Today's Theory
Mar. 7th, 2007 01:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brdgt
Metonymy and Synecdoche
Synecdoche, where a specific part of something is taken to refer to the whole, is usually understood as a specific kind of metonymy. Sometimes, however, people make an absolute distinction between a metonymy and a synecdoche, treating metonymy as different from rather than inclusive of synecdoche. There is a similar problem with the usage of simile and metaphor.
When the distinction is made, it is the following: when A is used to refer to B, it is a synecdoche if A is a part of B and a metonymy if A is commonly associated with B but not a part of it.
Thus, "The White House said" would be a metonymy for the president and his staff, because the White House (A) is not part of the president or his staff (B) but is closely associated with them. On the other hand, asking for "All hands on deck" is a synecdoche because hands (A) are actually a part of the people (B) to whom they refer.
Those who argue that synecdoche is a class of metonymy might point out that "hands" (A) are a metonym for workers (B) since hands are closely associated with the work the people do as well as a part of the people. That is, hands are associated with work through a metonymy at the same time as being associated with the people through synecdoche.
An example of a single sentence which displays synecdoche, metaphor and metonymy would be: "Fifty keels ploughed the deep", where "keels" is the synecdoche as it takes a part (of the ship) as the whole (of the ship); "ploughed" is the metaphor as it substitutes the concept of ploughing a field for moving through the ocean; and "the deep" is the metonym, as "deepness" is an attribute associated with the ocean.
-Wikipedia
Synecdoche, where a specific part of something is taken to refer to the whole, is usually understood as a specific kind of metonymy. Sometimes, however, people make an absolute distinction between a metonymy and a synecdoche, treating metonymy as different from rather than inclusive of synecdoche. There is a similar problem with the usage of simile and metaphor.
When the distinction is made, it is the following: when A is used to refer to B, it is a synecdoche if A is a part of B and a metonymy if A is commonly associated with B but not a part of it.
Thus, "The White House said" would be a metonymy for the president and his staff, because the White House (A) is not part of the president or his staff (B) but is closely associated with them. On the other hand, asking for "All hands on deck" is a synecdoche because hands (A) are actually a part of the people (B) to whom they refer.
Those who argue that synecdoche is a class of metonymy might point out that "hands" (A) are a metonym for workers (B) since hands are closely associated with the work the people do as well as a part of the people. That is, hands are associated with work through a metonymy at the same time as being associated with the people through synecdoche.
An example of a single sentence which displays synecdoche, metaphor and metonymy would be: "Fifty keels ploughed the deep", where "keels" is the synecdoche as it takes a part (of the ship) as the whole (of the ship); "ploughed" is the metaphor as it substitutes the concept of ploughing a field for moving through the ocean; and "the deep" is the metonym, as "deepness" is an attribute associated with the ocean.
-Wikipedia
