Significant substitutive figures of speech – linguistic functions and pedagogical implications part 2

INTRODUCTION
I. RATIONALE
I.1. Figures of speech and linguistics
It has been customary to think figurativeness is a linguistic feature exclusive to the
language of literature, but it is actually not. When you ask somebody to “lend you his/her
ear” or “give you a hand,” obviously you do not mean you are in need of those body parts.
You are just using some figures of speech to express your need of attention and help. Such
colorful and vivid expressions are innumerable in colloquial language, which makes figures
of speech a pervasive linguistic phenomenon both in our daily discourse and in written
language.
Some people may address themselves to the query as to where the study of figures of
speech should be in the family of linguistic studies. Figurative language, by definition, is the
language we use to mean something other than the literal meaning of the words. So
essentially the study of figurative language concerns the meaning and use of language, which
are respectively the subject matter of semantics and pragmatics. Apart from that, it is also
closely related to discourse analysis and stylistics, especially literary stylistics, since
different forms of literature tend to have different probabilities as to what group of figures of
speech to be used and/or to what extent and at what levels they should be used.
Given these interrelations between the study of figures of speech and other domains
of linguistics, it comes as no surprise that a linguistic major would become interested in this
phenomenon. In addition, figures of speech, as artistic ways of using language, are appealing
by nature and their study is rewarding in that it does not only enhance our understanding of
the special and effective way in which other people use the language but also helps to
improve our linguistic competence, especially our figurative and literary competence.
I.2. Figurative competence and communicative competence
The use of figures of speech being so ubiquitous, it is virtually impossible for a
language learner to communicate successfully in the target language without an adequate
command of them. Second and foreign language researchers have coined the term
“figurative competence” to denote this special ability. Some of them, including Danesi
(1992, 1995) and Johnson and Rosano (1993), hold that second language curricula must
include metaphors, idioms and other figurative language items in order to instill in language

learners a functional communicative competence rather than just a traditional formal
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competence. Danesi (1995), for instance, argues that second language learners do not reach
the fluency level of a native speaker until they have knowledge of “how that language
‘reflects’ or encodes concepts on the basis of metaphorical reasoning” (p. 5). To put it more
simply, researchers in the field imply that figurative competence is “likely to contribute
positively to an overall level of communicative competence” (Littlemore, 2000).
Nevertheless, it is observable that this linguistic skill is almost neglected in
Vietnamese EFL classrooms. From the author’s firsthand experience as a college English
major, throughout her academic years, only once were figures of speech discussed, as part of
an account of Lexical meaning, a chapter in the book An Introduction to Semantics. This part
covers less than four pages of the textbook, without a single accompanying activity. It was
evidently “introductory” and would by no means be able to equip students with a full
understanding of those few figures of speech used as examples, not to mention an adequate
command of figurative language in general. Their sole purpose, as stated in the preface
(Nguyen Hoa, 1998, p. 2), is simply “to equip the student with an overview of” semantics,
which has traditionally been regarded as a highly “knowledge-centered” course. In the
author’s skills courses, there was no place for figures of speech, either.
These facts spurred the author of this paper to do research on figures of speech, with
the hope of drawing EFL teachers and course designers’ attention to this particularly
interesting and useful linguistic phenomenon.
I.3. Figurative competence and literary competence
The term literary competence was first introduced in the book Structuralist Poetics
by Jonathan Culler in 1975 (p.114). It soon became the central concept of structural literary
criticism and has been repeatedly referred to by scholars in various related disciplines (see
Brumfit, 1981; Isenberg, 1990; Lazar, 1994; Aviram, 2004.) Under the strong influence of
Chomsky’s generative model, where linguistic competence is put in opposition to linguistic
performance, Culler holds that literature, analogous with language, is also a structural system
with its own “grammar” – its own rules and conventions. A competent reader of literature
therefore needs to internalize that “grammar” in order to convert linguistic sequences into

literary structures. For example, there are special conventions in reading poetry that readers
should be aware of, such as the rule of significance, the rule of metaphorical coherence, the
rule of totality, the rule of thematic unity, the convention of genre, and other poetic traditions
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regarding the use of certain symbols and images. (For the full argument, see Culler 1975, p.
162)
Among the conventions in literature, rhetorical figures are said to “lie at the basis of
interpretation;” therefore, “training in rhetoric” is thought of “as a way of providing the
student with a set of formal models which he can use in interpreting literary works” (Culler,
1975, pp. 179-80). This naturally leads to the conclusion that figurative competence is an
integral element of literary competence, which makes studies of figures of speech
particularly interesting and beneficial to teachers of literature in second and foreign
languages.
I.4. Substitutive figures of speech
Rhetoricians have catalogued more than 250 figures of speech and reasons of space
do not permit us to discuss all of them. While many scholars working in the field go along
with Jakobson (1963) and Ruegg (1979) that “of the many tropes and figures ... none [have]
proved so popular as the pair ‘metaphor’ and ‘metonymy’” (Ruegg, 1979, p. 141), it must be
admitted that “over the years, metonymy has received much less attention than metaphor in
the literature” (Carita Paradis, 2003, p. 1). While metaphor has been investigated from many
perspectives, metonymy has been mentioned mainly in the province of cognitive linguistics
(see Barcelona (eds.), 2000; Panther & Radden (eds.), 1999; Dirven & Pörings (eds.), 2002).
However, observation indicates that metonymy, as a rhetorical figure, along with
synecdoche, deserves much more attention and research than what it has received so far;
hence the focus of this paper on functions of these substitutive figures of speech.
II. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
Although it is “impossible to isolate any single or special property of language which
is exclusive to a literary work,” the fact is that in literature “language is used in ways which
can be distinguished as literary” (Brumfit & Carter, 1986, p. 6). And it is this very
literariness that creates trouble for readers in general and language learners in particular. Part

of this literariness is formed by the special way in which figures of speech are used. While
idioms or conventional figures of speech can be treated as separate linguistic items and their
meanings can be deduced based on contexts, in reading literature, determining what a writer
or a poet is referring to or implying when he/she uses a figure of speech is often not as easy.
The reason is that it is his/her own figure of speech, one the reader might have never heard or
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seen before. This explains our inclination to investigate the figures under consideration in
literary texts.
However, given the limits of this paper, literature would still be too large a corpus to
work on. Thus, we intend to examine these figures of speech in a special genre of literature –
poetry – for the following reasons. Firstly, poetry is particularly rich in figurative language
and can thus provide us with numerous examples of metonymy and synecdoche (although
they are believed to function primarily in prose). A second reason, and probably the most
important one, is that in poetry – “the form that most clearly asserts the specificity of
literature, its difference from ordinary discourse” (Culler 1975, p. 162) – these figures of
speech, together with other stylistic features, cause considerable difficulties for EFL readers
and students alike. A survey carried out by Hirvela and Boyle (1988) on students’ attitudes
towards literature genres reveals that poetry is the genre least enjoyed and most feared
(Hirvela & Boyle, 1988, p. 180). Our study, while analyzing these figures of speech in
poetry, seeks to find ways to help students to interpret these figures with less difficulty and
more enjoyment. In helping them to analyze and appreciate these aesthetic devices in poetry,
we hope to improve their knowledge of conventions in poetry and their literary competence
in general.
The last justification for our choice is that this form of literature, though special in
many ways, is essentially an example of language in use. Hence, analysis of metonymy and
synecdoche in this corpus will undoubtedly help illustrate their linguistic functions and
conclusions drawn from the analysis will not only inform poetry readers, teachers and
learners but also language learners on a larger scale. There is every reason for us to believe
that once students are able to recognize and analyze those figures of speech in poetry, they
will be able to recognize and analyze the figures in texts of other types. At the same time, the

analysis will give us a better understanding of poetry in terms of stylistics.
II. AIMS OF THE STUDY
This study is carried out to serve two main purposes:
1. To explore the linguistic functions of metonymy and synecdoche with a focus on
how these are used in poetry.
2. To give some suggestions on pedagogical issues relating to the teaching of these
figures of speech in EFL skills classes and literature classes.
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III. METHODS OF THE STUDY
With its subject matter being linguistic phenomena, this study is basically qualitative
and descriptive. It is an attempt to answer several open-ended questions regarding functions,
aesthetic effects, and pedagogical values of metonymy and synecdoche. These answers are
grounded on a system of research methods, namely documentation, analysis and synthesis,
all of which are used in combination in almost every chapter of the paper, though each of
them prevails in a certain chapter or certain parts of a chapter.
In the first part, we review the literature of figures of speech in general and the two
figures of speech of metonymy and synecdoche in particular. Afterwards, we analyze the
examples of these figures in some selected poems as illustrations of their functions. Based on
conclusions drawn from those analyses, we pinpoint several ways in which foreign language
teachers of English can teach these figures of speech to EFL students. Overall, the study is
partly deductive and partly inductive.
IV. DESIGN OF THE STUDY
Apart from the introduction and the conclusion, the study consists of three chapters.
Chapter I gives an overview on figures of speech in general and substitutive figures
of speech in particular.
Chapter II, the main part of the paper, focuses on two substitutive figures of speech,
synecdoche and metonymy, providing an account of their definitions and linguistic
functions, with each followed by an analysis of the figure of speech in poetry.
Chapter III aims at raising some pedagogical issues concerning the teaching of these
figures of speech and offers suggestions on applicable activities for use in EFL classrooms.

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CHAPTER I
SUBSTITUTIVE FIGURES OF SPEECH
I. AN OVERVIEW OF FIGURES OF SPEECH
I.1. What are figures of speech?
Answering this question, The Cambridge Advanced Learners’ Dictionary (2003)
proposes the following definition: “an expression which uses words to mean something
different from their ordinary meaning.” Along the same lines, The Oxford Advanced
Learners’ Encyclopedic Dictionary (1992) describes a figure of speech as a “word or phrase
used for vivid or dramatic effect and not literally.” The Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate
Dictionary (2003)’s full definition reads, “A form of expression (as a simile or metaphor)
used to convey meaning or heighten effect often by comparing or identifying one thing with
another that has a meaning or connotation familiar to the reader or listener.” There are
varieties of slightly different ways in which people define figures of speech, but just as
Quinn puts it, “the simplest definition of a figure of speech is ‘an intended deviation from
ordinary usage’.” (1982, p. 6). According to this definition, there are two criteria for an
expression to be distinguished as a figure of speech: first, it is a deviant of ordinary language
usage; second, it is used in such a way as to serve a certain purpose of the writer or speaker.
These definitions and criteria might evoke a chain of questions: What is the
“ordinary”, or “literal” use of language? Must an intention be conscious? How do you know
a deviant when you see one? Quinn does not give direct answers to these problematic
queries, but his analysis of the ordinary and extraordinary ways to use the coordinator and
convincingly proves the existence of a system of ordinary usage of language, which we call
“grammar.” Take the agreement between subject and verb in a finite clause as an example:
When we say, “We were robbed,” we use were because it is the rule that we goes with were,
because were is the ordinary way to conjugate the verb to be in the past tense for that person.
But if we say, “We was robbed,” then was is employed against the grammatical rule and
therefore must be treated either as an error or a figure of speech. At this stage, the existence
of an intention plays a vital role in determining whether this is a figure of speech or not. If an

elementary foreign language learner is the one who writes the sentence, in a test, for
instance, then we can certainly conclude that it is a mistake. But when Joe Jacobs, a
professional prize fight manager, shouted into the ring announcer’s microphone “We was
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robbed” on the night of June 21, 1932, we knew that it was far from being a mistake. (Quinn,
1982, p. 5) He broke the rule for his own purposes of adding emotion and emphasis to the
accusation of injustice.
I.2. Why are figures of speech employed?
Figures of speech have traditionally been thought to function primarily as a kind of
adornment or “make-up” used solely for the purpose of adding beauty to the language of the
literary work. Therefore, if there was a line between the form and the content of a literary
work, figures of speech would obviously fit in the formal features and have nothing to do
with the content. This implies that we can remove them from literary works without affecting
their meanings.
However, the interwoven and interdependent relationships between form and content
or meaning are such that it is actually very hard for one to draw a clear line between the two.
Even if one is persistent in separating the two, he/she is still unable to prove the foregoing
claim valid in all cases. Many figures of speech, especially tropes, do help to create some
aspects of meaning that an allegedly equivalent non-figurative phrase cannot convey. An
example of this is the catachresis in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Instead of “I will say angry
words to her,” he writes “I will speak daggers to her.” (Cited in Harris, 2002). The
catachresis here not only helps to express the meaning in a more vivid way, but also forms
part of the meaning. Daggers communicates much more than angry words. It expresses the
speaker’s hatred and fury to such a point that he almost wants to stab her with his words. It is
a feeling that would take a long sentence or even a paragraph to describe. In cases akin to
this, one rationale for using figures of speech, as Cacciari suggests when addressing the
question of why speakers use metaphors, is because literal language is not very good at
expressing the complexity of perceptual experience (Katz, Cacciari, Gibbs, &Turner, 1998).
To put it more simply, figures of speech are employed for their capability to speak the
unspeakable.

The same is not always true with other figures of speech, though. In most cases,
particularly when the figure in question is one other than a trope, there is often an alternative
mode to express the meaning. For instance, Sherwood Anderson may have well omitted the
“ands” in italics in the following sentences in the short story “The Corn Planting.” “He made
drawings of fish and pigs and cows and they looked like people you knew. I never did know,
before, that people could look so much like cows and horses and pigs and fish.” He could
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have replaced these with commas if he had obeyed the “anding” rules. The removal of the
polysyndeton in this situation, however, deprives the sentences of “the sense of an ever
lengthening catalogue of roughly equal members” (Quinn, 1982, p. 11), but at least the
denotative meaning remains the same. In analogous instances, the figures of speech create an
emphasis, amplify a meaning, draw a comparison or contrast, make a rhetorical point, or,
generally speaking, express an idea in a novel and more colorful manner.
Commenting on “Philosophy of Style,” Herbert Spencer proves that a principle
governing our communication is “the principle of economy,” by which he means language
users normally try to express more meanings with fewer words. This principle, as
demonstrated in his analysis, applies for the use of words, sentences, and figures of speech.
Their efficiency can be seen from two angles. First, they help speakers to pack much
meaning into a small space. Second, they save readers’ energy and time by “[bringing their
minds] more easily to the desired conception” (Spencer, 1852). For example, perceiving the
Pentagon would take much less time than perceiving U.S. Defense Department. While the
second phrase activates in hearers’ minds the complex political system, the first one only
calls up a picture. And pictures are always easier to remember and recall than abstract
concepts.
I.3. Classification of figures of speech
Rhetoric, in its attempt “to analyse and classify the forms of speech and make the
world of language intelligible” (Barthes, 1967, p. 817), named various figures of speech and
over the centuries the number has reached many hundred. Rhetoricians have also categorized
these figures of speech basing on different sets of criteria. Scholars of classical Western
rhetoric have divided figures of speech into two main categories: tropes and schemes, with

the former being figures of speech with an unexpected twist in the meaning of words, the
latter figures that deal with word order, syntax, letters and sounds of words.
Others further classify them into smaller groups. Robert Harris (2002), for example,
writes “[More than 60] rhetorical devices presented here generally fall into three categories:
those involving emphasis, association, clarification, and focus; those involving physical
organization, transition, and disposition or arrangement; and those involving decoration and
variety.” Rick Sutcliffe (2004) in his “Figures of Speech Dictionary” yields definitions of
100 figures of speech and puts them into six categories: figures of grammar, meaning,
comparison, parenthesis, repetition, and rhetoric.
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The classifiers of these figures of speech, however, admit, “More often the effects of
a particular device are multiple, and a single one may operate in several categories” (Harris,
1980). The classifications above are therefore, theoretically relative though they are useful
and convenient for learners.
II. SUBSTITUTIVE FIGURES OF SPEECH
In his book Figures of Speech – Sixty Ways to Turn a Phrase, Arthur Quinn (1982)
spared an entire chapter to discuss a group of figures of speech called substitutive figures of
speech. He started by inviting the reader to interpret the bizarre title of the chapter “Reds in the
Red” (Quinn, 1982, pp. 49-59). Afterwards, he suggested a seemingly endless list of different
readings of the phrase, each made possible by our substituting these words by associated words.
That is the essence of what is termed “substitutive figures of speech.” They are the figures of
speech which substitute one word or object for another by virtue of their association, that is, a
word for an idea, or a concrete/sensory phrase for an abstraction. An obvious distinction between
metaphor and substitutive figures of speech is that while metaphors are based on similarities
between the signified and the signifier, synecdoche and metonymy are based on their contiguity
– their relatedness.
This definition sounds too general because there exist many ways in which words are
associated with each other. In Quinn’s system, there are two main types of association involved
in substitutive figures of speech: one is based on the grammatical forms of words, the other on
meanings. The first type includes enallage, with sub-types antaptosis, anthimeria, and

hendiadys, which substitutes one grammatical form for another. The second type is metonymies,
with one word being “substituted for another of identical form and related meaning” (Quinn,
1982, p. 52). It is noteworthy that the term metonymies in its plural form is employed herein as
an umbrella term rather than as a separate figure of speech. Under that umbrella term, there are
synecdoche, metonymy – in the singular form –, catachresis, and metalepsis, the first two of
which will be discussed in detail as the main focus of this paper.
Substitutive figures of speech
Enallage - Grammar-related figures Metonymies - Meaning related figures
antaptosis anthimeria hendiadys synecdoch
e
metonymy metalepsis catachresis
Table 1: Substitutive figures of speech examined in the study.
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CHAPTER II
SOME SIGNIFICANT SUBSTITUTIVE FIGURES OF SPEECH
IN POETRY
I. SYNECDOCHE
I.1. Linguistic functions of synecdoche
An adult native speaker of English may not remember how many times in his/her life
he/she has heard expressions such as, “We need to hire some more hands” or “She’s got new
wheels,” which do not literally refer to a hand or a set of wheels. Instead, they stand for the
whole person or object – hand for the whole person and wheels for the whole car. These are
the commonest examples of synecdoche, “the most basic rhetorical figure” (Culler, 1975, p.
180) and the simplest and probably “most useful of all metonymies” (Quinn, 1982, p. 56).
Quinn is certainly correct when he says synecdoche is “the least problematic figure of
all metonymies,” since the relation between the signified and the signifier in this figure is
rather obvious. Although dictionary entries differ slightly in the wording of their definitions,
they are unanimous in that the relation is basically part-to-whole. In The Oxford Advanced
Learner’s Encyclopedic Dictionary (1992), synecdoche is defined as a “figure of speech in
which a reference to a part or aspect of a person, object, etc, is meant to refer to the whole

person, object, etc.” – or, in simpler words –, it is a figure in which the part is substituted for
the whole. This is probably the commonest linguistic function assigned to synecdoche and
also the one included in most, if not all, of the definitions. Other dictionaries, however,
consider this definition inadequate. Synecdoche, according to them, encompasses a wider
denotation. The Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary (2003)’s entry for
synecdoche, for instance, is “a figure of speech by which a part is put for the whole (as fifty
sail for fifty ships), the whole for a part (as society for high society), the species for the
genus (as cutthroat for assassin), the genus for the species (as a creature for a man), or the
name of the material for the thing made (as boards for stage).” Obviously, in this definition,
synecdoche is not only confined to the part-for-whole substitution but also involves the
whole-for-part substitution. What's more, it also includes species-for-genus/ genus-for-
species, or, as termed by other people, member-for-group/ group-for-member relations.
Then in the light of structural semantics, this figure of speech involves two types of
sense relations between the tenor (the signified) and the vehicle (the signifier): part-whole
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relation and hyponymy. In the first relation, one is part of the other and in the second
relation, one is hyponym of the other – its superordinate. (See Figure 1.)
(a) (b) (c) (d)
Figure 1: The relations between the signified and the signifiers in four cases
of synecdoche.
(a) part-for-whole (c) hyponym for superordinate
(b) whole-for-part (d) superordinate for hyponym
Both types of synecdoche are pervasive in the English language. We use roofs to
refer to houses, hands for workers and heads for cattle, threads for clothes, and wheels for
cars. In other cases, we use police to refer to certain police officers, and animal for a certain
species of animal such as dogs or cats. Some, after a long time of being used, have become
ordinary and the initially figurative meaning is now treated as literal and even included in the
dictionary definition. For instance, the ninth entry of the noun wheel in Merriam-Webster’s
11th Collegiate Dictionary (2003) reads: “(plural), (slang): a wheeled vehicle; especially:
automobile”. In yet another example, a human being is listed as the fourth meaning of

creature in the same source.
It is notable that the part-for-whole substitution can be identified fairly easily for its
unusual usage of language, whereas a whole-for-part substitution often requires a more
serious examination of the context to be detected. Without a specific context, the creature in
“The creature was dying” can be treated as completely literal and ordinary, as we do not
know to what it refers. Even if the context lets us know that creature refers to a certain
animal or human being, the substitution does not strike us as too strange, because by nature,
an animal or human being is a creature. The primary purpose of this type of synecdoche is
probably to highlight the characteristics the signified has in common with other members of
the same group. When referring to a human being as a creature, for example, the speaker
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might aim to emphasize his weakness and his vulnerability, as a living thing subject to
changes of the environment and natural forces.
As regards the purpose of the part-for-whole substitutions, Herbert Spencer (1852),
with specific examples, gives a thorough and persuasive explanation:
The advantage sometimes gained by putting a part for the whole, is due to the more
convenient, or more accurate, presentation of the idea. If, instead of saying “a fleet of
ten ships,” we say “a fleet of ten “sail,” the picture of a group of vessels at sea is
more readily suggested; and is so because the sails constitute the most conspicuous
parts of vessels so circumstanced. Whereas the word “ships” would very likely
remind us of vessels in dock. Again, to say, “All ‘hands’ to the pumps,” is better than
to say, “All ‘men’ to the pumps,” as it suggests the men in the special attitude
intended, and so saves effort. Bringing “gray ‘hairs’ with sorrow to the grave,” is
another expression, the effect of which has the same cause.
This is probably true in most cases of synecdoche in everyday language. However,
when employed by poets, the figure may have other artful effects, some of which possibly go
well beyond the poet’s initial intentions.
I.2. Synecdoche in poetry
In poetry, synecdoche, especially the part-for-whole substitution, is also used in
abundance. The reason for this prevalence lies in the nature of poetry, a form of literature

which tends to concretize objects and feelings with pictures and details. Some of the
synecdoches used in poetry are taken from ordinary language. The underlined words in these
lines in the poem “Mr. Flood’s Party” by Edwin Arlington Robinson serve as a compelling
example:
“Well, Mr. Flood, we have not met like this
In a long time; and many a change has come
To both of us, I fear, since last it was
We had a drop together. Welcome home!”
(Robinson, 2002, p. 62)
The phrase is reminiscent of various similar expressions we use in our daily
discourse. We say Please drop me a line when we want someone to write us a letter; we ask
Have you got a minute? when we want to know whether the other person has got a little free
time to spare. In this case, a drop is used as a substitutive for some wine or alcohol, adding
an implication that we haven’t had a drink together for so long, and thus intensifying the
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period of time they had been apart. The use of drop with its informality also indicates
fellowship between the two people and helps us to imagine them as close friends.
The use of synecdoche in poetry, compared to everyday language, is intentional and
often more creative. The poem “Barter” by Sara Teasdale provides us with some examples.
BARTER
1
5
Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things;
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up,
Holding wonder like a cup.
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Life has loveliness to sell;

Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And, for the Spirit's still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.
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Give all you have for loveliness;
Buy it, and never count the cost!
For one white, singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost;
And for a breath of ecstasy,
Give all you have been, or could be.
(Teasdale, 1992, p. 82)
It is evident that the poem is larded with a variety of figures of speech; but let us
focus on synecdoche only. One can effortlessly spot examples of the figure in lines 5-6 and
10. The faces, eyes and arms in those lines are obviously not the real actors of the actions.
The faces themselves cannot look up; the eyes themselves are just eyes – they are not
capable of loving or hating anyone; and it is not the arms that hold but the whole person.
These are just human body parts, used to represent the people themselves.
Although pointing out where synecdoche is employed poses little difficulty for
readers, analyzing the effects of the figures might be much more problematic, clearly and
deeply as they may feel that the “deviants” are beautiful. Following Dickinson’s advice that
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“Perception of an object costs / Precise the object’s loss,” (Dickinson, 2002, p. 50) we first
try depriving the lines of their synecdoche, paraphrasing them in ordinary language, hoping
to figure out the effects of the “deviant.”
Without the figures, lines 6-7 would read “Children looking up, holding wonder like a
cup.” Setting aside the changes in the rhythm and rhyme and taking into account the changes
in meaning alone, we feel a substantial loss resulting from the removal of the word faces. What
is taken away with that word is not simply an ornamental element of the line. It is a picture, or,

to be more exact, pictures – pictures of children’s faces we have seen in our own lives, with
their delicate skin and plump cheeks, their innocent eyes wide open with delighted surprise.
What can be more beautiful than that? Simple as it is, that one word faces, with its power, is
capable of persuading us to believe in the truth that the poem is telling us, that “Life has
loveliness to sell.” So in helping us to visualize these pictures in our minds, the synecdoche
effectively articulates the poet’s ideas and feelings about life, and should therefore be regarded
as functional rather than simply ornamental.
Some people may argue that “children looking up” is sufficient to create a picture and
hence the author need not have replaced them with “children’s faces looking up.” However,
without the word faces, the picture generated by the line is but a shape, a figure, a silhouette. It
would miss many lines and colors, which are essential to the beauty of the picture. Particularly,
it would fail to paint the children’s eyes – a significant image in the center of the face, making
the soul of the picture. The word faces, therefore, can be said to serve as a lens, bringing a
well-chosen part of the picture into focus and thus successfully helping the poem to speak to
readers’ minds.
If we repeat the process with line 10, replacing the signifiers by the signified, the line
would be, “People that love you, people that hold,” which would not by any means sound
poetic. In terms of content, the line would be much poorer as it fails to show us “the
beautiful and splendid things” life offers. Love in itself is precious, but it is much too abstract
to be sold, bought or possessed by anyone. People are not something you can own either.
They are conscious beings who never completely belong to anyone, and they are in constant
change. The majority of readers might therefore think that these items should not be included
in this list of beautiful and splendid things we can buy from life.
By contrast, “Eyes that love you, arms that hold” has an aesthetically different effect.
Resembling examples of personification, the synecdoches are evocative of the reader’s
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personal experience and feelings. “Eyes that love you” call to our minds images of people we
have loved at unforgettable moments in our lives. It brings back childhood memories of our
mother’s worried eyes looking at us when we were sick or our father’s loving eyes when he
kissed us goodnight. It may also awaken reminiscences of the deep sad eyes of a boyfriend or

girlfriend when we parted from them, or the tearful eyes of a friend when we met after a long
time apart. It may as well remind us of the jealous look on our child’s face when she/he saw us
holding another child. Those eyes, with all their sadness and happiness, worries and jealousy,
communicate a great deal more than the three words I love you! They are the realization of
love, not unlike those warm, passionate, or protective hugs of our loved ones, which are
similarly brought to our minds by the phrase “arms that hold.” More importantly, unlike love
and people and even more so than looks and hugs, eyes and arms are concrete, visible and
touchable, and therefore seem closer to buyable and sellable items. Although we cannot
actually own them, at least we can keep pictures and feelings of them in our minds. The
concretization produced by the figure at this point helps create a unity in both the content and
form of the poem.
Regarding this example, some readers would perceive “Eyes that love you, arms that
hold” as cases of personification rather than synecdoche, which implies that the verbs love and
hold are the deviants used for the purpose of attributing human traits to inanimate objects, in
this case body parts. The argument looks plausible on the surface. But what is the purpose of
such personification? Does the author really perceive, and want the reader to perceive, those
body parts as being human? Clearly not. A critical reader should search for a more logical
analysis of the images. The correct recognition of eyes and arms as the out-of-the-ordinary
elements and the images as applications of synecdoche shed a different light on the poem,
opening doorways to more accurate and insightful interpretations of the figures. Identifying a
figure of speech requires more than just a mechanical application of theory about their
functions. The reader needs to be aware of the unity of the poem and the author’s intentions as
well.
In the “Barter” examples above, synecdoche helps to paint pictures in readers’ minds,
by which means readers are invited to interact with the poem to arrive at the theme.
However, in other cases, the figure does not always rely on imagery to express the theme of
the poem. The substitution in itself is directly relevant to the theme. A good example can be
found in “Mr. Flood’s Party” by Edwin Arlington Robinson, which gives a detailed account
15
of a party whose participants are actually the two selves within one person, Mr. Eben Flood.

Reading the whole poem, one can see that it is built around a conversation, in which Mr.
Flood plays the role of both the addressor and the addressee. If we might label the two selves
of his as Mr. Flood One and Mr. Flood Two, the conversation can be presented in a manner
similar to that of a screenplay, as follows:
Mr. Flood One:
“Well, Mr. Flood, we have the harvest moon
Again, and we may not have many more;
The bird is on the wing, the poet says,
And you and I have said it here before.
Drink to the bird.”
Mr. Flood Two:
“Well, Mr. Flood,
Since you propose it, I believe I will.”
Mr. Flood One:
“Well, Mr. Flood, we have not met like this
In a long time; and many a change has come
To both of us, I fear, since last it was
We had a drop together. Welcome home!”
Mr. Flood Two:
“Well, Mr. Flood, if you insist, I might.
Mr. Flood One:
“Only a very little, Mr. Flood --
For auld langsyne. No more, sir; that will do.”
It is clear that Mr. Flood is talking to the second self inside him. The last words in the
conversation even picture him pouring wine for the other Flood, who then stops him, seeing
that the amount of wine is already sufficient. What a strange sight! The man is obviously not
in a normal state of mind. Some people may conjecture that this man is drunk – too drunk to
realize that he is alone. The deduction seems to be supported by a detail in the last stanza
“He shook his head, and was again alone.” Notwithstanding, the last lines of the poem
indicate that he is not only drunk (or possibly not drunk at all):

He shook his head, and was again alone
There was not much that was ahead of him,
And there was nothing in the town below --
Where strangers would have shut the many doors
That many friends had opened long ago.
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A drunken man would not be able to feel so sad and look so far into the town, into his
own life and the past. Rather, he is so lonely that he has to talk to himself, pretending he has
a friend to talk to. The entire poem observably aims at portraying the dual selves inside the
character, and thus makes an effort to avoid specifying the doer of the actions. Synecdoche,
at this point, fits just right to serve the purpose.
“For auld lang syne.” The weary throat gave out,
The last word wavered; the song being done...
The weary throat gave out is employed instead of Mr. Eben Flood sang wearily.
Some people may argue that it is the throat that emitted the sound but it is just an instrument,
a medium, and not the actual agent of the action. Concerning this use of body parts as
substitutive for the whole person in literature, Michael Toolan (1998, p. 95) suggests:
[T]he motivations may be various; often an effect of detachment or alienation,
between an individual and their physical faculties, is conveyed. Or a sense is created
of the ‘diminished responsibility’ of someone for how their own body is acting.
The figure in the example above seems to be exactly a case where the intended effect is to
create a sense of detachment between the actual doer and his body part. The weary throat gave
out entails that it is not Mr. Flood who sang; he did not sing to himself; on the contrary, he, or,
as the author might have described, his ears, had been listening to that voice. This is indicative
of Mr. Flood’s state of being two persons rather than one person, and hence emphasizes the
absolute solitude of a person who is isolated not only from his town, but also from humanity in
general. Everyone is a stranger to him. The only friend he could talk to is, so bitterly, his own
self.
The analysis reveals that part-for-whole substitution is the most common type of
synecdoche in poetry. While some of them are taken from everyday language, others are

highly creative. Though simple and easy to identify, synecdoche is an important element that
constitutes literariness in the language of poetry. It helps to paint pictures, evoke readers’
feelings, express the author’s attitude and in some cases makes a direct indication of the
theme of the poem.
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II. METONYMY
II.1. Linguistic functions of metonymy
Among the substitutive figures of speech, metonymy is probably the most frequently
used and discussed. The word itself derives from the Greek word meta – to change and
onyma – a name. One of the first figures of speech ever named, metonymy, parallel with
many linguistic concepts, has been variously defined. The Encyclopedia Britannica (2004),
for example, defines metonymy as follows:
“figure of speech in which the name of an object or concept is replaced with a word
closely related to or suggested by the original, as ‘crown’ for ‘King’ (‘The power of
the crown was mortally weakened’) or an author for his works (‘I’m studying
Shakespeare’)”
The Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary (2003) yields a slightly different
definition: “[a] figure of speech consisting of the use of the name of one thing for that of
another of which it is an attribute or with which it is associated (as crown in “lands
belonging to the crown”).”
Some scholars attempt to define metonymy by listing the relationship between the
signifier and the signified in this figure of speech. Quinn (1982, p. 52), for example, maintains
that metonymy is a figure of speech which “substitutes the contained for the container,” “the
effect for the cause,” “raw material for finished object.” However, some of the most frequently
quoted examples prove that it is in many cases impossible to clarify the relationship between
the substituted and the substitute simply by categorizing the pair. The crown is often employed
to refer to a king or a queen, because it is the kind of head covering that is exclusively intended
for kings and queens, and thus symbolizes the power belonging to those people. Yet no one
definition of metonymy has ever included the substitution of clothing or jewelry for the
person/people wearing it. And our effort would be in vain if we insisted on naming all kinds of

relationships involved in the figure. It might be safer and more convenient to follow the
seemingly too general yet more accurate and adequate definition given by the Merriam-
Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary (2003), admitting that the most important feature of
metonymy is the association between the signifier and the signified.
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Having said so, we find it necessary to point out the differences between the association
in metonymy and that in synecdoche. While many rhetoricians regard synecdoche as one type
of metonymy, others distinguish the two by excluding the part/whole relation from the list of
various types of association underlying metonymy. They argue that the signifier and the
signified in metonymy are related but must not be physically or categorically part of each
other. In some commonly used examples of metonymy, when the press uses Washington to
refer to the U.S. government, or Downing Street to refer to the Prime Minister of Britain, the
target domains are obviously not part of the source domains. They are not, as may seem at first
sight, the contained to the container, either. Actually, Washington and Downing Street are just
the places where the signifieds are based and have thus been perceived and used as metonyms
of the signified.
Apart from unquestionable cases such as these, there are confusing cases in which
context plays an important role in determining the relation between the signified and the
signifier. When someone says, “We need to hire 20 hands altogether,” it is a case of
synecdoche, because in this context the only reasonable interpretation of hands is workers.
However, the same body part can be used to present a number of abstract concepts in various
instances of metonymy. It can substitute for help, as in “Can you give me a hand?” or control/
supervision, as in “They left the matter in her hands,” or personal possession, as in “The
document fell in the hands of the enemy,” just to name a few. The ground or rationale for these
substitutions is that we can do so many things with our hands: We can do manual jobs; we can
hold things belonging to us (so that others cannot take them away); and we can also literally
control things with our hands, either directly, with physical strength, or indirectly, by giving
orders and directions using gestures.
Countless comparable instances can be found in English, with concrete objects
symbolizing not just one but a variety of concepts. In “I knew it from my heart,” heart

indicates one’s innermost feelings, while the same word in “He won her heart” means love
and affection. In such cases, the substitution is based on the symbolic use of the signifier, as
Chitra Fernando (1997, p. 124) has it: “The heart symbolizes the passions, the affections of
the soul ... while the head symbolizes the spirit, the rational intellect.” These symbolisms
also explain the ubiquity of heart and head in the English language, from idioms such as
break someone’s heart, lose one’s heart, steal one’s heart, have a good head for something
19
and go off one’s head to compound adjectives such as kind-hearted, cold-hearted, heart-
broken and level-headed. (Fernando, 1997, pp. 125-126)
Graphically presented, the relationship between the signifier and the signified in
metonymy and synecdoche can be seen in contrast as follows.
20
:the signified
:the signifier
Fig. 2a1
Fig. 2a2
Fig. 2b1
The
U.S.
The
Governmen
The White
House
Washingto
n
The U.S.
Fig. 2b2
Figure 2: Synecdoche and metonymy
Fig. 2 a1 & a2: The signified and the signifier in synecdoche.
Fig. 2 b1: The signified and the signifier in synecdoche.

Fig. 2 b2: An example of the signified and some possible signifiers in metonymy.
II.2. Metonymy in poetry
Despite the assumption that metaphor is the prevailing mode of thought in poetry,
while metonymy is used chiefly in prose, it requires little effort to learn that metonymy is also
employed in poetry at a relatively high rate, possibly second only to metaphor. As the
cognitive linguists view it, metonymy is not merely a matter of words but a matter of thought.
We can take the nicknaming of our childhood friends as an example. Very often, we use their
most salient features to name them, because, apart from their funny side, those features are
more suggestive of the people than their own given names. So it is apparent that the inclination
and ability to give things new names are common even among us the laymen, not to mention
poets, the most conscious and talented users of language.
Many of the metonymies in poems are part of ordinary language. They are so
conventional that we may not even notice that they are essentially figurative. For example,
when William Blake (2004, p. 78) wrote
I told my love, I told my love
I told her all my heart
(Love's Secret)
we all know what love and heart refer to because love, like baby, honey, darling and sweetie,
is commonly used as a term of address for loved ones, while heart conventionally symbolizes
affections and emotions. When dealing with such one-to-one form-meaning pairs, looking at
the context, readers can easily identify the target referents of these symbols.
In other examples of metonymy found in poetry, the relation between the signifiers
and the signified are not always one-to-one. One word may have several referents, as in the
following examples in the poem “Richard Cory” by Robinson
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
(Robinson, 2002, p. 59)
Unlike the Blake example above, where heart and love cannot be understood literally, a
literal reading of meat and bread as specific kinds of food in this example is correct, though
inadequate. On the figurative level, we can interpret them as examples of synecdoche with

meat being the hyponym of delicious and expensive foods that the people on the pavement
cannot afford and bread representing the simple foods they have to eat to keep themselves
alive. However, the polysemic nature of poetry allows, and in this case requires, us to grasp the
meaning of these words on a deeper level. In the context of the people waiting for the light,
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which can be perceived as a symbol of a better life, of happiness., perhaps the meat and the
bread do not simply refer to food, especially when due attention is paid to the use of the
definite article the before the nouns. The implies that the referents are specific: they are not
meat and bread in general but “the meat that people like Richard Cory are enjoying” and “the
bread that we are having everyday.” At this point, they can respectively be conceived as
concrete-for-abstract metonymies, in which meat and bread are correspondingly
concretizations of luxuries and comfort accompanying wealth and austerity that occurs with
poverty. This leads us to the next possible interpretation of these words: meat can be perceived
as a representative aspect of a good life and bread of a miserable life.
These metonymies, however, not only help to illustrate the ideas, making them more
readily understandable to readers. In substituting the concepts of wealth and poverty, or
happiness and misery, with meat and bread, the poet gives a significant implication about
people’s views on life and their conceptions of happiness. Undoubtedly, people may think of
happiness and wealth in diverse terms: some think of big houses, some of beautiful clothing,
and others of expensive pastimes. The poet could therefore have chosen many other things
instead of meat. His choice indicates that in the narrator’s eyes, a good life first and foremost
means good food. The we in the poem are so poor they only think of their basic needs and
thus have a very simplistic conception of happiness. This implies that generally material
poverty at some point can cause spiritual poverty. These people’s simplicity makes them
unable to understand Richard Cory’s suicide. To some extent, this lack of understanding
from people in the town contributes to the tragedy Richard Cory suffers as a person who had
to, in Paul Laurence Dunbar’s words, “wear the mask that grins and lies.” (Dunbar, 2002, p.
72). Had there been anyone among those town folks who could see what was behind Cory’s
kingly facade, possibly he would not have had to put an end to his lonely and empty life.
Obviously, the concrete-for-abstract metonymies in this poem communicate much more than

they appear at first glance and contribute greatly to the meaning of the whole poem.
The above examples are illustrations of poetry’s tendency to concretize abstract
concepts. Nevertheless, the metonymy in the poem “Barter” by Sara Teasdale (1992, p. 82)
is, by sharp contrast, an abstract-for-concrete substitution. Examining the opening line “Life
has loveliness to sell,” there is apparently a metaphor or a personification, as some readers
may want to label it, in this line, wherein life is treated as a person, more specifically, as a
seller. And what does she sell? Loveliness. It is common knowledge that loveliness is not a
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thing that can be bought or sold; it is not even a thing. Rather, it is an abstract concept
denoting the state of being lovely. If we approach the figure as an integral part of the whole
poem, we will see what is really meant by “loveliness.” The second line offers a
straightforward explanation – “All the beautiful and splendid things” –, and the rest of the
stanza and the entire second stanza are composed of a series of pictures serving as concrete
examples of these “beautiful and splendid things.” Loveliness is used herein as a metonym of
lovely things – “beautiful and splendid things” – and the metonymy thus can technically be
described as an abstract-for-concrete substitution.
Why this metonymy? What is the purpose of the abstraction? Repeated at the
beginning of every stanza, the metonym contains the major theme of the poem and
undoubtedly deserves a meticulous analysis. It might be advisable at this point to project
ourselves into the poet’s mind, to seek out the reason for her diction. The poet was not
thinking about a specific thing or person or event. On the contrary, she was in deep
meditation on life – life in its broadest sense – and was trying to arrive at somewhat
philosophical conclusions about it. In this context, it is necessary to perceive things in
conceptual terms, seeing them in a “stand-for” relation with abstract concepts. “Those
beautiful and splendid things” was for that reason encapsulated into one word: loveliness. It
is notable here that while beauty is seemingly synonymous with loveliness in this context, it
lacks the strong subjectivity that loveliness suggests. Although both beautiful and lovely
express one’s personal evaluation of something, to a greater or lesser extent, it seems that if
one describes something as lovely, the description is more personal and emotional than when
he or she says it is beautiful. Therefore, with the metonym loveliness, the author not only

puts us into a contemplative mood, urging us to seek the meaning of life at a deep level, but
also expresses and instills into the reader an appreciative and cherishing attitude towards life.
This is the main purpose of “the letter” the author sends “to the world.”
One of the problems in identifying figures of speech in poetry is that some figure may
appear to be another and readers need to learn the rule of unity in literary texts and determine
the type based on the context. The following stanza is an example.
Helmet and rifle, pack and overcoat
Marched through a forest. Somewhere up ahead
Guns thudded. Like the circle of a throat
The night on every side was turning red.
(The Battle, Louis Simpson, 1960, p. 713)
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The first sentence in the first two lines is unmistakably out of the ordinary. The
multiple subjects are inanimate and evidently incapable of moving, let alone marching. The
question is, however, what part of it is the deviant? Is it the subject or the predicate? Is the
author trying to picture something else, not the “Helmet and rifle, pack and overcoat,” or is
he trying to enliven those non-living things by getting them to march?
An alert reader of literature, with his/her reasoning, can rule out the latter possibility.
He/she knows that the focus of description in this sentence is not those things worn and
carried by the soldiers, but soldiers themselves. At first sight, they are metonymically used to
replace the soldiers in almost the same way as crown is employed to substitute for monarch
or red shirts for players of a certain football team. A closer exploration may reveal several
differences, though. First, they are not a conventional metonym of soldiers, as the crown is a
conventional metonym of a monarch. Second, they are not commonly used to refer to
soldiers. Helmet and rifle, pack and overcoat, separately and in other contexts would by no
means be indicative of soldiers, or to be more precise, they are not necessarily indicative of
soldiers but can be used to refer to various objects, depending on the context. However, in
this specific context of a poem depicting a battle, the combination of all four items helmet
and rifle, pack and overcoat, which are typically worn and carried simultaneously by a
soldier in a march, followed by the verb marched through the forest, is naturally

interpretable as referring to soldiers. And the novel figure is therefore not at all mystifying
but on the contrary intelligible to a relatively wide range of readers, as long as they learn the
basic rule of unity in a literary work.
Apart from its originality, the metonymy is also remarkable for its pictorialness, or its
ability to create an image in the reader’s mind, which is one quality the trite crown-for-
monarch metonymy does not have. The metonym, or, strictly speaking, the multiple
metonyms in the first sentence of the poem, help portray the soldiers marching through the
forest with their helmets and overcoats on and rifles and packs on their backs. The
polysyndeton in the phrase makes the list of things even longer, emphasizing the fatigue of
the people who are wearing and carrying these cumbersome and heavy things. It is notable
that these things were not chosen at random. The author could have listed their boots, since
they are closest to our legs and feet, which are actually the body parts that help the soldiers
march. But he did not. Instead, he deliberately chose objects which can be seen from a
distance, and more specifically, from behind, so that the picture is closer to reality and helps
24
the reader see the battle with the character’s eyes, who was supposedly among the soldiers.
In other words, the author was attempting to revive the whole scene in which he was playing
a part, and the figure works really well in taking readers there. From afar, they can see it
actually looks as if those objects are moving by themselves because readers as well as the I
in the poem cannot see the people behind and inside them.
An important task for the reader is to explore how the figure serves as a gateway to
different interpretations of the poem on a deeper level. Why did the author substitute for the
soldiers? There are many other ordinary ways he could have drawn that picture, the simplest
of which is to describe it straightforwardly: “From behind, I could see the soldiers marching
through the forest, wearing helmets and overcoats and carrying rifles and packs.” The
difference the actual lines make is that they tell us the narrator in the poem did not see the
soldiers’ faces. He did not see them. He just saw their covers and burden. They were too well
hidden in their thick and weighty “armor.” They all looked the same, without faces, eyes, or
names, speechless and almost lifeless. Even their movement was not evidence that they were
living things. They were moving in the same direction and the same manner, like machines,

with their various complicated parts: helmet and rifle, pack and overcoat. The implication is
that these young men did not go to the battlefield; rather, they were driven there. They did
not have soldiers’ hearts and minds. They just have soldiers’ cover, their military equipment.
These findings provoke further questions which give the reader even more insight
into the battle: What kind of battle was it where soldiers were used as fighting machines?
What would be the result of the impending battle when the participating soldiers were
already dead inside? And who drove them there? Why did the soldiers have to go to the
battle against their own will? Given the context of the twentieth century, with many wars
fought primarily for wealth and power, the poem was probably intended to articulate the
poet’s attitude to an unjust war, but from a humanistic perspective, it can also win the
empathy of people worldwide, regardless of their political backgrounds and their prior
knowledge of the circumstances in which the poem was written. It successfully reveals the
feeling that, at one or another point in any war, the people involved in it all share. After all,
people are not born to kill one another. They are not born to become killing machines.
Therefore, the failure of the men in the poem to feel like real soldiers, their lack of
enthusiasm and determination, are indications of their human nature, rather than of
cowardice or faithlessness to the cause, as some people might judge. They were plainly not
25