An Analysis of Foreign Trade Sales Contract from the Perspective of Grammatical Metaphor

Abstract

Metaphor is a universal phenomenon in daily life. Traditionally, metaphor study is related to the lexical metaphor. However, for systemic functional linguistics, it refers to grammatical metaphor which embodies transformation between the lexical level and grammatical level. Grammatical metaphor is commonly used in contracts. To some extent, the understanding of contract equals the understanding of grammatical metaphor. With the development of foreign trade, the number of foreign trade sales is increasing rapidly and various foreign trade sales contracts are also growing significantly. In order to clearly and correctly understand the terms of contract, it is especially important to analyze the grammatical metaphor in it. Based on the grammatical metaphor in Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics theory, this paper analyzes the expression of grammatical metaphor in foreign trade sales contract and understand the different roles played by different grammatical metaphors in the contract. As a result, it is conductive to understand the terms of contract accurately and to reduce misunderstandings of its content.

The paper consists of three parts. The first part is to introduce the definition of grammatical metaphor. Combined with the contract cases, the second part analyzes the applications of grammatical metaphor in foreign trade sales contract from four aspects, including nominalization, adjectivation, verbalization and prepositionalization. The final part gives an introduction of grammatical metaphor’s functions in foreign trade sales contract, including ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function. 

Key Words: Grammatical metaphor; foreign trade sales contract; functions