a comparative study of ideational grammatical metaphor in political and scientific texts

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IN GOD WE TRUST


A Comparative Study of Ideational Grammatical Metaphor in Political and

Scientific Texts

Superviser: Dr. Behnam

Advisor: Dr. Ghafoori

by Bahram Kazemian


IntroductionSystemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)

1. is a grammatical description developed by Michael Halliday (1985). 2. Systemic: the view of language as a network of systems, or interrelated sets of options for making meaning.3. Functional: refers to the view of language as a means of communication in different social contexts.

4. SFL focuses not only on how language is structured but also language in use.


Grammatical Metaphor (GM)

is a substitution of one grammatical class, or one grammatical structure, by another:his departure instead of he departed.

Actions are presented in a noun phrase. Simply, activities or processes, which would naturally be expressed by verbs, become things.

interpersonal GM, and ideational GM: 2 types of GM


Ideational Grammatical Metaphor (IGM):

includes the process and the nominalization.

IGM is an incongruent representation of the experiential meaning. It is mainly represented by the transitivity system.

there are six main types of process : material, mental, relational, behavioral, verbal and existential processes


1. Knowing how to use GM in academic registers is an essential part of developing academic language.

2. It Can help students, translators to transfer these features from one language into the other.

3. Not expressing their meaning in informal and

simple ways

4. Raising students' awareness regarding the role and function of grammatical metaphor in written texts

Statement of the problem and the purpose


Significance and Justification of the study

1. Raising the consciousness of teachers, translators and EFL instructors as well as students with regard to the role of GM.2. Helping the students to identify the congruent and metaphorical forms. 3. Developing students’ awareness of the characteristics of written English, and academic writing4. Hopefully paving the other researchers' way in further research and intriguing them in the realm of SFL and GM


Functional Grammar

1. is a way of looking at the grammar in terms of how grammar is used.

2. it provides you with the tools for understanding why a text is the way it is.

3. It respects the speaker's rights to make up their own minds about how they choose to talk

4. It is communicative grammar that learners can take out of the classroom

5. a grammar of meanings, in which grammar is viewed not as a set of rules, but as a communicative resource


Metafunctions

1. metafunctions of language are major functions of language.

2. Halliday's Functional Grammar is based on the idea that language performs three major functions:

Metafunction is construed by Lexico-grammar

ideational Transitivity System

interpersonal mood & modality

textual theme


Grammatical Metaphor (GM)

refer to the meaning transference from congruent to metaphorical in grammar.

Congruent forms reflect the typical ways that people construe experience.

People often use verbs into nouns, adjectives into nouns and turn sentences into noun phrases, these changes are called GM.


Ideational Grammatical Metaphor (IGM):

1. is an metaphorical representation of the ideational meaning. It is mainly represented by the transitivity system.

2. uses the form of the noun to express the process or quality which should be expressed by the verbs and adjectives.

3. Includes process types and Nominalization.

4. Nominalization has been known as the single most powerful resource for creating IGM.


Nominalization1. processes (congruently worded as verbs) and

properties (congruently worded as adjectives) are reworded metaphorically as nouns

2. Numerous usage in political and scientific texts.

3. Its functions: density, complexity, abstractness, encapsulation, technicality and rationality.

4. An indicator of academic and formal writing.


Transitivity system(process types)

1. Transitivity choices involve selections from various process types that are realized in verbal groups

2. transitivity as an ideational feature which serves to linguistically construct the goings-on of the real world.

3. Six types: Material (processes of doing), Mental (processes of sensing), Relational (processes of being), Behavioral (physiological and psychological behavior), Verbal (processes of saying), and Existential (process of existence).


Procedure

1. Thorough reading of the texts & IGM’s identification.

2. Rendering GM in Congruent expression.

3. Unpacking GM was based on inventories

represented by: Eggins, Halliday, Halliday

and Mathiessen, Martin et al and

Thompson.

4. Recognition of process types in congruent.

5. Calculating the data and Drawing tables

and graphs


DesignThe design of the present study was

descriptive-analytic which concentrated on the frequency of occurrences of IGM (nominalizations) and their congruent wording in scientific and political texts. As a model of analysis, Hallidyan Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) model of text analysis is utilized as a yardstick to analyze the process types of clauses

.


IGM in political texts:

1. politics is a struggle for power in order to put certain political, economic and social ideas into practice.

2. language plays a crucial role, and it is prepared, accompanied, influenced and played by language.

3. Using various devices like: hyperbole, slogans and nominalization etc..

4. Manipulating meaning and coloring our perception of political trends to persuade us of political realities.


Woods (2006) argued that 1. Nominalization in political texts has the effect of making the second expression sound more impersonal or remote than the first. 2. our attention is diverted from the process that is actually occurring and directed instead to the product of the process, e.g.

1. We are simply being tested by the force of change. The pace of change can … So what is the challenge? It is that change is marching on again .


Functions of Nominalization

1. making actions or processes become concepts e.g. the choice of a nominalization (choose to nominalize)

2. Packing a single sentence in several complex abstract ideas e.g. … security and immigration reform.

3. building long noun phrases to produce a lexically dense style e.g.

a. the Universe and its origins (and how the universe has originated) and

b. …with their courage, strength and wisdom (and are courageous, are strong and are wise)


No. Metaphorical wording Congruent wordingProcess

typeFrequency in per text

1 urban disorder the urban area was disordered material 8

2 cause shock people were shocked by mental 1

3The gross negligence of

certain regionscertain regions were grossly

neglected/negligent by…material 1

4and a demonstration at the

police stationand people demonstrated at

the police stationmaterial 1

5 strident demandto demand something

stridentlyverbal 1

6 Queen’s coronation and the queen was coroneted material 2

7 constituency over the issue to be constituent over … relational 1

8 immigration to the UKpeople have immigrated to the

UKmaterial 1

9development of the

international organizationto develop international

organizationmaterial 1


Functions of Nominalization

4. Reducing the number of clauses and more info is able to be compressed into each nominal group e.g. Benazir's assassination at a campaign rally

5. When verbs are nominalised they become concepts rather than actions; the writer can increase in the amount and density of information: (The company decided to expand its asset base and it has significantly shifted …)

6. enables an academic writer to concisely refer to recurring abstract ideas


Compound Grammatical Metaphor

1. some sentences employ more than one grammatical metaphor in order to produce a desirable effect:

motivated by greed or excitement, the dupes of political extremists, or imitating the behavior of others

2. 556 instances of IGMs were extracted.

Material

Relational

mental verbal Behavioral

existential

335 142 29 39 4 7

60.0 26.3 5.4 5.6 1.4 1.3


IGM in Scientific texts:

1. complexity in scientific language is achieved mainly through specific terminology and nominalization.

2. The most obvious practical reasons for analyzing scientific texts is educational.

3. nominalization probably evolved first in scientific and technical registers.

4. GM is very valued in scientific and academic registers as a way of expressing objectification and abstraction.

5. the difficulty lies more with the grammar than with the vocabulary.


Characteristics of scientific English

1. interlocking definitions

2. technical taxonomies

3. special expressions

4. lexical density,

5. syntactic ambiguity

6. grammatical metaphor (GM)

GM more significant because they state that the items (4) and (5), are both by-products of GM.

GM enables technicalizing and rationalizing


1. Technicality by itself would be of little value unless accompanied by a discourse of reasoning.

2. Other functions such as condensing, compacting and creating technical, expert and professional terms are available to a quick conscious mind and are applicable here.

3. elaborate use of technical terms by reasoning, GMs as well as expanding the topic.

4. The more GMs in the text, the fewer processes, and consequently, the more information load and lexical density.


No. Metaphorical wording Congruent wordingProcess

typeFrequency in per text

1 could support germinationcould support them to

germinatematerial 1

2 have the voluntary ability are voluntarily able to relational 2

3 hyperventilating his lungs he hyperventilates his … behavioral 1

4 every new discoveryevery new thing which is

discoveredmaterial 2

5 128,000 hospitalizations128,000 people were

hospitalizedmaterial 1

6 the Mars of our dreams we have dreamed of Mars behavioral 2

7 the density of the air the air is dense and … relational 1

8 for pollination To be pollinated material 1

9 susceptibility to breast cancer that they are susceptible to ... relational 1


1. Heavily nominalized language can sound pretentious, significant and obscure

2. By nominalizing we are able to do things with the text that we cannot do in unnominalized text.

3. Allowing us to get away from the dynamic and usually real word sequencing

4. Actions and logical relations are not in terms of ourselves, but in terms of ideas, reasons, causes, etc. 547 instances of IGM:

Materi

alRelational

mental verbal Behavioral

existential

286 165 39 39 15 3

50.2 32.4 5.6 6.8 4.3 .7


Discussion:

1. the higher frequency and dominant textual forces of material and relational process types.

2. metaphorical domain elaborates the situation in a more fascinating, colorful and desirable manner.

3. several important functions like condensing, compacting, beautifying, and creating scientific terms.


In science:1. creating technical and scientific terms or

new entities2. systematizing previously stated

information3. Establishing cause-and-effect relationships between various phenomena.4. For reasoning and expanding the smooth flow of the text.5. invite the reader to make sense of a world structure which is tidily, carefully layered.

6. Having a high density of information.


In politics:1. GM’s role is fundamental in political contexts2. as a means of showing that you have gained mastery over a discipline3. As a technique for taking a chunk of information & referring to it by a kind of shorthand.4. as a device to show that the writer has power over the reader.5. having the effect of making the second expression sound more impersonal or remote than the first.


Conclusion

1. Investigating IGM in Science and politics

based on SFL.

2. carrying out an analysis on 10 political and

10 scientific texts to pinpoint their

similarities and dissimilarities based on

nominalization and process types.

3. Domination of IGM in both genres.

4. material process in political discourse is

more than scientific one (286 material

processes for science and 335 for politics)


Conclusion5. and it is probably because of the fact that

political texts deal with provoking,

persuading and convincing people toward a

particular party or group and require more

action words but scientific texts request more

abstract words.

6. employing the theoretical model of Halliday

& Matthiessen (1999) for analysis.

7. the greater the number of included

nominalizations, the greater the volume of

the information expressed by the sentence.


Conclusion

a. actors are no longer readily identifiable,

b. they play a minor role,

c. they are irrelevant for the case at hand,

d. the writer is unable or unwilling to

identify them or,

e. the end result of an action is more

prominent than the action itself.

f. a core characteristic of nominalization is

that it turns actions into things, thus Nominalizations give existence to things; in

particular, they create conceptual objects.


Implications

1. Smoothing the path for academic writing

2. GM is a feature of written language and it makes the writing more expressive, vivid and attractive.

3. without IGM, student's writing sounds artificial, simple and non-academic.

4. enhancing awareness of students’ academic writing and reading.

5. texts with a high degree of GM tend to be considered prestigious , academic and formal in English contexts.


Implications

6. learning and knowing about IGM shed

light on the fluent and smooth process of

translation to some extent.

7. IGM helps students to reduce the number

of clauses in their writing and pack more

information into each nominal group.

8. metaphorical domain explains the situation

in a more vivid and excellent way and

beautify the texts.


Suggestions for Further Research1. inquiry of the other types of GM in

scientific and political texts.

2. There is also a need to analyze texts from

other perspectives to focus on another

type of GM, i.e. interpersonal, or other

metafunctions.

3. comparison and contrast of IGMs or other

types in two different languages, for

instance, Azeri vs. English or Persian vs.

English and the like can be accomplished.

a comparative study of ideational grammatical metaphor in political and scientific texts

Education