Call for blitz presentations and posters

Interdisciplinary 3-day Workshop

RETHINKING METAPHOR:

CONCEPTUAL INTEGRATION AND EMPIRICAL METHODS

University of Murcia, Spain (La Merced Campus, downtown Murcia)

Thursday May 10 – Saturday May 12, 2012

 

Keynote speakers:

Mark Turner, Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and Case Western Reserve University.

David Miall, University of Alberta.

 

Guest speakers: Mihailo Antović (University of Niš), Antoni Gomila (University of the Balearic Islands), Esther Pascual (University of Groningen), Julio Santiago de Torres (University of Granada), Cristina Soriano (Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences).

Organizers: Javier Valenzuela Manzanares and Cristóbal Pagán Cánovas, University of Murcia.

 

Submission deadline: February 20, 2012.

Notification of acceptance: March 1, 2012.

Workshop dates: May 10-12, 2012.

 

Since the mid 1990s, Fauconnier and Turner’s Conceptual Integration Theory (CIT), or Blending Theory, has developed a network model of meaning construction, consisting of interconnected conceptual packages, or mental spaces, and including projection to a hybrid conceptualization or blended space. The model has been widely used for the study of conceptual mappings, selective projection, mental simulation, and other cognitive operations, within a variety of fields: cognitive science, semantics, pragmatics, semiotics, literary studies, etc. The higher order cognitive capacity of conceptual integration underlies a variety of phenomena in meaning construction: metaphor, metonymy, analogy, counterfactuals, multimodal symbols, etc.

In particular, CIT has produced extensive work on figurative language, and has proposed a revision of the methods employed in metaphor research, to account for emergent meanings, frame shifts and other changes in the directionality of mappings, diachronic and cultural factors, etc. We are interested in how the CIT model can inform specific programs of empirical research in figurative language in a variety of disciplines, from literary studies to psycholinguistics.

 

Workshop structure

Keynote presentations by Mark Turner and David Miall, on the latest developments in conceptual integration research, the methodological implications of this theory for the empirical study of conceptual mappings and figurative language, and the interaction between empirical methods and conceptual mappings in metaphor research. Each presentation will be followed by an extended Q&A session, a targeted response by a cognitive scientist, and an open discussion. After a break, specialists in Conceptual Integration Theory will present empirical applications of this approach to different fields, ranging from psycholinguistic experiments to philological studies. There will be at least one session with blitz talks followed by poster presentations.

 

Submissions

We invite submissions for 5-minute oral presentations, which will be followed by a poster session, where blitz talks will be presented as posters, with ample time for further interaction with workshop participants.

Abstract should be 500 words maximum (including bibliography). Please send them as a PDF email attachment to both cpcanovas@um.es and jvalen@um.es. In the body of your email, please include your full name, affiliation, and contact details, followed by a very short biographical statement (50 words maximum). Submissions by early-stage researchers (doctoral and postdoctoral) are particularly welcome. We are especially looking for:

-       Empirical studies of figurative language that use CIT.

-       Methodological suggestions on how CIT can inform empirical studies.

-       Empirical examinations of postulates of the CIT and mental spaces approach.

-       Empirical studies of conceptual mappings, information transfer between conceptual domains, or embodied/grounded cognition related to figurative language, seeking (and perhaps finding difficulties) to frame some of their data with the CIT model.

 

The social program will provide ample opportunities for informal interaction, as well as for getting a taste (both in the metaphorical and in the literal sense) of Murcia’s touristic attractions.

The language of the workshop will be English. There is no registration fee. The event is not open to the public. Participants who do not wish to present are welcome to attend and participate in the discussions, but must previously register with the organizers via email: cpcanovas@um.es and jvalen@um.es.

 

Participants’ profile

Researchers who use, are seeking to use, or wish to examine CIT in relation with empirical work in their disciplines: close reading and comparison of literary texts, music, art, film… philological and historical study of cultural data, linguistic analysis, gesture studies, design of behavioral experiments, etc. We welcome researchers with an experimental profile (psycholinguists, psychologists, cognitive scientists, neuroscientists, etc.), scholars from the Humanities and the Social Sciences, (literary studies, linguistics, philosophy, history, anthropology, art theory, music studies, etc.), as well as researchers with a more theoretical profile wishing to discuss points of convergence and divergence of CIT with current approaches to figurative language and thought (Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Relevance Theory, Semiotics, etc.), regarding the analysis of specific phenomena: time-space mappings, counterfactuals, the semantics of grammatical constructions, poetic and pragmatic effects, etc.