{"title":"Nominalisations in scientific English","authors":"Jing Hao","doi":"10.1075/fol.16055.hao","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper examines nominalisation in scientific discourse in English, focusing on a distinction between what I will refer to as ‘live’ and ‘dead’ grammatical metaphors. Live metaphors refer to a nominal realisation of an ideational discourse semantic figure; dead metaphors are found in the same nominalisations as live metaphors, but they realise an entity rather than a figure. The distinction is made by drawing on a tristratal approach that is informed by Systemic Functional Linguistics and that considers nominalisation simultaneously from the perspectives of field, discourse semantics, and lexicogrammar. Although the paper focuses on nominalisation, it illustrates a broader line of argumentation that can be extended to the analysis of ideational discourse semantic meanings in general.","PeriodicalId":44232,"journal":{"name":"Functions of Language","volume":"27 1","pages":"143-173"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6000,"publicationDate":"2020-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"6","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Functions of Language","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.16055.hao","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 6
Abstract
Abstract This paper examines nominalisation in scientific discourse in English, focusing on a distinction between what I will refer to as ‘live’ and ‘dead’ grammatical metaphors. Live metaphors refer to a nominal realisation of an ideational discourse semantic figure; dead metaphors are found in the same nominalisations as live metaphors, but they realise an entity rather than a figure. The distinction is made by drawing on a tristratal approach that is informed by Systemic Functional Linguistics and that considers nominalisation simultaneously from the perspectives of field, discourse semantics, and lexicogrammar. Although the paper focuses on nominalisation, it illustrates a broader line of argumentation that can be extended to the analysis of ideational discourse semantic meanings in general.
期刊介绍:
Functions of Language is an international journal of linguistics which explores the functionalist perspective on the organisation and use of natural language. It encourages the interplay of theory and description, and provides space for the detailed analysis, qualitative or quantitative, of linguistic data from a broad range of languages. Its scope is broad, covering such matters as prosodic phenomena in phonology, the clause in its communicative context, and regularities of pragmatics, conversation and discourse, as well as the interaction between the various levels of analysis. The overall purpose is to contribute to our understanding of how the use of languages in speech and writing has impacted, and continues to impact, upon the structure of those languages.