Trends in cognitive-linguistic research on metonymy

Abstract

This article is a brief introduction to the theory of conceptual metonymy and a brief survey of research on this area. The first section presents the cognitive-linguistic notion of metonymy, including a discussion of the various problematic aspects of this notion. This is followed by a longer section illustrating some of the main types of metonymies. The section devoted to the ubiquity of metonymy surveys research on its involvement in cognition, grammatical meaning and form, pragmatic inferencing and discourse, linguistic change, and non-linguistic areas like art and gesture; it ends with a brief note on metonymic triggers and chains, and on its multilevel operation. The chapter ends with a reflection on future directions.