A Textual Metonymic Approach To The Cohesion And Coherence In American Presidential Inaugural Addresses

Traditionally, metonymy has been considered merely as an elegant rhetorical device or even a linguistic quirk. It seems that the study of metonymy at discourse level from a cognitive perspective has been neglected by most of the scholars in a long period of time. However, the year 1980 witnessed a cognitive turn in the researches upon metonymy with the landmark publication of Lakoff and Johnson’s works, Metaphors We Live By. By which they put forward the conceptual metaphor theory which makes a breakthrough in the traditional metaphor and metonymy study and brings metonymy study into the cognitive field. They hold that metaphor is a way of thinking and cognition. In the beginning of 1980s, cognitive linguist didn’t pay enough attention to the study of metonymy, until the beginning of 1990s, some cognitive linguists (Goossen,1990; Croft, 1993; Dirven,1993) started to focus on metonymy within the framework of cognitive linguistics. Since then, metonymy is no longer taken just as a matter of language but a kind of thought, the cognitive mechanism that helps to construct a conceptual world with its own principles.In cognitive linguistics, Lakeoff describes metonymy as one representation of ICM. Lakeoff& Johnson (1980) hold that metonymy is a process of cognition which enables us conceptualize one thing through the interaction with another thing within the same domain. Lakeoff& Turner (1989) explain metonymy as a conceptual mapping in a cognitive domain, among which reference is the main representation. However, previous study on metonymy mainly focuses on the lexical and syntactical levels, rarely on the discourse level.Cohesion, being traditionally considered a grammatical and lexical device serves as the key form of coherence. Cohesion is featured by such as reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion, which are called surface/explicit devices. Within the framework of cognitive linguistics, this paper holds that discourse coherence is realized by some deep or implicit cohesive cues. A number of cognitive principles like iconicity, cognitive metaphor and cognitive metonymy exert great impact on the construction of discourse coherence in such a deep/implicit manner. Cohesion and Coherence have aroused attention in discourse analysis for a long time. In the traditional perspective, cohesion is taken as a significant means to establish coherence on grammatical and lexicon levels, among which reference, substitution, and ellipsis. Etc. is involved. Lu Weizhong (2006) hold that apart from the explicit coherence, there must be some implicit coherence lies in the production and comprehension of discourse. In other words, principle of iconicity, conceptual metaphor and metonymy, termed as implicitness, could also bring cohesion and coherence to discourse. Some researchers have focused on the coherent function of metaphor within the framework of conceptual metaphor theory.Based on ICM theory proposed by Lakeoff(1987) and the triadic representation among thing, concept and form proposed by Radden& Kovecses(1999), Al-Sharafi (2004) put forward the textual metonymic model to account for the cohesion and coherence in discourses. He believes that metonymy is a type of representation, incorporating the principle of contiguity and cause-effect. The metonymic representations proposed by Al-Sharafi are:FORM FOR CONCEPT, FORM FOR THING, CONCEPT FOR FORM, THING FOR FORM, CONCEPT FOR CONCEPT, THING FOR CONCEPT, and THING FOR THING. The textual metonymic model functions on both cohesion and coherence levels. On the cohesive level, the cohesion is divided is two parts:grammatical cohesion realized by reference, substitution and ellipsis and lexical cohesion featured by synonym, hyponym and metonym will be mentioned. On the coherent level, the relations between metonymy and schema, schemata and script will be studies upon.The textual metonymic model is efficient in accounting for the cohesion and coherence in discourse, incorporating context and cultural factors. Having a better understanding of metonymy in political discourse will enable us know more about the cultures of the country. In the data analysis, the author selected three American presidential inaugural addresses. Political discourse is designated to state opinions, strengthen conviction or propagate ideologies over political issues at home and aboard. As a result, it tends to carry on with political preference, logic and power of persuasion, and hence the metonymic representation in nature is pervasive in political speeches. Besides, from the various applications of conceptual metonymies and their realization in various expressions, the effectiveness and quality of metonymy’s application and the different overt and covert coherent devices can indicate different metonymy users’language ability and the level of their familiarity with the society they are living in.Thus, through the analysis and exploration of the present study, it is evident that metonymy is not just a figure of speech from the traditional viewpoint but a cognitive pattern, and it displays coherence both on the surface and deep level of language. On the surface level, the coherence is displayed by the cohesive devices which make a discourse a meaningful whole by itself. On the deep level, a discourse is coherent if the producer’s choice of metonymic expression matches with the receiver’s cultural context and cognitive context. It is found out that knowledge of a conceptual metonymy and that of the user or receiver’s cultural and cognition contexts are mutually beneficial. On one hand, the recognition of conceptual metonymies in a discourse is very useful in understanding the discourse. On the other hand, the knowledge of metonymy producer or receiver’s cultural context and cognitive context is helpful in recognizing and understanding a metonymy. Besides, from the various applications of conceptual metonymies and their realization in various expressions, the effectiveness and quality of metonymy’s application and the different overt and covert coherent devices can indicate different metonymy user’s language ability and the level of their familiarity with the society.Given the small sample size of this study, its findings should be considered tentative and should be interpreted with caution. Further studies are needed for a clearer picture of the relations between textual metonymy and cohesion and coherence discussion. However, it is sincerely hoped that this study will shed light on the importance and significance of metonymy in the political speeches understanding and its unique coherent function in political discourse. Moreover, the present study puts forward some suggestions to teachers in the area of language learning and teaching.