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.
Article outline
1.Introduction
2.Theoretical background
2.1A trinocular vision of language
2.2Grammatical metaphor
2.3Live and dead grammatical metaphor in scientific discourse
3.The data
4.Identifying the meanings of nominalisations from a tristratal perspective
4.1Looking from above
4.2Looking from around
4.2.1Interaction of nominalisations with interpersonal meanings – appraisal
4.2.2Interaction of nominalisations with textual meanings – identification
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