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Article published In: Living Metaphors and Metonymies
Edited by Mario Brdar and Rita Brdar-Szabó
[Review of Cognitive Linguistics 20:1] 2022
► pp. 33–69

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Metonymy, reflexive hyperbole and broadly reflexive relationships

 | University of Birmingham
Published online: 24 May 2022
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https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00100.bar
Abstract
I explore some relationships between metonymy and a special type of hyperbole that I call reflexive hyperbole. Reflexive hyperbole provides a unified, simple explanation of certain natural meanings of statements such as the following: Sailing is Mary’s life, The undersea sculptures became the ocean, When Sally watched the film she became James Bond, I am Charlie Hebdo, John is Hitler, The internet is cocaine and I am Amsterdam. The meanings, while of seemingly disparate types, are deeply united: they are all hyperbolic about some contextually salient relationship that has a special property that I call “broad reflexivity.” Although a few of the types of meaning of interest have metonymic aspects (or metaphorical aspects), reflexive hyperbole cannot just be explained by a straightforward application of metonymy theory (or metaphor theory). Indeed, I argue instead for a dependency in the converse direction: that much and perhaps even all metonymy is rooted – if sometimes slightly indirectly – in broadly reflexive relationships, though not usually in a hyperbolic way.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The phenomenon: Equations and heightened relational meaning
    • 2.1Examples of equative sentences
    • 2.2Assumed meanings of the examples
    • 2.3Involvement of preparatory metonymy
    • 2.4Relationships involved in the above heightened relational meanings
    • 2.5Further explanation of the relationships
    • 2.6Meaning variability and context-sensitivity
  • 3.The Reflexive Hyperbole Theory and broadly reflexive relationships
    • 3.1Hyperbole arising from strict reflexivity of various relationships
      • Likeness
      • Integration
      • Contributes as part
      • Leading-to, case-of, and indication-of
      • The pattern so far
    • 3.2Hyperbole arising from broad reflexivity
    • 3.3Relationships that are not broadly reflexive
    • 3.4Do all and only broadly reflexive relationships afford reflexive hyperbole?
  • 4.Heightened relational meaning as already implied by metonymy?
    • 4.1Does reflexive hyperbole arise automatically out of standard metonymic patterns?
    • 4.2Could we exploit the hyperbole-as-metonymy view (HaM)?
    • 4.3A general strategy? – Tailor-made, heightened metonymic patterns
  • 5.Broad reflexivity of metonymic relationships
    • 5.1Illustrations of the Metonymic Reflexivity Conjecture holding
      • 5.1.1part for whole and whole for part
      • 5.1.2producer for product
      • 5.1.3Category-based metonymy
      • 5.1.4Representation-based metonymy
      • 5.1.5possessor for possessed
      • 5.1.6result for action
      • 5.1.7potentiality for actuality
      • 5.1.8Assignment-based metonymy
      • 5.1.9Integration-based metonymy
      • 5.1.10More indication-based metonymy
      • 5.1.11Using thoroughly partonomic views of metonymy
    • 5.2A problem case for metonymic reflexivity
  • 6.Conclusions and additional further work possibilities
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (47)
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Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Barnden, John A.
2023. Reflexive hyperbole, both ways. Lingua 290 ► pp. 103548 ff. DOI logo

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