. It is characteristic of Standard Average European and perhaps many other language types to express them metaphorically. The metaphors are those of spatial extension, i.e. of size, number (plurality), position, shape, and motion. We express duration by 'long, short, great, much, quick, slow,' etc.; intensity by 'large, great, much, heavy, light, high, low, sharp, faint' etc.; tendency by 'more, increase, grow, turn, get, approach, go, come, rise, fall, stop, smooth, even, rapid, slow'; and so on through an almost inexhaustible list of metaphors that we hardly recognise as such, since they are virtually the only linguistic media available. The nonmetaphorical terms in this field, like 'early, late, soon, lasting, intense, very, tending', are a mere handful quite inadequate to the needs.

It is quite clear how this condition "fits in". It is part of our whole scheme of OBJECTIFYING — imaginatively spatialising qualities and potentials that are quite nonspatial (so far as any spatially perceptive senses can tell us). Noun-meaning (with us) proceeds from physical bodies to referents of far other sorts. Since physical bodies and their outlines in PERCEIVED SPACE are denoted by size and shape terms and reckoned by cardinal numbers and plurals, these patterns of denotation and reckoning extend to the symbols of nonspatial meanings, and so suggest an IMAGINARY SPACE. Physical shapes 'move, stop, rise, sink, approach,' etc. in perceived space; why not these other referents in their imaginary space? This has gone so far that we can hardly refer to the simplest nonspatial situation without constant resort to physical metaphors. I "grasp" the "thread" of another's arguments, but if its "level" is "over my head" my attention may "wander" and "lose touch" with the "drift" of it, so that when he "comes" to his "point" we differ "widely," our "views" being indeed so "far apart" that the "things" he says "appear" "much" too arbitrary, or even "a lot" of nonsense!

The Domains Of Lexical Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 233n):

Because of the vastness of lexis, we do not yet have a general description of lexical metaphorical syndromes or of the location of metaphorical domains within the overall ideation base. But it is possible to discern that a central resource for metaphor is human bodily experience; and that the human body itself, concrete phenomena located in space-time, and features of daily social life are the most favoured metaphorical motifs. 

Renton (1990: 513-514) lists 37 such motifs, which account for 87 %of the 4215 metaphorical items in his dictionary of metaphor. The most common are human body (23%), animals (9%), sport (4%), food & drink (4%), war A military (4%), buildings (4%), geography (4%), clothes (3%), nautical (3%), religion & biblical (3%), transport (2%), plants (2%), meteorology (2%), science & medicine (2%), colours (2%), commerce (2%), manufacture (1%), and the remaining types 1% or less. 

The descriptive challenge is to systematise the domains of lexical metaphor, as Lakoff & Johnson (1980) and researchers building on their framework have started to do.

Lexical Metaphor: Syntagmatic And Paradigmatic Characteristics

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 233):

There are two other characteristics of lexical metaphors which are also central to metaphor in its grammatical sense. The first is syntagmatic: lexical metaphors tend to occur in regular clusters, which we shall refer to here as "syndromes"; for example, the metaphor congregation => flock forms a syndrome together with religious official => shepherd, group of believers => fold and so on. 

The second is paradigmatic: lexical metaphors typically involve a shift towards the concrete, a move in the direction of "objectifying" ('making like an object', not 'making objective'), as the same examples show.

Lexical And Grammatical Metaphor Differ in Delicacy

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 233):

Lexical and grammatical metaphor are not two different phenomena; they are both aspects of the same general metaphorical strategy by which we expand our semantic resources for construing experience. The main distinction between them is one of delicacy. Grammatical metaphor involves the reconstrual of one domain in terms of another domain, where both are of a very general kind; for example:

Lexical metaphor also involves the reconstrual of one domain in terms of another domain; but these domains are more delicate in the overall semantic system. For example:

 

Lexical And Grammatical Metaphor Viewed 'From Above'

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 232):

The traditional approach to metaphor is to look at it 'from below' and ask what does a certain expression mean. For example the lexical metaphor flood means either, literally, an inundation of water or, metaphorically, an intense emotion as in she felt a flood of relief. But we could look 'from above' and ask how is intense emotion expressed. Then we would say it is expressed either, literally, as she felt very relieved or, metaphorically, as she felt a flood of relief. Once we look from above in this way, we can see that the phenomenon under discussion is the same as metaphor in its traditional sense except that what is varied is not the lexis but the grammar. Thus:

Here in (a) the lexico-semantic domain of 'volume' has been mapped onto the lexico-semantic domain of 'meteorological commotion'; while in (b) the grammatico-semantic domain of 'figures' has been mapped onto the grammatico-semantic domain of 'participants'. The metaphoric principle is the same in both cases; they differ only in generality.

Congruent And Metaphorical Variants

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 227):

We have seen that sequences, figures, and elements are congruently realised in the grammar as follows:

But these resources may be expanded by taking up further options in realisation; for example, sequences may alternatively be realised by clauses and even groups. This is what we refer to as grammatical metaphor. Grammatical metaphor expands the semantic potential of the system.

The Motivation For Metaphor

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 225-6):

The ideation base as we have presented it so far, with its framework of sequences, figures and elements, serves well enough for construing the experience of daily life, and for organising and exchanging commonsense knowledge. But it proves inadequate to meet the semiotic demands of advanced technology and theoretical science. In the construction of scientific knowledge, the system needs to invoke the power of metaphor on a more global scale.

Expansion Types And Figures Of Speech

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 225):

Specifically each type of expansion contributes one figurative mode, as in the following examples: 

In these examples the figures of speech are largely lexical; but the principle they illustrate — that because of the "play" that occurs between different strata the system has the potential for construing figurative meanings — extends throughout the grammar, as we shall see in the next chapter. What this means is, that whatever is construed can also be reconstrued, giving yet another dimension to the topology of semantic space.

Expansion And Projection As Resources For Figures Of Speech

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 225, 226):

Thus our concept of "construing experience through meaning" refers to the construal in human consciousness of an ideational system in which such motifs play a critical part. Expansion and projection are, as we put it earlier, fractal principles; they generate organisation within many environments in the ideation base, at different strata and at different ranks within one stratum. These environments are thus related to one another through the local manifestations of these different motifs; and this opens up the system's potential for alternative construals of experience: for example, the types of expansion create new meaning potential through "figures of speech" (see Figure 5-15).