An Exploration Of Interpersonal Metaphors In The Film A Beautiful Mind

As one part of the main contents of functional grammar, interpersonal metaphors have been attracting much attention from the scholars. However, studies concerning interpersonal metaphors show that there are still some problems to be solved in this field. The reason may be that we do not have a long research history on functional grammar. This paper mainly deals with two problems on the basis of exploring the interpersonal metaphors in the film—A Beautiful Mind: first, whether interpersonal metaphors are a universal phenomenon in people's interactive communication; second, what important functions interpersonal metaphors can realize in people's interpersonal interaction.To write this thesis, the author firstly collects and transcripts the text of the dialogues, and then spends a lot of time marking the interpersonal metaphors in the text, the result of which is the capture of correct and reliable examples for analysis. After that, the author selects some typical examples from all the interpersonal metaphors collected to make an exploration. Then from the analysis, the author summarizes the functions of interpersonal metaphors in the maintenance of the interpersonal relationship and the success of interactive communication. No matter it is in the discussion of metaphors of mood or metaphors of modality, the author extends the exploration on the basis of putting them into different types that are done according to their realization forms.Through the analysis of the text from A Beautiful Mind, the author proves with statistics that interpersonal metaphors exist in interactive communications in large quantities. The exploration of the functions of interpersonal functions in A Beautiful Mind shows that this grammatical category plays an important role in the success of interactive communication. However, they make their contribution from different perspectives. Metaphors of mood mainly involve the transference of speech functions, which leads to the combination of two speech functions, so as to realize the complicate speech functions that the speaker wants to express. The realization of metaphors of modality originates from the transference of modal elements in the clause into the carriers beyond the clause, which makes it possible for the clause to express the polarity explicitly. Metaphors of modality mainly involve the subjective realization or the objective realization of modal elements. In the interactive dialogues, sometimes people need to express their subjective attitudes and sometimes objective. It is of great significance to realize the purpose of interaction if a speaker can express his views towards something appropriately and accurately. Moreover, from the interpersonal metaphors in A Beautiful Mind, the author discovers that interpersonal metaphors not only contribute to the adjustment of moods, and subjective and objective orientation, but also to organizing the coherence of the context and improving the interactive atmosphere.