Metonymy as a privileged manifestation of linguistic motivation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6093/2284-0184/11591Keywords:
Motivation, Metonymy, Iconicity, Frames, PolysemyAbstract
In the paper, it will be argued that metonymy represents a particularly relevant manifestation of linguistic motivation, both on account of the pervasiveness of metonymy itslef in everyday communication (pointed out, among others, by Lakoff e Johnson: 1980; Littlemore: 2015; Radden: 2005; Wachowski: 2019), and in consideration of the fact that several of the principles that regulate the linking of linguistic-conceptual entities in motivation can also be observed in the operation of metonymy. Among these, the basic condition that involved entities are connected within the same knowledge network, be it the linguistic system itself, or a frame of extralinguistic knowledge entrenched in a linguistic-cultural community. The first brief section sets as a starting point the saussurean notions of arbitrariness, relative arbitrariness and motivation. Section 2, based on recent studies, offers a characterization of the notion of motivation. Section 3 is devoted to a description of metonymy, primarily based on studies in Cognitive Linguistics. Also, in these two sections, the commonalities and areas of overlap between the two phenomena are highlighted, to then be briefly resumed in the conclusions.
Downloads
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish in this journal agree to the following:
- Authors retain the rights to their work and give in to the journal the right of first publication of the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons License - Attribution that allows others to share the work indicating the authorship and the initial publication in this journal.
- Authors can adhere to other agreements of non-exclusive license for the distribution of the published version of the work (ex. To deposit it in an institutional repository or to publish it in a monography), provided to indicate that the document was first published in this journal.
- Authors can distribute their work online (ex. In institutional repositories or in their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges and it can increase the quotations of the published work (See The Effect of Open Access).