Invitation to Theme Session for:
The 13th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference (ICLC-13)

Dates & Location of ICLC-13: 20-25 July 2015, Northumbria University,
Newcastle, England
For the ICLC-13 general call for papers see (shortened):
http://goo.gl/QCEXuF

We invite proposals from potential speakers to take part in an ICLC-13
(2015) Theme Session described below. NOTE: Potential speakers need to
submit a title and abstract to us, the Theme Session oranizers, by
**September 8th** (any time). Our email addresses are at the end of the
description.

Producing Figurative Language: linguistic, cultural, philosophical,
psychological and computational perspectives

Communication is replete with figurative language, such as metaphor or
metonymy, and people use such language in a variety of contexts and with a
range of effects. There are important open questions as to why and how
speakers come to speak figuratively in any given instance and what governs
their particular choices of conceptual metaphors, figurative phraseology,
etc, and indeed how (un)conscious or (un)deliberate such choices can be.
Implicit in these questions are issues about the explanatory, obfuscatory,
affective and social functions of figurative language.

For a phenomena as central to our lives as figurative language, how it
is produced should be a priority within the cognitive sciences, one
would think. Indeed, work on the production of figurative language has
been carried out in areas as diverse as developmental studies (Winner
1997), psycholinguistics (Chiappe & Kennedy 2001), language learning
(Deignan et al. 1997, Littlemore 2009), neurolinguistics (Benedek et
al. 2014), communication and performance studies (Gibbs & Cameron 2008),
natural language generation (e.g. Martin 1988, Su & Zhou 2005, Veale &
Hao 2007, Gargett & Barnden 2014).  Yet, much less research has been
devoted to the production of such language compared to research on how
it is understood.

As the above list suggests fertile ground has recently been planted that
could be further developed. Accordingly the theme session aims at
developing accounts of the production of figurative language, from
linguistic, cultural, psychological, philosophical and computational
perspectives. Some example topics, by no means exhaustive, are:

1. Commonalities and differences between production of figurative
vs. non-figurative expression, and between different forms of
figurative expression (notably metaphor, metonymy, irony, hyperbole).

2. How the production of figurative expression reflects speakers'
conceptualisations, goals and commitments.

3. Linking figurative production to social and cultural behaviour.
For instance, how is figurative language produced across languages
and/or cultures? How does this link to translation studies,
including the area of machine translation?

4. Empirical results about figurative production, including from corpus
work, educational research and psycholinguistic work.

5. The role of figurative language in communicating about particular
domains of societal importance such as illness and political
conflict.

6. Emotional/evaluative content of figurative expression.

7. The role of figurative expression in coping with difficulties in
everyday communication, where such difficulties may stem from
illness, unfamiliarity with a new situation, language learning, etc.

8. How intelligent technology that is able to handle figurative language
might help improve social interactions for disadvantaged members of
society (e.g., the elderly, the mentally ill).

9. In all the above, special features of non-linguistic and multi-modal
forms of expression, including work on visual media, gesture, sign
languages, and film.


* Abstract submission to the THEME ORGANIZERS: by 8th September 2014.
(200-300 words; references not required, but if included are not counted in those words)

IMPORTANT NOTE: Our accepting your submission as appropriate for the
theme session, and having room for it, merely means that your name and
talk title will be part of our proposal of the theme session to the
ICLC-13 overall organizers. It does not constitute acceptance into the
conference.  You still need to submit an abstract to the ICLC-13 overall
organizers by the deadline below.

A maximum of twelve talks can be included in the theme session.

Important Dates for ICLC-13

* Deadline for abstract submission (general and theme session):
3 November 2014
* Notification of acceptance: 15 January 2015

For the ICLC-13 general call for papers see (shortened):
http://goo.gl/QCEXuF

Theme Session Organizers
* John Barnden, J.A.Barnden@cs.bham.ac.uk
* Andrew Gargett, A.D.Gargett@cs.bham.ac.uk