Read more
The book aims to show how the tenets of the cognitive theory of metonymy can benefit the lexicographic representation of metonymic lexemes, so that the semantic connections between basic and derived meanings become more transparent and motivated. The theoretical part proposes an approach to metonymy which is eclectic with respect to the latest theories in cognitive semantics. This perspective is adopted in the empirical part, which reports the findings of an enquiry into the treatment of conventionalised metonyms in the so-called "Big Five" English monolingual learners' dictionaries. In the analysis, the following issues are dealt with: sense disambiguation and arrangement, defining techniques, and the correlation between grammatical codes and exemplification. Taking the cognitive viewpoint, the book adds to the recent trend in pedagogical lexicography towards a more explicit marking of figurative language.
List of contents
Contents: Cognitive Theory of Metaphor and Metonymy - Source and target senses - Semantic elaboration - Typology of metonymic relationships - Arrangement of metonymic senses in the dictionary microstructure - Dictionary definitions of metonymic meanings - Metonymy and the countable-uncountable distinction in lexicographic representation.
About the author
Sylwia Wojciechowska is a lecturer in the School of English at Adam Mickiewicz University Poznan (Poland). Her areas of academic research include cognitive linguistics, lexical semantics, lexicography and figurative language. She has published a few papers on the cognitive theory of metonymy and the treatment of metonymic lexemes in dictionaries.
