Construing linguistics and chemistry: An exploration of the intellectualisation of Filipino through grammatical metaphor

Abstract

The language of science has enabled us to develop theories assisting humanity to advance technologically and extend one’s knowledge. In The Philippines, Spanish was the language of science and technology, and is now replaced by English. Since the development of Filipino as the National Language of The Philippines, efforts such as intellectualisation have been made for the eventual replacement of English in all domains including science and technology. Intellectualisation is a process that shapes a language to make it possible for precise and rigorous abstract statements and complexity of thought necessary for scientific speech (Havránek, 1932/1964). Similarly, grammatical metaphor creates virtual phenomenon, which exist solely on the semiotic plane making them powerful abstract tools for thinking with (Halliday, 2004; Martin, 2008). This thesis examines grammatical metaphor as a phenomenon in the intellectualisation of Filipino. This paper aims to explore grammatical metaphor and the intellectualisation of Filipino in two scientific discourses utilising Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as a theoretical framework. It aims to explore a snapshot of this intellectualisation process and thus expand the growing research on languages other than English within the SFL framework.