The Fuzziness between Material Process and Mental Process

（Southwestern University of Finance and Economics， School of Foreign language for Business， Chengdu， Sichuan， 611130）

【Abstract】： Among the six processes， Halliday did not give a clear boundary definition so that causes some overlapped layers among them， especially for the three dominate processes—material process， mental process and relational process.

【Key words】： fuzziness； material process； mental process

I. The definition of material process and mental process

Material process， a process of doing， involves physical actions： running， throwing， scratching， cooking and so on. The doer of this type of action is called Actor， and the second participant is called Goal. There are some examples of material process following：

（a） He has been shaving.

（b） The young girl bounded out of the gate.

Mental process， a sense of thinking， covering emotion， cognition， perception and desideration， contains two participants-- senser and phenomenon. Some examples follow：

（c） I liked most operas.

（d） You can imagine his reaction.

Halliday and Matthiessen outlined five properties that distinguish mental and material processes， helping us to understand how language works. The first is that mental processes always involve at least one human participant： the participant has mind when the event occurs. The second is ‘phenomenon’ maybe a fact， because facts can be perceived or felt， but it is rare to material process. （For example： I like it； It pleased me He kicked the ball； The ball？ him）. The fourth difference is tense. For material process， the natural present is the continuous form， but for mental process the most natural present tense is the simple form. The last one is mental process it needs a different type of question form that used to probe core examples. In material process， we can ask ‘What did somebody do？’， but it is not adopted by mental process.

Although we have set up a series of rules to decode the both， in reality， both processes mix together therefore make readers confusion， such as the next examples：

（a） I take it for granted that listening is much more easier than reading.

（b） The answer smote him like a thunder.

The above examples， because of ambiguity， cannot classify them into material process， regardless of process’s transference.

II. The transference between material process and mental process

Actually in many texts， the surface transitive process cannot reflect its implied transitive process. Sometimes， material process reflects mental activity， vice versa.

i material process represents mental activity

View the next examples：

（a）A sort of white radiance of anger ran over her like summer lightning.

（b）The information slips off his mind like a flash.

（c）A slight of embarrassment fell on him.

From above examples， we conclude two characteristics： the first is that material process could express mental activity via lexical metaphor， like examples （a）， （b）， using the structure ‘...like...’； the second characteristics is that mental activity could be expressed by material process by means of grammatical metaphor， like example （c）. It is universal that using material process to represent mental activity， because human are tend to express abstract meaning by specific experience.

ii mental process represents material activity

Use abstract thing to symbol specific performance is rare in the actual life， but it is relatively more in written texts. Viewing the following examples：

（a）They arrived at the port at the midnight.

（b）The midnight saw them at the port.

（c）China has taken a great change over the past fifty years.

（d） The past fifty years has witnessed a great change in China.

The examples （a）， （c）， the material processes transferred into the mental processes， examples （b），（d） by personification， and the circumstantial element became a participant.

III. Causes result in fuzziness between the material process and mental process

i Fixed collocation came to the top point causing ambiguity apart from lexical or semantic factors. The following examples should be concerned：

（a）I take your word for it.

（b）I realized I hadn’t taken anything in.

Above examples， verbs and language forms are belong to the characteristics of material process， but in fact ‘ take sth for sth ’ means ‘ take it for granted ’ and ‘ take...in ’ means ‘grasp the meaning ’. They are not actions or behaviors， but represent emotional response. Thus， we classify them to mental process. There are other fixed collocations， such as ‘bear in mind’， ‘it occurs/strikes to me ...’.

ii Meanwhile， lexical metaphor， semantic metaphor and syntactic metaphor also need to consider. The following examples are also mental processes.

（a）The cat is so cute that kills me.

（b）I could not remember what happened on that day， but suddenly all the things hit me.

（c）He caught the audience reactions based on their facial expressions.

The verbs above， like ‘kill’， ‘hit ‘， ‘caught’ are related to mind in specific situations， and they all use metaphors so that the material process transfers to mental process.

Part IV Conclusion

Although differences between material process and mental process are clear， but sometimes， they could freely transfer， which cause ambiguity and also result difficulties in analyzing them. Thus， considering semantic metaphor， lexical metaphor， syntactic metaphor and fixed collations are effective ways to distinguish the both processes.

Bibliography

[1] Halliday MAK，Matthiessen C. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 2004

[2]XIANGYU JIANG， LIANG CHEN. A Meta-analysis of Cross-linguistic Syntactic Priming Effects [J]. 當代外語研究. 2014（12）

[3] Halliday MAK，Hasan R. Language，Context and Text：Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective. 1989