44. Metonymic Group of sd: Metonymy, Synecdoche.

Metonymy is based on a relation between dictionary and contextual meanings, a relation of some kind of association connecting the two concepts which these meanings represent. The interrelation between the dictionary and contextual meanings should stand out clearly and conspicuously. Metonymy used in language-in-action or speech or contextual metonymy is genuine metonymy and reveals a quite unexpected substitution of one word for another or even of one concept for another, on the ground of some strong impression produced by a chance feature of the thing. (Then they came in. Two of them, a man with long fair moustaches and a silent dark man… Definitely, the moustache and I had nothing in common). Metonymy, while presenting one object to our mind does not exclude the other. By giving a specific detail connected with the phenomenon, the author evokes a concrete and life-like image and reveals certain feelings of his own. By mentioning only one seemingly insignificant feature or detail connected with the phenomenon the author draws the reader’s attention to it and makes him see the character he describes as he himself sees it. The most common types of relation which metonymy is based on: 1. A concrete thing used instead of an abstract notion. In this case the thing becomes a symbol of the notion. 2. The container instead of the thing contained. 3. The relation of proximity.4. The material instead of the thing made of it. 5. The instrument which the doer uses in performing the action instead of the action or the doer himself. Metonymy, being a means of building up imagery, generally concerns concrete objects, which are generalized. The process of generalization is easily carried out with the help of the definite articles. Synecdoche is a kind of metonymy which is based on the relations between the part and the whole. It consists in substitution of one name for the other according to the patritive, quantitative relations between them. The most frequently employed type of synecdoche mostly typical of poetry is the usage of words eye and ear in the singular. (There can live no hatred in thine eye)

The metonymical group (metonymy, synecdoche) is based on contiguity (really existing relations) between 2 objects.

The relations are: causal, symbolic, spatial, instrumental, and functional:

1. The relations of the container and … contained: “…село – все с ясносиними глазами.”; “Tom and Roger came back to eat an enormous tea and then played tennis till light failed.” (S.M.)

2. The relations of the instrument and the action: “Give every man thy ear, and few thy voice.” (Shakespeare).

3. Symbol and notions: Throne, Crown, Laurel.

4. Cause and effect: “He takes the death.”

5. General and its part: “A student is expected to know…”

6. Subject and its property: “He made his way through the perfume and conversation.” (I.Sh.)

7. Abstract notions denoting emotional state instead of people who experience these emotions: “Стоногий стон бредет за колесницей” (М.Петровых); “Many of the hearts that throbbed so gaily then, have ceased to beat; many of the looks that shone so brightly then, have ceased to glow.” (D.)

8) Synecdoche: using the name of a part instead of the whole or vice versa: “To be a comrade with a wolf and owl.”

Fresh and trite (dead) metonymy: brass (money), china (porcelain) but “ She saw around her, clustered about the white tables, multitudes of violently red lips, powdered cheeks, cold hard eyes, self-possessed arrogant faces, and insolent bosoms. (A.B.)