Introduction
In the previous post, I introduced the definition and concept of Grammatical Metaphor. Grammatical Metaphor is divided into three types of metaphor, depending on where the metaphorisaton occurs. In this post, I will cover the types of Grammatical Metaphor, which is ideational metaphor, interpersonal metaphor and textual metaphor.
Types of Grammatical Metaphor
Initially, Halliday proposed two types of grammatical metaphor. One is ideational metaphor and the other is interpersonal metaphor. Textual metaphor is relatively new concept in this framework, but is being established and accepted as a type of grammatical metaphor. Before discussing nominalisation, which is a subtype of ideational metaphor, I will explain the concept of each type of metaphors.
Ideational Metaphor
Halliday’s ideational metaphor is subdivided into two kinds, i.e. experiential metaphor and logical metaphor.
Experiential metaphor
Ideational grammatical metaphor is also called metaphors of transitivity in the sense that “grammatical variation between congruent and incongruent forms… can be analysed in terms of the functional structure of transitivity configurations” (Taverniers). Let's compare the examples below.
Mary saw something wonderful.
A wonderful sight met Mary’s eyes.
Mary came upon a wonderful sight.
(Examples extracted from Taverniers)
The above example shows the cases where congruent form ‘Mary saw something wonderful’ is metaphorised into two incongruent forms, i.e., ‘A wonderful sight met Mary’s eyes’ and ‘Mary came upon a wonderful sight.’
The second sentence shows that Phenomenon in the congruent form (something wonderful) is taken up as an Actor (a wonderful sight), accompanying change of Process type from mental to material (see --> meet).
In the third sentence, while Mary is kept as Subject, its role was changed from Senser to Actor, and Process type changed from mental to material (see --> come). The second Participant (something wonderful) changed to Circumstance (upon a wonderful sight).
Of course, we can pose a question whether the three sentences achieve the exactly same level of ideational meaning as rightly pointed out by Bjerre & Bjerre (2014). They explain that the kind of verbs that are chosen in the two incongruent clauses (meet and come) are different from that of the original congruent clause (see) and the 'meet' and 'come' bring about extra meaning, which could be interpreted as “Mary began to see a wonderful sight.”
However, we can more or less safely say that the changes in the above example produce grammatically varied configurations, which are still co-representational of the experience in the world and maintain the similar level of ideational meaning.
Logical metaphor
Logical metaphor expresses the logical relation on the clause level. Let's have a look at an example (examples extracted from Halliday and Matthiessen, 1999).
(1) He was arrested by the police.
--> His arrest by the police
(2) They shredded the documents before they departed for the airport.
--> Their shredding of the documents preceded their departure for the airport.
In the above example (1), the clause is downranked to nominal group (from 'he was arrested by the police' to 'his arrest by the police').
In the example (2), the sequence (clause complex) is shifted into clause (from 'They shredded the documents before they departed for the airport' to 'Their shredding of the documents preceded their departure for the airport). In this example, the two resultant nominal groups were used as Participants to represent the same meaning in one clause with one Process (precede). This pattern shows an instance of a logical metaphor, where two clauses are combined into one with a Process expressing their temporal relation.
Interpersonal Metaphor
Interpersonal metaphor is also divided into two sub-types, i.e. metaphor of modality and metaphor of mood.
In metaphors of modality, modal meaning is realised by an additional separate projecting clause rather than typical expressions with modal adverbs. For example, ‘it is obviously wrong’ can be metaphorised to ‘no one can deny that it is wrong’.
In metaphors of mood, a mood meaning is realised in atypical structures of different communicative functions. For example, ‘I wouldn’t take it if I were you’ is a statement in conditional form, but it is the same meaning as ‘Don’t take it’. Here warning, which is most naturally expressed as an imperative, is metaphorised as a statement.
Textual Metaphor
Textual metaphor is not fully established as a type of grammatical metaphor in general, but being gradually accepted as an important type of grammatical metaphor. Thompson claims its presence, arguing that “presence of metaphor can generally be recognized by the need for a double transitivity analysis, one of the original meaning and the other of a more congruent rewording”. (Thompson, 2014). Let's have a look at the example below.
What you need to do is to write me a letter.
You need to write me a letter.
(Example extracted from Thompson, 2014)
The first sentence realises the second sentence atypically in an identifying clause. In other words, the sentence is divided into two parts, i.e., 'what you need to do' = 'write me a letter', which is a Theme = Rheme structure. It is also called “thematic equative” by Halliday (2014) and is often used as a staging device.
Conclusion
In this post, I introduced the types of Grammatical Metaphor, which is Ideational Metaphor (experiential and logical metaphors), Interpersonal Metaphor (metaphors of modality and mood) and Textual Metaphor. Nominalisation belongs to the Ideational Metaphor, which I will cover in the next post.