Cognitive linguistics view on metonymic and metaphoric thinking in discourse

Abstract

Metaphor and metonymy have long been treated as peripheral ornaments of literary language, but the cognitive turn in linguistics has reassigned them a foundational role in ordinary thought and communication. This article examines metonymic and metaphoric thinking from a cognitive linguistics perspective, with particular attention to how these mechanisms operate in naturally occurring discourse rather than in isolated lexical examples. Drawing on conceptual metaphor theory, conceptual metonymy research, and blending theory, the study analyses the ways in which metaphor and metonymy structure discourse coherence, constrain inferential pathways, and interact with each other in the production of meaning. The analysis focuses on three discourse domains – political speech, news media language, and academic writing – to demonstrate that the cognitive functions of these mechanisms vary systematically across contexts rather than remaining constant. The results show that metonymy tends to organise reference and information structure within propositions, while metaphor tends to frame evaluative and argumentative dimensions of discourse; however, the boundary between the two is frequently blurred in actual language use, and cases of metaphtonymy – the simultaneous activation of both mechanisms – are more common than either classical account would predict. The article argues that a strictly dichotomous treatment of metaphor and metonymy is analytically insufficient for discourse-level analysis and proposes a scalar, interaction-based model that better reflects the cognitive architecture of meaning construction in context. Theoretical and pedagogical implications are discussed.