the ISFC39 Proceedings - International Systemic-Functional ...

Papers from the 39th ISFC4.2 Theoretical basis of functional recast offered by SFGAccording to SFG, grammar has the power to construe, deconstrue, and reconstrue meaning(Martin & Veel, 1998: 190). In the course of metaphorization, every element will experiencesemantic mapping and grammatical rankshift. The latest study revealed that the semanticmapping and the grammatical rankshift between the congruent forms and their metaphoricalcounterparts was bidirectional from a synchronic perspective (Zhengjun, L., Zhong, Y. 2010:403). With the transformation from metaphorical to congruent form, there is recovery to theprototype relation between grammatical and semantic category. Therefore, the ambiguity andobscurity were eliminated. In this sense, grammatical rankshift and semantic mapping offer atheoretical basis for functional recast.4.3 Discussion of cognitive effect of metaphorical modeThe cognitive effect of using metaphorical modes has been a controversial issue. Halliday &Martin (1993) thought high lexical and informational density, and ambiguity of metaphoricalmode would cause cognitive difficulty. Similar viewpoints included: Congruent form wasclose to prototype expression, representing natural relation between two categories ofgrammar and semantics (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999); Metaphorical form was the variationin both form and meaning (Ravelli 1988; Wei, H. 2008). This study result agrees with thetheoretical research results above. But it disagrees with the findings of the empirical study byNana, J. & Zili, C. (2004), which found that the metaphorical mode helped to achieve bettercognitive effects. In their study, they revised texts by transforming all the metaphorical formsinto congruent ones. The revised text was said to contain zero metaphor. As Lakoff &Johnson (1980) pointed out, 70% of language comes from metaphor, which is anindispensable part of language. Therefore language containing zero metaphor may be an idealexperimental language. The lecture discourse in our study was the transcript of naturalclassroom lecture language. The ratio of metaphorical mode and congruent one was 5:3.Languages in different states in the two empirical studies may account for the differentresults.This study also has its limitations. The corpus and sample collection were restricted by thebilingual teacher’s experience and students’ language proficiency level. Further studies tofind out a proper ratio of two modes and appropriate metaphor distribution in discourse toachieve optimal cognitive effect are needed. Similar studies on bilingual instruction need tobe supported by more corpora collected from a larger range.5 ConclusionData analysis revealed that textbook discourse was more metaphorical than lecture discourse.The causal meaning expressed in textbook was more implicit. The study indicatedconciseness, objectiveness, and logicality of metaphoric form gave it priority in textbookexpression mode choices. However, metaphorical form deviated from prototypical cognitivecategories and increased the cognitive difficulty. In order to help students to understandhighly metaphorical textbook language, the bilingual teacher adopted the strategy offunctional recast to reconstruct the textbook discourse. The test of cognitive effects of twodiscourses indicated the feasibility of this strategy. It has to be pointed out that the purpose offunctional recast is to make textbook language accessible to students rather than simplify thelanguage input. To some degree, to deliver the textbook content is to recast textbookdiscourse. Therefore, functional recast is the linguistic strategy that bilingual teachers shouldgrasp so as to identify the ambiguity and obscurity of metaphorical forms in textbooklanguage. This study is aimed at arousing teachers’ linguistic and strategic awareness,facilitating them to negotiate consciously between meaning and expression under theguidance of SFG so as to improve the teaching quality of bilingual education.55