The Textual Function and Meaning Construal of Referential Metonymies

Under the theoretical premise that metonymy is one of the ways of conceptualizing,from the perspective of discourse semantics it is found from the study of Chinese texts that the referential point functions of metonymies are always realized by means of the creation of homophones,the invention of acronyms and the analysis of Chinese characters; referential metonymies often occur in chains or in clusters in such discourses.The functions of referential metonymies are always realized on two levels.On the conceptual level,they are reference points for target meanings,and on the textual level,together with syntactic structures,they help form texts and serve as basis for expressing implied meanings.The former is a vertical referential process and the latter a horizontal one.