Metonymy

"'Metonymy' is a type of figurative language used in everyday conversation, a form of shorthand that allows us to use our shared knowledge to communicate with fewer words than we would otherwise need. 'I'll pencil you in' and 'let me give you a hand' are all examples of metonymic language and serve a wide range of communicative functions such as textual cohesion, humour, irony, euphemism and hyperbole - all of which play a key role in the development of language and discourse communities. Using authentic data throughout, the book shows how metonymy operates, not just in language, but also in…