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Conceptual Metonymy: Methodological, theoretical, and descriptive issues
Edited by Olga Blanco-Carrión, Antonio Barcelona and Rossella Pannain
[Human Cognitive Processing 60] 2018
► pp. 97–120

Chapter 4
Some contrast effects in metonymy

| University of Birmingham, UK

This chapter analyses important, variegated ways in which contrast arises in metonymy. It explores, for instance, the negative evaluation of the target achieved in de-roling, where the source chosen is a target feature that is largely irrelevant to the target’s role in a described situation, therein contrasting with other target features that would have been more appropriate. This form of contrast, amongst others, can generate irony, so that the chapter elucidates some of the complex connections between metonymy and irony. It also explores the multiple roles of contrast in transferred epithets, especially as transferred epithets can be simultaneously metonymic and metaphorical. Finally, the chapter makes contrast-related suggestions regarding the metonymy database described by Barcelona and colleagues in other chapters.

Keywords: de-personalization, evaluative effects, highlighting, irony, metaphor, transferred epithets
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Degrees of source/target contrast in metonymy
  • 3.Contrast and evaluation
    • 3.1(De-)emphasis and de-personalization
    • 3.2De-roling
    • 3.3Irony through de-roling and other means
  • 4.Transferred epithets
    • 4.1The phenomenon and its metonymic aspect
    • 4.2Metaphorical aspects of transferred epithets
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 17 May 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.60.04bar
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Barnden, John A.
2022. Metonymy, reflexive hyperbole and broadly reflexive relationships. Review of Cognitive Linguistics 20:1 ► pp. 33 ff. DOI logo

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