On Grammatical Metaphor

Martin & Rose (2007: 107):

As with metaphor in general, grammatical metaphors are read on two levels at once, a grammatical meaning and a discourse semantic meaning, and this double meaning may have several dimensions. …

In technical and institutional fields, grammatical metaphors become naturalised as technical terms. It may not be necessary to unpack these, unless we are trying for pedagogic purposes to relate technical terms to everyday meanings. For example, amnesty could be unpacked in commonsense terms as ‘not punish for crimes.

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[1] To be clear, ideational grammatical metaphor involves a directional remapping of meaning onto wording. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 712-3):

… grammatical metaphor within the ideational metafunction involves a ‘re-mapping’ between sequences, figures and elements in the semantics and clause nexuses, clauses and groups in the grammar. In the congruent mode of realisation … a sequence is realised by a clause nexus and a figure is realised by a clause. In the metaphorical mode, the whole set of mappings seems to be shifted ‘downwards’: a sequence is realised by a clause, a figure is realised by a group, and an element is realised by a word.

Semantically, a metaphorical wording realises the junction of the meanings of the metaphorical and congruent wordings, such that, within the semantic stratum, the meaning of the congruent wording is realised by the meaning of the metaphorical wording. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 288):

The correspondence that is construed through grammatical metaphor is an elaborating relationship: an identity is set up between two patterns … In this identity, the metaphorical term is the ‘Token’ and the congruent term is the ‘Value’ … The identity holds between the two configurations as a whole; but … the components of the configurations are also mapped one onto another …

The metaphorical relation is thus similar to inter-stratal realisation in that it construes a token–value type of relation. Here, however, the relation is intra-stratal: the identity holds between different meanings, not between meanings and wordings. The metaphor consists in relating different semantic domains of experience …

[2] To be clear, technical terms have lost their junction with more congruent agnates, and can no longer be unpacked.  Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 286):

Almost all technical terms start out as grammatical metaphors; but they are grammatical metaphors which can no longer be unpacked. When a wording becomes technicalised, a new meaning has been construed — almost always, in our present-day construction of knowledge, a new thing (participating entity); and the junction with any more congruent agnates is (more or less quickly) dissolved.