The goal of the RaAM Research Grant project is to promote research on all types of figurative language carried out by RaAM members. A total of £4000 funds were available. Applicants could apply for up to £2000 for a project.
We received a total of 20 submissions that were evaluated based on criteria such as originality in terms of focus on areas that are not yet well represented in figurative language research (i.e., certain languages, certain topics), the theoretical contribution of the proposed project, the feasibility of the proposed project, and the envisioned impact of the research findings outside of academia.
Given our funding, the ranking of the proposals and the budget requested by the applicants, we are able to fund 3 promising projects. The grant scheme was quite competitive, with an acceptance rate of only 15%. Please find the funded projects below. A short abstract for each research project will be published in the upcoming RaAM Newsletter.
dr. Raphael Francis Otieno
Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology, Kenya
Title project: “Metaphor in Peace and Unity Building: Myth or Reality”
dr. Misuzu Shimotori
University of Bergen, Norway
Title project: “Exploring the Irony Marked by Orthographic Deviances in Japanese Crime Novels”
dr. Paola Vernillo & dr. Gloria Gagliardi
University of Florence, Italy / University of Bologna, Italy
Title project: “How About Metaphors for Dinner? A Digest of Metaphorical Conceptualizations in Pro-Ana Communities”