Startseite Complexity of grammatical metaphor: an entropy-based approach
Artikel
Lizenziert
Nicht lizenziert Erfordert eine Authentifizierung

Complexity of grammatical metaphor: an entropy-based approach

  • Jiangping Zhou ORCID logo EMAIL logo
Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 23. Mai 2023

Abstract

Grammatical metaphor in M. A. K. Halliday’s sense has long been extensively investigated by researchers in terms of theoretical and empirical studies. Regarding the empirical studies, they have predominantly employed observed or normalized frequencies of grammatical metaphor to uncover its distribution in different text types. Few studies, however, were conducted to quantitatively examine the complexity of grammatical metaphor in that no indicator presently is proposed to measure the degree of complexity in grammatical metaphor. This paper targeted at investigating the feasibility of implementing entropy to measure this complexity. The findings demonstrate that the entropy value could be afforded as an indicator of complexity of grammatical metaphor to efficiently uncover the way that disciplines of different registers build knowledge by means of employing such linguistic features as grammatical metaphor. This research is significant in that it sheds light on the quantitative comparison of complexity of grammatical metaphor in text analysis.


Corresponding author: Jiangping Zhou, China West Normal University, Nanchong, China, E-mail:

Acknowledgements

This research is supported by Beijing Municipal Social Sciences Foundation [Project No. 20YYB007], 1 July 2020–1 July 2023.

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewer for his/her constructive comments, and Associate Professor Yanmei Gao from Peking University and Professor Yanhua Xia from China West Normal University for their inspiring suggestions.

References

Babatsouli, Elena, David Ingram & Dimitrios Sotiropoulos. 2016. Entropy as a measure of mixedupness of realizations in child speech. Poznan Studies of Contemporary Linguistics 52(4). 605–627. https://doi.org/10.1515/psicl-2016-0024.Suche in Google Scholar

Biber, Douglas, Susan Conrad & Geoffrey Leech. 2002. Longman student grammar of spoken and written English. London: Pearson Education.Suche in Google Scholar

Chen, Ruina, Haitao Liu & Gabriel Altmann. 2017. Entropy in different text types. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 32(3). 528–542.Suche in Google Scholar

Cong, Yinxu & Hongyang Wang. 2013. Recategorization of ideational grammatical metaphors based on semantic change. Modern Foreign Languages 36(1). 33–39.Suche in Google Scholar

Halliday, Michael A. K. 1985. An introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward Arnold.Suche in Google Scholar

Halliday, Michael A. K. 1994. An introduction to functional grammar, 2nd edn. London: Edward Arnold.Suche in Google Scholar

Halliday, Michael A. K. 1998. Things and relations: Regrammaticizing experience as technical knowledge. In James R. Martin & Robert Veel (eds.), Reading science: Critical and functional perspectives on discourses of science, 185–235. London: Routledge.Suche in Google Scholar

Halliday, Michael A. K. & Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen. 1999. Construing experience through meaning: A language-based approach to cognition. London & New York: Cassell.Suche in Google Scholar

Halliday, Michael A. K. & Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen. 2004. An introduction to functional grammar, 3rd edn. London: Hodder Arnold.Suche in Google Scholar

Halliday, Michael A. K. & Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen. 2014. Halliday’s introduction to functional grammar, 4th edn. London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203783771Suche in Google Scholar

Hao, Jing. 2020. Nominalizations in scientific English: A tristratal perspective. Functions of Language 27(2). 143–173. https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.16055.hao.Suche in Google Scholar

Hasan, Ruqaiya. 1987. The grammarian’s dream: Lexis as most delicate grammar. In Michael A. K. Halliday & Robin P. Fawcett (eds.), New development in systemic linguistics: Theory and description, 184–211. London: Pinter.Suche in Google Scholar

He, Qingshun. 2019. Types of transfer in ideational metaphor: A corpus-based study. Studia Neophilologica 91(2). 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/00393274.2019.1619093.Suche in Google Scholar

He, Qingshun. 2022. A corpus-based study of nominalization in English: A perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics. Beijing: Commercial Press.Suche in Google Scholar

He, Qingshun & Bingjun Yang. 2018. A corpus-based study of the correlation between text technicality and ideational metaphor in English. Lingua 203. 51–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2017.10.005.Suche in Google Scholar

Juola, Patrick. 1998. Measuring linguistic complexity: The morphological tier. Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 5(3). 206–213. https://doi.org/10.1080/09296179808590128.Suche in Google Scholar

Juola, Patrick. 2008. Assessing linguistic complexity. In Matti Miestamo, Kaius Sinnemaki & Fred Karlsson (eds.), Language complexity: Typology, contact, change, 89–108. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/slcs.94.07juoSuche in Google Scholar

Kockelman, Paul. 2009. The complexity of discourse. Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 16(1). 1–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/09296170802514146.Suche in Google Scholar

Li, Wen & Jianhui Guo. 2020. The ideational grammatical metaphor competence of Chinese advanced English learners: A corpus-based study of PhD theses. Foreign Language Learning Theory and Practice 1. 50–58.Suche in Google Scholar

Liu, Kanglong, Zhongzhu Liu & Lei Lei. 2022. Simplification in translated Chinese: An entropy-based approach. Lingua 275. 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2022.103364.Suche in Google Scholar

Popescu, Ioan-Iovitz, Peter Grzybek, Bijapur D. Jayaram, Reinhard Köhler, Viktor Krupa, Jan Mačutek, Regina Pustet, Ludmilla Uhlířová & Matummal N. Vidya. 2009. Word frequency studies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110218534Suche in Google Scholar

Rajput, Nikhil K., Bhavya Ahuja & Manoj Kumar Riyal. 2018. A novel approach towards deriving vocabulary quotient. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 33(4). 894–901. https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqy014.Suche in Google Scholar

Shannon, Claude E. 1948. A mathematical theory of communication. Bell System Technical Journal 27(3). 379–423. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538-7305.1948.tb01338.x.Suche in Google Scholar

Shannon, Claude E. 1951. Prediction and entropy of printed English. Bell System Technical Journal 30(1). 50–64. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538-7305.1951.tb01366.x.Suche in Google Scholar

Shi, Yaqian & Lei Lei. 2022. Lexical richness and text length: An entropy-based perspective. Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 29(1). 62–79. https://doi.org/10.1080/09296174.2020.1766346.Suche in Google Scholar

To, Vinh, Damon Thomas & Angela Thomas. 2020. Writing persuasive texts: Using grammatical metaphors for rhetorical purposes in an educational context. Australian Journal of Linguistics 40(2). 139–159. https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2020.1732867.Suche in Google Scholar

van Ewijk, Lizet & Sergey Avrutin. 2016. Lexical access in nonfluent aphasia: A bit more on reduced processing. Aphasiology 30(11). 1264–1282. https://doi.org/10.1080/02687038.2015.1135867.Suche in Google Scholar

Xiong, Deyi, Min Zhang & Haizhou Li. 2011. A maximum entropy segmentation model for statistical machine translation. IEEE Translation of Audio Speech Language Processing 19(8). 2494–2505. https://doi.org/10.1109/tasl.2011.2144971.Suche in Google Scholar

Zhang, Yanhui. 2014. A corpus-based analysis of lexical richness of Beijing Mandarin speakers: Variable identification and model construction. Language Sciences 44. 60–69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2013.12.003.Suche in Google Scholar

Zhang, Yanhui. 2015. Entropic evolution of lexical richness of homogeneous texts over time: A dynamic complexity perspective. Journal of Language Modelling 3(2). 569–599. https://doi.org/10.15398/jlm.v3i2.111.Suche in Google Scholar

Zhang, Zhenbang. 2017. A new English grammar coursebook, 6th edn. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Zhou, Jiangping. 2021. A corpus-based study of explicit objective modal expression in English. Studia Neophilologica. https://doi.org/10.1080/00393274.2021.1980737.Suche in Google Scholar

Received: 2022-08-26
Accepted: 2023-01-13
Published Online: 2023-05-23
Published in Print: 2023-07-26

© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Heruntergeladen am 3.10.2025 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/sem-2022-0094/html?srsltid=AfmBOooKjhalkGF-BDj0wKMU1ynphRcdREO2x59l7Y-mQ4Ywq3xoWcCF
Button zum nach oben scrollen