语法隐喻理论的发展及其理论意义

The Development of the Grammatical Metaphor Theory and Its Theoretical Implications

本文主要探讨了韩礼德等近十年来对于语法隐喻理论的发展及其理论意义。论文指出,语法隐喻理论至少有以下三方面的变化:(1)韩礼德倾向于用语法隐喻这一术语指称所有级转移现象,而反对概念、人际和语篇隐喻的分类;(2)语法隐喻被看作是超越语言系统之上的一种工作机制,具有浓重的语言哲学意味;(3)韩礼德等人讨论了语法隐喻与认知隐喻理论之间的异同,表明该学派已经开始与其他学派间的对话,这一理论立场上的重大变化无疑有助于系统功能语言学理论自身的进一步发展。

This paper focuses on the development of Hallidays grammatical metaphor theory as well as its theoretical implications. Three aspects of changes that happen to the grammatical metaphor theory and the Hallidayan view on the philosophy of language are explicated as follows: (1) Halliday intends the term grammatical metaphor to cover all rankshifting phenomena while opposing surreptitiously the taxonomy of ideational, interpersonal and textual metaphors that he himself or Martin et al held previously. (2) Grammatical metaphor is regarded as a mechanism working beyond the stratum of language and thus imbued with philosophical implications. (3) The similarity and difference between the grammatical metaphor and cognitive metaphor theories have been discussed by Halliday et al, which signals the initial step that systemic linguists take to converse with the mainstream linguists.