Using A Congruent Realisation To Illustrate Grammatical Metaphor

Doran, Martin & Zappavigna (2025: 69, 84):

Although repositioning is commonly involved in linguistic services, it is in fact a more general resource for re-orienting resources in tenor as other resources. It regularly involves interpersonal grammatical metaphor, in Halliday’s terms. This is illustrated by looking back at Kollontai’s Text 3.3 above, which listed a series of demands to the government. In this example, we can say that proposals such as Kollontai’s The law must intervene to help women to combine work and maternity involve repositioning. A demand such as this is a proposal by virtue of the fact that rendering support would involve the law actually doing the action demanded – intervening to help women combine work and maternity. But, lexicogrammatically speaking, it is not written as an imperative (which is the typical realisation of proposals) but as a declarative (typical of propositions). If spoken at a rally, one could imagine a response by a comrade being ‘Yes!’ of ‘Hear hear’, which supports the statement, but does not go about implementing it. That is, demands such as Kollontai’s reposition proposals as propositions, allowing people to respond to both. 

Repositioned proposals such as this draw heavily on the grammatical system of MODULATION (must in the example above). Modulation resources mark degrees of obligation and inclination, but are only available for proposals realised through indicative clauses – i.e., declaratives and interrogatives. As (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p. 178) note, modulated clauses realise proposals, but unlike typical proposals, they regularly implicate a third person to do the action being proposed through the Subject (the law in the example above). In addition, by virtue of involving a finite (must above), they allow for degrees of obligation to be specified.⁷

 ⁷ For (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p. 178), modulated clauses ‘are statements of obligation and inclination made by the speaker in respect of others… Such statements of obligation function as propositions, since to the person addressed they convey information rather than goods-&-services… Modal clauses are thus in principle ambiguous as between proposition and proposal’ [bolding in original].' Under the current model we would clarify this by saying they realise proposals that have been repositioned as propositions.

Reviewer Comments:

[1] To be clear, this suggests that the authors are unaware that their previous examples were both instances of grammatical metaphor.

[2]  To be clear, here the authors illustrate grammatical metaphor with a clause that is not an instance of grammatical metaphor. As Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 178) explain, as quoted in the authors' endnote, 'Such statements of obligation function as propositions, since to the person addressed they convey information rather than goods-&-services'. So this instance is a proposition (statement) congruently realised by indicative (declarative) mood.

[3] To be clear, this instance makes no demand for goods-&-services of the addressee. On the contrary, it gives information, and so is a proposition (statement).

[4] To be clear, the fact that a response would be an acknowledgement rather than an undertaking demonstrates that the clause realises a proposition (statement) rather than a proposal (command).

[5] To be clear, even in the authors' terms, there is no repositioning here, since it is not a proposal repositioned as a proposition; it is simply a proposition. It is not a proposal that the addressee can respond to.

[6] To be clear, as Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 178) explain, modulated clauses can realise proposals, as in I’ll be going, you should be going, we ought to be going.

[7] To be clear, as Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 178) explain, in such cases, the clause functions as a proposition, not a proposal:

Modulated clauses, on the other hand, while they also occur frequently as offers, commands and suggestions (I’ll be going, you should be going, we ought to be going), regularly implicate a third person; they are statements of obligation and inclination made by the speaker in respect of others, e.g. John’s supposed to know that, Mary will help; such statements of obligation are common in regulatory texts … and in such texts, Subjects are often realised by nominal groups denoting inanimate entities and also abstractions … Such statements of obligation function as propositions, since to the person addressed they convey information rather than goods-&-services.