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Article In: Metonymic Thinking All the Way Down: From discourse to the lexicon, and beyond
Edited by Carmen Portero-Muñoz, Antonio Barcelona and Almudena Soto Nieto
[Cognitive Linguistic Studies 13:1] 2026
► pp. 19–46

Section 1. Metonymy in discourse

Metonymy in pragmatic inferencing in a sample of English and Spanish spoken and written texts

ORCiD logo with link | University of Córdoba
ORCiD logo with link | Universidad Complutense de Madrid
ORCiD logo with link | Universitat Politècnica de València
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
The paper describes some of the various instances of metonymy-guided pragmatic inferencing identified in two corpora, a Spanish corpus and an English corpus, which we compiled as part of project PGC2018-101214-B-I00. The texts in both corpora have approximately the same size and are evenly distributed in terms of medium (spoken and written) and genre. The results show that, with the aid of context and pragmatic principles, conceptual metonymy “guides,” in (2024). Metonymy in grammar and discourse comprehension: Five case studies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar terminology, many pragmatic inferences, including several types of implicatures and indirect speech acts ( (2018). What kind of reasoning mode is metonymy?. In O. Blanco-Carrión, A. Barcelona & R. Pannain (Eds.), Conceptual metonymy: Methodological, theoretical, and descriptive issues (pp. 121–160). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Panther, K.-U. (2022). Introduction to cognitive pragmatics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) in all the texts analyzed. It also partly guides the recognition of various types of irony and of other figures of speech encountered in the texts, especially hyperbole and understatement (Martín-Gascón, B. (2019). A cognitive modeling approach on ironical phraseology in Twitter. In G. Corpas Pastor & R. Mitkov (Eds.), Computational and corpus-based phraseology: Third International Conference (pp. 299–314). Cham: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, (2022). Metonymy in Spanish/L2 teaching: A cognitive analysis of color idioms and their inclusion in the Córdoba Project Database. In G. Corpas Pastor & R. Mitkov (Eds.), Computational and corpus-based phraseology: 4th International Conference (pp. 146–159). Cham: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Ruiz de Mendoza, F. J., & Lozano-Palacio, I. (2019a). Unraveling irony: From linguistics to literary criticism and back. Cognitive Semantics, 5(1), 147–173. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, (2019b). A cognitive-linguistic approach to complexity in irony: Dissecting the ironic echo. Metaphor and Symbol, 34(2), 127–138. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, Ruiz de Mendoza, F. J., & Lozano-Palacio, I. (2021). On verbal and situational irony: towards a unified approach. In A. Soares da Silva (Ed.), Figurative Language — Intersubjectivity and usage (pp. 213–240). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Ruiz de Mendoza, F. J., & Galera Masegosa, A. (2020). The metonymic exploitation of descriptive, attitudinal, and regulatory scenarios in meaning making. In A. Baicchi (Ed.), Figurative meaning construction in thought and language (pp. 283–308). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Lozano-Palacio, I., & Ruiz de Mendoza, F. J. (2022). Modeling irony: A cognitive-pragmatic account. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). The analysis of the results is still in progress, but we have already found instances that extend the role of metonymy in indirect speech acts beyond Panther and Thornburg’s accounts by providing indirect, metonymic access to the speech act scenario element that in turn provides access to the intended speech act. The paper has also been able to show that metonymy guides most of the implicatures arising from the examined texts and noted the important role of metonymy in irony, hyperbole, and understatement. Finally, the paper has shown how metonymy-guided inferencing creates discourse coherence, both relational and referential ( (2024). Metonymy in grammar and discourse comprehension: Five case studies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar).
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Indirect speech acts
  • 3.Implicature
  • 4.Irony, hyperbole, and understatement guided by metonymy
    • 4.1Irony
    • 4.2Hyperbole and understatement
  • 5.Relational and referential coherence
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
References (69)
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