The paper examines the similar and different conceptual processes underlying the use of metonymy and metaphor. Somewhat surprisingly, this subject was already considered by Jakobson in 1956, more than half a century ago and further explored by the French structuralists, who received relatively little attention in Anglo-Saxon linguistics. Jakobson's views of the metonymic and the metaphoric poles can be linked to the syntagmatic and paradigmatic potential of language. We will approach metonymy and metaphor from this angle in order to achieve a deeper understanding of their conceptualising powers. Still, we cannot blindly accept Jakobson 's views, but will only take his distinctions as a starting-point. We will also concentrate more on metonymy, since this pole has traditionally been neglected. The principles underlying metonymy and metaphor, especially those of the two-domain theory, will be completed by Jakobson's and the French structuralists' views of conceptual distance and closeness. In this way the partial overlapping of the figurative potential in both metonymy and metaphor can be explained more adequately. Thus it may also become possible to probe systematically into the functions proper of metonymy and metaphor. (René Dirven)