METAPHORICAL WORDING IN REPORTING SOCIAL ISSUES - A FUNCTIONAL APPROACH
METAPHORICAL WORDING IN REPORTING SOCIAL ISSUES - A FUNCTIONAL APPROACH

Summary/Abstract: In Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) the discussion of metaphor goes further from lexical variation in meaning. With metaphorical expressions the variation is lexicogrammatical rather than merely lexical, since rhetorical transference in most cases involves not only selection of words with changes in their meaning, but also changes in syntactic and semantic functions of clause elements. Grammatical metaphor is crucial in SFG as far as metaphorical mode of expression is concerned, and the so called incongruent (metaphorical) structures are considered noteworthy in written English. The paper discusses transitivity metaphors, but first addresses the notions of grammatical metaphor, clause and wording as explained in SFG. The evidence of metaphorical expressions is then provided through examples from English textual variety of journalese, and these are further interpreted regarding their syntactic and functional components.

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