"METAPHOR AND METONYMY" ANALYSIS:

This is an extract from "Nice Work", a postmodern novel by David Lodge. It records a conversation between  Vic Vilcox and Robin, the main characters of the novel.

Their conversation is a discussion about the hidden meaning of an ad. While Robin believes that there is a hidden meaning beneath the surface of the images in an ad, Vic doesn't, and he invites her to take things as they are. The aim of the text is to entertain the reader as well as to make explicit the difference between metaphor, a figure of speech based in similarity, and metonymy, based on contiguity, which is the main point in the explanation Robin gives to Vic.

For this reason it is possible to say this is a meta-semiotic extract. To get to this point the narrators prefers to be silent and to leave the explanation of the point to Robin, so that it can appeal more on the reader as well as it can sound more convincing. The reader finds himself in the middle of the discussion, and he can observe, listen to and analyze both points of view, even if Robin explains hers in a more effective way, so that the reader himself tends to side with her.

The narrator has a meta-cognitive aim in writing this text because he wants that the reader thinks about the nature of the language and about the difference between signifier and signified. It is possible to say that the choice of letting the character explain the difference by means of an iconic representation has been very effective. Presenting the point in this way rather than in a specialist essay about semiotics, makes it much more easy to be understood also by non specialist readers.

In conclusion it's clear that this is an extract taken from a postmodernist novel because Postmodernism has two main points of interest: the language, especially its imprecision and its unreliability; and epistemology, that is the study of what knowledge is, and knowledge is given through language itself.