On Textual Coherent Functions Of Conceptual Metonymy

From the perspective of traditional linguistics, metonymy is merely regarded as afigure of speech. It is thus treated as a phenomenon of name substitute that results fromthe proximity or the relevant relation between two linguistic unites. With thedevelopment of cognitive linguistics, however, especially with the publication of Lakoffand Johnson’s monograph Metaphors we live by in1980, metonymy has been studied asa way of cognition and paid more and more attention by cognitive linguists. Accordingto cognitive linguists, metonymy is a kind of conceptual phenomenon as well as acognitive process, which is working on the basis of a so-called framework of IdealizedCognitive Model (ICM) put forward by Lakoff, so metonymy has such a function that itoffers a mental access to another conceptual entity (target) by means of a specificconceptual one, the former and the latter being in the same ICM and being proximate interms of concept, so that the target can be cognized. Metonymy plays a very importantcognitive role at the different levels such as lexicon, grammar, text and so on.As far as metonymy is concerned, nowadays many researchers at home and abroadfocus their study on lexicon and grammar. However, not much work has been done onthe textual coherence from a perspective of metonymy. Coherence is one of the basicfeatures of a text. It contributes a lot to the textual coherence. Cognitive linguisticssuggests that all the levels of language should be studied by virtue of human being’scognitive construals. Therefore, based on the previous researches, some studies on textual coherent functions of metonymy will be done in this thesis.The study is based on the theories of Radden’s (1999) and K vecses’(1999)conceptual metonymy, especially their high-level metonymy as well as low-level one.The texts used in the study vary from types of literature. The purpose of this thesis is tofind some specific textual coherent functions of the conceptual metonymy.The researches in this thesis have shown that conceptual metonymy has thefollowing five functions in generating and understanding textual coherence. The firstone is the referential coherent function, which is realized by the referential metonymy.This kind of textual coherence is achieved by means of the whole standing for the partor the part standing for the whole. The second is the situational coherent function,which is achieved by situational metonymy. Specifically speaking, by virtue of a part ofsituation motivating the whole situation，the text concerned with the whole situationbecomes a whole body in terms of meaning, so that the text gets coherent. The third isgrammatical coherent function，which is realized by grammatical metonymy. This kindof function contributes to the textual coherence by means of changing the lexicalmeaning and combining events and objects that seem to be unrelated. The fourth iscoherent function of speech act. It is realized by the speech act metonymy. This kind offunction contributes to the textual coherence by means of a speech act promoting animplied situation, which indirectly suggests implied meaning. The fifth is inferentialcoherent function. It is realized by metonymic inference. Associated with people’sexperience and situational context, metonymic inference can achieve the textualcoherence.