‘Metaphor Identification and Analysis’ Winter School 2012

[Vito Evola]

VU Metaphor Lab Winter School 2012

‘Metaphor Identification and Analysis’

 

VU University (Vrije Universiteit)
Amsterdam, Netherlands

Monday, 23 January 2012 – Friday, 27 January 2012

 

This event is endorsed by the international Association for Researching and Applying Metaphor (RaAM)

 

The Metaphor Lab at VU University Amsterdam is organizing a special Winter School in metaphor identification and analysis for approximately 30 PhD students and postdocs at the end of January 2012. Three courses will be offered, each consisting of four sessions of two hours. Participants may select one, two or all three courses.

Tina Krennmayr: Linguistic metaphor identification: How to use the MIPVU procedure

Gerard Steen: From linguistic to conceptual metaphor in five steps

Alan Cienki: Metaphor in gesture with speech: Identification and interpretation

In addition, two guest lectures will be held on metaphor research in the fields of organization and management (Joep Cornelissen, VU Faculty of Economics and Business Administration) and cognitive psychology (Diane Pecher, Erasmus University Rotterdam).

It should be noted that the timing of the course is connected to the end of the Dutch LOT Winter School in linguistics, http://www.lotschool.nl/files/schools/2012_Winterschool_Tilburg/index.php.  More detailed information about the course will become available through the new Metaphor Lab web site www.metaphorlab.vu.nl that will be launched by the end of October.

 

Course details

Linguistic metaphor identification: How to use the MIPVU procedure (Krennmayr)

This course will focus on the identification of various types of metaphor in different kinds of language data using the MIPVU procedure (Steen et al. 2010). This procedure is a systematic, step-by-step protocol that allows you to code natural language data for metaphorical language use. We will discuss what it means to identify metaphor on a linguistic level of analysis and critically look at tools analysts may choose to code their data for metaphorical language use. The course will guide you through each step of the MIPVU metaphor identification procedure. Through hands-on activities using texts from different registers you will learn to solve problems you may encounter as you proceed through each of the procedure’s steps. You will be equipped with the skills you will need for building your own dataset annotated for metaphor.

Steen, G.J., Dorst, A.G., Herrmann, J.B., Kaal, A.A., Krennmayr, T., and Pasma, T.  (2010). A method for linguistic metaphor identification: From MIP to MIPVU. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

 

From linguistic to conceptual metaphor in five steps (Steen)

This course will examine how you can reconstruct conceptual mappings across domains from previously identified metaphor-related words in discourse. The five-step method (Steen 2009) assumes that the first step involves the identification of metaphor-related words by means of MIPVU, and then considers four subsequent stages of analysis required for formulating a complete cross-domain mapping: 2) identifying the underlying conceptual structure of the utterance, in the form of a proposition in a text base; 3) identifying the assumed open comparison inherent in the proposition; 4) determining a related closed comparison in the form of an analogy; 5) identifying the most important implicature(s) of the analogy. The focus of the course will lie on the theoretical model for metaphor in discourse that is assumed for this type of approach, and on the nature of the various analytical steps involved in the five-step method. Connections with Lakoff and Johnson’s Conceptual Metaphor Theory will be considered throughout.

Steen, G.J. (2009). From linguistic form to conceptual structure in five steps: analyzing metaphor in poetry. In G. Brône & J. Vandaele (Eds.), Cognitive poetics: Goals, gains and gaps (pp. 197-226). Berlin/ New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Steen, G.J. (2011). The contemporary theory of metaphor—now new and improved! Review of Cognitive Linguistics 9(1), 26-64.

 

Metaphor in gesture with speech: Identification and interpretation (Cienki)

This course will be oriented towards those with little or no background in gesture research who would like to analyze metaphor use in video-recorded spoken language data. We will begin with a brief overview of basic issues, including some fundamentals of analyzing gesture, consideration of how a gesture can be metaphoric, and an overview of the ways in which metaphoric gestures may relate to speech (metaphoric gesture with and without metaphorically used words) (Cienki 2008, 2010). Applied analysis in the class will include group work on examples provided by the instructor and work with video data brought by the participants. Participants are therefore encouraged to bring excerpts of digital video from their own data as well as their own laptop computers. Based upon the analysis, we will discuss how metaphor plays out in dynamic ways in multimodal communication and what gesture may reveal about metaphoric thought.

Cienki, A. (2008). Why study metaphor and gesture? In A. Cienki & C. Müller (Eds.), Metaphor and gesture (pp. 5-25). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Cienki, A. (2010). Multimodal metaphor analysis. In L. Cameron & R. Maslen (Eds.), Metaphor analysis: Research practice in applied linguistics, social sciences and the humanities (pp. 195-214). London: Equinox.

 

Tentative program

	Mon 23	Tue 24	Wed 25	Thurs 26	Fri 27
10:00 – 12.00	arrival	Steen	Steen	Steen	Steen
12.00 – 13.00	lunch	lunch	lunch	lunch	lunch
13.00 – 15:00	Krennmayr	Krennmayr	Krennmayr	Krennmayr	discussion
15.15 – 17:15	Cienki	Cienki	Cienki	Cienki	departure
17:30 – 18:30	reception	lecture: Pecher		lecture: Cornelissen

 

Costs

There is no fee for the course(s). Participants will need to cover their own expenses (travel, accommodation, food). RaAM is providing a small number of bursaries to cover part of the personal expenses for those in economic need. Inexpensive but adequate accommodation will be reserved for participants.

 

Application

Prospective students are requested to send a one-page CV and a motivation letter (one A4 or US Letter page) in which they explain their reasons for applying, the research they are engaged in and how their research relates to the topic of the winter school. Participants who want to apply for a bursary need to include an additional section in which they explain why they think they should be eligible for financial support. Applications should be sent to metap...@let.vu.nl by 18 November 2011.

 For questions, please contact metap...@let.vu.nl.