The Application of Conceptual Metonymy in Discourse Coherence

Abstract

The action scenario of speech acts, put forward by Thornburg and Panther (1997) from the perspective of cognition, provides a good rationale for the cognitive function of metonymy. This paper will deal with the important role of metonymy in the generation and interpretation of discourse. The author of this paper is going to try to analyze the explanatory power of metonymy on discourse coherence from these viewpoints.