语法隐喻及其在学术英语中的作用

论文摘要

本文将语法隐喻理论运用于学术英语的分析。在介绍了语法隐喻理论及英语学术语体的文体学视角的基础上,系统论述了语法隐喻在学术语体中的六大作用,并在语法隐喻理论框架下简要对比了学术英语与汉语学术语篇的差异。这六大作用包括:第一、名词化具有语篇衔接作用。这种衔接作用是通过主位-述位的组织实现的,属于词汇衔接手段;第二、名词化和形容词化使学术英语显得更客观、更正式。名词化和形容词化过程将动词转化为名词和形容词,也就是将显性过程变成了隐性过程,即将个别事件转化为固定的名称或修饰成分,使个别事件固化,从而使学术英语显得更加客观公正。人际隐喻的使用将个人的观点表述为客观事实,使学术语篇的个人化色彩消弱,从而使学术语篇更具客观性和说服力。第三、名词化使学术英语的技术性增强。名词化过程将专业性不强的信息集中到一个词汇项上,从而产生了科技术语,增加了语篇的科技性。第四、经验隐喻和逻辑隐喻通过名词化和动词化过程构成一个个隐藏的推理链条,从而有利于论据的展开,使推理顺利进行。第五、名词化使修饰成分和过程转化为抽象的实体,使具体事件转化为概括性更强的实体,从而使学术英语更加抽象、概括。第六、名词化将形容词、动词或小句等转化为名词,有利于对转化后的名称进行分类。最后,语法隐喻的使用增加了语篇的信息量。此外,本文还对比了学术英语与汉语学术语篇的差异。我们发现,适用于学术英语的原则不一定都适用于汉语学术语篇。第一、汉语学术语篇中的名词化现象较少,动词使用频率较高,显性过程较普遍。第二、汉语学术语篇中人际隐喻使用较少,显性主观和隐性主观的情态表达较多,因而人称主语比较普遍。第三、汉语学术语篇中长句较少,即小句复合体较少,短句使用较多。本文最后还简要讨论了两个问题,一、语法隐喻的得与失问题:得,是由于语法隐喻的使用增加了语篇的信息量,失,是由于语法隐喻的使用引起了歧义;二、如何“分解”语法隐喻的问题,有两种方法可供参考:一是根据所涉及的语法隐喻的不同类型,分步骤地“分解”,另一个是,根据不同的受众对象进行不同程度地整体“分解”。本文研究表明,文体学对英语学术语体特征的观察建立在统计的基础之上,只对其特征进行描述,而语法隐喻理论一方面对这些特征进行了理论性解释,另一方面还对学术英语中语法隐喻的各种功能作出了理论性解释。

论文目录

• Acknowledgements
• Abstract
• 摘要
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 The Rise and Development of the Theory of Grammatical Metaphor
• 1.1. The Rise of the Theory of Grammatical Metaphor
• 1.1.1.1 deational grammatical metaphor
• 1.1.1.1. The technique used for bringing out the metaphorical nature
• 1.1.1.2. Distribution of transitivity metaphors
• 1.1.1.3. Dead metaphor
• 1.1.2. Interpersonal grammatical metaphor
• 1.1.2.1. Metaphors of modality
• 1.1.2.2. Metaphors of mood
• 1.2. The Concept of the Term Congruence
• 1.2.1. The Concept of Congruence in Earlier Work by Halliday
• 1.2.1.1. The concept of congruence and markedness
• 1.2.1.2. The concept of congruence in social context
• 1.2.2. The Semogenetic Perspective toward Congruency and Incongruency
• 1.3. Later Development of the Theory of GM
• 1.3.1. Textual metaphor
• 1.3.2. GM in the ideation base
• 1.3.2.1. Grammar as theory of experience
• 1.3.2.2. How human experiences are construed by grammar
• Chapter 2 Stylistic Observations on Academic English
• 2.1. The Overall Stylistic Features of Academic English
• 2.2. Lexical Features of Academic English to Achieve Formality
• 2.3. Grammatical Features of Academic English
• 2.3.1. Extensive use of passive voice
• 2.3.2. Frequent use of the present tense
• 2.3.3. Preference to long sentences with many non-finite verb constructions
• 2.3.4. Frequent use of nominalization
• Chapter 3 The Role of GM in Academic English
• 3.1. Nominalization as Coherence Device
• 3.1.1. The concept of cohesion
• 3.1.2. Grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion
• 3.1.3. Nominalization as cohesive device
• 3.1.3.1. Nominalization of the verb only
• 3.1.3.2. Nominalization of the verb together with its other components
• 3.1.3.3. Nominalization of the modal verb
• 3.1.3.4. Nominalization of the synonym of the verb in the previous clause
• 3.1.3.5. Nominalization of the Rhematic verbal Group
• 3.2. GM as Resources for Making the Writing Objective
• 3.2.1. The role of nominalization and adjectivalization
• 3.2.2. The role of interpersonal metaphor to achieve objectivity
• 3.3. GM as Resources for Construing Technicality
• 3.4. GM as Resources for Reasoning
• 3.5. GM as Resources to Achieve Abstractness and Generalization
• 3.6. GM as Resources for Construing Taxonomy
• 3.7. Some Principles not Applicable to Academic Chinese
• 3.7.1. More overt processes in academic Chinese
• 3.7.2. Fewer interpersonal metaphors in academic Chinese
• 3.7.3. More clause complexes in academic Chinese
• 3.8. The Gain and Loss of GM in Academic English
• 3.9. Ways of Unpacking Grammatical Metaphors
• 3.9.1. Step by Step Unpacking
• 3.9.2. Tenor-oriented Unpacking
• Chapter 4 Summary and Conclusion
• References