Applying grammatical metaphor from the perspective of systemic functional grammar to the training of outstanding Vietnamese students in primary school

Abstract

Grammatical metaphor (GM) is a linguistic theory first introduced by Halliday in 1985, regarded as a rich resource at the lexico-grammatical level. Ideational grammatical metaphor, one of the three types of grammatical metaphor according to systemic functional grammar, employs nominalisation as a mechanism for metaphor construction. Modality metaphor, which belongs to the category of interpersonal grammatical metaphor, employs the key mechanism of transforming speech functions to perform social roles and relationships within a complex network, thereby expressing the unique interpersonal nature of discourse. The study examines the similarities and correspondences between the aforementioned linguistic concepts from the perspective of systemic functional grammar and traditional grammatical phenomena in Vietnamese, particularly word-class conversion and sentence classification based on indirect speech functions. Based on these insights, the article proposes a system of exercises designed to help outstanding Vietnamese primary school students refine their language abilities ensuring alignment with educational objectives.