Luận văn An investigation into the role of metaphor in description of emotions in English poetic disscourse

Part I: Introduction 1 Rationale Metaphor, based on the association of similarity, is one of the two basic types of semantic transference that have been an interest for many linguistic researchers. Galperin ( 1981: 139-40) states that the term ‘metaphor’ can be understood as the transference of some quality from one object to another. Metaphor is widely used to designate the process in which a word acquires a derivative meaning. In theory, there are at least three communicative functions that metaphor might serve (Ortony 1975). First, they might allow one to express that which is difficult or impossible to express if one is restricted to literal uses of language. Evidence for this "inexpressibility" claim would constitute encouraging support for the necessity-of-metaphors view. A second possible function of metaphors is that they may constitute a particularly compact means of communication. Although conscious experience is continuous in form, the linguistic system we use to talk about it is comprised of discrete elements (lexical items). Unlike more literal forms of language, metaphor may enable us to convey a great deal of information in a succinct manner by obviating the need to isolate the predicates to be expressed into their corresponding lexical representations. Finally, metaphors may help capture the vividness of phenomenal experience. If metaphors convey chunks of information rather than discrete units, they can paint a richer and more detailed picture of our subjective experience than might be expressed by literal language. This we call the "'vividness" claim. In this paper we are interested in the first and last of these possible functions. Thus, we need to examine a discourse domain for which a prima facie case can be made for supposing that literal language will often be inadequate and which lends itself to variations in vividness. There doubtless are many such domains. The one that we selected was that of internal states, in particular, emotional states. The literature on the linguistic expression of emotions suggests a relatively high incidence of figurative language use (Davitz 1969), providing pragmatic reasons for believing that the context of (linguistic) emotional expression may be a profitable one within which to study metaphor production. Emotional states seemed well-suited because they tend to have an elusive, transient quality that is difficult to describe using literal language, although, of course, they can usually be labeled using literal language. Thus, while it might be easy for a person to label an emotional state as, for example, "fear," it is difficult to provide a literal description of the quality of some particular experience of fear. Furthermore, because emotions vary in intensity, one might expect differential levels of vividness. Our thesis is entitled “ An investigation into the role of metaphor in description of emotions in English poetic disscourse” and focused on William Shakespeares’ sonnets. The choice is based on two reasons. Firstly, recent research states that “Metaphorical modes of expression are characteristic of all adult discourse”. Secondly, as stated above, the literature on the linguistic expression of emotions suggests a relatively high incidence of figurative language use (Davitz 1969). 2 Aims of the study This study aims to investigate the characteristics of metaphor in poetry from a systemic functional perspective. The objective of the study is: To examine the characteristics of metaphor in poetry from the approach of Systemic Functional Linguistics. More details on the aimed objective of the study are discussed in Part 2, chapter 2- Methodology. 3 Scope of the study This study only attempts to explore metaphorical modes of expression of emotions in English poetry discourse and takes William Shakespeares’ sonnets as an illustration due to their available presence in the discourses. 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”; basing on this the study will focus on grammatical metaphor or the way ideas are expressed rather than on words used. 4 Methodology of the study As the thesis sets its main objective of investigating the characteristics of metaphor in English poetry discourse, it is descriptive research which begins with a phenomenon and seeks to describe and explain it. The study was conducted in a deductive approach where data was collected from English literature to describe metaphor as a natural linguistic process. The techniques involved in data analysis are both qualitative and quantitative. The concepts of metaphor and emotion was discussed in systemic functional and cognitive approach respectively, and in comparison with other linguistic views in a linear line of time. The emotion metaphors was retrieved from metaphor dictionaries and corpus data and analyzed with respect to the use of it to convey emotion. Only metaphor that helps conceptualize emotions was studied. 5 Organization of the study The study is composed of three parts. Part 1: Introduction. This part introduces the relevance, the aims, the scope and the methodology of the study. Part 2 : Development. This part consists of two chapters: Chapter 1: Literature review: provided the theoretical background of the study. Its focus was on introducing important concepts relevant to the topic of the thesis. This chapter gave a general picture of metaphor. The notion of emotion and how it is expressed in poetry via metaphor was also taken into consideration. Chapter 2: The study: In this chapter, the research design applied in the study was reported and the results of the study were presented. Part 3 is the conclusion of the study which summarized the issues addressed in the main part and offered implications for teaching and further study. PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW I. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1 Introduction Language is a systematic resource for expressing meaning in context and linguistics, according to Halliday (1985), is the study of how people exchange meanings through the use of language. This view of language as a system for meaning potential implies that language is not a well defined system, nor a "the set of all grammatical sentences." It also implies that language exists and therefore must be studied in contexts such as professional settings, classrooms, and language tests. This is the key concept expressed in the theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics developed by Halliday (1985) and basing on it this chapter is concerned with some of the concepts which set the theoretical background for the study of metaphor. Since a great deal has already been written about the systemic function model, both from practical and theoretical perspective ( Halliday 1994; Halliday & Hasan 1989; Martin 1985, 1992; Matthiessen 1995, Hoang Van Van 1997, Do Tuan Minh 2001 amongst many others) this section will be restricted to a number of key points in the theories that are closely related to the topic of the study- metaphor. Our overview on the systemic functional linguistics is organized around the headings: Language and Social Context, Levels of Context, Levels of Language, Metafunction, Instantiation, Rank and Nominal Group. 2 Language and Social Context Systemic Functional Grammar was established as a linguistic theory by M.A.K. Halliday. It is a theory of language centred around the notion of language function. Halliday argues that it is the social context for communication that regulates the way the semantics of language are employed. He believes that social settings shape the development of language. The form of human language is as it is since it co-evolves with the meanings which co-evolve with the community’s contexts of social interaction. Then, language and social is treated as complementary levels of semiosis related by the concept of realization. We can illustrate the relationship between them by the image of co- tangential circles as in figure 2.1 Social Context Language Extralinguistic levels Linguistic levels Figure 1 : Language as the Realization of Social Context ( Source: Halliday& Martin 1993:25) 3 Levels of Context The interpretation of social context includes two levels of communication: genre (context of culture) and register (context of situation) (Martin 1992: 495). Figure 2 ( Source: http//:wwww.uefap.com/courses/beacc/fsl/intro/htm) The context of culture can be thought of as deriving from a combination of all of the genres which make up a particular culture. Genres are the culturally evolved ways of achieving goals that involve language. They are "staged, goal- oriented social processes" (Martin 1992: 505) in which people engage as members of their culture. They are “social” because we participate in genres with other people; goal-oriented because we use genres to get things done; staged because it usually takes us a few steps to reach our goals" (Martin & Rose 2003: 7-8). Each genre is therefore characterized by a distinctive schematic structure with a clear beginning, middle and end through which the function of the genre is realized. These genres include all of those routines from everyday experience such as purchase of goods (food, clothing etc), to the genres of particular forms of social life including TV interviews, getting arrested etc. They also include genres which are valued in education and business. Lectures are genres, as are seminars and tutorials etc and written genres such as narratives, reports, explanations, procedures, and expositions. These genres have their own distinctive structures (or well-established stages) because of the social purposes they fulfill in the culture in which they are used. They occur in particular situation types and it is the characteristics of this situation type that influence the forms of language that realize the genre. So the context of situation (register) is the second aspect of social context that influences the linguistic realization of the genre. This context of situation of a text has been described by Halliday (Halliday and Hasan 1985: 12) in terms of the variables of Field, Tenor and Mode. + The FIELD OF DISCOURSE concerns what is happening, to the nature of the social action that is taking place: what is it that the participants are engaged in, in which the language is an essential component? + The TENOR OF DISCOURSE concerns who is taking part, to the nature of the participants, their statuses and roles: what kinds of role relationships obtain among the participants, including permanent and temporary relationships of one kind or another, both the types of speech role that they are taking on in the dialogue and the whole cluster of socially significant relationships in which they are involved? + The MODE OF DISCOURSE concerns what part the language is playing, what it is that the participants are expecting the language to do for them in that situation, the symbolic organisation of the text, the status that it has, and its function in the context, including the channel (is it spoken or written or some combination of the two?) and also the rhetorical mode, what is being achieved by the text in terms of such categories as persuasive, expository, didactic and the like. Figure 3 Source: http//:wwww.uefap.com/courses/beacc/fsl/intro/htm on 4 Levels of Language While SFL accounts for the syntactic structure of language, it places the function of language as central (what language does, and how it does it), in preference to more structural approaches, which place the elements of language and their combinations as central. SFL starts at social context, and looks at how language both acts upon, and is constrained by, this social context. Systemic Functional Grammar divides the language system into four strata: context, semantics, lexico-grammar, and phonology/graphology. As shown in Fig. 2.4, each stratum can be further divided into functional components or functions. Ideational, interpersonal and textual functions of language are considered in the semantic stratum. Here, ideational meaning refers to the way one uses representational tools to compose the idea. In the context stratum for example, functional components are concerned with field (what is going on in the communication), tenor (the social roles and relationships involved) and mode (the medium for communication). Lexico-Grammar is a resource for putting meanings into words, i.e. realizing them as configurations of lexical and grammatical items. It concerns the syntactic organization of words into utterances, involving analysis of the utterance in terms of roles such as Actor, Agent, Medium, Theme, Mood, etc. This gives Martin (1992:496): Figure 4 Source: http//:wwww.uefap.com/courses/beacc/fsl/intro/htm on 5 Metafunctions, rank and the nominal group 5.1 Metafunctions Central to SFL is the use of systems, used to represent the choices present in making an utterance. The three systems related to the three metafunctions are: Transitivity, Theme/Rheme and Mood & Modality. Ideational (experiential and logical) meanings construing Field are realized Lexico-Grammatically by the system of Transitivity. This system interprets and represents our experience of phenomena in the world by describing experiential meanings in terms of participants, processes and circumstances. Interpersonal meanings are realized Lexico-Grammatically by systems of Mood & Modality. The Mood system is the central resource establishing an exchange between interactants by assuming and assigning speech roles such as giving or demanding goods and services or information. Thus the giving of information or goods and services is grammaticalized as declaratives, questions are grammaticalized as interrogatives and commands as imperatives. Textual meanings are concerned with the interaction of interpersonal and ideational information as text in context. Lexico-Grammatically textual meanings are realized by systems of Theme/Rheme. Theme/Rheme selections establish the orientation or angle on the interpersonal and ideational concerns of the clause. Figure 5 Source http//:www.uefap.com/cources/baecc/sfl/intro.htm 5. 2 Rank Rank orders units into a hierarchy according to their constituency relation: the highest-ranking units consist of units of the rank immediately below, these units consist of units at the next rank below, and so on, until we arrive at the units of the lowest rank, which have no internal constituent structure. Rank is thus a theory of the global distribution of the units of the grammar. The English grammatical rank scale recognized by Systemic Functional Grammar is as follows: Unit sentence clause group/ phrase word morpheme In turn, each unit has their own members which are grouped into classes. For example, sentences can be divided into nominal, verbal, adverbial and adjectival groups; noun, verb, adverbs, etc belong to word. The most important unit that functional grammar takes into consideration is clause. Analyzing clause structure means identifying the functional parts of the clause from each of the three different perspectives: ideational, interpersonal and textual. In each metafunction, an analysis of a clause gives a different kind of structure composed from a different set of elements. For example, in the ideational metafunction, a clause is analyzed into the functional parts as the following: clause Circumstance participant Process Circumstance Place in her heart Process has grown Actor a secret love Time Lately Chart 1 : Clause structure- ideational metafunction - four functional parts by Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (1997: 7-8) In textual metafunction, the clause is analyzed as Theme and Rheme. The above example can be illustrated as follows: Clause Theme Lately Rheme a secret love has grown in her heart. Chart 2 : Clause structure- textual metafunction - four functional parts by Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (1997: 7-8) In English Theme is the first element of a clause and providing what we call the departure for the starting point for the clause. By changing Theme we do not change the ideational meaning but the textual meaning. There is the third kind of meaning called interpersonal meaning which is realized by Mood and Residue Clause MOOD RESIDUE Predicator grown Adjunct in her heart Adjunct lately Subject A secret love Finite has Chart 3 : Clause structure- interpersonal metafunction - four functional parts by Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (1997: 7-8) 5. 3 The nominal group The metafunctional organization of the grammar that we illustrated above for the clause applies to the other ranks as well. For example, the nominal group has ideational systems of THING TYPE, CLASSIFICATION, EPITHESIS and QUALIFICATION, interpersonal systems of PERSON and ATTITUDE, and textual systems of DETERMINATION. But the way the metafunctional contributions map structurally one onto another varies; in particular, groups are organized both as organic wholes and as logical complexes. The figure below shows an example of an English nominal group. Table 1: Experiential and logical analysis of the English nominal group The two greatest professional golfers of  all time Deictic Numerative Epithet Classifier Thing Qualifier: Minor process Minor Range . 6 Summary In this chapter we have tried to give an overview of systemic functional linguistics. It is described as a functional- semantic approach to language which explores how language is used in different contexts, and how it is constructed for using as a semiotic system. Language and context are viewed as complementary abstractions, related by the important concept of realization. Context is realized by the content level of language ( semantics and lexico-grammar) and content is given form in the expression level ( phonology or graphology). Then, the semantics level is classified into three metafunctions( experiential, interpersonal and textual) and each of them is related to a specific context or register variable ( field, tenor or mode) which then is realized through one or more of the lexico-grammartical systems ( transitivity, mood or theme). Another notion of SFL is rank- the hierarchical relationship between the various units of language, has also been mentioned . II. METAPHOR: A GENERAL DESCRIPTION 1 Introduction The notion of meaning potential is central to a systemic description of language: there are many things we can mean, and in order to communicate we choose from this range of potential meanings. Therefore, a theory of language must be able to describe both the potential, and the initiation of a choice from that potential. If the relationship between the meaning potential and the realization of a choice was totally random, then language would be impossible to describe and study, and probably useless as a communication tool. Evidently, the relationship is not random. Halliday ( 1994:343) states that “ ... for any selection in meaning there will be a natural sequence of steps leading towards its realization”. 2 Definition of metaphor Traditionally, metaphor has been viewed as poetic or literary language. Nevertheless, in the last few decades, cognitive linguists like, for example, Lakoff and Johnson have revealed that metaphors play an important part in colloquial language and everyday use. Lakoff and Johnson have found that “metaphor is conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature” (1980: 3). Even though not all language is metaphorical, metaphors are indeed an important part of language. (Saeed 2003: 247). So how do we define metaphor? It is taken to be ( as the name suggests in Greek) a transfer of some kind. We will mention some of the definitions of me