METONYMY IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE NEWSPAPERS

In a few recent decades, thanks to the explosion of information and the revolution of
high technology, we have a lot of chances to get information in every aspect of life very quickly.
In fact, there are many other sources of news like magazines and books in print forms, radio
and television, Internet connections in electronic media, and so on.
Despite these means of media, people of all professions still prefer newspapers and
they think that the main conveyor of news is newspapers. Engineers, doctors, scientists,
professors and other professionals read them to know the day-to-day developments in their
own fields. Some people buy newspapers to keep in touch with the economic and commercial
trends in the country and see current share prices. Meanwhile, students read newspapers to
broaden their knowledge and keep abreast of the recent developments in various fields.
Newspaper is really an important tool of the learning process for students.
However, Vietnamese readers often face much difficulty in grasping the language of
English newspapers. We can realise that not only novelists, poets but also journalists use
stylistic devices to make their works or papers more vivid and attractive. Moreover, the article
will not be successful if all information is apparently shown on the paper. That is the reason
why journalists must take the skills of language use into account. Therefore, the readers find it
hard to understand the writing styles of journalists with their stylistic devices. One of the
devices used in newspapers causing many difficulties for us to understand is metonymy.
Let us have a look at some expressions from English newspapers:
(1.1) Japan entered a recession in the second quarter of 2008. [138] (1.2) The Prime
Minister was brief about this issue. [64]
In these examples “Japan” in the sentence (1.1) is not refered to the country, but to
the Japan’s economy. In example (1.2), there is a predicational metonymy where the manner of
speaking “brief” stands for the speech event itself “speak briefly”.
In Vietnamese newspapers, metonymy is also used in the following sentences:
(1.3) Burj Al Arab được xây trên một hòn đảo nhân tạo cách bờ biển 280 m và phục vụ một
loạt xe hơi Rolls Royce cùng với bãi đáp trực thăng riêng, khiến nó trở thành một trong
những khách sạn xa hoa nhất thế giới. [191]
(1.4) Trung tâm nuôi dưỡng trẻ tàn tật và người già ở Thụy An, Ba Vì, Hà Nội như lọt thỏm
giữa vùng rừng núi khá vắng vẻ. Đây là mái ấm của hơn hai trăm trẻ em bị bỏ rơi và những
người già không nơi nương tựa. [168]
The meaning of the bold words is transfered by metonymy. In expression (3) “ một loạt
xe hơi Rolls Royce” stands for “ những người giàu có sử dụng xe hơi Rolls Royce” or “ mái ấm ”
refers to “ ngôi nhà trung tâm nuôi dưỡng trẻ tàn tật và người già”.
It is really not an easy task for Vietnamese learners of English as well as for foreign
learners of Vietnamese to analyze and interpret the metonymic expressions in newspapers.
Therefore, learning how to understand the metonymic expressions used in English and
Vietnamese papers help us a lot, not only to discover writers’ viewpoints, implicatures that they

want to send to the readers but also assist us to master effective stylistic devices to improve
our communication.