Metonymy And Translation

Metonymy and Chinese Jiedai are considered to be equivalents occurring frequently in language use. Traditionally, it was regarded as a figure of speech. Domestic researches on metonym were confined in the field of linguistics, and were inadequate in terms of definition, metonymic relationships and methods of translating. The paper focuses mainly on the understanding and translation of metonymy. The author begins with a cognitive definition of metonymy, reconsiders the metonymic relationships from a deductive perspective, and analyses the semantic functions of metonymy, maintaining that metonymy should not be taken merely as substitution of names, but rather a figure of thought, a cultural phenomenon, and that metonymy should be understood in specific context. On the above basis, the paper examines how to interpret metonymy in cultural context, indicating that translating metonymy should not be ignored in the process of cultural communication. Finally, the paper introduces several methods of translating metonymy.