The Power of Metonymy

Władysław ChłopickiJagiellonian University. Poland

Symposium ‘’Scala naturae” Tallinn 18 August 2014

Little smart sister of metaphor

The little sister refers to close things to bring them even closer

While the big sister manages bigger things, bigger transfers

She is the neck while metaphor is the headBoth have large eyes and thus imagistic

capacities

Neck and head are part of…

….the body [and are thus metonymic themselves] Or more accurately they steer the body Which is their co-text [linguistic] the body moves, walks, runs within some

surrounding space – the con-text [extra-linguistic] movements of the body (usually goal-oriented) are

meaningful only within that close and further-removed space (closer and further context)

Meaning is complex and situational

Concepts just like situations are complex and consist of subconcepts or subevents

We think in terms of actions, scenarios, complex, chronologically developing, or potentially developing

We think vicariously, in terms of ‘’as if I was there”

Meaning is usage-based – connected with a specific event

Definitions….

Metonymy is more than the relation of contiguity. It is based on associations, reference-point relations, situational embedding, all of which undergo inferences in order to be interpretable by the speaker and hearer. (The ham sandwich has wondering hands; cf. Evans and Green 2006: 167)

Metonymy gives a (usually verbal) point of access to a concept, thus making it salient. This target concept maybe metaphorical itself.

Metonymy often gives rise to blends, through which extra meaning emerges.

Metonymy as a reference point phenomenon (cf. Radden 2014)

E.g. schematicmetonymy

Conceptualizer

Ref.Pt.

target

Dominion

metonymy

targettargettarget

target

Situational metonymy as a network of concepts (Radden 2014)

relation

situation-internal

subevent

time

situation type

reality - potentiality

place

situation

ICMICM

situation-external

thing

situational core

mannerproperty

thing

meanscause

Communication is metonymic (Radden 2014)

1. People typically conceive of a situation as a whole gestalt.

2. Any situation comprises a complex network of associated concepts.

3. In “thinking for speaking”, the speaker decides on how to code the situation she wants to communicate in a given language in accordance with principles of cooperation.

4. The communicative act is (of necessity) metonymic and hence requires the speaker to gauge its adequacy by anticipating the hearer’s inferential task.

5. The hearer constructs the speaker’s intended meaning via metonymic inferences.

Whole situation– subevents (Radden 2014)

S 9

whole situation

co-present subevent

precondition initial central final

successive subevents

concomitant

salient

end

peripheral

Communicative constraints

Presence of the hearer as witness of the situation Reporting the situation – familiar or unfamiliar to

the hearer, specifically or generally Genre of speech – oral or written Informational or esthetic (literary) or persuasive Serious or jocular Presence of convention, degree of

conventionality – helps or hinders, but is a necessary reference point

Pervasive metonymy

Humour – anyone could write a novel given six weeks , pen, paper, and no telephone or wife (E. Waugh Chips Channon Diary 16 Dec 1934)

Information (crossword)- result of six weeks off in isolation, with pen, and ample paper, but no telephone or family?

Information (science) – an experiment was carried out on 73 volunteers, men and women, who were isolated for six weeks with no access to phone or family and friends and given just pen and paper. As a result 58% produced complete novels, 23% generated sizable portions possible to complete later, 12% wrote their memoirs, while the remaining 7% wrote nothing at al, just scribbled and drew.

Pervasive metonymy

Persuasion – If only you could give me six weeks , pen, paper, and cut me from the telephone and family, I will easily write a stunning novel

Poetry –Pen and paper, quiet evenings, no phone rings nor nagging questions, page by page my world transpires, and unveils the thought congestion. Metaphor – Putting pen to paper in forced

isolation is like conceiving a child through a hole in the prison wall

Proverb – Pen to paper for six weeks makes your readers fall asleep

Metonymic blending

Carol Mattau to her husband, who had asked the age of a flirtatious starlet with noticeably thick legs: For God’s sake, Walter, why don’t you chop off her legs and read the rings? (T. Capote Answered Prayers (1986)

Metaphor, blending but metonymy-driven (legs for trees as well as legs are trees) resulting in emergent meaning

Asking the age, chopping off legs and reading readings are postulated POTENTIAL subevents for the FLIRT event (POTENTIAL FOR ACTUAL)

Blend

ASKING AGE (of women)

-judging looksSocially awkward

NEED TO INSPECT TO CONFIRM Why don’t you cut her legs

and check the rings?

Blend

CHECKING AGE OF (THICK) LEGS

(no rings inside)SIDE EFFECTS –

counterproductive

CHECKING AGE (of thick trees)

NEED TO INSPECT Cut tree, check the rings

Cut tree, check rings

ecological motivation

Ask the age

• NEED TO CONFIRM• How old are you?

Anatomist for suicide

I find then I am but a bad anatomist (Oliver Knox in Wolfe Tone’s Rebels and

Informers 1998, cutting his throat in prison, he severed his windpipe instead of his jugular and lingered for several days)

OPERATION FOR PROFESSION

Salient subevents

So basically you’re saying marriage is just a way of getting out of an embarassing pause in conversation?

(Richard Curtis, Four Weddings and a Funeral 1994) Pause as salient precondition for marriage If an Englishman gets run down by a truck he

apologizes to the truck (Jackie Mason) Apology as final subevent - salient for any scenarios

of English behaviour

Metonymy-driven metaphors

Often Daddy sat up very late working on a case of Scotch (Nathaniel Benchley in Robert Benchley 1955)

Metaphoric double entendre based on schematic metonymy (repetitive movements scenario – reaching for drink, drinking and putting the drink down VS flipping pages, reading, writing, flipping pages, etc)

Metonymy-driven metaphors

Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket (George Orwell)

Metonymy is the salient specific co-present subevent of Rattling for Making (unnecesary) noise (POTENTIAL FOR ACTUAL)

Metaphor – Advertising is making unnecessary noise

Salient element for concept A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation

(Saki, The Square Egg 1924) - central subevent One of the nicest old ladies I have ever met (William

Faulkner on Henry James) LADIES FOR EFFEMINATE MEN Waiting for the German verb is surely the ultimate thrill

(Flan O’Brien, The Hair of the Dogma 1977) VERB FOR LANGUAGE

Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch (W.C. Fields You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man 1939 film) CORK FOR BOTTLE

Life is a sexually transmitted disease - initial subevent SEX FOR LIFE - LIFE IS A DiSEASE

Association metonymy

A literary man – with a wooden leg (Dickens – Our Mutual Friend (1865) WHOLE – SALIENT PART

What’s the use of a book, thought Alice, without pictures and conversations? (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 1865) WHOLE – SALIENT PART, WHOLE – FINAL SUBEVENT

SO WHAT ABOUT THIS METONYMY?

METONYMIES ARE IRRESISTIBLE and hence their power

We want to find out what is at the end of the neck, what it is leading to…

Humour results if the neck is long and winding and attached not quite where it belongs – or perhaps

In lieu of a conclusion

‘’The foregrounding of metonymy as an essential conceptual tool of humour-making is undoubtedly innovative, welcome and valuable, and can eventually invalidate some components of script-based theories, because metonymy in not a between-domain or between-script relation” (Krikmann 2009: 29)

‘’Blend-oriented analysis are fascinating to read, but as the conceptual integration theory as such is an ultimately and comprehensive ‘’theory of everything’…, the analyses that have been performed so far do not aim to tell us more exactly which blends do result in humour and which ones do not” (Krikmann 2009: 31)

‘’What is needed is social logic that allows a theory to ground the interpretation in the specific concerns and prejudices of the listener as social agent” (Krikmann 2009: 35)

Bibliography Evans, Vyvyan and Melanie Green. 2006. Cognitive Linguistics.

An Introduction. Edinburgh University Press. Evans, Vyvyan. 2007. A Glossary of Cognitive Linguistics.

Edinburgh University Press. Krikmann, Arvo. 2009. On the similarity and distinguishability

of humour and figurative speech. Trames 13 (63/58), 1, 14-40. Krikmann, Arvo. 2012. Estonian ‘three-nation’ jokes (1964-

2012). A paper presented at 24th ISHS Krakow, Poland. 26 June. Sherrin, Ned. 2002. Oxford Book of Humorous Quotes. Oxford

University Press. Radden, Gunther. 2014. Situation metonymies. First Figurative

speech symposium, Thessaloniki. Unpublished.

A newly discovered ur-joke Three passengers from Poland, Germany and Estonia are flying

over Russia in a small kukuruzhnik plane. Suddenly both engines of the plane fail, and trying to avoid a plane crash, they want to jump. They find a parachute, a fire extinguisher and water hose and are about to jump off crying ‘’Long live” their native countries, but at the last moment they reflect and decide to show respect to their more powerful neighbours, so the Estonian shouts: Elagu Poola!, with a tear in his eye and jumps with his parachute, The Pole shouts ‘’Niech zyja Niemcy! ‘’and cries rather more profusely and jumps on the fire extinquisher, and then the German – what is he to do? He shouts „Lang lebe Estland!”, cries like a beaver and jumps with the water hose. All of them obviously land safely.

You might think they will land on the White Sea and will be sailing with a brown boat on it and will be in danger of being killed, but no! They land in the forest and and are accosted by a native Russian and are challenged to three tasks if they want to escape alive: drinking a gallon of vodka, shaking hands with a bear and raping a nun. Luckily for them, only three gallons of vodka are found available on the premises and after having easily gobbled them, all three of them (well almost all three) having come from vodka drinking countries, they are allowed to move on.

On the way they encounter a huge cat which demands milk from them but since they know the ways of cats they feed him mustard, knowing full well how to, and he happily eats all of it and lets them go. On the way out of the forest, since even in Russia the forest ends somewhere, they see a pub and gladly enter it. Now the bar tender, having ritually exclaimed: What is it? Some kind of joke?, serves them gallons and gallons of vodka.

Following that they engage in the bragging competition on the size of their members, which is naturally won by the German, and among all the confusion the golden fish appears and asks them their wishes. The Estonian wishes his own saarel and slowly dissapears there, the German wishes his own Schloss and dissapears there, and the Pole wants his friends back as he became very emotional and attached to the two after all they have gone through, and he gets his wish too. So they are all back drunk and happy.

The ur-text ends

Now it is time to drink Bruderschaft with the bar tender after all these vodkas, but he says ‘’OK. you can call me by my first name only after you manage to shoot the target at 100 meters”, so the Estonian says: I am Arvo Paart and I cannot shoot, the German says I am Kaiser Wilhelm and I am a good shooter and shoots precisely in the middle of the target. Finally, the Pole shoots and the arrow twists and turns so unluckily (or luckily as the story would have continued otherwise) that it kills the bar tender, the German, the Estonian and then hits himself, whereupon the Pole says : I am sorry.