On the regularity of metonymy across languages (exemplified on some metonymies in medical discourse)

The topic of metonymy regularity has cropped up in several recent articles, a welcome sign of growing interest in this phenomenon, which may eventually contribute towards shedding more light on the phenomenon of metonymic competence, paralleling metaphoric competence (Littlemore & Low, 2006). Ho...

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Main Author: Brdar Mario
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Sciendo 2019-10-01
Series:ExELL (Explorations in English Language and Linguistics)
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.2478/exell-2020-0006
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author Brdar Mario
author_facet Brdar Mario
author_sort Brdar Mario
collection DOAJ
description The topic of metonymy regularity has cropped up in several recent articles, a welcome sign of growing interest in this phenomenon, which may eventually contribute towards shedding more light on the phenomenon of metonymic competence, paralleling metaphoric competence (Littlemore & Low, 2006). However, in order to deal with this complex phenomenon one should be clear about the circumstances of the use of metonymy. Two issues pertaining to the use of metonymy that play a central role in Slabakova, Cabrelli Amaro & Kang (2013 & 2016) are mentioned in the very title of their study—novel metonymy and regular metonymy. In this article I draw attention to some problems with the assumption that these are opposites of each other and then examine what Slabakova, Cabrelli Amaro & Kang consider to be regular metonymy. I demonstrate that while their novel metonymies are not really so different from the regular ones, there is another sense of metonymy regularity in cognitive linguistics, where metonymy seems to come closest it can to novelty. This phenomenon, referred to as regular metonymy, logical metonymy or logical polysemy, crosses boundaries of languages and cultures. This is illustrated on several sets of examples from medical discourse in a number of languages.
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spelling doaj.art-cc0acfd762e8469783d704678ea248222022-12-21T21:30:00ZengSciendoExELL (Explorations in English Language and Linguistics)2303-48582019-10-0171526910.2478/exell-2020-0006exell-2020-0006On the regularity of metonymy across languages (exemplified on some metonymies in medical discourse)Brdar Mario0University of Osijek,CroatiaThe topic of metonymy regularity has cropped up in several recent articles, a welcome sign of growing interest in this phenomenon, which may eventually contribute towards shedding more light on the phenomenon of metonymic competence, paralleling metaphoric competence (Littlemore & Low, 2006). However, in order to deal with this complex phenomenon one should be clear about the circumstances of the use of metonymy. Two issues pertaining to the use of metonymy that play a central role in Slabakova, Cabrelli Amaro & Kang (2013 & 2016) are mentioned in the very title of their study—novel metonymy and regular metonymy. In this article I draw attention to some problems with the assumption that these are opposites of each other and then examine what Slabakova, Cabrelli Amaro & Kang consider to be regular metonymy. I demonstrate that while their novel metonymies are not really so different from the regular ones, there is another sense of metonymy regularity in cognitive linguistics, where metonymy seems to come closest it can to novelty. This phenomenon, referred to as regular metonymy, logical metonymy or logical polysemy, crosses boundaries of languages and cultures. This is illustrated on several sets of examples from medical discourse in a number of languages.https://doi.org/10.2478/exell-2020-0006metonymyregular metonymylogical metonymynovel metonymymedical discourse
spellingShingle Brdar Mario
On the regularity of metonymy across languages (exemplified on some metonymies in medical discourse)
ExELL (Explorations in English Language and Linguistics)
metonymy
regular metonymy
logical metonymy
novel metonymy
medical discourse
title On the regularity of metonymy across languages (exemplified on some metonymies in medical discourse)
title_full On the regularity of metonymy across languages (exemplified on some metonymies in medical discourse)
title_fullStr On the regularity of metonymy across languages (exemplified on some metonymies in medical discourse)
title_full_unstemmed On the regularity of metonymy across languages (exemplified on some metonymies in medical discourse)
title_short On the regularity of metonymy across languages (exemplified on some metonymies in medical discourse)
title_sort on the regularity of metonymy across languages exemplified on some metonymies in medical discourse
topic metonymy
regular metonymy
logical metonymy
novel metonymy
medical discourse
url https://doi.org/10.2478/exell-2020-0006
work_keys_str_mv AT brdarmario ontheregularityofmetonymyacrosslanguagesexemplifiedonsomemetonymiesinmedicaldiscourse