Luận văn tiếng Anh:Grammatical metaphor in English pharmaceutical discourse = Ẩn dụ ngữ pháp trong ngôn bản dược tiếng Anh. M.A Thesis Linguistics: 60 22 15
Nhà xuất bản:University of Languages and International Studies

M.A Thesis English Linguistics -- University of Languages and International Studies. Vietnam National University, Hanoi, 2011
The study is an attempt to explore grammatical metaphor in English pharmaceutical discourse from the systemic functional perspective. The framework adopted for the analysis is developed by Halliday (1985 & 1994), Halliday & Martin (1993), Thompson (1996), Martin & Veel (1998), Halliday & Matthiessen (1999 & 2004), Martin & Rose (2007) and other systemicists. The focus is to find out the nature of grammatical metaphor, its exploitation in the discourses concerned and some linguistic features of English pharmaceutical discourse. Taking pharmaceutical language as the baseline, the analysis aims to verify the universality of grammatical metaphor and uncover its functions in the discourse. The descriptive, explanatory, statistical, analytical and corpus-based methods are applied in this investigation. The findings confirm that grammatical metaphor is used densely in English pharmaceutical discourse and there is a close relationship between the use of grammatical metaphor and the creation of the discourse. The study is organized into three parts. Part one - the Introduction - presents the rationale for the study, sets up the aims, scope of the study and research questions and brings about study methods, data collection and format. Part two - the Development - consists of three chapters, which focus on systemic functional grammar, grammatical metaphor, its use in English pharmaceutical discourse and some linguistic properties of pharmaceutical English. Chapter 1 provides theoretical backgrounds for the thesis by giving out an overview of systemic functional theory which centers on the notion of context, strata, metafunctions and nominal group. Then, Chapter 2 attempts to give an insight into grammatical metaphor as framework for the study. Chapter 3 investigates features of English pharmaceutical discourse, explores and discusses the use of grammatical metaphor, including its frequency and types in selected discourse. Part three - the Coda - is the conclusion of the study which sums up the issues addressed in the study and provides implications for teaching and translating English pharmaceutical discourse, limitations of the present study and suggestions for further research
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES ............................................................................ vii
PART 1: INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................... 1
1. Rationale ................................................................................................................... 1
1.1. Why English pharmaceutical discourse? ............................................................... 1
1.2. Why systemic functional grammar? ...................................................................... 1
1.3. Why grammatical metaphor?................................................................................. 2
2. Aims of the study...................................................................................................... 3
3. Scope of the study..................................................................................................... 3
4. Research questions.................................................................................................... 3
5. Methods and data of the study .................................................................................. 4
6. Format of the study................................................................................................... 5
PART 2: DEVELOPMENT....................................................................................... 6
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ................................................. 6
1.1. Introduction............................................................................................................ 6
1.2. Language and social context.................................................................................. 6
1.3. Metafunctions ........................................................................................................ 7
1.4. Nominal group ....................................................................................................... 9
1.5. Concluding remarks............................................................................................... 10
CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF GRAMMATICAL
METAPHOR IN ENGLISH ...................................................................................... 11
2.1. Introduction............................................................................................................ 11
2.2. What is grammatical metaphor? ............................................................................ 11
2.3. Classification of grammatical metaphor ................................................................ 14
2.3.1. Ideational metaphor ............................................................................................ 14
2.3.2. Interpersonal metaphor ....................................................................................... 15
2.3.3. Textual metaphor ................................................................................................ 17
2.4. Concluding remarks............................................................................................... 17 CHAPTER 3: GRAMMATICAL METAPHOR IN ENGLISH
PHARMACEUTICAL DISCOURSE....................................................................... 18
3.1. Introduction............................................................................................................ 18
3.2. The authors and the chosen discourses .................................................................. 18
3.3. Linguistic features of English pharmaceutical discourse ...................................... 19
3.3.1. Lexical features of English pharmaceutical discourse........................................ 20
3.3.2. Grammatical features of English pharmaceutical discourse............................... 21
3.4. Nominalization and English pharmaceutical discourse ......................................... 24
3.5. Frequency of use of grammatical metaphor in English pharmaceutical discourse 25
3.6. Types of grammatical metaphor in English pharmaceutical discourse ................. 26
3.6.1. Ideational metaphor ............................................................................................ 26
3.6.2. Interpersonal metaphor ....................................................................................... 35
3.6.3. Textual metaphor ................................................................................................ 37
3.7. Concluding remarks............................................................................................... 37
PART 3: CONCLUSION ........................................................................................... 38
1. Reiteration................................................................................................................. 38
2. Implications of the study........................................................................................... 39
2.1. To teachers............................................................................................................. 39
2.2. To translators ......................................................................................................... 40
3. Limitations of the study ............................................................................................ 41
4. Prospects for further studies ..................................................................................... 42
REFERENCES............................................................................................................ 43
SOURCES OF DATA................................................................................................. 46
APPENDICES............................................................................................................. I
APPENDIX 1: THE DISCOURSES FOR ANALYSIS............................................... I
APPENDIX 2: CLAUSES AND CLAUSE COMPLEXES......................................... X
APPENDIX 3: IDEATIONAL GRAMMATICAL METAPHOR............................... XXVII
APPENDIX 4: GRAMMATICAL METAPHOR OF MOOD ..................................... XXXVI
APPENDIX 5: NOMINALIZATIONS ........................................................................ XXXVII
APPENDIX 6: LEXICAL DENSITY .......................................................................... XLVI
APPENDIX 7: TRANSITIVITY PATTERN............................................................... LV
APPENDIX 8: MOOD PATTERN .............................................................................. LXIV
APPENDIX 9: THEMATIC PATTERN...................................................................... LXXIII 1. Rationale
1.1. Why English pharmaceutical discourse?
Since language has always mirrored society, the emphasis on pharmacy in the recent
decades has given rise to the growth of pharmaceutical literature. As English is an
international language and the United States of America (USA for short) has got big
achievements in pharmacy, most pharmaceutical papers are only available in English. In
Vietnam, the study of pharmaceutical literature has been playing a greater role. However,
making sense of English pharmaceutical discourse (hereafter abbreviated EPD) is not an
easy task for readers of general English, language students, and even readers of ESP
(English for Specific Purpose) as these EPDs require both linguistic and subject
knowledge. Meanwhile, most of them may not have high level of English and pharmacy
competence. Obviously, as a kind of scientific and technical writing, EPD is not transparent
to the laymen. Therefore, an analysis of EPD sounds important as it draws insights from
both pharmaceutical expertise and English language expertise. Such insights are likely to
be of potential value in improving reading, writing and translating competence of language
students coming new to the discipline.
Besides, EPD has been always of my personal interest. I have taught English for many
pharmacist students and helped my pharmacist-student sister deal with EPD; it is apparent
to me that this kind of discourse is extremely complicated and need studying.
Although previous research has studied scientific discourse (Đỗ Tuấn Minh, 2001, Briones
et al, 2003, and etc.), different branches, namely, biology, literature, pharmacy, etc.
perform distinct functions, have a distinct set of users, pursue different pace of
development and, therefore, may present dissimilar characteristics. Nguyễn Thị Vân Hạnh
(2008) says that medico-pharmaceutical English differs much from others in terms of
lexical features. Also, my own EPD study has found evidence for the claim of complexity
in this particular genre. Hence, study on language used in EPD is undeniably of necessity.
1.2. Why systemic functional grammar?
Different from formalism which views language as a set of rules and concentrates on
language forms and structures, systemic functional grammar (SFG afterward) considers
language as limitless resources used to carry out, to a limitless level, a mode of an action. SF linguistics (SFL from now on) is particularly concerned with describing the relationship
between language and social context and its primary aim is to understand how the grammar
serves as a resource for making and exchanging meanings. A SFG provides language
teachers with tools for understanding why a discourse is the way it is; thus, good SFG can
Giúp language teachers be more effective teachers.
In addition, some studies have already investigated medico-pharmaceutical language
(Nguyễn Thị Ánh Hồng, 2005, Nguyễn Thị Vân Hạnh, 2008 and Lưu Trọng Tuấn, 2008);
however, these papers are simply based on the structural approach (Hồng studies its
terminologies and translation, Hạnh pays attention to its lexical and morphological
characteristics and Tuấn investigates its syntactic features) and not enough research has
been carried out to investigate lexicogrammatical features of EPD. None of the papers
found uses SFL to analyze PD. Thus, an analysis of PD which uses SFG as framework is
important since it fills the gap in pharmaceutical literature. This thesis focuses on both the
wording and the meaning of EPD within SF framework and specifically on one interesting
and powerful feature, GM.
1.3. Why grammatical metaphor?
There is a great number of factors that Giúp make PD what it is; and due to the limitation of
time and effort as well as within the scope of an M.A. minor thesis, I was forced to
investigate one of these aspects only. Although grammatical metaphor (GM for short) is
one of the most interesting and important concept within SFL and is considered vitally
important in creating scientific discourse (Halliday, 1994, Halliday & Matthiessen, 1999 &
2004, and Đỗ Tuấn Minh, 2001), it has not attracted enough attention paid by Vietnamese
researchers. GM, a lexicogrammatical phenomenon which first involves the
transcategorization of various elements in a clause, and second is a mapping of the
semantic and lexicogrammatical components in a way which deviates from the usual one
(Halliday & Matthiessen, 1999), appears considerably frequently in the EPD constructed by
pharmaceutical specialists and the use of GM in EPD contributes to its complexity and
ambiguity. Thus, it may cause difficulties for readers in understanding what is really meant
or referred to. As a result, GM should be taken into account in EPD. With all the above mentioned, I was inspired into the study of GM used in EPD in the light
of SFG. The EPDs taken into consideration are from specialized pharmaceutical books
published in the USA by worldwide famous publishers. Hopefully, this thesis will provide
an insight into the nature and the role of GM in EPD, contribute to a fuller understanding of
EPD, Giúp readers to realize its importance in comprehending and manipulating EPD and
translators of this specialized language can, to some extent, benefit.
2. Aims of the study
The ultimate aim of the study is to make an inquiry into the nature of GM and to examine
its use in EPD. To achieve this aim, the paper will examine how semantics and
lexicogrammar are related since their relationship provides environment for the occurrence
of GM. The study also takes the use of GM, including its frequency and types, in EPD into
consideration and attempts to answer the question of how writers of this genre fully exploit
the potential of a natural process of linguistic change to meet their scientific goals. It is
hoped that the investigation into GM in EPD will provide an insight into EPD.
3. Research questions
The study aims to give answer to the following research questions:
1. What is the nature of grammatical metaphor?
2. What are linguistic features of English pharmaceutical discourse?
3. Which types of grammatical metaphor are used in English pharmaceutical
discourse?
4. What is the ratio of grammatical metaphor (number of grammatical metaphor
instances per clause) in English pharmaceutical discourse?
4. Scope of the study
In this study, I do not have an ambition to cover all aspects of SFG. Only issues related to
GM such as framework, elements and features are taken into consideration. Types of PD
may be lessons in textbook, newspaper articles, magazine articles, reports, journals,
presentations, speeches, etc. However, this study does not explore all kinds of PD. Only
one type is chosen, that is, discourse in English specialized advanced books for
pharmacists and pharmacist students. Specifically, these discourses are centered mainly on
pharmacology, a branch of pharmacy studies. Other kinds will not be studied in this investigation. Besides, PD may range from spoken type to written one. Since GM happens
more often in written discourse (Halliday, 1994, Halliday & Matthiessen, 1999 & 2004,
and Đỗ Tuấn Minh, 2001), the analysis focuses on the written discourse. It is predicted that
this kind of discourse exploits many instances of GM. Also, this paper does not attempt to
investigate Vietnamese PD concurrently, so only English discourses are analyzed. In
addition, even the researcher is well aware of the fact that PD is not solely communicated
through verbal language, the analysis solely focuses on the verbal record of the discourses.
Therefore, the graphs, tables, figures, diagrams, imagines, photographs, and etc. included
in those discourses are ignored. All the titles and headings in those discourses are also not
analyzed. The writer desires to focus on the nature of GM, its occurrence and types in
written EPD. Special emphasis is put into analyzing ideational GM, which plays the key
role in construing meaning in the discourse. An attempt is also made to explain how GM is
deployed in EPD with special concern about nominalization, which is „the single most
powerful resource for creating [GM]‟ (Halliday, 1994: 352).
Since there is not enough space for a minor M.A. thesis to investigate the whole three
pharmaceutical books of more than a thousand pages, seven written EPDs of eight pages
(in its authentic papers) seem to be more feasible. Those papers are written by American
professional pharmaceutical specialists. The English language used in these documents is
authentic and is named in the Sources of Data. This study is confined to an analysis at
clause level of 132 clauses concerned and rank-shifted clauses within these 132 clauses are
excluded in the analysis of linguistic features and GM. It is also hoped that the limitations
of this work would be good starting points for further studies on this issue.
5. Methods and data of the study
As the study sets its main aim of investigating the nature, functions and use of GM in EPD,
the methods used are mainly descriptive, explanatory, statistical, analytical and corpus
based. The study begins with a phenomenon and seeks to describe, explain and analyze it.
The descriptive method is used to describe theories related to GM and to build up a
framework for the study. The theoretical background relies on the published research of
various authors on social context, strata, metafunctions, nominal group, and GM. We base
ourselves on the GM theory and framework proposed by some most influential
systemicists: Halliday, Matthiessen, Martin, Thompson, and etc. Explanation is also added



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