The Registerial Origins And Functions Of Nominalising Metaphor

Halliday (1994: 353):

Nominalisation

Halliday (1994: 352-3):

Embedded Projections

Halliday (1994: 271):

Fact Nouns Of Modulation

Halliday (1994: 268-9):

The Typical Environment For A Fact

Halliday (1994: 266):

Grammatical Environments Of Metaphenomena (Projections)

Halliday (1994: 249-50):

Process Nominal Groups

Halliday (1994: 249):

Types Of Embedding

Halliday (1994: 242):

Two Distinct Semantic Features Realised By Thematic Equatives

 Halliday (1994: 42):

The Function Of A Thematic Equative

Halliday (1994: 42):

Marked Thematic Equative: Nominalisation As Rheme

Halliday (1994: 41):

Unmarked Thematic Equative: Nominalisation As Theme

Halliday (1994: 41):

The Ideological Constraints Set Up By Scientific Discourse

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 546-7):

In the world of classical physics, the flux of experience was held under control: reality had to be prevented from wriggling, while it could be observed and experimented with. The control over experience is partly a physical matter; but it is also in part semiotic, and the semiotic control of experience is achieved by the nominalising power of the grammar. Since it is the grammar that has construed it in the first place, the grammar is able to transform it by reconstruing it in other terms. Grammatical metaphor played an important role in shaping our humanist world.

But it shaped it in a way which soon came to be felt as decidedly inhuman. Already at the end of the eighteenth century, within a hundred years of Newton's "Opticks", people were reacting against the rigidity of the world of physics; what they could not accept were the ideological constraints set up by scientific discourse, by a grammar which construed all experience in terms of things. In our own twentieth century the scientists themselves have become weary of it, finding that it prevents them from engaging with the indeterminacy and the flow that they now regard as fundamental — let alone with the concept of the universe as conscious and communicating, as something itself to be interpreted as a semiotic system-&>process. Once we conceive of reality in semiotic terms, it can no longer surprise us that language has the power to construe it, maintain it, and transform it into something else.

The Metaphorical Use Of Verbs To Express Logical-Semantic Relations Between Nominalised Processes

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 544-5):

When the processes and properties turn into nouns, the verbs do not disappear from the scene. Scientific discourse is still written in clauses, and these clauses still have verbs in them. Let us return briefly to the examples from Newton's "Opticks":

those Colours argue a diverging and separation of the heterogeneous Rays from one another by means of their unequal Refractions

the variety of Colours depends upon the Composition of Light

the cause of Reflexion is not the impinging of Light on the solid, impervious parts of Bodies

We might suggest a more congruent form of the first and second examples here: 

colours vary because light is composed [in this way];  

because those colours (appear] we know the heterogeneous rays diverge and separate from one another.... 

The verbs depend upon and argue both express a logical-semantic relation between the two nominalised processes: either an external cause, 'a happens; so x happens', or an internal cause, 'b happens, so we know y happens'. This is another grammatical metaphor; the congruent form of representation of a logical relation is a conjunction. The two types of metaphor work together, to construe the two processes as one: 'happening a causes happening x', 'happening b proves happening y'. 

It is not the case, of course, that this type of construction had never occurred in English before; it had. But it was rare; whereas from the time of Newton onwards it gradually took over, becoming the most favoured clause type of scientific language — as indeed we find it today.

The Textual Motivation For Nominalisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 543-4):

There are similar contexts [in Newton's Opticks] for expressions such as an inequality of Refractions, the impinging of Light on ... Bodies, the thickness of the Body, reflecting power in the passages cited above. The nominalised forms inequality, impinging, thickness are not technical terms; or rather, they are so to speak technicalised for the given instance, but they do not lose their semantic status as property or event. Why then are they reconstrued as nouns? 

The reason is to be found in the grammar of the textual metafunction. In order to function with the requisite value in the message, which means either as Theme or as focus of information, they cannot remain as complete clauses; they have to be "packaged" into single elements of clause structure, and the only available constituent for this purpose is the nominal group. Instead of being a process in its own right, light impinges on a body, the phenomenon in question is construed as a participant, the impinging of light on a body. It can then take on a clearly defined status in the grammatical construction of the discourse.

What is beginning to emerge here is a grammar for experimental science: a way of construing experiential meaning so that it can be organised textually into a form of discourse for the advancement of learning.

The Origin Of Junctional Elements

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 243):

The Emergence Of Nominalising Metaphors

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 730):

This kind of nominalising metaphor probably evolved first in scientific and technical registers (cf. Halliday, 1967b, 1988), where it played a dual role: 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. Notice that when clausal patterns are replaced by nominal ones, some of the information is lost: for example, the Classifier + Thing construction alcohol impairment gives no indication of the semantic relation between the two and could be agnate to alcohol impairs (alcohol as Actor), alcohol is impaired (alcohol as Goal), and maybe other transitivity configurations besides. The writer presumably knows exactly what it means; but the reader may not, and so this kind of highly metaphorical discourse tends to mark off the expert from those who are uninitiated.

Nominalisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 729):

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. Thus, for example:

is impaired by alcohol                                alcohol impairment

they allocate an extra packer                     the allocation of an extra packer

some shorter, some longer                         of varying length

they were able to reach the computer        their access to the computer

technology is getting better                        advances in technology

What then happens to the original ‘things’? They get displaced by the metaphoric ones, and so are reduced to modifying these: alcohol becomes a Classifier of impairment; the computer, one extra packer and technology go into prepositional phrases functioning as Qualifier to, respectively, access, allocation and advances.

Facts

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 549):

Such projections may be embedded as they stand, as nominalisations – equivalent to functioning as Head. But frequently they occur as Postmodifier to a noun of the ‘fact’ class, e.g. the fact that their team had won. Fact nouns include ‘cases’, ‘chances’ and ‘proofs’, related to propositions; and ‘needs’, related to proposals. We refer to these projections, therefore, as facts. Whereas any clause that is projected by another clause, verbal or mental, is either a quote (paratactic) or a report (hypotactic, or embedded if the process is a noun), any clause that has the status ‘projected’ but without any projecting process is a fact and is embedded, either as a nominalisation serving as Head or as Postmodifier to a ‘fact’ noun serving as Head. This includes some of those functioning in mental clauses, as mentioned above, and all projections functioning in relational clauses (since a relational process cannot project). It also includes ‘impersonal’ projections such as it is said ... , it is believed ... , it seems ... , where the ‘process’ is not really a process at all, but simply a way of turning a fact into a clause.

Projected vs Embedded Proposals

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 546-7):

Like a proposition, a proposal may either be embedded as Qualifier to one of these nouns, as in the examples above, or may function on its own as a nominalisation e.g.

You’ve said that one of your editorial rules is [[not to publish your buddies]].
Again, a first requirement is [[ to do no harm to organisational frameworks [[ that, through years of evolution, are finally at the stage [[ where they are supporting programs [[ that are actually helping us to get on with the business [[ of increasing understanding]] ]] ]] ]] ]].
The title for king fell out of use because its final requirement was [[ that the man [[ who aspires to be king]] would first pay all the debt [[ owed by every single man and every single woman in the community]] ]]

and we can construct similar pairs, for example

(a) ||| he insisted || that they had to wait in line |||
         α                  ‘β

(b) ||| he resented (the rule) [[that they had to wait in line ]]

where in (a) it is the ‘mental’ clause he insisted that does the projecting, while in (b) the projected clause is embedded. The ‘mental’ clause with the embedded fact clause is of the ‘emotive’ subtype, just as with propositions. But the ‘mental’ clause projecting the idea clause in (a) is not a ‘cognitive’ one but rather a ‘desiderative’ one. With ‘mental’ clauses, the general principle is that embedded fact clauses serve as Phenomenon in ‘emotive’ clauses, whether the facts are propositions or proposals; and that propositions are projected by ‘cognitive’ clauses whereas proposals are projected by ‘desiderative’ ones.

Blogger Comments:

Note that insisted here serves as a verbal Process (projecting a locution clause), not a mental one (projecting an idea clause).