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Memory, Identity and Cognition: Explorations in Culture and Communication pp 155–173Cite as

How Fundamental and Ubiquitous Really Is Metonymy?

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Abstract

In the classical theory, metonymy is often defined as a figure of speech which operates on names of things. In Cognitive Linguistics, however, metonymy is normally understood as a particular type of mental mapping and a very basic cognitive mechanism (probably more basic than metaphor) rather than a simple linguistic matter (Barnden, 2010; Barcelona, 2003a, b, c, d; Dirven and Pörings, 2003; Goosens, 1990; Haser, 2005; Kosecki, 2007; Nerlich and Clarke, 1999, Nerlich and Clarke, 2001; Panther and Radden, 1999; Panthe and Thornburg, 2004, Panther and Thornburg, 2007; Ruiz de Mendoza, 2003). The first aim of this article is to shed some light on how basic the mechanism is. The article presents metonymy from a broad perspective, incorporating, apart from linguistic, also psychological and biophysical studies. The observations of psychologists (Michotte et al., 1964), biophysicists (e.g., Eagleman, 2001; Nieder, 2002), linguists (e.g., Gardner & Gardner, 1969; Kwiatkowska, 2007), or even technologists (e.g., Klein, 2008) lead to the conclusion that the mechanism of metonymy is indispensable to perception and cognition and, as such, is not only characteristic of humans, but has also been developed in other animate beings. Another aim of this article is to demonstrate that metonymy is an omnipresent phenomenon. It is demonstrated that metonymy is frequently used outside language, e.g., in visual arts, that it is used in reasoning and that it may serve the function of providing understanding.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    By Cognitive Linguistics the author means the second generation of cognitive science, as described e.g., by Lakoff (1987, pp. XI–XVII) or Lakoff and Johnson (1999, p. 77).

  2. 2.

    In Lakoff and Johnson’s book (1980), for example, only one chapter (out of 30) is dedicated to metonymy.

  3. 3.

    cf. Barcelona (2003a, 2003b, 2003c, 2003d), Croft (1993), Dirven and Pörings (2003), Goosens (1990), Haser (2005), Kosecki (2007), Nerlich and Clarke (1999, 2001), Panther and Radden (1999), Panther and Thornburg (2004, 2007), Ruiz de Mendoza (2003), Seto (1995, 1999), or Barnden (2010).

  4. 4.

    From μετά, metá, “after, beyond, changed” and -ωνυμία, -ōnymía, a suffix used to name figures of speech (Oxford English Dictionary, 1989).

  5. 5.

    cf. Lakoff and Johnson (1980), Langacker (1984, 1987, 1990, 2008), Lakoff (1987), Lakoff and Turner (1989), Kövecses and Radden (1998), Koch (1999), Panther and Thornburg (2004, 2007), or Barcelona (2003a, 2003b, 2003c).

  6. 6.

    The phenomenon is also called modal completion. Some researchers do not draw a difference between amodal perception and modal completion or complementation (e.g., Noë, 2002), whereas others do differentiate between them. According to Nanay, for example, “in the case of amodal perception, we are aware of objects behind an occluder, whereas in the case of modal completion, we are visually aware of an object in front of inducers” (2007, p. 1334). Still, as Noë observes (2002), the neural mechanisms responsible for both processes are the same in early vision and they only differ in a very late stage of visual processing.

  7. 7.

    Source: Boeree (www.webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/gestalt.html).

  8. 8.

    Other linguists have arrived at similar conclusions. Panther and Thornburg, for example, claim that such conceptual metonymies as part-whole, cause-effect, person-role, representation-represented, are “multipurpose conceptual devices not restricted to language but used in other semiotic systems and thought as well” (2004, pp. 94–95).

  9. 9.

    Source: www.blog.ted.com/2008/05/joshua_klein.php.

  10. 10.

    The division into a taxonomical relation (synecdoche) and partonomical relation (metonymy) was suggested by e.g., Seto (1995, 1999) and Nerlich (1999, 2010).

  11. 11.

    This example may seem anecdotal, but if it turned out to be true, it would point to the advanced ability of dogs to include even very non-prototypical members into categories. The ability is known in Cognitive Linguistics as partial sanctioning (Langacker, 1987, pp. 65–73).

  12. 12.

    Source: http://www.courtjones.com.

  13. 13.

    The metonymy could obviously have a linguistic form. As Panther and Thornburg add, “the same observer might also verbalize his thinking by saying Mary is red in the face, thereby metonymically evoking the target content ‘Mary is angry’” (2007, p. 242).

  14. 14.

    Source: www.euro-cig.com.

  15. 15.

    Amodal perception, mentioned in Sect. 3.1, is not an exclusively visual phenomenon either. Nanay notes, for example, that “when we hold a glass, we are (amodally) aware of those parts of the glass that we do not have any tactile contact with” (2007, p. 1331).

  16. 16.

    Metonymy is often a reversible phenomenon.

  17. 17.

    It may be argued that the sentence: She’s pretty, but she’s got an ugly face is semantically well formed and the metonymic link between face and person, although strong, can be explicitly cancelled without contradiction. The example used here is not supposed to suggest otherwise, but only to show that the relationship is so strong that in many contexts the concept person is automatically activated by the lexeme face and vice versa.

  18. 18.

    If someone's face fits, their appearance or/and personality are suitable for a job or other activity.

  19. 19.

    The website probably took its name from books called “face books” sometimes given to students by university administrations at the start of the academic year. The “face books” were supposed to help students get to know each other better.

  20. 20.

    See also Wachowski (2015) for a discussion on the pars pro toto relations.

  21. 21.

    See Sect. 3.1 on amodal perception.

  22. 22.

    In the same way we are able to infer the shape of an object from some of its disconnected parts. The principle (called emergence by Gestalt psychologists) is demonstrated in Sect. 3.1 by the Dog Picture (Fig. 1).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland

    Wojciech Wachowski

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  1. Wojciech Wachowski
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  1. Department of English Linguistics, Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland

    Jacek Mianowski

  2. Department of English Linguistics, Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland

    Michał Borodo

  3. Department of English Linguistics, Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland

    Paweł Schreiber

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Wachowski, W. (2019). How Fundamental and Ubiquitous Really Is Metonymy?. In: Mianowski, J., Borodo, M., Schreiber, P. (eds) Memory, Identity and Cognition: Explorations in Culture and Communication. Second Language Learning and Teaching(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12590-5_11

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