RAAM IV: Final Call

[Zouhair Maalej]

FINAL ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

FOURTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCHING
AND APPLYING METAPHOR (RAAM IV, 5-6-7 April 2001, Tunis)

Conference Theme: METAPHOR, COGNITION, AND CULTURE

1. CALL

The organiser is happy to announce the fourth version of Researching &
Applying Metaphor (known as RAAM). RAAM IV will be hosted in Tunisia
(North Africa), and its theme is Metaphor, Cognition, and Culture. The
RAAM IV event is a follow-up of the successful previous conferences
held in York, England (1996), Copenhagen, Denmark (1997), and Tilbürg,
Holland (1999). In continuation of the previous editions, RAAM IV
intends to keep active the two fundamental components of researching
and applying metaphor. In keeping with the previous RAAM's concern
with both monolingual and interlingual approaches to metaphor, RAAM IV
aims to attract and encourage a broad range of contributions on
metaphor, cognition, and culture from researchers and educationalists
of different persuasions. Contributions are welcome that address
topics relating to verbal and/or non-verbal metaphor, metaphor in
cognition, metaphor in culture, metaphor in cognition and culture, etc.
both in literary and non-literary texts.

2. ABSTRACTS

The deadline for paper proposals is 15 October, 2000. The proposal
should include: (i) the author's name, affiliation, full
snail-address, telephone/fax, e-mail address; (ii) the title of the
submission; (iii) a maximum of 200-word abstract, which
must be sent in electronic form within the body of the e-mail to the
Conference Organiser's e-mail address: (zmaalej at gnet.tn), mentioning
"Submission for RAAM IV" in the Subject line of the mail; and (iv)
specification as to whether the presentation requires technical
equipment. All abstracts will be refereed by the Scientific
Committee. In case of multiple participants for the same abstract,
correspondence will be sent to the main author's address.
Participants wanting to attend without intending to read a paper are
also welcome, and should send an e-mail including the information
required for (i) only.

3. INVITED SPEAKERS:

- John Barnden (University of Birmingham, UK)

- Alice Deignan (University of Leeds, UK)

- Raymond Gibbs (Santa Cruz, California, USA)

- Mark Turner (Maryland, USA)

4. FORMAT

RAAM IV invites single papers (not exceeding 25 minutes for
presentation) to be organised in different thematic panels, with a
roundup discussion for each major topic. SIGs (special interest
groups) and round tables of interest to a group of participants, will
also be encouraged. For the time being, two Round Table projects
could be announced: "Metaphor in Education" and "Metaphor
Identification."

5. CALL FOR PARTICIPATION IN A PANEL ON: Non-verbal Metaphor,
Specifically Pictorial Metaphor

Metaphor is "not a figure of speech, but a mode of thought"
(Lakoff 1993: 210), but the interest in non-verbal manifestations of
metaphor is still a fairly recent development. Investigating and
theorizing pictorial and other non-verbal metaphors is important not
only as a means to test, and elaborate on, the Lakoffian project of
charting Idealized Cognitive Models (Lakoff & Turner 1989), but
also as an instrument to help integrate cognitivist approaches with
(sub)culture-oriented ones (cf. Shore 1996, Forceville 1996,
2000, Gibbs 1999, Maalej submitted).

For this panel, submissions are invited that contribute to the theory
and practice of non-verbal metaphor. In order to provide some guiding
marks in a largely untheorized territory, the suggested theoretical
background to be used is Black (1979) and/or the experiential theory
launched by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and further developed by a host
of followers. Non-verbal metaphor, for present purposes, is defined
broadly as comprising at least one non-verbal term - that is, a
non-verbal metaphor has either a non-verbal target (tenor) or a
non-verbal source (vehicle), or both. However, proposals pertaining to
other non-verbal manifestations of the "poetic mind" (cf.
Gibbs 1994, see also Kennedy & Kennedy 1993) besides metaphor,
such as metonymy, irony, and proverbs, will also be eligible for
inclusion in the panel.

At the moment, pictorial metaphor appears to be the variety of
non-verbal metaphor receiving most extensive attention (political
propaganda in Simons 1995, advertising in Kaplan 1990, 1992,
Forceville 1994, 1996, 1999b, 2000, Messaris 1997, cartoons in
Rozik 1994, drawing in Kennedy 1993, Danto 1993,
Surrealist art in Forceville 1988, Carroll 1994, film in
Whittock 1990, Carroll 1996, general reflections on pictorial
metaphor in Kennedy 1982, 1997, Sedivy 1997, McGuire 1999), but see
McNeill (1992) and Cienki (1998) for suggestions for gestural metaphor,
and Seitz (1998) for a review of studies pertaining to non-verbal
metaphor. Specific research questions pertaining to pictorial metaphor
can be found in Forceville (1996, chapter 8
forthcoming). Although the panel's programme is, at this stage, very
much open to other suggestions, the following considerations will give
some idea as to the kind of proposals that are encouraged as well as
their envisaged format:

-  Typically, a non-verbal metaphor cannot be sensibly discussed
without the aid of audio-visual apparatus.
-  The rationale behind the determination of directionality of non-verbal
metaphors (what is target? what is source?) is more worthy of theorizing
than is usually acknowledged by scholars of verbal metaphors.
-  The "texts" to be discussed can be found in a variety of genres and
media: print advertisements, commercials, feature films, documentaries,
comix, animation films, operas, instruction books (?), web pages (?).
-  If it is correct that the interpretation of each metaphor consists in
deciding what is mapped from source to target, it is worthy of examination
which factors guide this decision (personal character, gender, genre,
medium, cultural context ...)
-  Studies of non-verbal manifestations of Lakoff & Johnson's (1980)
orientational, ontological, and structural metaphors (as against Black's
creative ones) are, as far as I know, still rare (Simons 1995 and
Forceville 1999a are exceptions) and deserve more attention.
-  While scholars interested in non-verbal metaphors may be found in
language and literature departments, it is more likely they will work in
such disciplines as word-image studies, the social sciences,
and media studies.
-  Reports of empirical findings -- provided they can be presented in a
non-technical manner -- are welcome.

Bibliography
Black, Max (1979). More about metaphor. In: Andrew Ortony (ed.)
Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge: CUP.19-43. (The second,
expanded and revised edition appeared in 1993.)
Carroll, N. (1994). Visual metaphor. In: Jaakko Hintikka (ed.) Aspects of
Metaphor. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 189-218.
- - (1996). A note on film metaphor. In: Carroll, Theorizing the Moving
Image. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 212-223.
Cienki, Alan (1998). Metaphoric Gestures and some of their Relations to
Verbal Metaphoric Expressions. In: Jean-Pierre Koenig (ed.),
Discourse and Cognition. Bridging the Gap. Stanford, California:
CSLI Publications, 189-204.
Danto, Arthur C. (1993). Metaphor and cognition. In: Frank R. Ankersmit and
J.J.A. Mooij, eds, Metaphor and knowledge. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 21-35.
Forceville, Charles (1988). The case for pictorial metaphor: Ren Magritte
and other Surrealists. In: A. Erjavec (ed.), Vestnik IMS 9:1, In Jo-titut za
Marksisticne tudije, Ljubljana, 150-160.
Forceville, Charles (1994). Pictorial metaphor in advertisements. Metaphor
and Symbolic Activity 9:1, 1-29.
- - (1996). Pictorial metaphor in advertising. London/New York: Routledge.
- - (1999a). The metaphor COLIN IS A CHILD in Ian McEwan's, Harold Pinter's,
and Paul Schrader's The Comfort of Strangers. Metaphor and Symbol 14:3,
179-98.
- - (1999b, July). Metaphor in moving images. (Paper given at the 6th
International Cognitive Linguistics Conference in Stockholm, Sweden).
HYPERLINK?
- - (2000). Compasses, beauty queens and other PCs: pictorial metaphors in
computer advertisements. Hermes, Journal of Linguistics 24, 31-55.
- - (forthcoming). Further thoughts on delimitating pictorial metaphor.
Theoria et historia scientiarum a special issue on metaphor.
Gibbs, Raymond W., Jr. (1994). The poetics of the mind: figurative thought,
language, and understanding. Cambridge: CUP.
- - (1999). Taking metaphor out of our heads and putting it into the
cultural world. In: Raymond W. Gibbs and Gerard J. Steen (eds), Metaphor in
cognitive linguistics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 145-66.
Kaplan, Stuart Jay (1990). Visual metaphors in the representation of
communication technology. Critical Studies in Mass Communication 7:1, 37-47.
- - (1992). A conceptual analysis of form and content in visual metaphors.
Communication 13, 197-209.
Kennedy, John M. (1982). Metaphor in pictures. Perception 11, 589-605.
- - (1993). Drawing the Blind: Pictures to Touch. New Haven/ London: Yale
University Press.
- - (1997). Visual metaphor in contest. Semiotic Review of Books 8:2, 2-5.
Kennedy, John M. Victor Kennedy (1993). Special issue on metaphor and
visual rhetoric. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 8:3.
Lakoff, George (1993). The contemporary theory of metaphor. In: A. Ortony
(ed.), Metaphor and Thought. London/New York: CUP (second edition), 202-251.
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: U of
Chicago P.
Lakoff, George, and Mark Turner (1989). More Than Cool Reason: A Field Guide
to Poetic Metaphor. Chicago/ London: U of Chicago P.
Maalej, Zouhair (submitted). Understanding pictorial metaphor in
advertising: a cross-cultural perspective.
McGuire, John Michael (1999), Pictorial metaphors: a reply to Sedivy.
Metaphor and Symbol 14:4, 293-302.
McNeill, David (1992). Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal about Thought.
Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press. For a review by Priscilla J.
Dodds (1997), see:
Messaris, Paul (1997). Visual persuasion: the role of images in advertising.
Thousand Oaks, London: New Delhi: Sage.
Rozik, Eli (1994). Pictorial metaphor. Kodikas/Code 17, 203-218.
Sedivy, Sonia (1997). Metaphoric pictures, pulsars, platypuses. Metaphor and
Symbol 12:2, 95-112.
Seitz, Jay A. (1998). Nonverbal metaphor: A review of theories and evidence.
Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs, 124:1, 121-43.
Shore, Bradd (1996). Culture in mind: cognition, culture, and the problem of
meaning. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Simons, Jan (1995). Film, Language, and Conceptual Structures: Thinking Film
in the Age of Cognitivism. Unpublished PhD thesis, Dept. of Film and
Television Studies, University of Amsterdam.
Whittock, Trevor (1990). Metaphor and film. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

Charles Forceville
University of Amsterdam
Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16
1012 CP Amsterdam
The Netherlands
E-mail: Charles.Forceville at hum.uva.nl

6. SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

- Lynne Cameron (University of Leeds, UK)

- Alan Cienki (Emory University, Atlanta)

- Kathryn English (Evry, France)

- Charles Forceville (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

- Graham Low (University of York, UK)

- Masako Hiraga (Japan)

- Gerard Steen (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)


7. LANGUAGE

For pragmatic reasons, the official language of the Conference will be
English.

8. CONFERENCE ORGANISATION

Zouhair Maalej (main organiser)

Rafik Jammoussi (member)

Mohamed Daoud (member)

9. DEADLINES TO REMEMBER

- Abstract Submission: 15 October, 2000.

- Notification of Acceptance: by 15 December, 2000.

- Details about venue, fee, hotel accommodation, and social program to
  be announced by 31 December, 2000.


10. CORRESPONDENCE

Further information could be obtained from:

Zouhair Maalej,
Home Tel/Fax: (+216) 1 362 871
E-mail: zmaalej at gnet.tn