A Systemic Functional Grammar Study on Ideational Metaphor in English Business Contracts

A business contract is a kind of legal discourse which is said to be highly technical, abstract, and impersonal. These features are majorly identified through specific grammatical resources. Within the framework of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), ideational metaphor which is specified with the metaphorical reconstrual of processes plays a crucial role in creating discoursal functions in English business contracts. This study aims to identify, categorize, and interpret ideational metaphor in English business contracts by analyzing how different process types contribute to the construction of contractual meaning and legal formality. The study investigates 20 authentic English business contracts collected from diverse categories, including transfer agreements, advertising services, business collaboration, purchase and sale of goods. The research employs a mixed-method approach by combining quantitative frequency analysis with qualitative functional interpretation. The results show that ideational metaphor, which reflects actions, duties, and states in contractual speech, is prevalent in material and relational processes whereas uncommon in mental, verbal, and existential processes. Notably, no occurrences of behavioral process are found in ideational metaphor. The study demonstrates that ideational metaphor is a central linguistic resource in English business contracts, contributing significantly to their abstract, impersonal, and technical nature.

Business English · Existentialism · Grammar · Meaning (existential) · Metaphor · Process (computing) · Systemic functional grammar · Systemic functional linguistics · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · linguistics and terminology studies