Nataliia Vovkohon AL-01 a

Report on METAPHOR AND METONYMY: DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES

A metaphor is a figure of speech that describes a subject by asserting that it is, on some point of comparison, the same as another otherwise unrelated object. Metaphor is a type of analogy and is closely related to other rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via association, comparison or resemblance including allegory, hyperbole, and simile. In simpler terms, a metaphor compares two objects or things without using the words "like" or "as". One of the most prominent examples of a metaphor in English literature is the All the world's a stage monologue from As You Like It: All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2/7 This quote is a metaphor because the world is not literally a stage. By figuratively asserting that the world is a stage, Shakespeare uses the points of comparison between the world and a stage to convey an understanding about the mechanics of the world and the lives of the people within it[3]. Metonymy (/mtnmi/ mi-TONN--mee) 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 for the US film industry because of the fame and cultural identity of Hollywood, a district of the city of Los Angeles, California, as the historical center of film studios and film stars. A building which houses the seat of government or the national capital is

often used to represent the government of a country, such as "Westminster" (Parliament of the United Kingdom) or "Washington" (United States government). The words "metonymy" and "metonym" come from the Greek: , metnyma, "a change of name", from , met, "after, beyond" and -, -nyma, a suffix used to name figures of speech, from , nyma or , noma, "name."[4] Metonymy may be 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)[4]. Metaphor and metonymy are similar in various aspects but the major difference is that if a metaphor substitutes a concept with another, a metonymy selects a related term. So, if metaphor is for substitution, metonymy is for association. For example, the sentence he is a tiger in class is a metaphor. Here the word tiger is used in substitution for displaying an attribute of character of the person. The sentence the tiger called his students to the meeting room is a metonymy. Here there is no substitution; instead the person is associated with a tiger for his nature. So metonymy is a figure of speech. It is used in rhetoric where a thing is not referred by its name but with the associated word. A metaphor is an expression. This expression shows the similarity between two things on some aspects. In metonymy, the association of the word is based on contiguity, while in a metaphor; the substitution is based on similarity. If metaphor can be used to define the transference of relation between set of things to another, metonymy is used to define a word. Metonymy uses a single characteristic for the identification of a complex entity. Another difference between metaphor and metonymy is that a metaphor acts by suppressing an idea while metonymy acts by combining ideas. But both metaphor and metonymy are used to express ideas which are greatly different from the original meaning in the psychic realm. When a person uses a metonymy, the

qualities are not transferred from the original word to the metonymy. But in metaphor, when there is a comparison, the comparison is based on the qualities and some qualities are transferred from the original to the metaphor, in the process. Metaphor is an extension to a words meaning on the account of similarity and metonymy is a way of extending the meaning of a word based on its association to another. Metaphor can be used to refer to a word in an object category to make it in the abstract semantic category. Metonymy can be used in informal or insulting situations as well. For example, the association of brain to a person means he is intelligent, and asshole is a metonymy for an idiotic person in an insulting manner[1]. So we can say that if metaphor is used for substitution and condensation, a metonymy is used for combination and displacement. Metaphor and metonymy are treated as two different figures of speech in traditional rhetoric. In modern theories of metaphor, metonymy is often regarded as a subtype of metaphor and gets a bare mention. In this paper, the author analyzes the two important phenomena in terms of their structures, functions and working mechanisms. While recognizing their similarities in certain respects, the author suggests that they are two fundamentally different cognitive devices, with metaphor involving things from two different domains and metonymy involving the properties of something and its special relations with other things. Metaphor is cognitively more useful since people often create metaphors to understand a relatively less well-known domain of things in terms of things from relatively better-known domains. As metonymy basically involves using a special property of something or its special relationship with other things to refer to it, its major function is to help the hearer to locate or recognize the referent and its special characteristics[2].

List of references:

1. http://www.shvoong.com/exact-sciences/1606216-metaphor-metonymysimilarities-differences/ 2. http://www.difference-between.net/language/difference-betweenmetaphor-and-metonymy/ 3. Wee, Lionel. 2006. Proper names and the theory of metaphor. Journal of Linguistics 42. 355.371. 4. Barcelona, Antonio (ed.) 2000a. Metaphor and metonymy at the crossroads: A cognitive perspective. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.