Applying Grammatical Metaphor to Academic Writing

The term Grammatical Metaphor (GM) was first launched by Halliday (1985) in “An Introduction to Functional Grammar”. GM has been studied and commonly used in various types of discourse. The more GM is employed in writing, the more formal and academic the writing is. Language learners often face long and complex nominal phrases. To comprehend them is not easy, and to use them in writing is more difficult. This paper is to present some basic constructions of GM based on the theory of Systemic Functional Grammar. Thus, firstly, the paper gives a brief account of GM so that we can have an overview of the term GM. Secondly, types of GM are provided to establish the theoretical frame for the paper. Lastly, some common constructions of GM are suggested to help writers or language learners master them and use them in writing most efficiently