Metonymy is a figure of speech that involves transferring a name from one thing to another on the basis of certain typical kinds of relations: designating the effect with the cause, the whole with a part, the contents with its container. An example would be "a sail on the horizon" for "a ship on the horizon."{{Top}}métonymie{{Bottom}}
===Linguistic Definition===[[Metonymy ]] is usually defined as a fundamental notion supporting Lacan's thesis that "the unconscious is structured like [[trope]] in which a language." It term is analogous used to denote an [[object]] which it does not literally refer to, but with the Freudian concept of "displacement" and refers to the problematic which it is closely linked. This link may be one of desire and demand[[physical]] contiguity, but not necessarily.
===Roman Jakobson===However, [[Lacan (2002]]'s use of the term owes little to this definition apart from the [[notion]] of contiguity, p. 155) proposed since it is inspired by the following symbolic formula for [[work]] of [[Roman Jakobson]], who established an opposition between [[metonymy]] and [[metaphor]].<ref>[[Roman Jakobson|Jakobson, Roman]]. "Two aspects of language and two types of aphasic disturbances," ''Selected Writings'', vol. II, ''[[Word]] and Language'', The [[Hague]]:Mouton, 1971 [1956]., p. 21.</ref>
This formula represents ===Metonymic Axis of Language===Following [[Jakobson]], [[Lacan]] [[links]] [[metonymy]] to the fact that any new signifier (S0) intervenes because it is contiguous with a prior signifier (S). Metonymy is best illustrated by combinatorial axis of [[language]], as opposed to the kind of displacement that takes place in dreams[[substitutive]] axis.
===Diachronic Dimension of Signifying Chain===In his most detailed work on [[The Freudian concept of displacement emphasizes Subject|the shift of value and of meaning. What usually happens is that words and feelingssubject]], in a distorted and disguised form, are transferred to nearby material. [[Lacan insisted that ]] defines [[metonymy resists being meaningful by always producing apparent nonsense, ]] as is usually the case with [[diachrony|diachronic]] relation between one [[signifier]] and [[another]] in the manifest content of a dream[[signifying chain]].
Primal repression and ===Metonymy Versus Metaphor===[[Metonymy]] thus concerns the ways in which [[signifier]]s can be combined / linked in a single [[signifying chain]] ("horizontal" relations), whereas [[metaphor of ]] concerns the name of the Father impose the mediation of ways in which a [[signifier upon desire. The signifier of the name of the Father initiates the alienation of desire ]] in language. Desire can no longer operate directly. Insofar as it takes the form of speech and is expressed as demand, desire becomes nothing more than one [[signifying chain]] may be substituted for a reflection of itself. Increasingly lost [[signifier]] in the another [[chain of signifiers, desire refers to an indeterminate series of objects, one after another, that are substitutes for the lost object ]] (das Ding"vertical" relations). Together, [[metaphor]] and thus it refers to an indeterminate series of signifiers that symbolize these substitutive objects[[metonymy]] constitute the way in which [[signification]] is produced.
Desire always refers to something fundamentally other than the objects it aims ===Formula for or the signifiers that symbolize them. Thus desire inevitably follows the path of Metonymy===[[Lacan]] provides a [[formula]] for [[metonymy]]. Because desire is expressed by a symbolizing demand, it always designates a desire for the whole (the lost object) by expressing a desire for a part (the substitute object), just as the metonymic figure "a sail on the horizon" designates the whole (a ship) by a part (a sail)<ref>{{E}} p.164</ref>
JOËL DOR[[Image:Lacan-metonymy.jpg|center]]
See alsoThis formula is to be read as follows: Metaphor; Want of being/lack of being.Bibliography
* DorOn the lefthand side of the [[algebra|equation]], [[outside]] the brackets, [[Lacan]] writes '''<i>f</i>''' '''S''', the [[paternal function|signifying function]], Joël. (1998). Introduction which is to say the reading effect of Lacan: The unconscious structured like a language[[signification]]. New York: Other Press [[Inside]] the brackets he writes '''S . * Lacan Jacques. (1993). The seminar of Jacques Lacan. Book 3: The psychoses (Russell Grigg, Trans.). New York: W. W. Norton. (Original work published 1981; originally presented 1955-1956) * ——. (1998). Le séminaire. Book 5: Les formations de lS''''inconscient, 1957-1958. Paris: Seuil. * ——. (2002).Écrits: A selection (Bruce Fink, Trans.). New York: W. W. Nortonthe link between one [[signifier]] and another in a [[signifying chain]].
On the righthand side of the [[algebra|equation]] there is '''S''', the [[signifier]], and ('''---'''), the [[bar]] of the [[Saussure]]ean [[sign|algorithm]]. The [[sign]] <b>=</b> is to be read "is congruent with."
===Formula for Metonymy - Summary===
Thus the [[whole]] formula reads:
==new==<blockquote>"The signifying function of the connection of the signifier with the signifier is congruent with maintenance of the bar."</blockquote>
To The formula is meant to illustrate [[Lacan]]'s [[thesis]] that in [[metonymy]] the overall conception [[resistance]] of linguistics he borrows from Saussure Lacan adds Roman Jakobson’s distinction between metaphor and metonymy:[[signification]] is maintained, the [[bar]] is not crossed, no new [[signified]] is produced.
On the basis ===Contexts===[[Lacan]] puts his [[concept]] of a distinction between two kinds of aphasia, Jakobson distinguished two fundamentally opposed axes of language: the metaphorical axis which deals with the selection of linguistic items and allows for their substitution, and the metonymic axis which deals with the combination of linguistic terms (both sequentially and simultaneously). Metaphor thus corresponds to Saussure’s paradigmatic relations (which hold in absentia) and [[metonymy ]] to syntagmatic relationships (which hold use in praesentia)a variety of contexts. (Evans 111)
That is, metaphor can be seen as having a vertical relationship, in which the line between the signifier ===Metonymy and the signified is crossed, Desire===[[Lacan]] presents [[metonymy]] as the signifier passes over into the signified and a new signifier is produced. For example, in the metaphor "Juliet is the sun" the various signifiers that might have stood in place of "the sun" (glorious, bright, fair, beautiful) thus pass through the barrier between the signifier and the signified, joining that object designated as "Juliet," and become signifieds of the new signifier, "the sun" (this example is drawn [[diachrony|diachronic]] movement from Evans 111). A compression of linguistic space and relations, metaphor is the direct substitution of one [[signifier for ]] to another such that along the second signifier ("the sun") supersedes the first (glorious, bright[[signifying chain]], fair, beautiful) in relation to the signified ("Juliet"). This process is the basic structure of identification as it occurs in the imaginary "since one [[itsignifier] consists in substituting oneself for ] constantly refers to another" (Evans 113). And insofar as this process escapes full symbolization (i.e. insofar as it is a compression of language that brings the imaginary into play as an equal partner in the linguistic production of meaning), Lacan reads it as the basic structure of the symptom, as an indicator of a breakdown perpetual [[deferred action|deferral]] of the process of symbolising the imaginary: "if the symptom is a metaphor, it is not a metaphor to say so […[signification|meaning]] the symptom is a metaphor" (Ecrits 175).
The second term which Lacan borrows from Jakobson to fill out his understanding of the symbolic order [[Desire]] is metonymy: "following Jakobson, Lacan links metonymy to also characterized by exactly the combinatorial axis same never-ending [[process]] of language, as opposed to the substitutive axiscontinual [[deferred action|deferral]]; since [[desire]] is always " (Evans 113). If metaphor is a process of substitution, whereby one signifier comes to stand in desire for another in relation to a given signifiedsomething else, then metonymy is a purely diachronic movement above the barrier separating signifier from signified"<ref>{{E}} p. In contrast to 167</ref> as soon as the vertical motion [[object]] of metaphor[[desire]] is attained, it is a horizontal movement along the chain of signification, as "one signifier constantly refers to another in a perpetual deferral of meaning" (Evans 114). As the only realm in which meaning is generatedno longer desirable, and the symbolic’s dependence [[subject]]'s [[desire]] fixes on the metonymic function of signifier relations thus becomes the primary focus of Lacan’s concern with languageanother [[object]]. He emphasises the metonymic deferral of meaning Thus [[Lacan]] writes that takes place in the incessant play of signifiers, referring to the ready movement of the chain of signifiers over the signifieds as glissement (slippage)"desire ''is'' a metonymy. This designation of the movement along the signifying chain as a slippage emphasises Lacan’s re-writing of Saussure’s concept such that the relationship between signifier and signified ceases to be stable (if arbitrary) and becomes profoundly unstable"<ref>{{E}} p.175</ref>
===Metonymy and Displacement===
[[Lacan]] also follows [[Jakobson]] in linking the [[metaphor]]-[[metonymy]] [[distinction]] to the mechanisms of the [[dream work]] described by [[Freud]]. However, he differs from [[Jakobson]] over the precise [[nature]] of this link. Just as [[displacement]] is logically prior to [[condensation]], so [[metonymy]] is the condition for [[metaphor]], because "the coordination of [[signifiers]] has to be possible before transferences of the signified are able to take [[place]]."<ref>{{S3}} p. 229</ref>
==See Also==
{{See}}
* [[Bar]]
* [[Desire]]
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* [[Displacement]]
* [[Language]]
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* [[Metaphor]]
* [[Signification]]
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* [[Signifier]]
* [[Signifying chain]]
{{Also}}
== References ==
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