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.

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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.

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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.