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Article published In:
Functions of Language
Vol. 27:2 (2020) ► pp.143–173

Nominalisations in scientific English

A tristratal perspective

| Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

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
    • 4.3Looking from below
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 July 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.16055.hao
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