Misunderstanding Ideational Metaphor

Martin & Rose (2007: 299-300):

Once this step into ideational metaphor is taken then the entire world of uncommon sense discourse is opened up including all of humanities, social science and science and their applications as bureaucracy and technology. The power of this discourse is not simply to generalise across experience, but to organise it and reflect on it at a high level of abstraction which can be instantiated in variable ways, sometimes with a view to enabling behaviours:

ACT — To provide for the investigation and the establishment of as complete a picture as possible of the nature, causes and extent of gross violations of human rights committed during the period from 1 March 1960 to the cut-off date contemplated in the Constitution, within or outside the Republic, emanating from the conflicts of the past, and the fate or whereabouts of the victims of such violations

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Reminder: the authors' discussion of ideational metaphor has been limited to elemental metaphor, largely processes realised as things. Moreover, their model of discourse semantics undermines the study of metaphor, since it does not provide the means — e.g. semantic units: sequence, figure, element — of contrasting congruent vs metaphorical grammatical realisations, which is itself necessary for unpacking metaphor.

[1] To be clear, one of the unacknowledged sources here is Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 646):

As we have seen, grammatical metaphor of the ideational kind is primarily a strategy enabling us to transform our experience of the world: the model of experience construed in the congruent mode is reconstrued in the metaphorical mode, creating a model that is further removed from our everyday experience – but which has made modern science possible. At the same time, there are also textual and interpersonal consequences of this metaphorical realignment in the grammar: ideational metaphor can be a powerful textual resource for managing the creation of text, creating new mappings between the ideational and textual quanta of information; and it can also be a powerful interpersonal resource for organising the ongoing negotiation of meaning, creating new mappings between the ideational and interpersonal propositions/proposals.

[2] This misunderstands ideational metaphor. To be clear, ideational metaphor does not "generalise across experience". Ideational metaphor is the reconstrual of the meanings of congruent mode, with the result that lexicogrammatical choices construe two meanings at once: that of both the metaphorical and congruent realisations.

[3] This misunderstands ideational metaphor. To be clear, ideational metaphor does not organise experience; it "reorganises" the meanings construed of experience in congruent mode.

[4]  This misunderstands ideational metaphor. To be clear, semantically, metaphorical meanings are of a lower level of symbolic abstraction (Token) than their congruent counterparts (Value). Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 289):

[5]  This misunderstands ideational metaphor. To be clear, ideational metaphor does not involve a "higher level of abstraction which can be instantiated in variable ways". As potential, ideational metaphor is an incongruent relation between semantic and grammatical choices. Variable instantiations of ideational metaphor are instances of different incongruent relations between semantic and grammatical choices.

[6] The notion of ideational metaphor "enabling behaviours" is a puzzling one, given that

• Martin & Rose are concerned with processes realised as things,
• none of their highlighted words realise behavioural processes, and
• 9 of the 14 highlighted words — nature, causes, extent, rights, period, constitution, Republic, fate, whereabouts — do not even realise processes.