VeranstaltungsortZ.0.01Veranstalter Institut für SoziologieBeschreibungSince the 1960s, with the decline in “shared religion” as theorized by Talcott Parsons, sociological theorists in the tradition of Weber’s interpretative sociology have come to place more emphasis on sharing of language—linguistic community—as an intersubjective foundation for understanding of meaning. However, Weber himself saw linguistic community as constructed; it was an imaginary community demarcated not by language itself but by conscious opposition against outsiders. Hence, Weber felt, language can be a means to domination. Prof. Dr. Mitsuhiro Tada studied sociology at Waseda University, where he obtained a PhD in 2011 with a thesis on the temporal construction of the social world. After a brief stint at Tokyo Metropolitan University, he joined the faculty of Kumamoto University, where he works as associate professor in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. An avid traveler, he is currently a visiting researcher at the Technical University in Berlin.Vortragende(r)Prof. Dr. Mitsuhiro TadaKumamoto University, Japan, und TU BerlinKontaktKaren Meehan (karen.meehan@aau.at)

VeranstaltungsortHS 3Veranstalter Institut für Anglistik und AmerikanistikBeschreibungThe idea that there are enduring metaphors in thought, or conceptual metaphors, has brought a dramatic revolution in the multidisciplinary world of metaphor studies. Cognitive linguistic research, in particular, has been enormously successful in uncovering the vast ways in which conceptual metaphors shape thought, reasoning, metaphorical language use, and many kinds of expressive actions. But “conceptual metaphor theory” has been widely criticized by many over the past 35 years, both from scholars working within and outside of metaphor research. These criticisms have created a long “war over metaphor” that continues to be waged within metaphor and broader scholarly communities. My talk will describe the “metaphor wars” and offer my own assessments of where the conflicts now stand. I will also offer my present views on what is a conceptual metaphor, how conceptual metaphors provide major constraints on human experience, and why conceptual metaphor theory may be one of the most important advances in the history of cognitive science. Vortragende(r)Professor Ray Gibbs (University of California, Santa Cruz)KontaktAlexander Onysko (alexander.onysko@aau.at)