The three bases are shown in relation to the metafunctional components of the grammar (at the rank of clause) in Figure 1-4. Here the three bases are shown as different metafunctional domains within the overall meaning base, with the textual one as internal to the meaning base and oriented towards both the ideation base and the interaction base.
The text base provides the resources that enable the speaker to produce contextualised discourse and to guide the listener in interpreting it. These include resources for engendering a wide variety of diverse rhetorical structures, for differentiating among the different values and statuses of the components of the unfolding text, and for ongoingly expanding the text so as to create and maintain the semiotic flow.
The interaction base provides the resources for speaker and listener to enact a social and intersubjective relationship, through the assignment of discursive roles, the expression of evaluations and attitudes. The base includes both the semantic strategies speaker and listener deploy in dialogic exchanges and the social personæ of the interactants. This second component is a model of the interpersonal and ideational distance between speaker and listener.
The ideational semantic resources construe our experience of the world that is around us and inside us. The phenomena of our experience are construed as units of meaning that can be ranked into hierarchies and organised into networks of semantic types. The units of meaning are structured as configurations of functions (rôles) at different ranks in the hierarchy. For instance, figures are configurations consisting of elements — a process, participants and circumstances; these figures are differentiated into a small number of general types — figures of doing & happening, of sensing, of saying, and of being & having.
… the present book is concerned with just one portion of the higher-level environment of the grammar, that having to do with the ideational metafunction. In other words, we are concerned with that portion of the semantics which "controls" the ideational systems in the grammar, primarily, that of transitivity in the clause and those of projection and expansion in the clause complex. Transitivity is the grammar of processes: actions and events, mental processes and relations. It is that part of grammar which constitutes a theory of "goings-on". Projection and expansion are the fundamental relations between processes: this is the part of the grammar that constitutes a theory of how one happening may be related to another. Thus our aim is towards a general ideational semantics. We may call this the ideational meaning base, or ideation base for short. It is complemented by meaning bases supporting the other two metafunctions — the interaction base (supporting the interpersonal metafunction) and the text base (supporting the textual metafunction).
Blogger Comments:
The term 'controls' is in scare quotes because the theoretical relation between semantics and grammar is not enhancement (cause), but elaboration (intensive identification).
[A] sequence of classes is called a syntagm to distinguish it from the (function) structure. It specifies constraints on the units serving within the clause — the units on the rank below the clause on the grammatical rank scale. The rank scale determines the overall constituency potential in the grammar: in English, clauses consist of groups (/ phrases), groups consist of words, and words consist of morphemes. The units below the clause on the rank scale are all groups (nominal, verbal adverbial, etc.) or phrases (prepositional phrases), or else clauses that are shifted downwards on the rank scale to serve as if they were groups or phrases. Such down-ranking is known as rankshift. This has the powerful effect of expanding the resources of grammar by allowing the meaning potential of a higher-ranking unit to enrich that of a unit of lower rank.
Ideationally, a clause construes experience by categorising and configuring it as a figure. …Interpersonally, the clause enacts a relationship between speaker and addressee as a move in a potential exchange … Textually, the clause presents the ideational and interpersonal information as a message — a contribution to the text evolving in its context.
The content plane of a natural language is functionally diverse: it extends over a spectrum of three distinct modes of meaning, ideational, interpersonal and textual. These highly generalised functions of the linguistic system are referred to in our theory as metafunctions. The ideational metafunction is concerned with construing experience — it is language as a theory of reality, as a resource for reflecting on the world. The interpersonal metafunction is concerned with enacting interpersonal relations through language, with the adoption and assignment of speech roles, with the negotiation of attitudes, and so on — it is language in the praxis of intersubjectivity, as a resource for interacting with others. The textual metafunction is an enabling one; it is concerned with organising ideational and interpersonal meaning as discourse — as meaning that is contextualised and shared. But this does not mean processing some preexisting body of information; rather it is the ongoing creation of a semiotic realm of reality.
One essential task for our semantics is that of modelling a particular phenomenon of the content plane that is known as grammatical metaphor. This is the phenomenon whereby a set of agnate (related) forms is present in the language having different mappings between the semantic and the grammatical categories, for example:
alcohol's dulling effect on the brainalcohol has a dulling effect on the brainalcohol has the effect of dulling the brainalcohol affects the brain by dulling itthe effect of alcohol is to dull the brainthe effect of alcohol is to make the brain dullif one takes/drinks alcohol it makes the brain dullif one takes/drinks alcohol the/one's brain becomes dull &c.
Since this phenomenon of grammatical metaphor is fundamental to adult uses of language, we shall take it as a central thrust of our book. One way in which we shall seek to demonstrate the validity and power of a semantic approach is by using it to handle grammatical metaphor, and to show how this pervasive aspect of the lexicogrammar expands the potential of the meaning base.
Thus we can say that a grammatics is a theory of grammar, while a grammar is (among other things) a theory of experience. But to show that a grammar is a theory of experience we use a functional, semantically motivated grammatics, since this allows us to seek explanations of the form of the grammar in terms of the functions to which language is adapted. But this closeness of fit between the semantics (i.e. the meaning) and the grammar does not mean that our grammatics can take over the semantic domain. Adopting a functional approach enables us to extend the domain of grammar in significant ways in the direction of semantics — not thereby reducing the scope of the semantics but rather enabling us to investigate how experience is construed in semantic terms — to develop the "meaning base" model that is the topic of the present book.
There is a warning to be issued in connection with the term "grammar". It is not uncommon in English for the same word to stand both for a phenomenon itself and for the study of that phenomenon. For example, "psychology" is used to mean both the study of the "psyche" and the psyche itself (so "feminine psychology" means women's psychic make-up, not theories of psychology developed by women scholars). In linguistics, while we do distinguish "language" (the phenomenon) from "linguistics" (the study of the phenomenon), we fail to make such a distinction with the word "grammar", which means both the grammar of a language and the study of grammar. To avoid such pathological ambiguity, we find it helpful to refer to the study of grammar by a special name, grammatics. We will use this term from time to time in order to make it quite clear that we are talking about the model, the theory used to interpret the phenomenon, and not the phenomenon itself.
Thus we can say that a grammatics is a theory of grammar, while a grammar is (among other things) a theory of experience. But to show that a grammar is a theory of experience we use a functional, semantically motivated grammatics, since this allows us to seek explanations of the form of the grammar in terms of the functions to which language is adapted. But this closeness of fit between the semantics (i.e. the meaning) and the grammar does not mean that our grammatics can take over the semantic domain.
A word needs to be said here about the interpretation of the term "grammar" itself. As used in systemic theory, this term stands for lexicogrammar. The lexical region, or lexis, is not a separate component, but simply the most "delicate" end of the (unified) lexicogrammar. There is a complementarity here. Lexis and grammar are not two different phenomena; they are different ways looking at the same phenomenon. Some aspects of this phenomenon of "wording" in language are foregrounded by viewing it as grammar, others by viewing it as lexis.
Language, therefore, is a resource organised into three strata differentiated according to order of abstraction. These strata are related by means of realisation. Semantics, or the system of meaning, is realised by lexicogrammar, or the system of wording (that is, grammatical structures and lexical items); and lexicogrammar is realised by phonology, or the system of sounding. [This is the traditional formulation; more properly: semantics is realised by the realisation of lexicogrammar in phonology.]
For instance, a sequence of figures (a sequence of configurations of processes with participants and attendant circumstances) at the level of semantics is realised by a complex of clauses at the level of grammar; this, in turn, has its own realisation in the phonology — for example, a particular complex of clauses might be realised by a particular sequence of tones (pitch contours).
Between lexicogrammar and phonology runs the line of symbolic arbitrariness: prototypically the relation between these two levels is conventional, whereas that between semantics and lexicogrammar is prototypically natural. What this means is that experience is construed twice in the content plane, once semantically and once lexicogrammatically. The ideational meaning base that we are concerned with in this book is a construct that is 'located' within the semantic system — that is, at the highest level — and realised in the lexicogrammar.
We might refer to the Hjelmslevian notion of the "content plane" as incorporating both a grammar and a semantics (e.g., Hjelmslev, 1943). Grammar and semantics are the two strata or levels of content in the three-level systemic theory of language, and they are related in a natural, non-arbitrary way. The third level is the level of expression, either phonology or graphology. We can draw this model of language as in Figure 1-1.
Here the relationship is not one of 'consists of or 'is a subset of: theconcentriccotangential circles show the stratal environment of each level — thus lexicogrammar appears in the environment of semantics and provides the environment for phonology. This ordering of levels is known as stratification. We have used circles for all three levels to represent the fact that they are all based on the same fundamental principles of organisation: each level is a network of inter-related options, either in meaning, wording or sounding, which are realised as structures, based on the principle of rank.
A systemic grammar is one of the class of functional grammars, which means (among other things) that it is semantically motivated, or "natural". In contradistinction to formal grammars, which are autonomous, and therefore semantically arbitrary, in a systemic grammar every category (and "category" is used here in the general sense of an organising theoretical concept, not in the narrower sense of 'class' as in formal grammars) is based on meaning: it has a semantic as well as a formal, lexicogrammatical reactance. [The reactance of a category is its distinctive treatment.]
Looked at from the formal angle, of course, this means that it is likely to appear complex; many of the categories are "cryptotypic", manifested only through a long chain of realisations (a "realisational chain"). Hence it takes a long time and a great deal of effort to get such a grammar off the ground in any context (such as natural language processing) requiring total explicitness. Once airborne, however, because it is semantically natural it has considerable potential as the basis on which to represent higher level organisation — provided, that is, such organisation is interpreted in linguistic terms, as meaning rather than as knowledge.
Thus "knowledge" and "meaning" are not two distinct phenomena; they are different metaphors for the same phenomenon, approaching it with a different orientation and different assumptions. But in almost all recent work in this area, the cognitive approach has predominated, with language treated as a kind of code in which pre-existing conceptual structures are more or less distortedly expressed. We hope here to give value to the alternative viewpoint, in which language is seen as the foundation of human experience, and meaning as the essential mode of higher-order human consciousness. This may have more to offer both in theoretical power and in relation to the many practical tasks for which we need to engage with "knowledge". What we are doing is mapping back on to language those patterns that were themselves linguistic in their origin.
This suggests that it should be possible to build outwards from the grammar, making the explicit assumption that the (abstract structure of) categories and relations needed for modelling and interpreting any domain of experience will be derivable from those of language. Our contention is that there is no ordering of experience other than the ordering given to it by language. We could in fact define experience in Linguistic terms: experience is the reality that we construe for ourselves by means of language.
Hence when we consider the knowledge enshrined in a particular discipline, we understand this by examining the language of the discipline — the particular ways of meaning that it has evolved. The most obvious example is perhaps that of scientific taxonomies; but aspects of the grammar are no less crucial: this will appear below in our discussion of models of agency and of grammatical metaphor, among other features.
What is the significance of this switch of metaphor from knowing to meaning? A meaning base differs from a knowledge base in the direction from which it is construed. In modelling the meaning base we are building it 'upwards' from the grammar, instead of working 'downwards' from some interpretation of experience couched in conceptual terms, and seen as independent of language. We contend that the conception of 'knowledge' as something that exists independently of language, and may then be coded or made manifest in language, is illusory. All knowledge is constituted in semiotic systems, with language as the most central; and all such representations of knowledge are constructed from language in the first place.
But at the same time our own approach, both in theory and in method, is in contradistinction to that of cognitive science: we treat "information" as meaning rather than as knowledge and interpret language as a semiotic system, and more specifically as a social semiotic, rather than as a system of the human mind. This perspective leads us to place less emphasis on the individual than would be typical of a cognitivist approach; unlike thinking and knowing, at least as these are traditionally conceived, meaning is a social, intersubjective process. If experience is interpreted as meaning, its construal becomes an act of collaboration, sometimes of conflict, and always of negotiation.
The construction of experience is usually thought of as knowledge, having the form of conceptual taxonomies, schemata, scripts and the like. We shall offer an interpretation that is complementary to this, treating experience not as knowing but as meaning; and hence as something that is construed in language. In other words, we are concerned with the construal of human experience as a semantic system; and since language plays the central role not only in storing and exchanging experience but also in construing it, we are taking language as our interpretative base.
In this book we are concerned with how human beings construe experience. This means, first and foremost not experience as an instantial product — the particulars of the world that is around us and inside our heads, the particular individuals, the events of last Friday, and so on — but experience as a resource, as a potential for understanding, representing and acting on reality. It is in terms of this potential that the particulars of daily life are interpreted: they make sense because they are instantiations of this potential.
Condensed into one short paragraph, our own point of departure is the following. Language evolved, in the human species, in two complementary functions: construing experience, and enacting social processes. In this book we are concerned with the first of these, which we refer to as constructing the "ideation base"; and we stress that the categories and relations of experience are not "given" to us by nature, to be passively reflected in our language, but are actively constructed by language, with the lexicogrammar as the driving force. By virtue of its unique properties as a stratified semiotic system, language is able to transform experience into meaning. In our attempt to describe this process, we have deliberately used the grammar as the source of modelling, because we wanted to show how such a process could take place. We have confined ourselves, in principle, to how it takes place in English; the theoretical concepts we have used are general to all languages, but the descriptive categories should be interpreted in the context of a description of English.
The semantic perspective enables us to emphasise four aspects of human consciousness which have been rather less foregrounded in cognitive approaches. One is that of meaning as a potential, a systemic resource which is deployed in — and ongoingly modified by — individual acts of meaning in language. (Whereas most theoretical work in linguistics since the mid century has focussed strongly on syntagmatic relations — what goes with what, systemic theory has foregrounded the paradigmatic — what is meant in relation to what might be). The second is that of meaning as growth, a semogenic resource which is constantly expanding in power by opening up new domains and refining those that are already within its compass. The third is that of meaning as a joint construction, a shared resource which is the public enterprise of a collective (whereas "thinking" is essentially a private phenomenon "located" within the individual). The fourth is that of meaning as a form of activity, a resource of energy which is powered by the grammar at the heart of every language.
… we have tried to represent language as the resource whereby the human species, and each individual member of that species, constructs the functioning mental map of their phenomenal world: of their experience of process, both what goes on out there and what goes on in the realms of their own consciousness.
It seems to us that our dialogue is relevant to current debates in cognitive science. In one sense, we are offering it as an alternative to mainstream currents in this area, since we are saying that cognition "is" (that is, can most profitably be modelled as) not thinking but meaning: the "mental" map is in fact a semiotic map, and "cognition" is just a way of talking about language. In modelling knowledge as meaning, we are treating it as a linguistic construct: hence, as something that is construed in the lexicogrammar. Instead of explaining language by reference to cognitive processes, we explain cognition by reference to linguistic processes. But at the same time this is an "alternative" only if it is assumed that the "cognitive" approach is in some sense natural, or unmarked. It seems to us that current approaches to neural networks, "connectionist" models and the like, are in fact more compatible with a semantic approach, where "understanding" something is transforming it into meaning, and to "know" is to have performed that transformation.
In the most general terms, the purpose of analysing 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. … What the metaphorical interpretation does is to suggest how an instance in the text may be referred to the system of the language as a whole. It is therefore an important link in the total chain of explanations whereby we relate the text to the system. 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.
While some scholars have explored the possibility of grammatical metaphor within the textual metafunction, we do not see any evidence that the textual metafunction engenders metaphor. It is certainly a factor in the metaphorical mode of realisation – particularly, in ideational metaphor, as we have illustrated above; but the origins of metaphor lie in the need to re-construe experience (ideational) and to re-enact roles and relations (interpersonal). The role of the textual metafunction is of a different nature (cf. Matthiessen, 1992).
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. Thus, to go back to alcohol impairment: here impairment is a noun functioning as Thing, and hence takes on the status of an entity participating in some other process, as in:
Because alcohol impairment effects are well established and documented, alcohol impairment can be used as a benchmark for other forms of driving impairment, such as fatigue, or in comparison to the effects of other drugs.
It does not thereby lose its own semantic character as a process, which it has by virtue of the fact that congruently it is realised as a verb; but it acquires an additional semantic feature by becoming a noun. Compare failure in Engines of the 36 class only appeared on this train in times of reduced loading, or engine failure. – where a more congruent version would be whenever an engine failed. Thus, however far one may choose to go in unpacking ideational metaphor, it is important also to analyse each instance as it is. A significant feature of our present-day world is that it consists so largely of metaphorically constructed entities, like access, advances, allocation, impairment and appeal.
How far should one pursue the analysis of ideational metaphors? There can be no universally valid answer to this question; it depends on what one is trying to achieve. In an example such as The second day of the convention saw the advantage pushed further, there is an obvious tension between day as Senser and saw as mental Process which needs explaining (cf. Figure 10-13). But in most instances of contemporary discourse it is only when we start to analyse that we become aware of the grammatical metaphors involved.
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.
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 impairmentthey allocate an extra packer the allocation of an extra packersome shorter, some longer of varying lengththey were able to reach the computer their access to the computertechnology 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.
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 rather simple; but the ideational content is densely packed in nominal constructions: here the complexity is more static – perhaps crystalline. These are, it should be made clear, general tendencies; not every particular instance will conform. But they do bring out the essential character of the relationship between the two. And it is the written kind of complexity that involves grammatical metaphor.
The nominal group is the primary resource used by the grammar for packing in lexical items at high density. An example is that in Figure 10-18. Here the relationships which are expressed clausally in the spoken version (the viaducts were constructed of masonry and had numerous arches in them) are instead expressed nominally (masonry viaducts of numerous arches). The clause complex is replaced by the nominal group.
Consider the following sentence, from The Horizon Book of Railways, pp. 74–75:
In bridging river valleys, the early engineers built many notable masonry viaducts of numerous arches.
The clause complex and transitivity analysis is given in Figure 10-17.
To measure lexical density, simply divide the number of lexical items by the number of ranking clauses. This example has eleven lexical items (bridging, river, valleys, early, engineers, built, notable, masonry, viaducts, numerous, arches), and two clauses; hence lexical density [is] 5.5. Note that the grammatical structure both of the clause complex as a whole and of each constituent clause is rather simple.
Let us now reword this in a form more typical of the spoken language. If we retain the same lexical items, but reword in a more naturally spoken form, we might arrive at something like the following:
In the early days when engineers had to make a bridge across a valley and the valley had a river flowing through it, they often built viaducts, which were constructed of masonry and had numerous arches in them; and many of these viaducts became notable.
Here the structure of the clause complex is
1×b1 ^ 1×β+2 ^ 1aa ^ 1α =β1 ^ 1α=β+2 ^ +2
There are now six grammatically related clauses, rather than just two. The total number of lexical items has gone up to seventeen, mainly because there is some repetition; but since there are six ranking clauses, the lexical density is slightly under 3. In other words, the written version is more complex in terms of lexical density, while the spoken version is more complex in terms of grammatical intricacy. The lexical items in the written version thus have fewer clauses to accommodate them; but obviously they are still part of the overall grammatical structure – what typically happens is that they are incorporated into nominal groups.
The factor that perhaps tends most to determine the extent of metaphor in the grammar of a text is whether that text is spoken or written; speech and writing are rather different in their patterns of metaphoric usage. This is because they have different ways of constructing complex meanings. … 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.
Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 726, 727):
Let us round off the discussion of types by showing an analysis that relates the metaphorical and congruent versions of an example through a series of steps: see Figure 10-16.
Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 725, 726):
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 (except in the case of a qualitative attributive relational clause, where it is the Attribute that is reconstrued as Thing, as noted above); the other elements of the figure are realised either as downranked groups/phrases serving as Qualifier or Deictic (instead of as ranking ones, serving in a clause) or, by a further step, as words serving as Classifier, Epithet or post-Deictic. For example, my original intention in my original intention was to write a saga covering three generations of the Okonkwo family in one book is structured as Deictic ^ Post-Deictic ^ Thing, corresponding to the congruent clause Subject ^ Adjunct ^ Predicator: see Figure 10-15.
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:
||| The wide range of potential contributions by the RC has proven to be a bright spot || as we strive to match available resources to a demanding mission load, || and demonstrates clearly the enduring value and relevance of the citizen-soldier. |||
||| Further experiments proved [[[ that the dye lowered fertility in rats, || induced still-births || and even produced malformed and macerated foetuses]]] . |||
||| Large amounts of feldspar in a sandstone may imply rapid deposition and burial [[ before chemical weathering could decompose the feldspar]] , || or it might imply a cold climate [[ in which chemical weathering is very slow]] . |||
The possibilities of downgrading include the four types set out in Table 10-12.
In the congruent mode, a sequence of two figures is realised by a nexus of two clauses; but in the metaphorical mode, the domain of realisation is downgraded from clause nexus to clause. In the metaphorical mode, the domain of realisation of either one or both of the figures is, in turn, downranked from clause to group/phrase. These successive steps in downgrading are possible because, as we have seen, 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.
In our presentation of interpersonal metaphor, we identified a number of common types. 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 (I think ... , etc.) or embeds (it is probable ... , etc.) 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.
In contrast, 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/phase 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 downgrading may start with (i) a whole sequence of figures, (ii) with a single figure, or (iii) with a single element within a figure.
As we have seen, 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. At the same time, there are also textual and interpersonal consequences of this metaphorical realignment in the grammar: ideational metaphor can be a powerful textual resource for managing the creation of text, creating new mappings between the ideational and textual quanta of information; and it can also be a powerful interpersonal resource for organising the ongoing negotiation of meaning, creating new mappings between the ideational and interpersonal propositions/proposals.
By the same token, 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:
A standard empirical hypothesis is that one component of the mind/brain is a parser, which assigns a percept to a signal (abstracting from other circumstances relevant to interpretation). [Chomsky, 1995, The minimalist program. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, p.18.]Any serious approach to complex phenomena involves innumerable idealisations, and the one just sketched is no exception. [Chomsky, The minimalist program, p.19.]But interesting (and conflicting) arguments have been presented. [Chomsky, The minimalist program, p. 22.]Much of the fruitful inquiry into generative grammar in the past years has pursued the working hypothesis that UG is a simple and elegant theory, with fundamental principles that have an intuitive character and broad generality. [Chomsky, The minimalist program, p. 29.]
… ideational metaphor also realigns the ideational in relation to the interpersonal. When a sequence is realised metaphorically by a clause, it is given the interpersonal status of a proposition or proposal, making it arguable. For example:
||| Too many unprogrammed deployments will inevitably disrupt operating budgets, || sap morale, || cause lost training opportunities, || and accelerate wear and tear on equipment. |||
||| A magnitude-6 quake can cause severe damage || if it is centred under a populated area. |||
||| This is consistent with the concept [[ that the antarctic ozone hole phenomenon causes a dilution effect throughout much of the Southern Hemisphere]] . |||
As the examples illustrate, a ‘propositionalised’ sequence can be modalised, doubted, argued and negotiated interpersonally in numerous other ways.
To sum up: 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. In addition, such a figure, realised metaphorically by a nominal group rather than congruently by a clause, gains access to the textual systems of the nominal group – most significantly, the system of DETERMINATION. This means that it can be treated textually as a discourse referent. It is marked either as ‘non-specific’ or as ‘specific’, in which case its 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 the Theme + Rheme organisation of the clause and also, by extension, that of the Given + New organisation of the information unit. Thus the following sequence –
Displacement along these faults caused failure of the Baldwin Hills Reservoir in 1963
– is realised metaphorically as a ‘relational’ clause, and the figures making up the sequence are realised metaphorically as nominal groups serving as elements of the clause. Since they function within the clause, these nominal groups can be assigned textual statuses: the nominal group displacement along these faults serves as Theme, and the nominal group failure of the Baldwin Hills Reservoir in 1963 serves as New: see Figure 10-12. The metaphoric ‘relational’ clause thus creates a textual pattern of Theme: figure ‘displacement’ + New: figure ‘failure’.
This textual patterns is an effective resource in the rhetorical development of scientific discourse (see Halliday, 1988; Halliday & Martin, 1993). There is thus a gain in textual meaning in the shift from the congruent mode of realisation to the metaphoric mode. In this way, the ideational metaphor accommodates the textual metafunction: the experiential configuration of Identified + Process + Identifier structures the sequence into two textual quanta, one figure as Theme followed by another as New. In some cases, this kind of textual accommodation may be the main reason behind the ideational metaphor.
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 our construal of experience (see Halliday & Matthiessen, 1999: 264). Thus logical sequences of figures are reconstrued as experiential configurations of elements. But the significance of grammatical metaphor of the ideational kind extends beyond the ideational metafunction to both the textual and interpersonal ones. The textual and interpersonal effects of ideational metaphor are due to the fact the realignment of ideational patterns described above also means that there is a realignment of the textual and interpersonal environments in which ideational systems operate.
… 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 the potential that is associated with the congruent mode: there is a loss of ideational meaning. For example, 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 roles are lost or obscured when figures are realised as groups or phrases. Thus in the nominal group the perception of an inadequate retirement program, it is likely that an inadequate retirement program is what is perceived, but this has to be inferred (contrast the perception of concerned citizens, where concerned citizens is likely to be the perceiver, not what is perceived); and the perceiver is left implicit. In more congruent versions, such underspecification does not occur: people see the retirement program as inadequate, people think that the retirement program is inadequate, and so on. This is because the grammar of the clause construes participants as inherent in the process, and only allows them to be absent through ellipsis if they are recoverable.
As we have seen, 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. For example, in a sequence, there is a temporally invariant logico-semantic relation such as cause, but in a sequence construed as a figure, this relation is typically construed as a process. Unlike a logical relation, a process is construed as unfolding through time, and in the grammar of the verbal group it is marked for tense or modality.
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. Ideational metaphor is based on patterns that exist already in the congruent mode of realisation; but it expands these patterns significantly, as can be seen when we analyse scientific, legal or administrative discourse – or, indeed, other kinds of discourse that the metaphorical mode has spread to in a systematic way.
As illustrated by the example analysed in Figure 10-11, 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 congruent mode of realisation that we described in Chapters 5 and 7, a sequence is realised by a clause nexus and a figure is realised by a clause. 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. The two modes of realisation are contrasted diagrammatically in Figure 10-14 below.
Consider the following steps in the text:(a) Most linguists today believe that there is no good evidence ...(b) the strongest belief of all is [[ that there is no trace ... ]]… a projection sequence of figures in the semantics is realised congruently by a projection clause nexus in the grammar, and the two figures forming the sequence are realised by clauses. This is what we find in example (a); but in (b), a projection sequence has been realised not by a clause nexus but by a simple clause, and the figure of sensing is realised not by a clause but by a nominal group, while the projected figure has been realised not by a dependent ‘idea’ clause but by an embedded ‘fact’ clause. The congruent and metaphorical modes of realisation are combined in Figure 10-11. 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 (see e.g. Christie & Derewianka, 2008; Derewianka, 1995); but its full force will only appear when they begin to grapple with the specialised discourses of subject-based secondary education.
The interpersonal metafunction defines the environment in which children first learn the strategy of grammatical metaphor. 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. For example:
Oh. Stefan, can you turn off the tape? – [Non-verbal response: tape is turned off.]
Here the responses show that the ‘yes/no interrogative’ clauses are interpreted as metaphorically realised commands rather than as congruently realised questions. The expansion of the interpersonal semantic system through grammatical metaphor provides speakers with additional, powerful resources for enacting social roles and relations in the complex network of relations that make up the fabric of a community of any kind.
We have explored certain key strategies involved in the metaphorical expansion of the interpersonal meaning potential, showing that they are not random or ad hoc features of the system but rather motivated and principled extensions of the congruent system. There are, of course, other strategies as well. The lexicogrammatical resources of MOOD, and the associated patterns of MODALITY and KEY, carry a very considerable semantic load as the expression of interpersonal rhetoric. Not surprisingly, these categories lend themselves to a rich variety of metaphorical devices; and it is by no means easy to decide what are metaphorical and what are congruent forms. Some common speech-functional formulae are clearly metaphorical in origin, for example
(i) I wouldn’t ... if I was you: command, congruently don’t ... ! functioning as warning;(ii) I’ve a good mind to ... : modalised offer, congruently maybe I’ll ..., typically functioning as threat;(iii) she’d better ... : modulated command, congruently she should ... , typically functioning as advice.
Some words, such as mind, seem particularly to lend themselves to this kind of transference: cf. would you mind ... ?, mind you!, I don’t mind ... (including I don’t mind if I do, positive response to offer of drink in the environment of a pub), and so on.
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. For example, through the extension of you from ‘addressee’ to ‘generalised person, including the addressee’ (in contrast with generalised they), we get general rules, general advice, and the like:||| If you find [[ yourself coming back the next day || and erasing more of the so-called improvements [[ than you keep]] ]], || you’d better get the hell out of that book. |||
||| If you are writing about something [[ that you have not experienced]] , || then you must supply yourself with experience. |||
||| You cannot drink on the job. |||
In addition to metaphors based on ideational projection, there are other kinds of metaphor 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’; for example:
[iii] proposal ↘ modulated indicative
(1) declarative||| Yes, well, if you apply that criterion, || then surely you must start to rearrange your estimates of Lawrence’s novels, surely. |||||| Perhaps you should tell me about your current project. |||||| You just don’t think about it; || you shouldn’t. |||||| Well look, honestly, Mrs Finney, my suggestion to you would be [[[ that if you want to read English honours || you should spend a year in solid preparation for it || and then reapply]]] . |||||| I think || you should talk to David Hawker, || whose committee, <<I think,>> put this in train. |||(2) interrogative||| Oh can you get some napkins? |||||| Can you name a moment, or an image [[[ that you can point to || and say || this is [[ when you decided || that you were going to write The Greenlanders]] ]]] ? |||||| Would you like to take the comfortable chair? |||||| Could you tell us about a poem [[ which lives up to this ideal of yours]] in whatever period? |||
As we have noted, metaphors of mood make it possible for the semantic system of SPEECH FUNCTION to be further elaborated in delicacy. Why does the speech functional system need to be expanded in this way? The basic principle is this: the expansion of the speech functional system has increased the meaning potential available to interactants for negotiation in dialogue. …
The potential for negotiation in dialogue created by metaphors of mood is directly related to the different contextual variables within tenor. Metaphors of mood expand the interpersonal resources for negotiation, whether the negotiation involves consensus or conflict. The tenor variables are usually discussed in terms of status, formality, face, tact and politeness (and their negative counterparts). What these 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. The semiotic distance is often manifested directly in the lexicogrammar as a syntagmatic extension of the wording.
In the type of mood metaphor shown in Table 10-11, the proposition/proposal is realised by a clause nexus of projection rather than by a simple clause. The interpersonal projection embodied in speech function has thus been realised as if it was an ideational projection. This has two consequences for the expansions of the meaning potential of speech function, just as in the case of modality. On the one hand, the option of making the subjective orientation of the speech functional selection explicit is added to the system, as in vote against ... (implicit) vs. I urge you to vote against (explicit). On the other hand, the speech functional system can be further elaborated in delicacy by drawing on the extensive resources of the lexicogrammar of ‘verbal’ and ‘mental’ clauses. Thus in addition to vote against ..., we now have, for example, (‘verbal’) I tell you/command you/order you/ask you/urge you/implore you/ beseech you/plead with you/suggest to you → to vote against ...; (‘mental’) I want/desire/‘d like/ intend/plan → (for) you to vote against .... And while these clauses are constrained in terms of SUBJECT PERSON and DEICTICITY, they still allow for additional systemic variation; for example: I urge you/I would urge you/I should urge you/I must urge you//can I (please) urge you/could I perhaps urge you → to vote against ....
In the realm of propositions, the line between explicitly objective propositions and modal assessment seems to disappear. Forms such as it is said that, it is rumoured that serve as assessments of the nature of the evidence for a proposition: it is, as it were, represented as being projected by somebody other than the speaker (thus it is said and they say are very close in meaning); the projection thus serves as a device enabling speakers to distance themselves from the proposition. For example:
||| Of Samuel it is said || that when he asked the people || to bear witness || that he had not taken anything of theirs || the people said || that they were witnesses. |||||| It is said || that television keeps people at home. ||| But you, at any rate, have proved that wrong. ||| And they say, too, || that television makes its appeal to those of lesser intelligence. |||||| Furthermore, it is claimed, || there are no known connections between the languages of the Old World and those of the Americas. |||
The command ‘vote against ...’ is realised metaphorically by a hypotactic clause nexus; it is realised as if it was a report of what the speaker says. This is just like the metaphorical realisation of modality of the explicitly subjective orientation. Thus the reported command can be tagged: I urge you to vote against ... will you? In other words, 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.
But the notion of interpersonal projection is not, in fact, limited to modal assessment. Consider the short persuasive text in Text 10-5:
Text 10-5: Exploring – arguing: open letter appealing to members of an organisation [Text 6]
I don’t believe that endorsing the Nuclear Freeze initiative is the right step for California Common Cause. Tempting as it may be, we shouldn’t embrace every popular issue that comes along. When we do so we use precious limited resources where other players with superior resources are already doing an adequate job. Rather, I think we will be stronger and more effective if we stick to those issues of governmental structure and process, broadly defined, that have formed the core of our agenda for years. Open government, campaign finance reform, and fighting the special interests and big money – these are our kinds of issues.
Let’s be clear: I personally favour the initiative and ardently support disarmament negotiations to reduce the risk of war. But I don’t think endorsing a specific freeze proposal is appropriate for CCC. We should limit our involvement in defence and weaponry to matters of process, such as exposing the weapons industry’s influence on the political process. Therefore, I urge you to vote against a CCC endorsement of the nuclear freeze initiative.
Expressions of modulation are bolded and expressions of modalisation are italicised; metaphorical expressions are underlined. Subjective assessment of modality permeates the text, like a prosody. In the case of modalisation, it is largely explicit; in the case of modulation, it is implicit until the very last clause. This clause realises the nucleus of the whole text; it is here that the key proposal is presented with a nuclear punch… .
But what is the key proposal? One variant of I urge you to vote ... is you must vote ..., the two being relatable as explicit and implicit variants of subjective, high modulations of the type obligation. However, we can take one step further in the analysis. What the author is saying is Vote against ..., which is an ‘imperative’ clause – the congruent realisation of a proposal of the subtype ‘command’. This indicates the connection between ‘imperative’ clauses and modulation, which is why modulation was characterised as the ‘imperative type’ of modality. On the one hand, an ‘imperative’ clause imposes an obligation; on the other hand, the imperative tag checks the addressee’s inclination to comply (will you?). But the example also illustrates the connection between mood and projection.
There is thus a fundamental relationship between modal assessment, including modality, and projection. To bring this out, we can interpret modal assessment as interpersonal projection. Interpersonal projection always involves the speaker or addressee as ‘projector’: ‘I think’, ‘I say’; ‘do you think’, ‘do you say’. It is always implicit unless it is made explicit through grammatical metaphor, by ‘co-opting’ ideational resources to do interpersonal service.
This is the general effect of grammatical metaphor: it construes additional layers of meaning and wording. To capture this layering in our grammatical analysis, we introduce one or more additional structural layers in the box diagram. The representation of grammatical metaphor in such diagrams shows how the metaphor is embodied in the structural organisation as an increase in the layers of meaning and wording.
But there is, of course, also a systemic effect. 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 metaphorical modalities described above make it possible to make the orientation explicit in wordings such as I think and it is likely that, which, in turn, makes it possible to increase the delicacy of differentiations (cf. I think/imagine/expect/assume/suppose/reckon/guess; I would think/I would have thought; I imagine/I can imagine; and so on).
As we have already seen, this same principle extends beyond modality and applies to modal assessment more generally (e.g. I regret, it is regrettable that). 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.
As we have seen, 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 was a projection sequence, by a nexus of two clauses, or as if it was a fact embedded as a Carrier in a relational clause with a modal Attribute, 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.
Figure 10-9 gives a further example, containing both an interpersonal metaphor and one of an ideational kind.
The importance of modal features in the grammar of interpersonal exchanges lies in an apparent paradox on which the entire system rests – the fact that we only say we are certain when we are not. If unconsciously I consider it certain that Mary has left, I say, simply, Mary’s left. If I add a high value probability, of whatever orientation, such as Mary’s certainly left, I’m certain Mary’s left, Mary must have left, this means that I am admitting an element of doubt – which I may then try to conceal by objectifying the expression of certainty. Hence whereas the subjective metaphors, which state clearly ‘this is how I see it’, take on all values (I’m sure, I think, I don’t believe, I doubt, etc.), most of the objectifying metaphors express a ‘high’ value probability or obligation – that is, they are different ways of claiming objective certainty or necessity for something that is in fact a matter of opinion. Most of the ‘games people play’ in the daily round of interpersonal skirmishing involve metaphors of this objectifying kind.
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. Speakers being what we are, however, we like to give prominence to our own point of view; and the most effective way of doing that is to dress it up as if it was this that constituted the assertion (‘explicit’ I think ... ) – with the further possibility of making it appear as if it was not our point of view at all (‘explicit objective’ it’s likely that ... ).
The general difference in meaning between the subjective and the objective orientation can be seen from the effect of the tag. Compare the following two clauses:he couldn’t have meant that, could he?
surely he didn’t mean that, did he?
In the first, the speaker wants the listener to confirm his estimate of the probabilities: ‘I think it unlikely; do you share my opinion?’. In the second, he wants the listener to provide the answer: ‘I think it unlikely, but is it in fact the case?’. It is possible to switch from a subjectively modalised clause to a non-modalised tag, as in this exchange in a store selling children’s books:What do you reckon would be good for a five-year-old kid?
– She’ll like fairy tales, does she?
Here the salesperson’s reply means ‘I think it likely she likes fairy tales; is that the case?’ – whereas she’ll like fairy tales, will she? would have meant ‘do you agree that it is likely?’. The speaker is assuming, in other words, that the customer knows the preferences of the child; there would be no point in simply exchanging opinions on the subject.
There is one further category that needs to be taken into account, that of ability/potentiality, as in she can keep the whole audience enthralled. 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’, as in it was possible for a layer of ice to form. 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 (can/is able to as ‘low’-value variants of will/is willing to). 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, as in I couldn’t read that before; now with my new glasses I can.
This generates a set of 4 × 4 × 3 × 3 = 144 categories of modality. Thirty of these are illustrated in Figure 10-8.
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):
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:
The third variable in modality is the VALUE that is attached to the modal judgment: high, median or low. These values are summarised in Table 10-9, with ‘objective implicit’ forms as category labels.
Examples of the combination of orientation and type are given in Table 10-8.
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 system is as in Figure 10-7.
These combine with all four types of modality, but with gaps; for example, there are no systematic forms for making the subjective orientation explicit in the case of usuality or inclination (i.e. no coded expressions for ‘I recognise it as usual that ... ’ or ‘I undertake for ... to ... ’). This is a systematic gap; these particular combinations would represent semantic domains where the speaker cannot readily pose as an authority.
