Metonymy

Metonymy (/mɛˈtɒnəmi/) is a figure of speech in which a thing or concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept.The primacy of the metaphoric process in the literary schools of Romanticism and symbolism has been repeatedly acknowledged, but it is still insufficiently realized that it is the predominance of metonymy which underlies and actually predetermines the so-called 'realistic' trend, which belongs to an intermediary stage between the decline of Romanticism and the rise of symbolism and is opposed to both. Following the path of contiguous relationships, the realistic author metonymically digresses from the plot to the atmosphere and from the characters to the setting in space and time. He is fond of synecdochic details. In the scene of Anna Karenina's suicide Tolstoy's artistic attention is focused on the heroine's handbag; and in War and Peace the synecdoches 'hair on the upper lip' or 'bare shoulders' are used by the same writer to stand for the female characters to whom these features belong. Metonymy (/mɛˈtɒnəmi/) is a figure of speech in which a thing or concept is referred to by the name of something closely associated with that thing or concept. The words metonymy and metonym come from the Greek μετωνυμία, metōnymía, 'a change of name', from μετά, metá, 'after, beyond', and -ωνυμία, -ōnymía, a suffix that names figures of speech, from ὄνυμα, ónyma or ὄνομα, ónoma, 'name'. Metonymy and related figures of speech are common in everyday speech and writing. Synecdoche and metalepsis are considered specific types of metonymy. Polysemy, multiple meanings of a single word or phrase, sometimes results from relations of metonymy. Both metonymy and metaphor involve the substitution of one term for another. In metaphor, this substitution is based on some specific analogy between two things, whereas in metonymy the substitution is based on some understood association or contiguity. American literary theorist Kenneth Burke considers metonymy as one of four 'master tropes': metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony. He discusses them in particular ways in his book A Grammar of Motives. In addition to its use in everyday speech, metonymy is a figure of speech in some poetry and in much rhetoric. Greek and Latin scholars of rhetoric made significant contributions to the study of metonymy. Synecdoche, in which a specific part of something is used to refer to the whole, is usually understood as a specific kind of metonymy. Sometimes an absolute distinction is made between a metonymy and a synecdoche, treating metonymy as different from, rather than inclusive of, synecdoche. There is a similar problem with the terms simile and metaphor.