On the role of embodied cognition in the understanding and use of metonymy

The majority of the chapters in this book focus on the symbiotic relationship between embodied cognition and metaphor. In contrast, this chapter focuses on the relationship between embodied cognition and metonymy. It argues that metonymy is also embodied, but in a different way, and that the social, environmental, dynamic and developmental aspects of embodied cognition can be expected to play an important role in shaping metonymic meaning. It is suggested that the relative transparency of the role played by embodied cognition in metonymy creation is influenced by the presence of movement and emotion, with increases in the amount of movement and emotion leading to increases in the transparency of embodied cognition. Following Deignan, Littlemore and Semino (2013), it is also suggested that the transparency of the role played by embodied cognition is affected by features of the genre (communicative purpose, staging and discourse community membership) and the register (field, tenor and mode).