Metonymy and Management: Owning One's Work
Metonymy and Management: Owning One's Work
by Stella Boswell
Abstract
An organization is nothing without its workforce. Despite the ideals held by its leaders, a company’s goals are ultimately carried out and portrayed to the public by its volunteers or employees who hold the least amount of responsibility. While leadership sets the tone for the work being done, if a vision is not shared among employees it will never be achieved. For this reason, it is crucial for employees to feel connected to the company and motivated to work in accordance with its mission. Ensuring that this feeling of connection is established within workers is where use of the rhetorical device metonymy becomes relevant. Metonymy is the replacement of an object with something that represents it as a way of referral. For example, we may refer to “a business professional” as “a suit.” . A suit is the traditional uniform for a business professional, a part of his/her identity as a business professional, but is not a term that encompasses all that it means to be one. The same device is used when, in response to a customer asking for tea, a waiter replies “I’m sorry, I do not have any.” In this situation the waiter, by phrasing his response as if he himself is the sole provider of the food and drinks in the restaurant, is using metonymy. He, as an employee, is representative of the entire dining establishment, including what they have in stock, in this example. This use of a personal pronoun can help to make the employee feel more connected to the enterprise and by extension, its success or failure. By establishing this connection, the employee feels a deeper sense of responsibility to the concerted effort of the company and will work and participate accordingly.
Big Idea
What is Metonymy?
Metonymy is a rhetorical device that is characterized by referring to something using an aspect of it instead of using its traditional name. The origin of this device can be attributed to Rhetorica ad Herennium, an ancient Greek text of which the author is unknown, where it is defined as "a trope that takes its expression from near and close things by which we can comprehend a word that is not denominated by its proper word" (140). This definition highlights the way that meaning can be discerned by a listener even when a word is replaced by another that is related to it. For example, ‘redcoats’ is a metonym for British occupational forces in colonial America. While the soldiers do wear red coats, that is but an element of their identity. This way of referencing could be used to emphasize the striking nature of seeing a red coat as a colonist under British attack, thereby bringing more attention to the imagery of the war. Metonymy can be considered a form of personification when the term used to refer to something is a person. This type of metonymy can be seen when a barista replies, “Sorry, I am out of decaf,” to an inquiring customer. In this situation, the barista is using the personal pronoun “I” in order to refer to the establishment at which they work. The concept and use of this personifying form of metonymy, which will be referred to as personal metonymy, will be discussed further here. In her article The Use of Metonymy in Business Linguistic Culture, Mihaela Vasiloaia writes that the word used as a referent and the thing being referred to are “linked by conceptual contiguity” (185). With the use of personal metonymy, the employee can begin to see themselves as contiguous with their place of work and the tasks at hand. Utilizing the effect of this rhetorical device in speech and ultimately thought can have profound effects on one’s mindset and how they view themselves in relation to a group.
