Appraisal: Grammatical Metaphor

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 16):

In terms of grammatical metaphor APPRAISAL allows us to realise feelings as if they were things and deploy them accordingly.

(48) He was angry because she was sitting in her car. (congruent adjectival feeling)
(49) His anger prompted her departure. (metaphorical nominalised feeling)

Blogger Comments:

[1] As was the case for NEGOTIATION, it is not the interpersonal system of APPRAISAL that enables ("allows") grammatical metaphor. In any case, the grammatical metaphor here is ideational ("feelings as things"), not interpersonal.

[2] To be clear, adjectives, like nouns, are nominals. The reason this instance is congruent is that a semantic element, an emotive quality of projection (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 209-10), is realised grammatically as a nominal group serving as Attribute.

[3] To be clear, the reason this instance is metaphorical is that a semantic element, a process or quality of emotion, is realised grammatically by a noun serving as the Thing of a nominal group. This ideational metaphor, therefore, is not enabled by the interpersonal system of APPRAISAL.