Metonymy and Metaphor

Metonymy:
The way metonymy works is displacement by contiguity (association). For example, the phrase “to fish for pearls” derives from the idea of fishing, or taking from the ocean. It doesn’t literally mean fishing, because we know that fishing involves fishing rods and bait. The contiguity from “fishing fish” and “fishing pearls” comes from the associations with the ocean and boats. Instead of saying, “taking pearls from the ocean,” it is rephrased as “fishing for pearls” by displacing “take” with “fishing” through contiguity (association). No new definition has been created; we have displaced “take” with “fishing,” but we still mean “taking pearls from the ocean.”

Example from: Dirven, René. Conversion as a Conceptual Metonymy of Basic Event Schemata.

In Jacques Lacan’s work, The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious, he aligns metonymy with the function of desire. Lacan presents the algorithm for linguistic science: S/s, which is the signifier (S) over the signified (s). In the nature of metonymy, the bar separating the signifier and signified is kept horizontal, keeping the separation in tact. Therefore, just like I explained about metonymy above, the signifier can be displaced by other signifiers along a signifying chain and the signified will remain. Meaning is never created at one point when one signifier is over the signified. Rather, meaning insists on the movement from one signifier to another. The nature of metonymy is similar with desire. If desire is what is signified, then the signifier is constantly displaced by other signifiers (the things we desire). Desire is always a desire for something else. Desire comes from a lack of something, because desire is constantly trying to displace the lack of something with objects of desire.

This video I’m about to show is a visual representation of metonymy. What seems to be a different set of lives (signifiers) are actually signify a similar movement, in which the different set of lives signify one life (signified) that is in the music video. Try watching the video with the nature of metonymy in mind.



Metaphor

Metaphor functions as displacement by substitution. I am going to use a similar example as I did for the Metonymy explanation. If we take the word “fishing,” and use it in a phrase like “fishing for information,” then we have taken the concept of fishing into a new domain. When someone is “fishing” for information, we don’t imagine someone near an ocean or on a boat searching for general information in the sea. Rather, we transfer the elements of the action of “fishing” (catching something that cannot be seen) into a new domain.

Example from: Dirven, René. Conversion as a Conceptual Metonymy of Basic Event Schemata

Back to Lacan’s algorithm: S/s, in which the signifier (S) is above the signified (s). In the nature of metaphor, the bar separating the signifier and signified is vertical. Therefore, the signifier is able to cross over the bar and merge with the signified, and a new signified is produced. This is what Lacan calls signification, in which meaning can only happen when the signifier and signified converge to create a new signified.