Iraqi EFL University Students' Awareness of Metonymy

Abstract

The present work is about metonymy as one of the lexical relations which exists between words on one  aspect, and as a problematic area for students of English on the other. Hence it aims at measuring the students’ proficiency in using metonymy and identifying the types of errors and their sources in recognizing and producing metonymic concepts. To achieve these goals, the study has hypothesized that most Iraqi EFL students face difficulties in using them. Then, a test has been planned on a sample of (50) Iraqi EFL university students at the Fourth Year, Department of English, College of Education, University of Kufa during the academic year (2014-2015). The results obtained from collecting and analyzing the students’ performance confirm that the students encounter serious difficulty in this area. This clear from the number of their correct responses in comparison with their incorrect ones. Key words: Lexical Relation; Metonymy; Test; Data  Analysis

1- Introduction