Hosting the 2012 conference

The first RaAM conference was held at the University of York, UK in 1996, organised by Lynne Cameron (University of Leeds) and Graham Low (University of York). This was a fairly small conference, supported by the British Association for Applied Linguistics and Cambridge University Press, which gathered a number of researchers who shared an interest in metaphor and other aspects of figurative language as it affects humans, and consequently a commitment to studying real language data, including the ‘noise’ so often neglected in the work of metaphor scholars of a more theoretical bent. Among those who spoke at this first conference was Ray Gibbs (University of California at Santa Cruz), whose work since the early 1980’s informs RaAM’s commitment to applied metaphor research. He has given keynote lectures at this and all subsequent conferences.

RaAM conferences have been held in Copenhagen, Denmark (organised by Anders Engström in 1997), Tilburg in the Netherlands (organised by Gerard Steen in 1999), Manouba in Tunisia (organised by Zouhair Maalej in 2001) and Paris, France (organised by Marie-Dominique Gineste in 2003), and all have featured three or four keynote lectures by leading metaphor scholars. In 2006, RaAM returned to the UK (Leeds) with the sixth conference organised again by Graham Low and Lynne Cameron, together with Alice Deignan and Zazie Todd.  The last conference  was held from 29-31 May 2008 at the University of Extremadura (Cáceres, Spain). The theme of this meeting was ‘Metaphor in Cross-Cultural Communication’.

The themes of the RaAM conferences have all reflected the commitment of its organisers to  the application of metaphor research to ‘real world’ issues, but it was not until RaAM 6 (whose theme was ‘Metaphor in the Real World’) that the RaAM organisation was created. One of the aims of this organisation is to ensure that future RaAM conferences maintain not only the spirit of previous events but also their quality.

To this end, the RaAM Executive Committee invites proposals to host the conference to be held in 2012. In order for the Committee to be able to judge the suitability of the proposals, local organisers are asked to read the guidelines for prospective hosts, complete the updated version of the questionnaire and return it as an e-mail attachment to Fiona MacArthur (fionamac@unex.es) by 15th April 2010. The Executive Committee of the RaAM organisation, and more especially the Conference Secretary,  will be pleased to answer any questions you have relating to this event, and to provide the support and guidance needed by local organisers hoping to host the conference.

1. •Download the questionnaire. (.doc, 92 KB) (updated version, June 22, 2009)
   

2. •Download the general guidelines for prospective hosts of conferences or specialist seminars (.doc, 32 KB) (June 22, 2009)