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

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 & Matt

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

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

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

Table 6: Types of grammatical metaphor

(from Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 247)……… …… ….….26

Table 7: Types of ideational metaphors in Barack Obama’s Presidential Nomination

Firgure 1: Direction of metaphorization

(from Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 264)……… … ……….27

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

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

Chapter 4: Conclusion ─ summarizes the main contents of the study and offers

implications for teachers and makes suggestions for further studies

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

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

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

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

cannot physically grasp the meeting, but the word is being used to equate a physical action with a conceptual one

(Source:http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-different-types-of-metaphors.htm)

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

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

Interpersonal Subject Finite Predicator Complement

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

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:

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

if Conditionally approved

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:

Circumstance:

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

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

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:

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:

Speech function

Mood

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?

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

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)

CHAPTER 3

The Use of Grammatical Metaphors in Barack Obama’s

Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech

This chapter attempts to look at how grammatical metaphors are used in Barack Obama’s Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech To hold the chapter manageable, the following questions are raised for exploration and the procedure of analysis as well as the result will be reported in details

in 2iii, 5iii, we can not use this table as representative for investing interpersonal metaphors, we will discuss on interpersonal metaphors in Barack Obama’s Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech as a particular part based on the theoretical background of Halliday introduced in “An Introduction to Functional Grammar” (1994) The following table is about types of grammatical metaphor in scientific discourse quoted from Halliday and Matthiessen (1999: 247)

No Congruence Semantic

Type Metaphorical Class shift Example

noun

unstable - instability

Transform-2ii

Aspect of phase of process

Tense/phase verb(adverb) - noun

Going prospect/attempt

of process

Modality verb(adverb) - noun

possibility, potential

Can/could-3 Circumstance (minor

process) Thing

Preposition - noun

With - accompaniment

noun

So-cause, proof If-conditions

5i

Process

Event of process

Quality

Verb - adjective

(poverty) is increasing-increasing (poverty)

5ii

Aspect or phase of process

Tense/phase verb(adverb)-adjective

Begin-initial

of process

Modality of verb(adverb)-

(always) constant

Adverb-(acted) brilliantly-brilliant (acting)

6ii

Time, place, etc

Prepositional Phrase-adjective

(argued) for a long time-lengthy (argument)

6iii

Time, place, etc

Prep Phrase – noun modifier

(cracks) on the surface – surface (cracks)

adjective

Before - previouse

Be/go + Preposition - verb

Be about – concern

Be instead of replace

verb

And – complement; then – follow; so – lead to

Prep (phrase)

When – in times

of ; So – as a reasult

13 Thing Modifier (of

thing)

Noun – (various)

Engine (fails) – engine (failure); Glass (fractures) – (the fracture) of glass; Cabinet (decided) – government’s decision

Table 6: Types of Grammatical Metaphor (From Halliday & Matthiessen 1999:247)

The table could be summarized as the Figure 1 below It shows that it is possible to order the semantic functions from left to right That means all possible moves to the right can occur but no move can take place to the left

The ordering is:

Relator circumstance process quality thing

Relator - Circumstance - Process - Quality - Thing

Firgure 1: Direction of metaphorization (From Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 264)

After analyzing Barack Obama’s Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech based on the table of types of grammatical metaphors in English scientific discourse, we have found that the major types that Obama used in his speech are type 1 (quality  thing), 2 (process  thing), 5 (process  quality), 6 (circumstance  quality) and 13 (thing  modifier of thing) Besides, type 4 (relator  thing), 7 (relator  quality), 8 (circumstance  process), 9 (relator  process), 12 (0  process) appeared with low frequency See Appendix 1 for detail of all types of ideational metaphors which are available in the discourse The summary of frequency and percentage rate of types of ideational metaphors used in the speech is shown in the table below:

Types of Ideational Metaphor Frequency Percentage

As can be seen from the table, types 1 (quality  thing), 2 (process  thing), 5 (process

 quality), 6 (circumstance  quality) and 13 (thing  modifier of thing) appeared with high frequency and they are regarded as the major types in his speech, which vitally contribute to the developing of structure and style of the discourse

The priority to using nominalization as in type 1 ((quality  thing) and type 2 (process  thing) in Obama’s speech is the important reason for making his language powerful and persuasive Firstly, by “nouning” a process, Obama can reflect a fact, or express the meaning which can be treated as existing Secondly, it helps him to develop his argument step by step, using complex passages “packaged” in nominal form as theme Thirdly, it allows processes to be objectified, to be expressed without the human doer Some examples of nominalization existing in his speech will be analyzed to highlight these functions

Eg1: (1) The truth is, (2) / on issue after issue that would make a difference in your lives –

on health care and education and the economy (3) /– Senator Mc Cain has been anything but independent///

That clause complex includes three simple clauses In the clause (1) “the truth is…” we

found that Obama used nominalization to make ideational metaphor The congruent form may be “It is true that…” In this congruent form, “true” is in the role of attribute, but in metaphorical form, “true” is turned into “truth” which is in the role of carrier By transferring like this, Obama would like to refer to a fact – “a truth” – which still exists Besides, only by one word with the function of subject and an unmarked theme in metaphorical clause, the hearer could understand the message he would deliver must be important information about a fact which not everybody knows

In clause (2) “on issue after issue that would make a difference in your lives – on health

care and education and the economy”, we see that the verb “make” realizes the material

process, “difference” is a participant which roles as “range” The congruent form of this

clause may be “On issue after issue that would make your lives different-on health care and education and the economy” The verb “make” in this clause belongs to relational

process “Different” in congruent form is still a participant but it is not a range, but an attribute The changing of role of participant makes a different effect on two forms In detail, in metaphorical form, Obama used “difference” as the creative thing of “issue”, which makes the clause objective and it seems that the “difference” exists without human doer at the time of speaking and the speaker is only the person who mentions to it In congruent form, “different” is the attribute of “issue” When it is an attribute, the speaker

or writer can ascribe whatever he/she wants Therefore, it is flexible and it needs the impact of human doer

Eg 2: (1) And when one of his chief advisors – (2)the man who wrote his economic plan – was talking about the anxiety (3)Americans are feeling,(4) he said that (5) we were just

suffering from a “mental recession” (6) and that we’ve become,(7) and I quote, “a nation

of whiners”

The clause complex above involves seven simple clauses and clause 1 and clause 2 contain grammatical metaphors Thank to using nominalization, Obama could express some meanings in only one complex clause It means that, nominalization helps his clauses more objective without choosing many words If he used the verb “plan” and the adjective

“anxious” replacing for nouns “plan, anxiety”, he had to cut one clause into three simple

clauses For example: “And one of his chief advisors – the man planed out the economy – was talking about one thing When heard that thing, Americans felt anxious He said that

we were just suffering from a “mental recession” and that we’ve become, and I quote, “a nation of whiners” Therefore, the combination of some simple clauses to make a noun

phrase is a good method to reduce the number of clauses without losing its meaning Some examples belong to type 5 (process  quality) and type 6 (circumstance  quality) will be analyzed to highlight their functions in this famous speech

Eg 1: “Now is the time to help families with paid sick days” In this clause, “paid”

functions as an adjective and if we analyze it following systemic functional perspective, this clause could be:

Identifier Relational

Process Identified Material Process Beneficiary Circumstance

In this metaphorical form, “paid” in the prepositional phrase “with paid sick days” belongs

to circumstance However, if Obama used it in congruent form as in “Now is the time our government paid for families for sick days”, “paid” would be a verb and function as a process With this way of encapsulating, thank to transitivity function, its function in congruent form will be different from that in metaphorical form See the parallel analysis

of congruent and incongruent form in the table below:

Now is the time to help families with paid sick

days

Identifier Relational

Process Identified Material Process Beneficiary Circumstance

nment

gover-paid for families for sick days

Identifier Relational

Process Identified Actor Material Process Target Circumstance

Eg2: “We will make sure you can afford a college education” (incongruent form)(1)

“We will make sure you can afford an education in a college (congruent form) (2)

It may be observed that both clause (1) and (2) describe the same situation However, the process constituents in (2) have been realized in a congruent fashion, whereas (1) evidences a preference for metaphorical modes of expression

The circumstance of direction “in a college” in (2) is now realized as a prepositional phrase and returns into the participant in (1) The function of “college” which is a part of a prepositional phrase in (2) changes to a part of a noun phrase in (1)

Thus, the transfer of the function of lexical words leads to the transfer of the expression of

a given meaning In two examples analyzed above, we see that the clause in metaphorical form looks shorter than that in congruent form

Along with type 1 (quality  thing), 2 (process  thing), 5 (process  quality), 6 (circumstance  quality), type 13 (thing  modifier of thing) plays the most important part in this Obama’s speech with the rate of 39,41 % This type is a process of shifting

“noun” to “various”, in other word, in congruent form, it is a thing and in metaphorical form it changes to modifier (of thing) We can say that type 13 is a small part of nominalization and it has the same functions as other types of nominalization Here are some examples of type 13 utilizing in the speech:

- Let me express my thanks to the historic slate of candidates

- These challenges are not all of government's making

- But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W Bush

- The truth is, on issue after issue that would make a difference in your lives - on health

care and education and the economy - Senator McCain has been anything but independent

- How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people's benefits, or

an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that

would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement?

In conclusion, although, most of types of grammatical metaphor presented in the theory of Halliday and Matthiesen (1999) are found in this famous discourse, type 1, 2, 5, 6, 13 are the major types of Ideational Metaphors in Barack Obama’s Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech It can be said that, nominalization plays an important role in his metaphorical modes of expression

3.2.2 Interpersonal metaphors

3.2.2.1 Metaphors of mood

Identifying metaphor in the expression of mood meanings is a matter of reinterpreting a phenomenon that mood choices and speech roles do not coincide Questions are most naturally (congruently) associated with interrogative mood but in this speech, in metaphorical form, Obama asks questions with a declarative mood choice Similarly, statement naturally is realized by declarative mood but in incongruent form, he used statement with interrogative and imperative mood choice Normally, command is the speech function that is encoded by imperative but declarative mood choice realizes command in this speech The frequency of these types is shown in the table below:

Metaphors of Mood Frequency Percentage

Declarative realizes Question

Interrogative realizes 10 41,66 %

When using statement with interrogative mood choice, the effect is to force the hearer to answer

Eg: “We measure progress by how many people can find a job that pays the mortgage” “….whether you can put a little extra money away at the end of each month so you can someday watch your child receive her college diploma”

Command encoded by declarative mood is the effective means to help the speaker express what he wants by delicate attitudes

Eg: “…the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth”

“Our government should work for us, not against us”

Statement used with imperative mood reveals that the speaker is a decisive, powerful person

Eg: “Now let there be no doubt”

“Let me express my thanks to the historic slate of candidates who accompanied me on this journey”

The question associates with declarative mood is the way to express a fact existing

Eg: “How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people's benefits,

or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement?”

“Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year?”

See Appendix 2 for more examples of metaphors of mood appeared in the speech

Thus, these ways of combination make hearers listen and think carefully about what he said, answer the questions that he asked and these are the effective tool for the speaker to express a fact existing and to convince the hearers’ emotion Besides, the listeners partly understand this President’s personality, his delicateness and cleverness in communication

3.2.2.2 Metaphors of modality

Metaphors of modality in Barack Obama’s Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech are found based on the modality system introduced in “An Introduction to Functional Grammar” (Halliday 1994) The table below shows the frequency of types, orientations, values and polarities See the way that Barack Obama used metaphors of modality in the Appendix 3

Type Probability Inclination Obligation Usuality

frequency of using inclination (30,32 %) and obligation (22,96%) can be said to be nearly equivalent There are only two clauses in usuality type This difference displays that Obama always evaluated the fact of American situation at that time during his speech and expressed what he wanted and what he had to do in his Presidential term of office In orientation aspect, surprisingly, all clauses have subjective modality, and 90,98% is implicit This figure points out that there is few clauses in projection and most of the clauses express his judgments about American situation and his future actions In value aspect, Obama used median value (50%) for a half of total of clauses, and the disparity between high (29,51%) and low one (20,49) is little Thus, his judgments or evaluations do not have bias in favor towards something, which keeps his evaluations safe In polarity aspect, most of the clauses are positive and this makes his speech sound optimistic

Thus, metaphors of modality play crucial role in the way of delivering messages and revealing the speaker’s attitude and emotion Thank to this kind of metaphor, we could see the determination of Barack Obama to solve some current problems that previous administration cannot do and make America better and better

3.3 Summary

This chapter attempts to look at how grammatical metaphors are used in Barack Obama’s Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech and their roles and effect in developing and structuring the discourse We have found that both ideational and interpersonal metaphors are utilized pervasively in the speech These grammatical metaphors are the factors which contribute to the power, delicateness and persuasiveness of the discourse and reveal the President’s attitude, emotion and talent After analyzing the result in details, we have concluded that:

- In terms of ideational metaphors, Barack Obama used type 1 (quality  thing), 2 (process  thing), 5 (process  quality), 6 (circumstance  quality) and 13 (thing  modifier of thing), type 4 (relator  thing), 7 (relator  quality), 8 (circumstance  process), 9 (relator  process), 12 (0  process) but the major types are type 1, 2, 5, 6 and

13

- In terms of interpersonal metaphors, all aspects of metaphor of modality are mentioned and he made full use of four main types of metaphor of mood which are questions with a

declarative mood choice; statement with interrogative and imperative mood choice, and command with declarative mood choice

CHAPTER IV CONCLUSION

4.1 Major findings

This thesis aims at examining the use of grammatical metaphor in Barack Obama’s Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech After studying, we recognized that both ideational and interpersonal metaphors appeared densely

In ideational metaphor, based on the table of types of grammatical metaphors in English scientific discourse, we found that most of those types existed in this famous discourse, but the major types of ideational metaphors that Barack Obama used are type 1 (quality thing), type 2 (process  thing), type 5 (process  quality), type 6 (circumstance  quality) and type 13 (thing  modifier of thing) Thus, nominalization plays an important role in his metaphorical modes of expression This phenomenon helps him to reflect a fact,

to develop his argument step by step, using complex passages “packaged” in nominal form

as theme and makes the processes in his speech objectified Moreover, we recognized that metaphorical clauses with nominalization are always shorter than congruent clauses

In interpersonal metaphor, we studied the speech in two aspects: metaphor of mood and metaphor of modality

In terms of metaphor of mood, we found that Obama usually asked questions with a declarative mood choice, always used statement with interrogative and imperative mood choice, and often associated command with declarative mood choice These ways of combination make hearers listen and think carefully about what he said, answer the questions that he asked and these are the effective tool for the speaker to express a fact existing and to convince the hearers’ emotion Besides, the listeners partly understand this President’s personality, his delicateness and cleverness in communication

In terms of metaphor of modality, there are 122 clauses involve modality In type aspect, probability occupies nearly a half, following are inclination and obligation and usuality In orientation aspect, all clauses have subjective modality, and most of them are implicit In value aspect, Obama used median value for a half of total of clauses, and the disparity between high and low one is little In polarity aspect, most of the clauses are positive With

prominent features, metaphors of modality contribute to nuance and expression in his evaluation of the fact, moreover, keep his judgment safe Besides, optimistic atmosphere is pervasive in his speech because he mentioned much to what he wants and what he has to

do for American in his presidential term of office

4.2 Implications for teachers

Metaphor is an interesting phenomenon of language but it is not easy to use and interpret

In some cases, you may find that it is impossible to decide on a congruent reading which adequately reflects the meanings encoded in the metaphorical wording As a matter of fact,

it is difficult to decide the reading is congruent or metaphorical Besides, grammatical metaphor may become a bottomless pit of possible rewordings Thus, the concept of grammatical metaphor should be treated with caution by the teachers as they help their students to comprehend and manipulate English texts In addition, knowledge of grammatical metaphor is an effective tool to help students develop their argument in writing tasks Therefore, we suggest that grammatical metaphor should be taken into account in developing writing material for students

4.3 Suggestions for further study

This study has been an attempt to describe the nature of grammatical metaphor in general and examining the use of grammatical metaphor in Barack Obama’s Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech in particular Much of our effort has been focused on the analysis of ideational and interpersonal metaphors in the speech but no attempt has been made to analyze textual metaphors Therefore, further studies should develop this topic by paying more attention to examine how textual metaphor is used in this speech

Besides, since the text we chose belongs to political field, further research may focus on other genres such as literature, culture, journalism, economy…etc