China Cognitive Linguistics Association

China Cognitive Linguistics Association (CCLA) was officially founded on May 13th, 2006, on the occasion of the 4th China National Conference in Cognitive Linguistics, held at Nanjing Normal University. Its constitution was ratified on that date, as was its governing board consisting of 25 members. Currently, the Association has 600 members.

The central objectives of CCLA are to promote the development of Cognitive Linguistics in China by pursuing theoretical and interdisciplinary studies as well as applying and popularizing the central findings in Cognitive Linguistics, to give impetus to the growth of scholars in this field, and to foster exchanges with other Cognitive Linguistics Associations in the world, under the auspices of the ICLA.

To this end, the Association will keep the practice of biennial China-based conferences in Cognitive Linguistics, but will invite more foreign participants to enhance the diversity in views and perspectives. The Association will publicize the publication of new treatises, dissertations, research papers, corpus resources in cognitive linguistics, and foster contact and cooperation between its members for the organization of forums, summer schools, and other relevant events. An electronic newsletter is circulated among its members twice per year.

CCLA fully embraces the epistemological stance and multidisciplinary concerns outlined on the ICLA web. It gathers representatives differing in their areas of expertise, ranging across metaphor theory, blending theory, cognitive semantics/pragmatics, construction grammar, categorization, neuro-cognitive linguistics, neuro-cognitive study of idioms, anaphora, Chinese cognitive grammar, grammaticalization in Chinese, animacy, critical discourse analysis, metonymy, spatial and temporal cognition, syntax-semantics interface, language acquisition (including second language acquistion), literary stylistics, and translation studies.

China International Forum on Cognitive Linguistics

China International Forum on Cognitive Linguistics (CIFCL) is an annual international event (conference) taking place in Beijing. The first CIFCL was held in 2004 with George Lakoff as the forum speaker. A key feature of CIFCL is the lecture series by the forum speaker(s). Each invited forum speaker gives a series of 10 detailed lectures on his or her research program, which approximates a graduate course in teaching load. Parallel sessions are also arranged for the participants and other invited speakers. Participants can register for the forum with or without presenting a paper.

Papers accepted for CIFCL enjoy the priority to be published by the journal of International Journal of Cognitive Linguistics (IJCL) published by Nova Science Publisher in New York . The forum lectures are video-taped and later transcribed into texts and made into DVD, to be published by the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, Beijing. The CIFCL usually lasts for 8 days, including the day of arrival and the day of departure.

Another important feature of CIFCL is that each speaker’s 10 lectures are arranged at 6 different prestigious universities in Beijing. The main sessions and parallel presentations take place in Beihang University, while the rest are held in Peking University, Tsinghua University, Beijing Normal University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing Language and Culture University, and Beijing Forestry University, all of which are located in the vicinity of one another. This arrangement provides the participants an opportunity to tour these university campuses while at the same time it makes it easier for faculty and students in these universities to attend the lectures.