Grammatical metaphor as syntactic variation based on Halliday’s view

Halliday(1987b:173) considered metaphorical realizations as metaphorical variants which are related to variation theory. He points out that each of these (types of) variants can be described in more general terms as "an alternative realization of an element on the next, or on some, higher stratum". Morphological, lexical and syntactic variants are alternative lexicogrammatical realizations of the same meaning. In present research, congruent and metaphorical forms are investigated in Persian speakers’ speech. The number of informants is 47 which are chosen based on sex, education and social class. The research questions are:1)How do social variables such as sex, education and social class affect the application of congruent and metaphorical variants? 2) How does each social variable such as sex, education and social class affect the application of metaphorical forms of modality, nominalization and transitivity? Research data indicate that sex doesn’t affect on application of congruent and metaphorical variants and also on application of modality, nominalization and transitivity. But education and social class affect enormously on application of congruent and metaphorical variants and also on application of three kinds of grammatical metaphors (except no effect of sex on application of transitivity metaphors) in Persian speakers’ speech. We have observed statistical hypercorrection as a considerable phenomenon in present research. The middle class (based on the division of social class to low, middle and high) used grammatical metaphors more than low and high classes.