Ideational Metaphors in there-be Construction: A New SFG Transitivity Paradigm Perspective

摘要

This paper examines the linguistic metaphors realized in the English there-be construction from the perspective of a new Systemic Functional Transitivity Model proposed by Peng ('manuscript'; the new SFG model for short). It firstly introduces the new SFG model and the 'surface' construction characteristics of there-be phenomena. Then within the new SFG model, it defines the congruent and the metaphorical uses of there-be construction. Based on the British National Corpus (BNC for short) and a small corpus set for the present study, the paper describes and explains these metaphorical phenomena in the sense of Lakoff & Johnson's ([2003] 1980) mapping and Fauconnier & Turner's (2002) conception of blending. It has been found that the 'existential' process in Halliday's model is a grammatical construction in the new SFG model, which typically construes the Material-Relational process, particularly the Circumstantial Relational type. It may be used to construe other processes and sub-processes, including the Intensive and Possessive within the Material-Relational domain, the Material-Operational, the Mental-Operational and the Mental-Relational processes.