BeNeCLA Blog

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce that the 4th conference of the International Association for Cognitive Semiotics (IACS) will take place on July 2-4,
2020 at RWTH Aachen University in Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), Germany.

IACS 4
2-4 July 2020
SEMIOTIC COMPLEXITIES: Theory & Analysis Aachen, Germany (co-organized with KU Leuven, Belgium) https://iacs4.signges.de/aachen2020/call-papers

Plenary Speakers:

– Morana Alač (University of California, San Diego)
– Riccardo Fusaroli (Aarhus University)
– Sybille Krämer (Free University Berlin)
– Pamela Perniss (University of Cologne)
– Eve Sweetser (University of California, Berkeley)
– Linda R. Waugh (University of Arizona)
– Jordan Zlatev (Lund University)

Pre-conference workshops (July 1st, 2020):

– John Bateman: ‘Multimodal Analysis: Towards semiotically-motivated methodologies for empirical research’
– Cornelia Müller, Jana Bressem, Silva Ladewig: ‘Gesture Analysis’
– Geert Brône & Bert Oben: ‘Eye-tracking in Interaction’
– Jan Alber & Ralf Schneider: ‘Cognitive & Empirical Analysis of Literature’

Important Dates:

Deadlines for submissions (through EasyChair conference tool:
https://easychair.org/cfp/iacs4):

– Theme session proposals: November 15, 2019
– Abstracts: November 30, 2019
– Notification of acceptance: January 15, 2020

The IACS conference series seeks to gather scholars and scientists in semiotics, cognitive science, linguistics, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, art history and theory, media studies, and related fields, who wish to share their research on meaning and contribute to the interdisciplinary endeavor of cognitive semiotics. Previous conferences were held in Lund (2014), Lublin (2016), and Toronto (2018).
http://iacs.dk/

Conference theme
The conference theme of IACS4 is “SEMIOTIC COMPLEXITIES: Theory & Analysis”. It aims to account for the complexities of semiosis, that is, for the intricacies of semiotic processes in a broad range of semiotic systems, with a focus on either cognitive, monomodal, crossmodal or multimodal processes of meaning construal. While the theme is rather broad and non-restrictive, it is intended to encourage contributions showing how theoretical frameworks and methods of analysis may mutually enhance each other and thus offer truly new insights into the merits of semiotic inquiry and advance the cross-disciplinary enterprise of cognitive semiotics.
In this light, THEORY here is meant to include influential semiotic theories (as proposed by, e.g. Eco, Greimas, Jakobson, Lothman, Peirce, Saussure), as well as theoretical concepts and principles that are central to cognitive linguistics, general linguistics, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, and the cognitive sciences more broadly.
ANALYSIS encompasses qualitative, quantitative and experimental methods and tools, as well as mixed-methods approaches developed to derive emerging patterns and regularities but also unique instances of meaning-making in both static and dynamic semiotic fabrics.

Local/transregional organizing committee:

•    Irene Mittelberg (RWTH Aachen University)
•    Geert Brône (KU Leuven)
•    Paul Sambre (KU Leuven)
•    Kurt Feyaerts (KU Leuven)
•    Gabriele Gramelsberger (RWTH Aachen University)
•    Jessica Vaupel (RWTH Aachen University)

Call for Papers (https://iacs4.signges.de/aachen2020/call-papers):

To submit your abstracts, please go to the conference website:
https://iacs4.signges.de
or use this EasyChair link:
https://easychair.org/cfp/iacs4

Topics: Topics of the conference include (but are not limited to):
•    semiotic theory
•    cognitive linguistics
•    cognitive poetics
•    cognitive anthropology
•    gesture and sign language
•    embodied interaction
•    ecological approaches to meaning-making
•    phenomenology
•    embodiment, enaction
•    multimodality (e.g. film, music, cartoons, comics, advertisement)
•    modality-specificity and crossmodal principles of meaning-making
•    narrativity across different media
•    semiotics and art history/archeology/architecture/aesthetics
•    visual analysis (images, the visual arts, architecture, etc.)
•    iconicity and indexicality (incl. viewpoint) in language and other
semiotic resources
•    metonymy and metaphor across modalities
•    intersubjectivity and mimesis in evolution and development
•    linguistic and cultural relativity
•    semiotic and cognitive development in children
•    biological and cultural evolution of human cognition/communication
•    embodiment and spatial cognition
•    semiotic foundations of digital humanities
•    experimental semiotics
•    biosemiotics / neurosemiotics
•    technosemiotics (e.g. social robotics)

If you have any questions, please contact us at:
iacs4.2020@signges.rwth-aachen.de

We hope IACS-4 will spur your interest and that we will see you in Aachen next year!

Best wishes – on behalf of all the conference hosts and IACS board members,

Esther Pascual, IACS President

Announcement:

The 9th International Conference of the German Cognitive Linguistics Association (DGKL/GCLA-9) takes place at the University of Erfurt (Erfurt, Germany) from 23rd to 26th September 2020.

Its framing topic is “Cognitive Linguistics as an Interdisciplinary Endeavour: Theoretical and Methodological Challenges”.

The conference will also make an active contribution to the further development of the vibrant Cognitive-Linguistics community of Europe. More specifically, we seek to develop new forms of cooperation between the national Cognitive-Linguistics associations whose representatives are kindly invited to join us.

Plenary speakers:

Framing the conference by bringing in a broad repertoire of methods from corpus linguistics, sociolinguistics, psycho-/ neurolinguistics, typological linguistics and language-acquisition research, the plenary lectures highlight important dimensions of the interdisciplinary approaches that characterise much empirical work in contemporary Cognitive Linguistics.

We look forward to welcoming the following colleagues to Erfurt:

Ewa Dabrowska (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg),

Dirk Geeraerts (KU Leuven),

Natalia Levshina (Universität Leipzig),

Sabine Stoll (UZH, University of Zurich),

Kristian Tylén (Aarhus University),

Stefanie Wulff (University of Florida).

Specialized workshops:

“Cognitive Linguistics and the Cognitive Neuroscience of Language” (organised by Friedemann Pulvermüller)

“Sprache und gesellschaftliche Öffentlichkeit” (organised by Anatol Stefanowitsch, Alexander Ziem and Thomas Herbst)

More info: 

https://www.uni-erfurt.de/tagungen/DGKL_2020/

Metaphor Festival Amsterdam 2019

CALL FOR PAPERS

Amsterdam, 28 – 31 August 2019

The Metaphor Lab Amsterdam is delighted to announce that the next Metaphor Festival will take place in Amsterdam from 28 – 31 August 2019. The Metaphor Festival is an annual conference on the use of figurative language and other modes of figurative expression. It offers an opportunity to present and learn about research findings concerning the structures, functions, and effects of figurative language in human communication. Contributions to the Festival can address tropes such as metaphor, metonymy, hyperbole and irony.

Please go to http://metaphorlab.org/metaphor-festival/metaphor-festival-19/ or our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/metaphorfestival) for more information. Deadline for submissions is 15 March.

ICLC is the biennial conference of the International Cognitive Linguistics Association (ICLA; http://www.cognitivelinguistics.org/). ICLC 15 will be hosted by the Japanese Cognitive Linguistics Association, and will be held at Kwansei Gakuin University in the city of Nishinomiya. More information about the conference can be found at the following page:  https://iclc2019.site

We invite a broad range of papers on any topic taking a cognitive, functional, typological, or discourse approach to the study of language and cognition.

There are three different types of sessions, and submission processes are different.

Theme Session

A group of prospective participants can propose a theme session, in which thematically related papers are presented. A theme session can be on any topic in cognitive linguistics.

There are two stages for submissions for a theme session. First, theme session organizers should submit their theme session proposals directly to the conference organizers at the following address by September 22, 2018 [The deadline has been extended].
iclc2019themesessions @ 2jcla.jp

Theme session proposals should include: the session title, the name and affiliation of the theme session organizer, an introduction of up to 400 words explaining the theme, a list of the authors and titles of the individual papers, and all abstracts of the papers in the proposed theme session (100 words each) in a suitable order.

The conference schedule particularly suits sessions comprised of 6, 7 or 11 slots (25 minutes each). Indicate in the proposal whether you would like to have a 25-minute time slot for an introduction and/or a general discussion. We strongly encourage diversity at the level of the affiliations involved in the theme session—one third of the papers should be contributed by authors outside the affiliation of the theme session organizer. The acceptance of theme session proposals will be made in mid-October.
Once a theme session has been accepted as a whole, individual theme session authors will need to submit their abstracts for review, following the same guidelines of submission for general and poster sessions below. Papers need to be individually accepted in order to form a theme session.

General Session and Poster Session

Abstracts for general (oral) sessions and poster sessions are to be submitted through an abstract submission page, following the guidelines below. On the submission page you are asked to state whether the paper should be considered for oral session only, poster session only, or both.
Each presentation in a general session will be 25 minutes long, including questions and discussion.
New for this ICLC is that we plan to have more posters than at previous conferences. Efforts will be made to render the poster session into a pleasant and inspiring locus of exchange. Posters will be allocated to dedicated, timetabled sessions.

Abstract Submission

Each author may submit maximally one single-authored and one co-authored paper. Submitting two abstracts as a co-author is also accepted.

This is regardless of whether they are intended for the general, poster, or theme session. All abstracts must be submitted electronically through the abstract submission page, using a link appearing at: https://iclc2019.site/submission

The submission page will be active during the submission period, which is August 1 – November 5, 2018.

Abstracts must not exceed 1 page in A4 or letter-size paper, with 2.54 cm (1 inch) margins on all sides and 12-point Times New Roman font (complex data, figures, and references can be included on an additional page). They must be in a pdf file, and the file size should not exceed 5 MB. Author names should not appear anywhere on abstracts (you may cite yourself as [Author] or in the third person for previously published work).

The title must be at the top of the abstract. Please include a list of five keywords that describe the research right below the title to assist in the reviewing process. Theme session authors should also make sure to note the title of the theme session at the top of their abstracts.

Important Dates

New Deadline for theme session proposals: September 22, 2018
Notification of acceptance of theme session proposals: Oct 15, 2018
Deadline for abstract submission: November 5, 2018
Notification of acceptance: January 15, 2019

Please direct all enquiries to iclc2019 @ 2jcla.jp.

ICLC 15 Organizing Committee
Yo Matsumoto (Chair; NINJAL); see the conference website for a complete list of members.

The annual Linguists’ Day of the LSB (Linguistic Society of Belgium) will be organized this year on Friday 25 May 2018 at the Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres of the Université de Liège.

Abstracts

Lectures (20’ presentation + 10’ discussion) can deal with any linguistic topic and can be given in one of the three national languages (Dutch, French, German) or in English. Abstracts (max. 500 words, without references) should clearly indicate the subject, the objectives, the used data and method and the (provisional) results. All abstracts can be submitted until Saturday 21 April 2018 to https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cbl20180.

Before 1 May 2018 you will be informed about acceptance of your abstract.

Venue

All activities (lectures and lunch) will take place in the central building

(A1) of the City Centre Campus of the University of Liège, located Place du 20 août, 4000 Liège. It is at a walking distance from Liège-Palais train station.

TEC operates regular services from Liège-Guillemins train station to the city centre. Get off at the “Opéra” stop and follow Place de la République française and Rue de l’Université, which lead to Place du 20 août. Note that you can charge your MOBIB-card to pay your bus fares.

Attendance

Attendance is free of charge (this holds for members and non-members). If you want to give a lecture you must be a member of the LSB. This means that you have to be registered on the website and have paid your contribution –€ 40 if you wish to obtain the latest volume of the Belgian Journal of Linguistics for 2018, € 20 without.

Award

Like we did last year the board will be organizing the Best Paper Presentation Award for doctoral students. If you wish to participate make sure you mention it when you submit your proposition.

Important dates:

• 21 April 2018: deadline submission abstracts
• 1 May 2018: notification of acceptance
• 18 May 2018: deadline registration lunch
• 25 May 2018: Linguists’ Day

Organization:

Lot Brems
Dominique Longrée
Nicolas Mazziotta
Julien Perrez
Laurent Rasier
Marie Steffens
An Van linden

Scientific committee:

Miriam Bouzouita (UGent), Timothy Colleman (UGent), Bert Cornillie (KU Leuven), Walter Daelemans (UAntwerpen), Philippe De Brabanter (ULB), Sabine De Knop (USL), Gert De Sutter (UGent), Patrick Dendale (UAntwerpen), Thomas François (UCLouvain), Alex Housen (VUB), Marie-Aude Lefer (UCLouvain), Nicolas Mazziotta (ULiège), Fanny Meunier (UCLouvain), Tanja Mortelmans (UAntwerpen), Julien Perrez (ULiège), Benedikt Szmrecsanyi (KU Leuven), Martina Temmerman (VUB), Johan van der Auwera (UAntwerpen), An Van linden (ULiège), Guido Vanden Wyngaerd (KU Leuven), Gudrun Vanderbauwhede (UMons)

Populariserend tijdschrift over taal, misschien een interessante publicatiemogelijkheid voor BeNeCLa-leden.

Popular-scientific journal on language in general, perhaps an interesting publication forum for members of BeNeCLa.

Read, teach from, or write for Babel – The language magazine?

Babel – The language magazine (www.babelzine.com) is a quarterly language magazine, launched in 2012 and edited by academics at the University of Huddersfield, but aimed at non-specialist readers from around the world, bringing news and research about language and linguistics in an accessible and colourful format, both print and digital. Articles cover a vast array of language lovers’ lore, taking in languages from around the world, the past, present and future of language, and the many different uses of linguistics in the world around us. In addition to feature articles, there are regularly recurring features including Ask a Linguist, Meet the Professionals, Languages of the World, Lives in Language, Language Games and more.

For an issue guide spanning all issues since 2012, see the Babelzine website, which also features a free sampler issue and the equally freely accessible inaugural issue.

Would you like to read Babel, and/or use it in teaching? Start reading from £23 a year (European rate) for an online-only subscription, or get your institution to take out an institutional subscription (from £69) which will allow everyone within the institution to access the online version, using a log-in and password.

Better still, would you like to contribute to Babel, writing about your own research topics in a different way and for a different — almost certainly much larger — audience? Get in touch with the editors to discuss your ideas at editors@babelzine.com. Detailed guidelines for contributions of different types are available in the FAQ section of the Babel website. The longest type of article (the feature article) typically has a word count of between 2,500 – 3,500 words.

http://www.babelzine.com
https://www.facebook.com/Babelzine/
https://twitter.com/Babelzine​

The CogLing Days are the biennial conference of the Belgium Netherlands Cognitive Linguistics Association (www.benecla.com). The 8th CogLing Days will be held at the Université catholique de Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, on December 13^th and 14^th 2018 (www.cogling2018.wordpress.com).

We welcome contributions reporting on recent research in the various strands of cognitive linguistics or other cognitively inspired usage-based approaches to language.

Abstracts must not exceed 500 words, including references, and should mention the main research question(s), methodology, data and (expected) results. Abstracts can be submitted for an oral presentation (20’ + discussion time) or a poster and will be reviewed anonymously. We also welcome theme session proposals. Please submit via Easychair
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cogling8. You will be required to paste your abstract in the text box and to upload a pdf of your abstract. Please indicate your preference for an oral presentation or a poster.
The conference languages are English, Dutch and French.

Proposals for theme sessions (max. 500 word description + (tentative) titles and names of participants) should be submitted by 15 April 2018 to cogling8@uclouvain.be. When the theme session is accepted, individual abstracts should also be submitted via Easychair by 15 May 2018.  If your abstract is part of a theme session, please add the theme session title to your paper title.

Submission deadline proposals for theme sessions: 15 April 2018
Submission deadline abstracts: 15 May 2018
Notification of acceptance: 2 July 2018
Contact: Cogling8@uclouvain.be

Plenary speakers:
Elma Blom (Universiteit Utrecht): How different experiences modulate the cognitive effects of bilingualism in children
Bert Cappelle (Université de Lille): Come in / Entrez: An invitation to corpus-based research in motion typology
Silva Ladewig (Europa-Universität Viadrina): Integrating Gestures. Cognitive grammar multimodal

Organising committee:
Barbara De Cock (Université catholique de Louvain)
Liesbeth Degand (Université catholique de Louvain)
Gaëtanelle Gilquin (Université catholique de Louvain)
Sara Jonkers (Université catholique de Louvain)
Julien Perrez (Université de Liège)
Kristel Van Goethem (F.R.S.-FNRS & Université catholique de Louvain)

Scientific committee:
Audring Jenny (Universiteit Leiden)
Brems Lot (Université de Liège)
Brône Geert (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)
Colleman Timothy (Universiteit Gent)
Cornillie Bert (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)
Crible Ludivine (Université catholique de Louvain)
De Brabanter Philippe (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
De Knop Sabine (Université Saint-Louis Bruxelles)
De Smet Hendrik (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)
Enghels Renata (Universiteit Gent)
Feyaerts Kurt (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)
Foolen Ad (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen)
Geeraerts Dirk (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)
Gras Pedro (Universiteit Antwerpen)
Koutsoukos Nikolaos (F.R.S.-FNRS & Université catholique de Louvain)
Lauwers Peter (Universiteit Gent)
Lemmens Maarten (Université de Lille 3)
Meunier Fanny (Université catholique de Louvain)
Michaud Maturana Daniel (Zuyd University of Applied Sciences/Université catholique de Louvain)
Petré Peter (Universiteit Antwerpen)
Pizarro Pedraza Andrea (Université catholique de Louvain)
Rasier Laurent (Université de Liège)
Sambre Paul (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)
Sanders Ted (Universiteit Utrecht)
Stukker Ninke (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)
Suñer Muñoz Ferran (Université catholique de Louvain)
Van Krieken Kobie (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen)
Van Leeuwen Maarten (Universiteit Leiden)
Van linden An (Université de Liège)
Vandelanotte Lieven (Université de Namur)
Vanderbauwhede Gudrun (Université de Mons)
Verhagen Arie (Universiteit Leiden)
Verspoor Marjolein (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)