Call for papers

MetViEW5 continues the series of symposia dedicated to the study of metaphor in varieties of English around the world. After the inaugural event in Bremen (2015), followed by Potsdam (2016), Klagenfurt (2018) and Landau (2022), the symposium will return to Bremen for its fifth edition in February 2025. In its still short history, MetViEW has come to be a thriving forum for the community of scholars studying metaphor and other forms of figurative language in and across varieties of English and its contact languages within several disciplines, in particular cognitive linguistics, sociolinguistics, cultural linguistics, anthropological linguistics, and cultural anthropology.

Some recent key publications in the field include

Belkhir, S. (ed.) 2024. Proverbs within Cognitive Linguistics: State of the art. John Benjamins.

Benczes, R. & Szelid, V. (eds.) 2022. Visual Metaphors. John Benjamins.

Callies, M., & Onysko, A. (eds.) 2017. Metaphor variation in Englishes around the world [Special issue]. Cognitive Linguistic Studies 4.

Callies, M. & Degani, M. (eds.) 2021. Metaphor in Language and Culture Across World Englishes. Bloomsbury.

Latic, D., Polzenhagen, F.,Wolf, H.-G., & Peters, A. (eds). 2024. World Englishes and Cultural Linguistics [Special issue]. World Englishes 43(3).

Levisen, C., & Waters, S. 2017. Cultural Keywords in Discourse. John Benjamins.

Levisen, C., & Ye, Z. 2024. The Cultural Pragmatics of Danger. John Benjamins.

Sadeghpour, M. & Sharifian, F. (eds.) 2021. Cultural Linguistics and World Englishes. Springer Nature.

Wolf, H.-G., Polzenhagen, F., & Peters, A. (eds.) 2017. Cultural linguistic contributions to world Englishes [Special issue]. International Journal of Language and Culture 4.


All researchers and scholars working in the emerging field of metaphor studies in varieties of English are welcome to share their research. We especially encourage early-career researchers to participate. We invite abstracts for presentations on the following topics:

  • the conceptual and linguistic representation of cultural knowledge in varieties of English
  • the linguistic expression of cultural conceptualisations
  • the interplay of (near-)universal and culture-specific conceptual metaphors
  • the contextualisation/nativisation of English in the respective settings
  • the conceptual motivation of borrowing from indigenous languages
  • the conceptual motivation and linguistic variability of variety-specific patterns of figurative language, for example in idiomatic phraseology or proverbs
  • methodological approches to the identification and analysis of metaphor.

    The conference fee is 50,- EUR and covers all drinks and snacks during the coffee/tea and lunch breaks.

    Abstracts should be no longer than 500 words (excluding references) and should be sent as e-mail-attachments (in .pdf-format) to arne.peters@uni-bremen.de and callies@uni-bremen.de.


    Submission deadline: 30th of November, 2024
    Notification of acceptance: 15th of December, 2024.