RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN METAPHOR AND METONYMY

Abstract

English language is spread all over the world and it is used widely. There
are many stylistic, lexical, phonetic elements in the language. Metaphors and Metonymies are frequently used in literature and in everyday speech. A metonymy is a word or phrase that is used to stand in for another word. Sometimes a metonymy is chosen because it is a well-known characteristic of the word. We have often said that metaphor is fundamental, not only to language but to cognition in general. Metaphor works because we notice a similarity between two different kinds of experience. Generally, the similarity is in the relationship between parts of the experiences.There is another, less well known, process that seems to be equally fundamental to language and cognition, that of metonymy. Metonymy enables us to use one part or aspect of an experience to stand for some other part (or the whole) of that
experience. Unlike metaphor which involves two domains of experience, metonymy only requires one. Unlike metaphor which is based on similarity, metonymy requires contiguity “closeness” of association. Most metonymies are so common we never notice them. In this article we try to show the relationship between metaphor and metonymy.