Чет тиллар факультети инглиз тили ўҚитиш методикаси кафедраси

Metonymy is based on a different type of relation between the dictionary and contextual meanings a relation based not on affinity, but on some kind of association connecting the two concepts which these meanings represent.
f.ex. “crown” may stand for “kind or queen”
“cup” or “glass” – “the drink it contains”
“press” – “the newspaper”
“a hand” – “a worker”
“cradle” – “infancy, earliest stages”
These examples are traditional, fixed in dictionaries. However, when such meanings are included in dictionaries, there usually a label fig (“figurative use”). This shows that the new meaning has not entirely replaced the primary one, but, as it were co-exists with it.
Metonymy used in language-in-action or speech, i.e., contextual metonymy, is genuine metonymy and reveals a quite unexpected substitution of one word for another, or even of one concept for another, on the ground of some strong impression produced by a chance feature of the thing.
Example:
“Then they came” in. Two of them, a man with long fair moustaches and a silent dark man…Definitely,the moustache and I had nothing in common”. (Doris Lessing “Retreat to Innocence”) the word “moustache” stands for the man himself, metonymy indicates that the speaker knows nothing of the man in question, this is the first time the speaker has seen him.
Many attempts have bean made to pinpoint the types of relation which metonymy is based on. Among them the following are most common:
1. a concrete thing used instead of an abstract notion. In this case the thing becomes a symbol of the notion, as in “The camp, the pulpit and the law” “For rich men’s sons are free” (Shelley)`
2. The container instead of the thing contained:
“The hall applauded”
3. The relation of proximity, as in:
“The round game table was boisterous and happy.” (Dickens)
4. The material instead of the thing made of it as in:
“The marble spoke”.
5. The instrument which the doer uses in performing the action instead of the action or the doer himself, as in ;
“Well, Mr. Weller, says the gentl’mn, you’re a very good whip, and can do what you like with your horses, we know.” (Dickens).
The list is in no way complete. Take are many other types of relations which may serve as a basis for metonymy.
Irony – is a stylistic device also based on the simultaneous realization of two logical meanings-dictionaries and contextual, but the two meaning stand in opposition to each other.
for example:
“It must be delightful to find oneself in a foreign country without a penny in one’s pocket”. This word acquires a meaning quite the opposite to its primary dictionary meaning (unpleasant) the word containing the irony is marked by intonation. It has an emphatic stress. “I like a parliamentary debate particularly when ‘tis not too late’ (Byron)
The context is arranged so that the qualifying word in irony reverses the direction of the evaluation and a positive meaning is understood as a negative one and (much-much rare) vice versa. “She turned with the sweet smile of an alligator”. The word ”sweet” reverse their positive meaning into the negative one due to the context. So, like all other lexical stylistic devices irony does not exist outside the context.