A Contrastive Analysis of Metonymy in English and Farsi: Elaborating on the Implications for ELT

This descriptive study examines the figurative language and its characteristics and specifications in Farsi and English as corpus study in form of a contrastive analysis on metonymy in English versus Farsi based on semantics. To compare and analyze the metonymies found in English and Persian corpora, two models are employed which have a lot in common. One model is by Safavi (2008) and the other belongs to I. Saeed (2008).These two models were originally introduced by Lakoff and Johnson (1978).Based on these models. The researcher adopted a modified version in which 25 types of metonymy were identified to be applied to English and Persian instances of metonymy. According to this modified version, an attempt was made to classify each instance in both languages basedon this model in this study. As a result 215 metonymic expressions were identified from two books and their authentic translations in Farsi. Findings showed that out of 215 metonymic cases 172 of them were metonymic in Farsi while 99 of them were metonymic in English. Only 23 cases were matched and 7 matched metonymies were found as a proposed model for Persian learners of English.

A Contrastive Analysis of Metonymy in English and Farsi: Elaborating on the Implications for ELT Keywords:

Figurative language , Contrastive Analysis , Metonymy , Comprehension of L2 metonymy , Teaching Metonymy , Semantics