Unpacking Grammatical Metaphor: "Conjunction" As Process

Martin & Rose (2007: 149):

A common motif in abstract or technical writing is to present a consequential conjunction as a process:

This strategy compresses a sequence of two activities into a single figure, by means of experiential and logical metaphors. Experientially, the Agent and Medium stand for activities (‘hearing an application’ and ‘miscarrying justice’) that are reconstrued as things (a hearing, a miscarriage). Logically, there is a relation of consequence between these activities (‘if…then’), which is reconstrued as a process (is likely to lead to). We can unpack such a sequence as a sequence of two figures related by conjunctions:

if such a hearing happens
then justice will be miscarried.

However the logical metaphor of ‘relation as process’ incorporates more than simply consequence. For one thing, the probability of the result is graded as likely to lead to (in contrast to high probability will certainly lead to or low probability will possibly lead to). And the necessity of the consequence is also graded lexically as lead to (in contrast to the stronger result in or weaker associated with).

So one of the reasons that writers use logical metaphors for conjunctions is that they can grade their evaluation of relations between events or arguments. This is a crucial resource for reasoning in fields such as science or politics, in which it is important not to overstate causal relations until sufficient evidence has been accumulated. This function of logical metaphors is oriented to engagement of the reader.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in terms of SFL Theory, in this instance, a sequence of two figures is metaphorically reconstrued as a single figure. See the earlier post: Activity Sequences: A Cornucopia Of Theoretical Inconsistencies.

[2] To be clear, here Martin & Rose misrepresent the transitivity of the identifying clause through accidentally misconstruing it as encoding instead of decoding. The clause is clearly decoding because the Value, a miscarriage of justice, is New information, and therefore Identifier:

Such a hearing	is	likely	to lead to	a miscarriage of justice
Medium Identified Token	Process:		relational: circumstantial: cause	Range Identifier Value
Subject	Finite	Adjunct	Predicator	Complement
Mood			Residue

As a result, the authors misconstrue the Medium as Agent and the Range as Medium — in addition to misconstruing the mood Adjunct as a component of the Process.

[3] To be clear, the expansion relation in the metaphorical clause is causal, not conditional, because a miscarriage of justice is construed as the likely result of such a hearing. It is therefore invalid to unpack the metaphor as a conditional relation.

[4] To be clear, the potential for modal assessment is afforded by both the congruent and metaphorical realisations, and as such, it is not a reason why writers use ideational metaphor. This misunderstanding appears to arise from Martin & Rose misconstruing the mood Adjunct likely as a component of the metaphorical Process.

[5] To be clear, lead to and result in both (equally) construe a causal relation, whereas associated with does not. See, for example, correlation does not imply causation.

[6] To be clear, it is the interpersonal system of modal assessment (e.g. likely) that serves such functions, not ideational metaphor, since it is the interpersonal metafunction that is concerned with enacting intersubjective relations, such as those between writer and reader.