A Comparative and Contrastive Study of Arabic and English Metonymic Expressions

This study explores Arabic and English metonymy’s literary, semantic, lexical, and aesthetic aspects. It investigates metonymy as a figure of speech and compares its types and functions in the two languages. The study confirms that metonymy is culture-bound – that is the meanings of metonymies derive from the socio-cultural values of societies and can’t be separated from the contexts in which they occur. The study stresses the significance of considering the relationship between the two entities in addition to the socio-cultural background in the analysis of metonymies. The study also demonstrates how, in English, metonymy overlaps with other figures of speech, above all metaphor and synecdoche. This analytical study contributes to a better understanding of metonymy. It compares the definitions, classifications, functions, and points of similarities and differences in the two languages for all learners of Arabic and English as second or foreign languages.