- Metaphor and metonymy
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Metaphor (drawing a similarity between two things) and metonymy (drawing a contiguity between two things), are two fundamental opposite poles along which a discourse with human language is developed.[1] It has been argued that the two poles of similarity and contiguity are fundamental ones along which the human brain is structured; in the study of human language the two poles have been called metaphor and metonymy, while in the study of the unconscious they have been called condensation and displacement.[2]
The couple metaphor-metonymy had a prominent role in the renewal of the field of rhetoric in the 1960s.
In the unconscious: condensation and displacement
In Freud's work (1900), condensation and displacement (from German Verdichtung and Verschiebung) are two closely linked concepts.[3] In 1957, Jacques Lacan, inspired by an article by linguist Roman Jakobson, argued that the unconscious has the same structure of a language, and that condensation and displacement are equivalent to the poetic functions of metaphor and metonomy.[2][1][4]
References
- ^ a b Roman Jakobson and Halle, Morris (1956) Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances in Fundamentals of Language. The Hague & Paris: Mouton, section The Metaphoric and Metonymic Poles
- ^ a b Grigg, Russell () Lacan, language, and philosophy, chapter 11 Lacan and Jakobson - Metaphor and Metonymy pp.151-2, 160
- ^ [1]
- ^ Lacan [1957] The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious or Reason Since Freud. French original available here
External links
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