Page 351 - Gabrijela Kišiček and Igor Ž. Žagar (eds.), What do we know about the world? Rhetorical and argumentative perspectives, Digital Library, Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana 2013
P. 351
the cowboys, the poets, the professor...
– antonomasia in croatian sports discourse 351
sports news: the same names are very often repeated in the same text. To
avoid monotony, journalists substitute them with contextual periphra-
ses such as the Club from Split, Wenger’s players, the world’s best player or
they rely on the established antonomasia or “nickname”, as it is usual-
ly called in everyday language. On the other hand, there is some kind of
general agreement that the high frequency of stereotypical expressions
(so called “journalisms”) is a negative characteristic of news style. Some
authors, nevertheless, find it very functional because this automated use
of expressions helps the recipients in better understanding the message
(Runjić-Stoilova, 2012).
In the previous section we tried to establish the connection between
antonomasia and both metonymy and metaphor (not strictly through
the classical/Vossian antonomasia dichotomy) and in further analysis
we will observe the sports antonomasias through the concepts of source
and target domain. This methodology was adopted from cognitive lin-
guistics, which approaches metaphor and metonymy in a different man-
ner than classical rhetoric and stylistics. Cognitive linguistics treats met-
aphor and metonymy not as figures of speech (ornaments in language)
but as cognitive models by which people make concepts of the world4.
Cognitive linguistics makes a distinction between a specific meta-
phorical expression in language (e.g. the modern gladiators for athletes)
and the metaphorical concept in our mind (sport is fight). General
mental concepts thus derive specific linguistic metaphors and through
these concepts we can better understand certain discourse or even cul-
ture (Kövecses, 2005). As we can see, metaphors in sports discourse
are mainly derived from the general concept sport is war/battle/
fight, and, consequently, we have examples like: They left their hearts in
the arena or The Croatian cavalry swept the French musketeers.
Metonymies are also an important part of sports discourse and they
are mostly derived from the following concepts: the part for the
whole (a fresh pair of legs), the whole for the part (Croatia scored
just before half-time), and object used for user (The world’s best rac-
quet).
Traditional rhetoric defines metaphor as a trope which makes a sub-
stitution of one expression by another on the ground of similarity (us-
ing the analogies), whereas metonymies make substitutions by associa-
4 This concept was introduced in the well-known book Metaphors We Live By (Lakoff and Johnson,
1980). For further information on cognitive linguistic research concerning metaphor and metony-
my see Kövecses, 2002.
– antonomasia in croatian sports discourse 351
sports news: the same names are very often repeated in the same text. To
avoid monotony, journalists substitute them with contextual periphra-
ses such as the Club from Split, Wenger’s players, the world’s best player or
they rely on the established antonomasia or “nickname”, as it is usual-
ly called in everyday language. On the other hand, there is some kind of
general agreement that the high frequency of stereotypical expressions
(so called “journalisms”) is a negative characteristic of news style. Some
authors, nevertheless, find it very functional because this automated use
of expressions helps the recipients in better understanding the message
(Runjić-Stoilova, 2012).
In the previous section we tried to establish the connection between
antonomasia and both metonymy and metaphor (not strictly through
the classical/Vossian antonomasia dichotomy) and in further analysis
we will observe the sports antonomasias through the concepts of source
and target domain. This methodology was adopted from cognitive lin-
guistics, which approaches metaphor and metonymy in a different man-
ner than classical rhetoric and stylistics. Cognitive linguistics treats met-
aphor and metonymy not as figures of speech (ornaments in language)
but as cognitive models by which people make concepts of the world4.
Cognitive linguistics makes a distinction between a specific meta-
phorical expression in language (e.g. the modern gladiators for athletes)
and the metaphorical concept in our mind (sport is fight). General
mental concepts thus derive specific linguistic metaphors and through
these concepts we can better understand certain discourse or even cul-
ture (Kövecses, 2005). As we can see, metaphors in sports discourse
are mainly derived from the general concept sport is war/battle/
fight, and, consequently, we have examples like: They left their hearts in
the arena or The Croatian cavalry swept the French musketeers.
Metonymies are also an important part of sports discourse and they
are mostly derived from the following concepts: the part for the
whole (a fresh pair of legs), the whole for the part (Croatia scored
just before half-time), and object used for user (The world’s best rac-
quet).
Traditional rhetoric defines metaphor as a trope which makes a sub-
stitution of one expression by another on the ground of similarity (us-
ing the analogies), whereas metonymies make substitutions by associa-
4 This concept was introduced in the well-known book Metaphors We Live By (Lakoff and Johnson,
1980). For further information on cognitive linguistic research concerning metaphor and metony-
my see Kövecses, 2002.
