Exploring the Textual Variations of Metaphors in Terms of Rank Dimension and Their Discoursal Values across Different Text-types

Abstract

Working within the framework of Systemic- Functional Grammar and defining metaphorical expressions as a textual / intertextual strategy, bringing `guest images` from other universes of discourse to the semantic realm of texts, and also believing that the occurrence of metaphoric expressions in texts is meaningful and motivated, in this study we looked at the textual variations in terms of rank dimension across three different genres of scientific, literary and journalistic texts. We found out that these different genres cannot be differentiated from each other in terms of presence or absence of this strategy. Indeed metaphorical expressions appear in all text types. We speculate that different dimensions of meaning are added to the text through use of this strategy across different genres. The findings of this study revealed that this strategy contributes to ideational function of the texts in the scientific text type. Our study revealed that in the literary and journalistic texts, this strategy contributes to ’textual function’ as well as ‘ideational function’ of the texts. In journalistic texts, the main function of metaphors is to contribute to the ‘indirectness’ of the texts. In literature, metaphoric wordings are ‘thematically motivated’, reinforcing the theme of the texts. For this purpose 14 different texts from different text-types are selected to be analyzed in term of the use of metaphorical expressions.