Metonymy'Metonymy' is a type of figurative language used in everyday conversation, a form of shorthand that allows us to use our shared knowledge to communicate with fewer words than we would otherwise need. 'I'll pencil you in' and 'let me give you a hand' are both examples of metonymic language. Metonymy serves a wide range of communicative functions, such as textual cohesion, humour, irony, euphemism and hyperbole - all of which play a key role in the development of language and discourse communities. Using authentic data throughout, this book shows how metonymy operates, not just in language, but also in gesture, sign language, art, music, film and advertising. It explores the role of metonymy in cross-cultural communication, along with the challenges it presents to language learners and translators. Ideal for researchers and students in linguistics and literature, as well as teachers and general readers interested in the art of communication. |
Contents
What those boys need is a good handbagging What is metonymy? | 4 |
He coughed and spluttered a lot and sneezed his lunch | 19 |
Hes only bowin to his passport Theoretical models | 42 |
BBC her mother would have said What do people | 65 |
But what can we expect after all of a man who wears | 92 |
The Government of Britain is sort of there How | 123 |
Other editions - View all
Metonymy: Hidden Shortcuts in Language, Thought and Communication Jeannette Littlemore Limited preview - 2015 |
Metonymy: Hidden Shortcuts in Language, Thought and Communication Jeannette Littlemore No preview available - 2018 |
Common terms and phrases
action metonymies advertising argues Bank of English blue plaque BofE Brdar British National Corpus cognitive linguistic conceptual metaphor context contiguity corpus creative cultural David Lodge Deignan discourse communities discussed domain dysphemism entity explore fact that metonymy film following example Forceville functions of metonymy gesture humour Ibáñez and Diez identified illocutionary interaction interpretation involve metonymy language learners lexical Littlemore look Mendoza Ibáñez metaphor and metonymy meton metonymic meaning metonymic relationship metonymic thinking metonymies involve metonymy comprehension metonymy identification metonymy in language metonymy types models of metonymy nouns novel one’s onymy particular played by metonymy pragmatic principle psycholinguistic Radden and Kövecses radial category real-world data refer referential metonymy role of metonymy Ruiz de Mendoza saw in Chapter sentence sign language speakers studies of metonymy taxonomy term translation types of metonymy vehicle selection verbs Webcorp whole metonymy Williams syndrome word