Thursday 21 January 2016

Misconstruing Experiential Manifestations Of Expansion As Logical Metaphor

Martin (1992: 409):
When combined with experiential metaphors, incongruent conjunctive relations are realised across a variety of TRANSITIVITY structures.  Note the following variations on [6:23f]:

[6:23f]
material process

The Second World War further encouraged the restructuring of the Australian economy towards a manufacturing basis.


[6:26]
circumstance of cause

Because of the Second World War the Australian economy was restructured towards a manufacturing basis.


[6:27]
circumstantial attribute

The restructuring of the Australian economy towards a manufacturing basis was due to the Second World War.


[6:28]
value

The cause of the restructuring of the Australian economy towards a manufacturing basis was the Second World War.


[6:29]
circumstantial process

The restructuring of the Australian economy towards a manufacturing basis resulted from the Second World War.


Blogger Comments:

[1] From the perspective of SFL theory, there are no conjunctive relations in any of these purported examples of logical metaphor.  Instead, these clause simplexes exemplify some of the experiential environments that 'construe expansion as a semantic system' (Halliday & Matthiessen 2004: 597).

[2] This is a circumstantial identifying relational Process of cause: reason, not a material Process. The identity decodes the Second World War by reference to the restructuring of the Australian economy towards a manufacturing basis.

The Second World War
further
encouraged
the restructuring of the Australian economy towards a manufacturing basis
Token/Identified
Manner: degree
Process: relational: circumstantial
Value/Identifier


[3] The grammatical environment of cause as ideational metaphor is group rank (Thing), not clause rank (Value).

the
cause
of the restructuring of the Australian economy towards a manufacturing basis
Deictic
Thing
Qualifier

The cause [of the restructuring of the Australian economy towards a manufacturing basis]
was
the Second World War
Value/Identified
Process: relational: intensive
Token/Identifier