Metonymy ( ) is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept. For instance, "Hollywood" is used as a metonym (an instance of metonymy) for American cinema, because of the fame and cultural identity of Hollywood, California as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars. Another example is "Westminster," which is used as a metonym for the Parliament of the United Kingdom, because it is located there.
The words "metonymy" and "metonym" come from the , , "a change of name", from , , "after, beyond" and , , a suffix used to name figures of speech, from , or , , "name." Metonymy may also be instructively contrasted with metaphor. Both figures involve the substitution of one term for another. In metaphor, this substitution is based on some specific similarity, whereas, in metonymy, the substitution is based on some understood association (contiguity).
Cognitive science and linguistics for metaphor and metonymy
Metonymy works by the
contiguity (association) between two concepts, whereas metaphor works by the
similarity between them. When people use metonymy, they do not typically wish to transfer qualities from one referent to another as they do with
metaphor: there is nothing press-like about reporters or crown-like about a monarch, but "the press" and "the crown" are both common metonyms.
Two examples using the term "fishing" help make the distinction better. The phrase "to fish pearls" uses metonymy, drawing from "fishing" the idea of taking things from the ocean. What is carried across from "fishing fish" to "fishing pearls" is the domain of metonymy.
In contrast, the metaphorical phrase "fishing for information" transfers the concept of fishing into a new domain. If someone is "fishing" for information, we do not imagine that he or she is anywhere near the ocean; rather, we transpose elements of the action of fishing (waiting, hoping to catch something that cannot be seen, probing) into a new domain (a conversation). Thus, metonymy works by calling up a domain of usage and an array of associations (in the example above, boats, the ocean, gathering life from the sea), whereas metaphor picks a target set of meanings and transfers them to a new domain of usage.
Examples
Sometimes, metaphor and metonymy can both be at work in the same figure of speech, or one could interpret a phrase metaphorically or metonymically. For example, the phrase "
lend me your ear" could be analyzed in a number of ways. One could imagine the following interpretations:
Analyze "ear" metonymically first — "ear" means "attention" (because we use ears to pay attention to someone's speech). Now, when we hear the phrase "lending ear (attention)", we stretch the base meaning of "lend" (to let someone borrow an object) to include the "lending" of non-material things (attention), but, beyond this slight extension of the verb, no metaphor is at work.
Imagine the whole phrase literally — imagine that the speaker literally borrows the listener's ear as a physical object (and the person's head with it). Then the speaker has temporary possession of the listener's ear, so the listener has granted the speaker temporary control over what the listener hears. We then interpret the phrase "lend me your ear" metaphorically to mean that the speaker wants the listener to grant the speaker temporary control over what the listener hears.
First, analyze the verb phrase "lend me your ear" metaphorically to mean "turn your ear in my direction", since we know that literally lending a body part is nonsensical. Then, analyze the motion of ears metonymically — we associate "turning ears" with "paying attention", which is what the speaker wants the listeners to do.
It is difficult to say which of the above analyses most closely represents the way a listener interprets the expression, and it is possible that the phrase is analysed in different ways by different listeners, or even by one and the same listener at different times. Regardless, all three analyses yield the same interpretation; thus, metaphor and metonymy, though quite different in their mechanism, can work together seamlessly. For further analysis of idioms in which metaphor and metonymy work together, including an example very similar to the one given here, read this article titled Metaphor and Metonymy in Contrast.
Polysemy
The concept of metonymy also informs the nature of
polysemy, i.e., how the same phonological form (word) has different semantic mappings (meanings). If the two meanings are unrelated, as in the word ''pen'' meaning both ''writing instrument'' and ''enclosure'', they are considered
homonyms.
Within logical polysemies, a large class of mappings can be considered to be a case of metonymic transfer (e.g., ''chicken'' for the animal, as well as its meat; ''crown'' for the object, as well as the institution). Other cases wherein the meaning is polysemous, however, may turn out to be more metaphorical, e.g., ''eye'' as in the ''eye of the needle''.
Rhetorical strategy
Metonymy can also refer to the rhetorical strategy of describing something indirectly by referring to things contiguous to it, in either time or space. For example, in Jane Austen's novel ''Pride and Prejudice'', the main character Elizabeth's change of heart and love for her suitor, Mr. Darcy, is first revealed when she sees his house:
Austen describes the house and Elizabeth's admiration for the estate at length as an indirect way of describing her feelings for Mr. Darcy himself. One could attempt to read this as an extended metaphor, but such a reading would break down as one tried to find a way to map the elements of her description (rising ground, swollen river) directly to attributes of her suitor. Furthermore, an extended metaphor typically highlights the author's ingenuity by maintaining an unlikely similarity to an unusual degree of detail.
In this description, on the other hand, although there are many elements of the description that we could transfer directly from the grounds to the suitor (natural beauty, lack of artifice), Austen is emphasizing the consistency of the domain of usage rather than stretching to make a fresh comparison: Each of the things she describes she associates with Darcy, and in the end we feel that Darcy is as beautiful as the place to which he is compared ''and'' that he belongs within it. Metonymy of this kind, thus, helps define a person or thing through a set of mutually reinforcing associations rather than through a comparison. Advertising frequently uses this kind of metonymy, putting a product in close proximity to something desirable in order to make an indirect association that would seem crass if made with a direct comparison.
Synecdoche
Synecdoche, wherein a specific part of something is used to refer to the whole, is usually understood as a specific kind of metonymy. Sometimes, however, people make an absolute distinction between a metonym and a synecdoche, treating metonymy as different from rather than inclusive of synecdoche. There is a similar problem with the usage of
simile and metaphor.
When the distinction is made, it is the following: when A is used to refer to B, it is a synecdoche if A is a component of B and a metonym if A is commonly associated with B but not actually part of its whole.
Thus, "The White House said" would be a metonymy for the president and his staff, because the White House (A) is not part of the president or his staff (B) but is closely associated with them. On the other hand, "20,000 hungry mouths to feed" is a synecdoche because mouths (A) are a part of the people (B) actually referred to.
One example of a simple sentence that displays synecdoche, metaphor, and metonymy is: "Fifty keels ploughed the deep", where "keels" is the synecdoche, as it names the whole (the ship) after a particular part (of the ship); "ploughed" is the metaphor, as it substitutes the concept of ploughing a field for moving through the ocean; and "the deep" is the metonym, as "depth" is an attribute associated with the ocean.
Examples
!word!!literal meaning!!metonymic use
|
drinking |
consuming a liquid |
damages |
destructive effects |
word |
a unit of language |
sweat |
perspiration |
heat |
a condition of being hot |
tongue |
oral muscle |
the press |
printing press |
Houston |
Texas> |
Annapolis, Maryland | Annapolis |
the capital of the state of Maryland |
Detroit |
the largest city in Michigan |
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California | Hollywood |
a section of Los Angeles |
The Kremlin |
A fortified construction in historic cities of Russia and the Soviet Union |
Langley, Virginia | Langley |
an unincorporated community in Virginia |
Washington, D.C. | Washington |
the capital city of the United States |
Ottawa |
the capital city of Canada |
Queen's Park (Toronto) | Queen's Park |
a large urban park in Toronto |
Canberra |
the capital city of Australia |
Islamabad |
capital city of Pakistan |
Wall Street |
a street in Lower Manhattan, New York City |
Bay Street |
a street in downtown Toronto |
K Street (Washington, D.C.) | K Street |
a street in Washington, D.C. |
Madison Avenue |
an avenue running the length of Manhattan Island in New York City |
Broadway (New York City) | Broadway |
an avenue running the length of Manhattan Island in New York City |
Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. | The Hill |
neighborhood in Washington, D.C. and the physical location of the United States Congress > |
White House | The White House |
the official Presidential residence in Washington, D.C. |
The Pentagon |
Arlington County, Virginia>Arlington, Virginia |
Foggy Bottom |
A neighborhood in Washington, D.C. |
Downing Street |
A street in the City of Westminster, on which is located No. 10, the official residence of the UK Prime Minister |
Scotland Yard |
A (historic) London street, on which the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police was located. |
The Crown |
A monarch's headwear |
The Palace |
Buckingham Palace |
Westminster |
A City in Greater London |
Whitehall |
A street in the City of Westminster, the headquarters of the British Civil Service and various Governmental Departments |
Fleet Street |
A street in London |
Holy See | The Vatican |
The Vatican City State |
Redmond, Washington | Redmond |
|
Brussels |
The capital city of Belgium and seat of the European Union |
Frankenstein |
Scientist (fictional character in Mary Shelley novel) who gives life to a creature |
Schengen, Luxembourg | Schengen |
a village and commune in Luxembourg on the Moselle River |
Stormont Estate | Stormont |
|
Zhongnanhai |
Two small lakes in a compound west of the Forbidden City in Central Beijing |
Silicon Valley |
Nickname for the section of the San Francisco Bay area that is home to many high-tech corporations |
bench |
the seat where judges in a trial sit |
PDX |
International airport code for the Portland, Oregon International Airport |
Metalepsis
Metalepsis and metonymy are closely related. Much like
synecdoche, it is understood as a specific kind of metonymy.
See also
-onym
Deferred reference
Eggcorn
Eponym
Figure of speech
Kenning
Meronymy
Metalepsis
Newspeak
Pars pro toto
Polysemy
Pun
Sobriquet
Social stereotype
Synecdoche
Totum pro parte
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
Georgij Yu. Somov, Metonymy and its manifestation in visual art works (case study of late paintings by Bruegel the Elder). ''Semiotica'' 174 (1/4), 309-366, 2009 .
Blank, Andreas (1998), ''Prinzipien des lexikalischen Bedeutungswandels am Beispiel der romanischen Sprachen'', Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Grzega, Joachim (2004), ''Bezeichnungswandel: Wie, Warum, Wozu? Ein Beitrag zur englischen und allgemeinen Onomasiologie'', Heidelberg: Winter.
Warren, Beatrice (2006), "Referential Metonymy",Royal Society of Letters at Lund, Lund, Sweden; ISBN 91-22-02148-5
;Further reading
.
Low, Graham. "An Essay is a Person", in Lynne Cameron, and Graham Low (Eds), ''Researching and Applying Metaphor,'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press pp. 221–248. ISBN 978-0-521-64964-3.
Metonymy as a cross-lingual phenomenon [Peters 2003] ()
Peters, W. 2003. "Metonymy as a cross-lingual phenomenon," in ''Proceedings of the ACL 2003 Workshop on Lexicon and Figurative Language,'' Vol. 14 (Sapporo, Japan), July 11, 2003).
Category:Rhetorical techniques
Category:Literary devices
Category:Semantics
Category:Greek loanwords
Category:Metonymy
Category:Tropes by type
bg:Метонимия
ca:Metonímia
cs:Metonymie
da:Metonymi
de:Metonymie
et:Metonüümia
es:Metonimia
eo:Metonimio
fa:متانومی (دگرنامی و همنشینی)
fr:Métonymie
gl:Metonimia
gan:轉喻
hr:Metonimija
io:Metonimio
id:Metonimia
ia:Metonymia
is:Nafnskipti
it:Metonimia
he:מטונימיה
kk:Метонимия
la:Metonymia
hu:Metonímia
mk:Метонимија
nl:Metonymie
ja:換喩
no:Metonymi
uz:Metonimiya
pl:Metonimia
pt:Metonímia
ru:Метонимия
scn:Mitunìmia
sk:Metonymia
sr:Metonimija
sh:Metonimija
fi:Metonymia
sv:Metonymi
tt:Метонимия
tr:Ad aktarması
uk:Метонімія
vi:Hoán dụ
wa:Stindaedje do sinse
zh:轉喻