the use of grammatical metaphors in barack obama’s presidential nomination acceptance speech = cách sử dụng ẩn dụ ngữ pháp trong bài diễn văn chấp nhận sự tiến cử làm ứng viên tổng thống của ông barack obama

iii

ABSTRACT

This thesis focuses on the use of grammatical metaphor in Barack Obama’s Presidential
Nomination Acceptance Speech. To fulfill this aim, the concept of “grammatical
metaphor” is examined. The thesis starts by explaining the notion of “metaphor” in general
and distinguishes lexical metaphor from grammatical metaphor in particular. Then, a study
on grammatical metaphors in Barack Obama’s Presidential Nomination Acceptance speech
is implemented based on the theoretical background of Halliday (1994) and Halliday &
Matthiessen (1999). This is a descriptive research with both quantitative and qualitative
techniques in data analysis. Two types of grammatical metaphors are ideational and
interpersonal metaphors are densely used from the text. In ideational metaphor type,
Barack Obama mainly used type 1 (quality → thing), 2 (process → thing), 5 (process →
quality), 6 (circumstance → quality), 13 (thing → various) with high frequency. In
interpersonal metaphor type, metaphor of mood and metaphor of modality are explained
and illustrated to highlight the attitude and emotion of the speaker.












iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………… ….i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………… …………….ii
TABLE OF FIGURES…………………………………… …………….……………….iii
CHAPTER 1 : INTRODUCTION…………………… …………….……………………1
1.1. Rationale………………………………………………………………………… ………1
1.2. Aims of the study………………………………………………………………………….2
1.3. Scope of the study………………………………………………….…….……………….2
1.4. Method of the study………………………………………………… ….……………….2
1.5. Format of the study ………………………………………….……………….………….2
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………………….….….4
2.1. Introduction……………………….…………………………………….……… 4
2.2. Metaphor…………………………………………………………………………4
2.3. Lexical metaphor: Traditional view “from below”………………………………5
2.4. Grammatical metaphor: New view “from above” ………………………………7
2.4.1. Metafunctions…………………………………………………… ……………….7
2.4.2. Definition of grammatical metaphor….……………………………………….11
2.4.3. Example……………………………………………………………………………12
2.4.4. Classification of grammatical metaphor………………………………………13
2.4.4.1. Logical metaphor…………………………………….………………….13
2.4.4.2. Experiential metaphor………………………………….………………16
2.4.4.3. Interpersonal metaphor……………………………….………….…….17
2.4.4.4. Textual metaphor ……………………………………………………….20
2.5. Lexical metaphor and grammatical metaphor………………… ………………20
v

2.6. Concluding remarks………………………………………………………….…21
CHAPTER 3: The use of grammatical metaphors in Barack Obama’s Presidential
Nomination Acceptance Speech………………………………………………………………… 22
3.1. Questions ………………………………………………………………………22

3.2. Metaphorical modes of expression in Barack Obama’s Presidential Nomination
Acceptance Speech………………………………………………………………….22
3.2.1. Ideational metaphors…………………………………………………… 22
3.2.2. Interpersonal metaphors …………………………………………………30
3.2.2.1. Metaphors of mood ………………………………….…………………30
3.2.2.2. Metaphors of modality …………………………………………….… 32
3.3. Summary…………………………………………………………………….….33
CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION………………………………………………………… 35
4.1. Major findings……………………………………………………………….………….35
4.2. Implications for teachers…………………………………………….……….….…….36
4.3. Suggestions for further study……………………………………….…….………… 36
REFERENCES………………………………………………………….………… ……37
APPENDIX 1…………………………………………………………… ……………… I
APPENDIX 2………………………………………….…………….…………… … XXII
APPENDIX 3………………………………………………………… …………… XXVII






vi

TABLE OF FIGURES


Table 1: Process types, their meanings and key participants.
(from Halliday 1994: 143)………………………………………………………… …9
Table 2: Giving or Demanding, Goods - & - Services or Information.
(from Halliday 1994: 69)……………………………………………… ………….……10

Table 3: Metafunctions and their reflexes in the grammar.
(from Halliday 1994: 36)……………………………………………………….…… …11
Table 4: Modality system. (from Halliday 1994: 360) …………………………………20
Table 5: Typical and metaphorical realizations of speech functions in mood
types………………………………………………………….…………………….…….21
Table 6: Types of grammatical metaphor.
(from Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 247)……………………………… …… ….….26
Table 7: Types of ideational metaphors in Barack Obama’s Presidential Nomination
Acceptance Speech………………………………………………………………… … 28
Table 8: Types of metaphors of mood in Barack Obama’s Presidential Nomination
Acceptance Speech………………………………………………………………… ….33
Table 9: Types of metaphors of modality in Barack Obama’s Presidential Nomination
Acceptance Speech……………………………………………………….…………… 34
Firgure 1: Direction of metaphorization.
(from Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 264)…………………………………. … ……….27


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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
Metaphor is a well-known phenomenon in language. Thus, it has received attention in a
myriad of disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics, literary theory, semiotics,
stylistics, psychology, pedagogy and so on. Halliday, the author of the famous work “An
Introduction to Functional Grammar” is one of the linguists who spent long time to study
on metaphor in general and grammatical metaphor in particular. He recognized that lexical
metaphor which traditional researches always mentioned is only one aspect of metaphor
and there is a strong grammatical element in rhetorical transference which is called
grammatical metaphor.

In addition, in this work, Halliday states that “metaphorical modes of expression are
characteristic of all adult discourse”. Therefore, I believe that all speeches can have
included this phenomenon. It is also the reason why I chose one famous speech of a
famous President to examine grammatical metaphor used in it.
Moreover, now Barack Obama is an American President who is famous for not only his
talent in political field but also in numerous persuasive speeches because the language he
chooses always makes his speech powerful and convincing. One of the strategies that we
are easy to recognize in all his speeches is using not only lexical metaphors but also
grammatical metaphors to make the discourse vivid and easy to understand for all classes
of citizen.
In conclusion, I chose this topic because of my interest in metaphor in general and
grammatical metaphor in particular; the appearance with high frequency of metaphor in
adult speeches and the admiration to American President Barack Obama’s powerful and
convincing speeches.



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1.2. Aims of the study
This study aims at examining the use of metaphorical modes of expression in Barack
Obama’s Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech from a systemic functional
perspective.
Features of grammatical metaphor used in this speech will be analyzed following the
approach of systemic functional linguistics to understand the roles of grammatical
metaphors in developing and structuring this discourse.
1.3. Scope of the study
This study attempts to look at how Barack Obama uses grammatical metaphors in his
Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech.
The analysis will follow Halliday’s work “An Introduction to Functional Grammar” as the

framework and Obama’s Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech will be taken as
source of data for illustration.
1.4. Method of the study
Since the thesis sets its main objective of investigating the use of grammatical metaphor in
Barack Obama’s Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech, it is a descriptive research
which reexamines the senses in which the grammatical metaphors are used. The techniques
involved in data analysis are both qualitative and quantitative.
1.5. Format of the study
The study is composed of four chapters
Chapter 1: Introduction ─ presents the rationale, the aims, the scope, the methodology
and the format of the study.
Chapter 2: Literature Review ─ provides the theoretical background of the study. It
examines aspects of metaphor and focuses on the nature of grammatical metaphor.
Chapter 3: The Study ─ is the main part of the study which investigates the use of
grammatical metaphor in Barack Obama’s Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech.
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Chapter 4: Conclusion ─ summarizes the main contents of the study and offers
implications for teachers and makes suggestions for further studies.

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CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Introduction
Language is a systematic resource for expressing meaning in context and linguistics is the
study of how people exchange meanings through the use of language. Metaphor is one of
the most interesting phenomena in this language system and users who want to find the
meaning of metaphors must put them in the context to understand the real meanings
expressed. Metaphor is not a new topic, however, when dealing with this term, most of the
learners will think about traditional view of metaphor which is called lexical metaphor.
Many people do not know that there exists the second form of metaphor that is
grammatical metaphor, which is developed by Halliday (1994), Martin (1985, 1992),
Thompson (1996), H.V.Van (1997)… etc. The following sections will be restricted to a
number of key points in the theory which are closely related to the topic of this thesis –
grammatical metaphor. Firstly, we will provide some definitions of “metaphor” with the
example in general. Secondly, a detailed description of lexical metaphor and grammatical
metaphor will be made to see the nature of two kinds of metaphor. Then, the relationship

between lexical metaphor and grammatical metaphor is dealt with by Halliday’s viewpoint.
Thus, the following parts are organized around the headings: Metaphor; lexical metaphor:
traditional view “from below”; grammatical metaphor: new view “from above”; lexical
metaphor and grammatical metaphor.
2.2. Metaphor
Metaphor is a well-known phenomenon in language. It catches attention and interest of
many stylisticians, linguists, cognitive poeticians and so on. They are interested in the way
of transferring mental constructs and mapping one mental representation onto another
when reading texts. Thus, they have consistently drawn attention to the system of
conceptual transfer in both literary and in everyday discourse, and one important trope,
through which this conceptual transfer is carried out, is metaphor. “Metaphor” is derived
from the Greek meta-, “beyond” and phora, which is derived from pherein, “to carry”. In
its original, etymological sense, metaphors refer to a kind of movement from one thing to
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another: one thing is carried beyond itself to something different. The modern definitions
of metaphor still keep its nature but they are developed more concrete and detailed. We
will mention to some of the definitions of metaphor as follows.
A simplified definition is that metaphor is a “mapping of the structure of a source model
onto a target model” (Ungerer and Schmid 1999: 120). This definition has not yet been
stated precisely what a domain is and how a source model is different from the target
model. Although Simpson (2004: 41) has a similar definition, his concept overcomes this
shortcoming. He states that “A metaphor is a process of mapping between two different
conceptual domains. The different domains are known as the target domain and the source
domain. The target domain is the topic or concept that you want to describe through the
metaphor while the source domain refers to the concept that you draw upon in order to
create the metaphorical construction”.
Without dealing with source domain and target domain, Halliday (1994: 340) provides an
understandable and simple concept of metaphor as “a word is used for something
resembling that which it usually refers to”.

Consider the following examples:
“A flood of protests poured in following the announcement” (1)
“The government still hopes to stem the tide of inflation”(2)
In these two examples, metaphors are “flood….poured in”, “stem the tide”. They are
transferred from concrete senses “a large quantity…came in”, “resist the force of” to
abstract senses.
2.3. Lexical metaphor: Traditional view “from below”
The traditional approach to metaphor is to look at it “from below” as variation in the
meaning of a given expression (Halliday 1994: 342). It means we look at metaphorical
movement from a literal to a figurative meaning. One particular word has its own literal
meaning and it is used to express a new figurative meaning. Because it is a lexeme (word)
which lies at the basis of the metaphorical expression, thus, this expression can be called
lexical metaphor. Taverniers (2004) introduces the definition of lexical metaphor as “a
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feature which belongs to the lexicon of a language: it refers to the possibility of lexemes to
express new, metaphorical meanings”.
If analyzing the first example above with traditional view “from below”, literally, “flood”
is “a moving mass of water” and metaphorically, “flood” is “a moving mass of felling or
rhetoric”.
Because of myriad of different disciplines study on lexical metaphor, there exists
numerous different types of lexical metaphor but there are five primary types which are
dealt with most: allegorical, absolute, mixed, extended, and dead metaphors. Allegory is a
metaphor that employs an extended story illustrating the comparison between two things
using symbols rather than explicit words. An allegory in literature often presents the overt
elements of a given story along with subtle, nuanced commentary for other events that the
author wishes to show an equivalency with. Absolute metaphor, compared with other
types, cannot be obfuscated or reduced in any way. An absolute metaphor presents a
simple equivalency, such as light standing for knowledge or snow indicating purity.
Absolute metaphors can be symbolic or literal, and they differ from other types of

metaphors in that they cannot be replaced by other metaphoric constructions. Mixed
metaphor is one of the most common types of metaphors, yet they may be difficult to
understand. A mixed metaphor is the blending of two contradictory elements that are
completely inconsistent in type. The symbolic meaning of the comparison is still conveyed.
Sometimes the mixed metaphor can be employed intentionally for effect. For example,
"There's no place like a home on the range" blends two well-known idioms. Extended
metaphor presents a complex comparison with multiple objects. It compares a primary
object with a symbolic object, then compares secondary objects connected to the primary
with other elements of the symbolic object. For example, Shakespear’s famous "All the
world's a stage, And the men and women merely players" is an extended metaphor, in
which the "world" and the "stage" act as the primary objects, while "we" and "players"
represent the secondary objects. Dead metaphor offers a comparison that is not symbolic in
form, but to physical motion instead. A dead metaphor is simply a comparison that goes
unnoticed because the metaphor rests on a comparison that has simply become part of the
language. It often involves the use of an idiom. For example, the sentence "the committee
will hold a meeting" is a dead metaphor with respect to the word hold. The committee
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cannot physically grasp the meeting, but the word is being used to equate a physical action
with a conceptual one.
(Source:
2.4. Grammatical metaphor: New view “from above”
The difference between lexical metaphor and grammatical metaphor is the former looks at
metaphor “from below” and the latter looks at it “from above”. Looking at it “from above”
means examining variation in the expression of a given meaning. (Halliday 1994: 342).
If analyzing the first example above with the new view “from above”, congruently, “many
people” is “a large number” and metaphorically, “many people” is transferred as “a
flood”.
In the following part, we will discuss some main points relating to grammatical metaphor,
which are “metafunctions, definition of grammatical metaphor, example and classification

of grammatical metaphor”.
2.4.1. Metafunctions
In functional approaches to grammar we essentially equate meaning with function. Within
functional grammar, three broad types of meaning are recognized. We can summarize the
three kinds of meaning as follows:
 We use language to talk about our experience of the world, including the worlds in
our own minds, to describe events and states and the entities involved in them.
 We also use language to interact with other people, to establish and maintain
relations with them, to influence their behavior, to express our own viewpoints on
things in the world, and to elicit or change theirs.
 In using language, we organize our messages in ways which indicate how they fit
in with the other messages around them and with the wider context in which we are
talking or writing.
The three categories above are used as the basis for exploring how meanings are created
and understood, because they allow the matching of particular types of functions with
particular types of wordings to an extent that other categorizations generally do not.
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Corresponding to three kinds of meanings above, the labels for each of metafunctions are
experiential, interpersonal and textual metafunctions. Each perspective has identified a
different kind of structure for the clause. In other word, each metafunction has an
associated grammar system. The experiential meaning is realized in the system of
transitivity. The interpersonal meaning is realized in the system of mood and modality. The
textual meaning is realized in the system of Theme - Rheme. The example quoted from
“Introducing Functional Grammar” written by Thompson (1996: 32) below is the
illustration for three kinds of metafunctions.
Type of
structure
Who
has

taken
her calculator?
Experiential
Actor
Process
Goal
Interpersonal
Subject
Finite
Predicator
Complement
Textual
Theme
Rheme
When we label “Who” as Actor, it indicates that it has the function of expressing the
“doer” of the action expressed in the process. Generally speaking, we are looking at the
clause from the experiential perspective of how entities and events in the world are referred
to. When we say that “Who” is a Subject, we are looking at the clause from the
interpersonal perspective of how the speaker negotiates meanings with the listener. To say
that “Who” is a Theme means that we are looking at the clause from the textual perspective
of how the speaker orders the various groups and phrases in the clause, in particular, which
constituent is chosen as the starting-point for the message.
Halliday (1994: 106) states that the meaning as representation which represents patterns of
experience is realized in the system of transitivity which “construes the world of
experience into a manageable set of process types”. Halliday deals with six process types
that are material process, mental process, relational process, verbal process, existential
process and behavioural process. The process types are summarized by Halliday (1994:
143) as follows:
Process type
Category meaning

Participants
Material:
Action
“doing”
“doing”
Actor, Goal
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Event
“happening”
Behavioural
“behaving”
Behaver
Mental:
Perception
Affection
Cognition
“sensing”
“seeing”
“feeling”
“thinking”
Senser, Phenomenon
Verbal
“saying”
Sayer, Target
Relational
Attribution
Identification
“being”
“attributing”

“identifying”

Carrier, Attribute
Identified, Identifier; Token, Value
Existential
“existing”
Existent
Table 1: Process types, their meanings and key participants
(from Halliday 1994: 143)
The interpersonal metafunctions enables people to use language to enact social
relationships. In other words, it concerns the interaction between the speaker and the
listener, the writer and the reader. The principal grammatical system realizes interpersonal
metafunction is mood and modality. The mood system establishes the exchange between
interactants by assigning them speech roles which are called “giving” and “demanding”.
“Giving” and “demanding” relate to the nature of the commodity being exchanged. This
may be “goods - & - services” or “information”. These two variables, when taken together,
define the four primary speech functions of offer, command, statement and question. The
speech functions question, statement and command respectively default the mood
interrogative, declarative and imperative. Halliday (1994: 69) gives example as the table
below:
Commodity
Role in exchanged
exchange
Goods - & - Services
Information
Giving
“Offer”
Would you like this
teapot?
“Statement”

He’s giving her the teapot
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Demanding
“Command”
Give me that teapot!
“Question”
What is he giving her?
Table 2: Giving or Demanding, Goods - & - Services or Information
(from Halliday 1994: 69)
The textual meaning is described through the system of Theme - Rheme. Halliday (1994:
37) argues that thematic structure “gives the clause its character as a message”. Theme is
the element that serves as the point of departure of the message. Rheme is the remainder of
the message, the part in which the theme is developed.
Both Halliday (1994: 36) and Thompson (1996: 35) mentions to a fourth metafunction
which is logical metafunction. However, Halliday does not describe it in detail because it is
not embodied in the clause but in the clause complex. Contrast to Halliday, Thompson
devotes one part to analyze. He argues that “we need to look at the types of relationships
which can be established between clauses” and logical metafunction “is the logical
component of the grammar that handles the similarities and differences in the way that the
following pair of clauses can be combined:
Estimates of the soot produced by the fires vary, but it is probably about 500,000 tonnes a
month.
Although estimates of the soot produced by the fires vary, it is probably about 500,000
tonnes a month”.
Thompson (1996: 35) adds “the logical metafunction relates to the connections between
the messages, and to the ways in which we signal these connections”.
In short, according to Halliday (1994) and Thompson (1996), there are four metafunctions
which are experiential, interpersonal, textual and logical metafunctions. Halliday (1994:
36) introduces the technical names for the metafunctions, matches them up with the

different statuses of the clause and shows the kind of structure favoured by each. His
summary is shown through the table below:
Metafunction
(Technical name)
Definition
(Kind of meaning)
Corresponding
status of clause
Favoured type of
structure
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Experiential
Construing a model
of experience
Clause as
representation
segmental (based on
constituency)
Interpersonal
Enacting social
relationships
Clause as exchange
prosodic
Textual
Creating relevance
to context
Clause as message
culminative
Logical

Constructing logical
relations

iterative
Table 3: Metafunctions and their reflexes in the grammar (from Halliday 1994: 36)
2.4.2. Definition of Grammatical Metaphor
Grammatical metaphor is one of the most interesting theoretical notions developed by
Halliday (1985/1994) within systemic functional grammar. In this research paradigm,
language is regarded as a semiotic system which comprises three different strata (discourse
– semantics, lexicogrammar and phonology) related to each other by means of subsequent
realizations. Each realization involves making meaningful choices within the different
systems which make up each stratum. Thus, discourse-semantics is realized through the
lexicogrammar, which is in turn realized phonologically. With this general framework in
mind, grammatical metaphor may be defined as a variation in the grammatical forms
through which a semantic choice is typically realized in the lexicogrammar. Halliday
defines grammatical metaphor as a principle in which meanings may be cross-coded,
phenomena represented by categories other than those that evolved to represent them.
(Halliday 1985: xviii)
In similar vein, Thompson gives a tentative definition of grammatical metaphor as “the
expression of a meaning through a lexico-grammatical form which originally evolved to
express a different kind of meaning” (Thompson 1996: 165).
Sharing the same idea, Matthiessen (1995) discusses grammatical metaphor as a way of
expanding the semantic potential of the system.
In fact, looking at grammatical metaphor means we study the variation in the expression of
a given meaning. The concept that Halliday (1994) used to describe “the less metaphorical
variant” is “congruent”. More detailed, for any given semantic configuration, there will be
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some realization in the lexicogrammar – some wording – that can be considered
“congruent” and the transferred realization is called “metaphorical”.

A following example of “congruent” and “metaphorical” expression will be analyzed to
make clear about these concepts. “The north emerges from every statistical comparison
that can be made as significantly poorer than the south” (Thompson, 1996: 164). If we
think in terms of the meaning being expressed, we can “translate” this example into
something like: “Whenever people compare statistics about the north and the south, they
find that the north is significantly poorer than the south”. This way of expressing the
meaning represents the “comparing” as an event involving human participants which
results in those participants understanding a phenomenon. Therefore, this “translation” is
more congruent. As Thompson states “the term “congruent” can be informally glossed as
“closer to the state of affairs in the external world”. In simple terms, nouns congruently
encode things, and verbs congruently encode happenings”. In contrast, the original
sentence above is metaphorical because there is a noun “comparison” encodes a
happening, and a verb “emerges” encodes a complex meaning which expresses the logical
relation of cause and effect “as a result of comparing, people find out…”. Below is an
example of what is meant by grammatical metaphor.
2.4.3. Example
(1) He walked in the evening along the road to the hospital.
(2) His evening walk along the road took him to the hospital.
It may be observed that both clause (1) and (2) describe the same situation. However, the
process constituents in (1) have been realized in a congruent fashion, whereas (2)
evidences a preference for metaphorical modes of expression.
In this example, metaphor of transitivity is utilized in this grammatical metaphorical mode
of expression. That means the meaning is cross-coded, phenomena represented by
categories other than those that evolved to represent them. In detail, the material process
“walk”, realized by a verb in (1) is encoded in (2) as a participant (Actor) which attains
lexical expression by means of a noun. The two circumstantial elements of time “in the
evening” and place “along the road” in (1) become respectively a classifier and a qualifier
of the new Actor in (2). The circumstance of time is now realized as a noun and returns
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into a part of the participant, whereas the place element remains a prepositional phrase
although it is in a different rank within the clause. Thus, through the analysis, it can be
recognized that the function of the elements in the clause is changed from the congruent
mode to metaphorical mode.
2.4.4. Classification of grammatical metaphor
The factor to classify different types of grammatical metaphor which systemicists often
pay attention to is their function in a certain metafunction.
Halliday (1994) divides grammatical metaphor into ideational metaphors and interpersonal
metaphors based on the semantic functions.
Martin (1992) adds one more type of grammatical metaphor, which is textual metaphor. He
also analyses ideational metaphors in two directions: logical and experiential metaphors.
Thompson (1996) has the same idea with Martin (1992), but he groups logical and
experiential metaphor in one type without calling it as ideational metaphors. Besides, he
also deals with interpersonal and textual metaphors.
Hoang Van Van (1999) points out that an instance of grammatical metaphor may be
involved in more than one metafunction. This means that a congruent realization in the
interpersonal metafunction may have its metaphorical realization in the experiential
metafunction. For example, “She should go to the meeting” and “Her obligation is to go
to the meeting”. In these two examples, “should” is a congruent realization in the
interpersonal metafunction and “obligation” is an incongruent realization, in other word,
metaphorical realization in the experiential metafunction. In the following sections, we will
adopt Martin’s view in classifying grammatical metaphors into logical, experiential,
interpersonal and textual metaphor.
2.4.4.1. Logical metaphor
In the book “Working with discourse: meaning beyond the clause” (2003: 140), Martin, &
Rose state that logical metaphor “is used to re-construe logical relations between figures as
if they were relations between elements within figures”. The instrument of re-construing as
other kinds of elements, including processes, things, qualities and circumstances is
conjunctions.
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Conjunction as process
Example:
Such a hearing
is likely to lead
to a miscarriage of justice
participant
process
Circumstance (place)
This strategy compresses a sequence of two activities into a single figure by means of
experiential and logical metaphors. Experientially, the participant and circumstance
represent two activities “hearing an application” and “miscarrying justice”, which are re-
construed as things (a hearing, a miscarriage). Logically, there is a relation of consequence
between these activities “if…then” (if such a hearing happens, then justice will be
miscarried), which is re-construed as a process “is likely to lead”.
According to Martin, logical metaphors have two functions. Firstly, the different use of
logical metaphors for conjunctions helps to grade the evaluation of relations between
events or arguments. In that example, the probability of the result “likely to lead” is graded
differently from high probability “will certainly lead” or low probability “will possibly
lead”. Besides, the choice of words also contributes to the process of grading. For instance,
the phrase “lead to” is in contrast to the stronger phrase “result in” or weaker “associated
with”. Secondly, logical metaphors combine with experiential metaphors to package
activity sequences as manageable chunks of information. This function of logical metaphor
is oriented to periodicity. For example: “The act required that the application should be
dealt with in a public hearing unless such a hearing was likely to lead to a miscarriage of
justice (for instance, where witnesses were too intimidated to testify in open session). In
this example, the logical metaphor “is likely to lead” enables the sequence of cause “such a
hearing” and effect “a miscarriage of justice” to be packaged as chunks of information
within a single message.
Conjunction as circumstance

Example
Is amnesty
being given
at the cost of justice being done?
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participant
process
circumstance (accompaniment)
The logical meaning of “at the cost of” is concessive purpose “without” giving the
following sequence: “is amnesty being given without justice being done?”. This strategy
enables a sequence of two activities to be packaged as a single figure, with “amnesty” as
one chunk of information and the circumstance as another. Besides, the lexical metaphor
“at the cost of” implies a balance sheet, in which income “amnesty” is weighed against
expenditure “justice”. So re-construing a sequence using this metaphor adds layers of
meaning to the question.
Conjunctions as things and qualities
Here are some examples of conjunction as a thing
Conjunction
Thing
Before
The first time
Thus
Conclusion
By
A means to
If
Condition
Eg: Many of those in the security forces who have come forward had previously been
regarded as respectable members of their communities. It was often the very first time that

their communities and even sometimes their families heard.
Before they came forward their communities and even sometimes their families had not
heard.
In this case, the logical metaphor allows other meanings to be incorporated. It enables
“logical things” to be numbered.
Here are some examples of conjunction as qualities
Conjunction
Quality of thing or process
so
Resulting action
by
Enabling action
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if
Conditionally approved
thus
Conclusively proven
before
Previously regarded
Eg: Many of those in the security forces who have come forward had previously been
regarded as respectable members of their communities.
This could be unpacked as: “Many of those in the security forces who have come forward
were regarded as respectable members of their communities before they came forward”.
2.4.4.2. Experiential metaphor
In the book “Working with discourse: meaning beyond the clause” Martin & Rose show
that in experiential metaphor, elements of figures are re-construed as if they were other
kinds of elements, such as process turns into thing and quality becomes thing. For
example:
On the fifth day

they
at the summit
arrived
Circumstance:
Time

Actor
Circumstance:
Place
Material process
The fifth day
saw
them
at the summit

Sensor
Mental
process
Phenomenon
Circumstance:
Place

One of the most important ways in which experiential metaphor arises is nominalization,
i.e. the use of a nominal form to express a process meaning:
Eg: These ideas have been subject to widespread criticism. (Many people have criticized
these ideas)
Nominalisation can also be used to express an attributive meaning – a relational process
together with the Attribute:
Eg: This ambivalence towards literacy seems to be a strong element in contemporary

culture (People are ambivalent towards literacy…)
Thompson (1996: 167) argues that “this type of grammatical metaphor plays a key role
because it involves a realignment of all the other elements of the message. As we have
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seen, the process is central in the clause, and the other elements are defined by their
relationship to it: they are participants in, or circumstances for, the process. If the process
is nominalised, it has an inevitable knock-on effect on these other elements. In simple
terms, a verb has a Subject, for example, but a noun does not; on the other hand, a noun
can have attributes. When a process is expressed as a thing by nominalization, the
participants may be expressed as attributes of the thing”.
In short, Martin (2003: 144) states that how much we choose to unpack ideational
metaphors in our analyses will depend on our purposes. If we unpack experiential and
logical metaphors, we have two advantages. The first advantage is that by paraphrasing
highly metaphorical discourse in a more spoken form, we can show how it means what it
does. The second one is that we can recover participant roles and logical arguments that
tend to be rendered implicit by ideational metaphor. This can be a powerful tool for critical
discourse analysis, revealing implicit nuclear relations such as agency and effect, and
implicit logical relations such as cause and effect.
2.4.4.3. Interpersonal metaphor
Thompson (1996) claims that “the non-negotiability associated with nominalization can
clearly be a powerful weapon in cases where the speaker or writer wishes, for whatever
reason, to avoid negotiation, with its possible outcome of rejection. In persuasive text, one
common technique is to objectify opinion by nominalizing it, so as to make it more
difficult for the reader or hearer to disagree with it”. Thus, he identifies metaphor in the
expression of “modality” and “evaluation”.
For example: “But the possibility always existed of giving it a second runway”.
(= People could always have given it…” )
Thompson adds explicit subjective modality as a kind of metaphor in terms of the modal
responsibility cline. In this case, there is clearly no question of disguising responsibility;

but the wording is metaphorical in that there is a tension between the grammatical
dominance of the modal clause and the semantic dominance of the “reported” clause. For
example:
I doubt if I could help anyway
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Senser
Pro: Mental
Actor
Pro: Material

Probably I could (not) help anyway

Actor
Pr: Material

We can see the explicit subjective modality in the double analysis above. Since we are
dealing with interpersonal meanings metaphorically expressed as if they were experiential
meanings, the main difference in the more congruent reading is that the former “disappear”
from the transitivity analysis. Because of this similarity between the two readings, in
practice it is often simplest just to ignore the modal clause in the transitivity analysis, i.e. to
analyze the clause as if it were expressed congruently. The modal and evaluative meanings
can then be accounted for in the interpersonal analysis of the clause.
According to Halliday (1994), the interpersonal metaphor is the expression of MOOD and
MODALITY. There are four variable in modality, which are TYPE, ORIENTATION,
VALUE and POLARITY. Modality refers to the area of meaning that lies between yes and
no – the intermediate ground between positive and negative polarity. What this implies
more specifically will depend on the underlying speech function of the clause. If the clause
is an “information” clause, it is modalization. If the clause is a “goods - & - service”
clause, it is called modulation. Each type contains two degrees: Modalization has degree of

probability and modulation has degree of obligation or of inclination. However, the
orientation is the factor that determines how each type of modality will be realized. Thus,
they should be distinguished between subjective and objective modality; between explicit
and implicit variants. The third variable in modality is the value that is attached to the
modal judgment: high, median or low. 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. (Eg: Direct negative: It’s likely
Mary doesn’t know  Transferred negative: It isn’t likely Mary knows). With the outer
values, if the negative is transferred the value switches (Eg: Direct negative: It’s certain
Mary doesn’t know (high)  It isn’t possible Mary knows (low)).
A network of modality systems is set up as in Table 4:
TYPE
modalization
probability
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usuality
modulation
obligation
inclination
ORIENTATION
subjective

objective

explicit

implicit

VALUE

median

outer
high
low
POLARITY
positive

negative
direct
transferred
Table 4: Modality system (Halliday 1994: 360)
The second kind of interpersonal metaphor, according to systemic functional grammar, is
the expression of mood. In order to understand the notion of interpersonal metaphors of
mood, it is necessary to consider again the speech functions that mood expresses. Halliday
(1994) distinguishes three major types of interactive functions: statements are expressions
which give information, questions are expressions that ask information, and commands are
expressions which ask for something to take place. Each of these functions has its own
default type of encoding: statements are encoded by declarative, questions by interrogative
and commands by imperative. However, the nature of metaphor of mood is the incongruent
transference in the process of the realization of these functions. In metaphor of mood, one
speech function can be realized by various moods and one mood can realize various speech
functions. For example, mood “interrogative” can realize speech functions “question,
statement and command”; speech function “question” can be realized by mood
“interrogative, imperative and declarative”. The example below will make this point
clearer:
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Speech function
Mood

Statement
Question
Command
Declarative
I have never let you
down!
I wonder where you
have been
You should tell
me the truth
Interrogative
Have I ever let you
down?
Where have you
been?
Could you tell me
the truth?
Imperative
Admit that I have never
let you down!
Tell me where you
have been!
Tell me the truth!
Table 5: Typical and metaphorical realizations of speech functions in mood types
2.4.4.4. Textual metaphor
Halliday (1994) does not include this category in his survey of grammatical metaphor
because he states that it is debatable whether the label “textual metaphor” is really
justified. However, Thompson (1996) includes it because of the assumption that the
presence of metaphor can be recognized by the need for a double transitivity analysis.
These are thematic equatives and predicated theme.

Martin gives the reason for adding textual metaphor in types of grammatical metaphor,
which is “grammatical metaphor affects both the ideational and textual structure of the
clause since it is a tool for organizing text” (Martin in Halliday & Martin 1993:241). He
believes that textual metaphors are logically oriented-they provide resources for
metaphorical realizations of conjunctive relations:
Meta-message relation: reason, example, point, factor, pointing out…
Text reference: this…
Negotiating texture: let me begin by…
Internal conjunction: A number of reasons, for example, as a final point, as a result…
2.5. Lexical metaphor and grammatical metaphor
The theory of lexical metaphor and grammatical metaphor introduced above prove that
there is a relationship between them. Halliday (1994:341) states that “lexical selection is
just one aspect of lexicogrammatical selection, or “wording”; and that metaphorical
variation is lexicogrammatical rather than simply lexical. Many metaphors can be located
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in lexical expressions but even with these, there is often grammatical variation
accompanying them”. He adds “there is also such a thing as grammatical metaphor, where
the variation is essentially in the grammatical forms although often entailing some lexical
variation as well”.
2.6. Concluding remarks
This chapter set out to give an overview of metaphor in general and grammatical metaphor
in particular. The major points may be summarized as follows:
- “A metaphor is a process of mapping between two different conceptual domains. The
different domains are known as the target domain and the source domain. The target
domain is the topic or concept that you want to describe through the metaphor while the
source domain refers to the concept that you draw upon in order to create the metaphorical
construction”. (Simpson 2004: 41) or as “a word is used for something resembling that
which it usually refers to”. (Halliday 1994: 340).
- The traditional approach to metaphor is to look at it “from below” as variation in the

meaning of a given expression (Halliday 1994: 342).
- The new approach to metaphor is to look at it “from above” as variation in the expression
of a given meaning. (Halliday 1994: 342).
- Lexical and grammatical metaphors are not two different phenomena; they are both
aspects of the same general metaphorical strategy by which we expand our semantic
resources for construing experience.
- Two types of realization relationship between grammar and semantics are congruent and
metaphorical.
- Grammatical metaphors can be classified into logical, experiential, interpersonal and
textual metaphors (Martin 1992). Or it can be classified into ideational and interpersonal
metaphors (Halliday 1994).