PhD candidate

International Journal of Linguistics
ISSN 1948-5425
2013, Vol. 5, No. 4

Ideational Grammatical Metaphor in Scientific Texts: A
Hallidayan Perspective
Bahram Kazemian (Corresponding author)
Department of English, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran
E-mail: [e-mail]

Biook Behnam
Department of English, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran
E-mail: [e-mail]

Naser Ghafoori
Department of English, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran
E-mail: [e-mail]

Received: August 8, 2013 doi:10.5296/ijl.v5i4.4192 Accepted: August 19, 2013

Published: August 28, 2013

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5296/ijl.v5i4.4192

Abstract
Scientific Texts are generally concentrated on highly technical terms, and they are troublesome to understand due to their complexity in forms and meanings. Grammatical metaphor is divided into two broad areas: ideational and interpersonal. This paper focuses on the first type i.e. Ideational Grammatical Metaphor, which includes process types and nominalization. This paper adopts Hallidayan Systemic Functional Grammar to pinpoint and analyze nominalization and the role played by it. With a corpus of 10 authentic scientific texts drawn from very influential magazines, the analysis is conducted based on nominalization, its frequency and process types. The analysis displays that Ideational
Grammatical Metaphor has permeated scientific texts and the prevailing process types are material and relational types. Consequently, the tone of the writing is more abstract, technical and formal. Instances of IGM In scientific writing enable technicality and rationality. Based on the findings of this study, some implications can be drawn for academic and scientific
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International Journal of Linguistics
ISSN 1948-5425
2013, Vol. 5, No. 4

writing and reading as well as translators, students and instructors involved

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