Metonymy is a cognitive and linguistic process through which we use one thing to refer to another. For example, we might use the word ‘Hollywood’ to refer to mainstream American films, or the word ‘Shakespeare’ to refer to plays and poetry by Shakespeare. In these examples, a place and a person are used to refer to things that are strongly related to that particular place and that particular person. Metonymy often involves using a simple or concrete concept to refer to something that is more complex or more abstract, or even sensitive, so in American history the terms ‘9/11’ and ‘Pearl Harbor’ are used to refer to the events that took place on that date and in that place respectively. As we will see in this book, metonymic thinking is extremely widespread. We think metonymically all the time in order to put the large amount of information that is available about the world into a manageable form. The presence of metonymy in our everyday thinking means that it leaves traces in language and in other forms of expression.

Metonymy is often discussed in relation to metaphor but the two are quite different. Whereas metaphor usually involves some sort of comparison between largely unrelated entities (or entities that are construed as being unrelated in that particular context), in metonymy, the relationship between a term and its referent is usually much closer. From the point of view of the analyst, this makes it harder to spot, but from the point of view of the user, the nature of metonymy renders it a much more subtle way of conveying nuance, evaluation and perspective.

Since the 1990s we have seen a proliferation of books on metaphor, but there are no extensive book-length treatments of metonymy that discuss its role in authentic discourse and other forms of communication. This is surprising given the ubiquity of metonymy and the key functions that it performs. As well as its referential function, which is well documented, metonymy is used, for example, to build identity within discourse communities and to facilitate speedy communication. It helps build relationships through appeals to shared knowledge and through these same processes it can facilitate social ‘distancing’. Metonymy involves indirectness, which means that it underlies a great deal of euphemism, hedging and vague language. It serves important evaluative purposes and is often used for positioning oneself within a debate. The potential that metonymy offers for ‘language play’ means that it underpins a significant amount of humour and irony, and other ludic and creative uses of language. Moreover, as this book will show, the presence of metonymy in all modes of expression reflects the key role that it plays in the formulation and communication of ideas.

Because metonymy is so subtle and so nuanced, it is easily missed or misinterpreted. The most common misinterpretations occur when a metonymically intended meaning is taken literally or metaphorically, or alternatively when a literal or metaphorical meaning is understood as a metonymy. Misunderstandings such as these can occur even between people who know each other well and who have sufficient shared knowledge to facilitate the extensive use of metonymy. They can also occur in professional or academic contexts when, for example, researchers from different disciplines communicate with one another on interdisciplinary projects. As we will see in Chapter 8, misinterpretations also occur in global geopolitical settings, and these can contribute to political conflict both nationally and internationally. Misinterpretations are even more likely to occur in communication between people who have different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Because metonymy is so subtle, the reasons for these misinterpretations are often missed, and misunderstandings continue.

The aim of this book is to present a full discussion of the different types of metonymy that have been identified in the literature, the different functions that metonymy performs, the contribution that it makes to successful communication in language and other forms of expression, the role that it plays in intercultural communication, and the types of misinterpretations that can occur in these contexts. Real-world data are used throughout. The book’s primary focus is on metonymy in language but it also considers the role played by metonymy in different modes of expression, such as art, music, film and advertising. I examine current theories of metonymy, most of which have been developed within the cognitive linguistic paradigm, and assess the extent to which these theories could usefully be extended to account for the complex, multi-layered nature of metonymy as it occurs ‘in the wild’. I also look at how metonymy is processed in the mind and at how the ability to understand and produce metonymy develops over time in both typically developing individuals and individuals with linguistic impairments.

Contextualised examples of metonymy are analysed in depth to show how metonymy operates in spoken and written language as well as in sign language, and other forms of expression. When discussing the role played by metonymy in spoken language, I focus on the interactive, dynamic role played by metonymy in two-way communication. This allows for an exploration of the role played by metonymy in the gestures that accompany speech. I look at exchanges involving adults and children, and native and non-native speakers of English, in everyday, academic and workplace settings. The discussions of metonymy in written language adopt a very broad definition of ‘written language’ to allow for a consideration of the use of metonymy in modern media, such as text messaging, as well as in different written genres, taken from sources ranging from journalism, through business correspondence, to literature, narrative and academic writing. The data include extracts of written language produced by native and non-native speakers of English. Many of the examples used in this book are taken from authentic language corpora, such as the Bank of English (BofE), the British National Corpus (BNC), the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and Webcorp. No artificial examples are used. There are also discussions of the ways in which metonymy is used in other media, which illustrate its multimodal and dynamic nature. The book thus aims to provide an analysis of metonymy as it is really used, in order to produce a theoretical and practical account of its role in language and other forms of communication.¹

Before beginning the book, we need a note on terminology. In the literature on metonymy, individual instances of metonymy are sometimes referred to as ‘metonyms’ and sometimes as ‘metonymies’. This difference generally reflects the perspective of the writer. People looking at metonymy from a purely lexical perspective generally prefer the term ‘metonym’, whereas people studying the phenomenon from a cognitive linguistic perspective generally prefer the term ‘metonymy’. Because the approach taken in this volume is broadly in line with a cognitive linguistic perspective, and because the scope of the volume extends well beyond language, the term ‘metonymy’ is used throughout.