Is a metonymy always a metonymy? A speculation on taxonomical aspects of propositional metonymy and situational metonymy

Abstract

Research efforts in cognitive linguistics are frequently focused on the notion of metaphor, while the notion of metonymy, as well as its taxonomical aspects, is not always thoroughly researched. A study of the most recent research papers in the English language has shown that metonymy is often interpreted in a broad fashion, incorporating several different types of cognitive processes and phenomena, so that a scholar becomes unable to distinguish them from each other and \ or is essentially forced to regard them as manifestations of the same phenomenon. A more taxonomically accurate approach is suggested, involving the use of the term “synecdoche” for affinity-related concept shifts and including a review of two subclasses of metonymy that have not yet received a considerable amount of attention – propositional metonymy and situational metonymy.

Linguistic analysis of Philippine crime news broadcasts

“…In the book Lakoff and Johnson in 2008, as cited by Golovko (2019), metonymy has always been described as conceptual rather than purely linguistics. Metonymy therefore is a device that consist of using the name of one thing for that of something else with which it is associated.…”