A Relevance-theoretic Perspective on Metonymy

The aim of this paper is to analyse metonymies from a relevance-theoretic perspective. Metonymy has been considered as an association process between contiguous items within the same cognitive domain or as involving a meaning transfer between properties. These approaches, however, prove inadequate in offering a complete account. I will argue that metonymies are used as reference tools to refer to individuals or objects lying outside their linguistically-specified denotation. I will outline how the intended referent might be identified by the property the speaker singles out for the hearer to focus on. Finally, different metonymic uses in communication will be analysed.