Curriculum Vitae
download my CV (current as of May 2024)
Education +
2016
PhD in Linguistics
University of California, Berkeley
Dissertation title: The interaction of syntax and metaphor in gesture: A corpus-experimental approach [download pdf]
Committee: Eve Sweetser (chair), Terry Regier, Mahesh Srinivasan (Psychology)
2011
MA in Linguistics
University of California, Berkeley
2009
BA in Language, Cognition, and Computation (Independent) and in Anthropology; correlate in Computer Science
Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, NY)
Publications +
Note: * indicates a student co-author.
Journal articles
Stickles, Elise; and Ellen Dodge. Under review. Corpus-based computational frame and construction review analysis of motion metaphors. In M. Petruck and N. Schneider (Eds.), Frames and Constructions in NLP. Special issue of Language Resources and Evaluation.
Johnstone, Caitlin*; and Elise Stickles. (2024). Navigating the climate change minefield: The influence of metaphor on climate doomism. Frontiers in Communication 9, e1380092. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2024.1380092
Stickles, Elise; and Tasha N. Lewis. (2017). Wednesday’s meeting really is on Friday: A meta-analysis and evaluation of ambiguous spatiotemporal language. Cognitive Science 42(3), 1015-1025. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12559
Lewis, Tasha N., and Elise Stickles. (2017). Gestural modality and addressee perspective influence how we reason about time. Cognitive Linguistics 28(1), 45-76. https://doi.org/10.1515/cog-2015-0137
Stickles, Elise; Dodge, Ellen; David, Oana; and Jisup Hong. (2016). Formalizing contemporary conceptual metaphor theory: A structured repository for metaphor analysis. Constructions and Frames 8(2), 166-213. https://doi.org/10.1075/cf.8.2.03sti
David, Oana; Lakoff, George; and Elise Stickles. Cascades in metaphor and grammar: A case study of metaphors in the gun debate. Constructions and Frames 8(2), 214-253. https://doi.org/10.1075/cf.8.2.04dav
Book chapters
Lewis, Tasha N.; Kirkhart, Matthew; and Elise Stickles. (2004). Patterned iconicity for second language acquisition: Differential effects of gesture type on lexical category. In Brown, A. & Eskildsen, S. W. (Eds), Multimodality across epistemologies in second language research. Routledge. View chapter
Sweetser, Eve; David, Oana; and Elise Stickles. (2019). MetaNet: Automated metaphor identification across languages and domains. In M. Bolognesi, M. Brdar, & K. S. Despot (Eds.), Metaphor and Metonymy in the Digital Age: Theory and methods for building repositories of figurative language. John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/milcc.8.02swe
Stickles, Elise, Dodge, Ellen, David, Oana, and Jisup Hong. (2018). Formalizing contemporary
conceptual metaphor theory: A structured repository for metaphor analysis. In M. R. L.
Petruck (Ed.), MetaNet (pp. 37-83). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.100.03sti
David, Oana, Lakoff, George, and Elise Stickles. (2018). Cascades in metaphor and grammar: A
case study of metaphors in the gun debate. In M. R. L. Petruck (Ed.), MetaNet (pp. 85-
126). https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.100.04dav
Conference proceedings
Kastner, I., Kotek, H., Dockum, R., Dow, M., Esipova, M., Green, C., Snider, T., & Stickles, E. (2022). The open letter: Responses and recommendations. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Linguistics Society of America 7(1). 5257. https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v7i1.5257
Dodge, Ellen; Trott, Sean; Gilardi, Luca; and Elise Stickles. (2017). Grammar scaling: Leveraging FrameNet data to increase Embodied Construction Grammar coverage. The AAAI 2017 Spring Symposium on Computational Construction Grammar and Natural Language Understanding Technical Report SS-17-02. 154-162. AAAI
Stickles, Elise; David, Oana; and Eve Sweetser. (2016). Grammatical constructions, frame structure, and metonymy: Their contributions to metaphor computation. Proceedings of the 11th Meeting of the High Desert Linguistics Society (HDLS) 2015. 317-345.
Dodge, Ellen; Hong, Jisup; and Elise Stickles. (2015). MetaNet: Deep semantic automatic metaphor analysis. In E. Shutova, B. B. Klebanov, & P. Lichtenstein (eds.), Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Metaphor in NLP (pp. 40-49). NAACL HLT 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.3115/v1/W15-1405
Stickles, Elise. (2013). Focus Constructions in ASL: Evidence from Pseudoclefting and Doubling. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 19(1), 207-216. [UPenn]
Doorly, N; Irving, K; McArthur, G; Combie, K; Engel, V; Sakhtah, H; Stickles, E; Rosenblum, H; Gutierrez, A; Root, R; Liew, C-W; and JH Long, Jr. (2009). Biomimetic Evolutionary Analysis: Robotically-simulated Vertebrates in a Predator-Prey Ecology. Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE Symposium on Artificial Life, 147-154. https://doi.org/10.1109/ALIFE.2009.4937706
Edited volumes
Cathcart, Chundra; Chen, I-Hsuan; Finley, Greg; Kang, Shinae; Sandy, Clare S.; and Elise Stickles, Eds. (2013). Proceedings of the 37th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (BLS). [access journal]
Presentations +
Note: * indicates a student co-author.
2024
Abou Mikhael, Kamal*; and Elise Stickles. (2024). Canadian English metaphoric constructions in DCHP. Poster to be presented at the Inaugural Meeting of the Cognitive Linguistics Association of North America, Montréal, Quebec.
Grogan, Kimberly*; and Elise Stickles. (2024). ‘Climate cults’ and ‘climate sin’: Religious metaphors and the framing of climate change in American and Canadian newspapers. Paper to be presented at the Inaugural Meeting of the Cognitive Linguistics Association of North America, Montréal, Quebec.
2023
Grogan, Kimberly*; and Elise Stickles. (2023, August 9). Climate change: a constructional approach. Paper presented at the 16th Meeting of the International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Düsseldorf, Germany.
Moar, Sarah*; and Elise Stickles. (2023, August 8). ‘it semed to be sumthing’: Constructing Salem’s Witnesses’ Seem-Construct-i-con. Paper presented at the 16th Meeting of the International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Düsseldorf, Germany.
Moar, Sarah*; Bonnefille, Stéphanie; Sweetser, Eve; and Elise Stickles. (2023, August 10). Building the French-language MetaNet Wiki: A collaborative online resource for metaphor and image schema analysis en français. Paper presented at the 16th Meeting of the International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Düsseldorf, Germany.
Johnstone, Caitlin*; Browning, Celeste*; and Elise Stickles. (2023, June 28). Diffusing the time bomb – Differential impacts of metaphor on climate doomism. Paper presented at Researching and Applying Metaphor 16, Alcalá de Henares, Spain.
Stickles, Elise; Arrieta-Zamudio, Ana*; Lozano, Inés; Olavarría, Yorka*; and Rodolfo Ortiz. (2023, June 30). ¿El virus del dragón o un pequeño covicho?: Variation and change in COVID-19 metaphors across varieties of Spanish”. Paper presented at Researching and Applying Metaphor 16, Alcalá de Henares, Spain.
2022
Stickles, Elise; Laparle, Schuyler; Browning, Celeste*; Du, Vivian*; Jones, Kelly*; Lahouli; Med Amine; Lozano, Inés; and Eve Sweetser. (2022, September 21). Challenges for multilingual metaphor corpora: Methods and guiding principles. Paper presented at Researching and Applying Metaphor 15. Bialystok, Poland.
Laparle, Schuyler; Stickles, Elise; Sweetser, Eve; and Bryce Wallace*. (2022, September 21). Moral framing and pandemic metaphors. Paper presented at Researching and Applying Metaphor 15. Bialystok, Poland.
Browning, Celeste*; and Elise Stickles. (2022, September 21). Microvariation in inner circle Englishes: COVID-19 metaphors in Canadian and American English. Paper presented at Researching and Applying Metaphor 15. Bialystok, Poland.
Kastner, I., Kotek, H., Dockum, R., Dow, M., Esipova, M., Green, C., Snider, T., & Stickles, E. (2022). The open letter: Responses and recommendations. Paper presented at the 96th Annual Meeting of the Linguistics Society of America, Washington, DC. January 7, 2022.
2021
Krause, C., Farsani, D., Stickles, E., & Sweetser, E. (2021). Mode-switching while code-switching: An exploration of bilinguals’ use of gestures when using two languages. Paper presented at the 6th International Conference of Asia-Pacific LSP & Professional Communication Association (LSPPC6), City University of Hong Kong. June 5, 2021.
2019
Stickles, Elise, Lewis, Tasha, and Matthew Kirkhart. The effects of spatial manipulation and mental imagery skills on gesture production. Paper presented at the 15th meeting of the International Cognitive Linguistics Conference (ICLC 15), Nishinomya, Japan. August 9, 2019.
2018
Stickles, Elise, and Ellen Dodge. Mapping it all out: Delineating the role of metaphors and frames in a constructional approach. Paper presented at Constructional semantics: Cognitive, functional and typological approaches, Helsinki, Finland. August 25, 2018.
Dodge, Ellen, Luca, Gilardi, and Elise Stickles. Re-thinking frames from a constructional perspective. Paper presented at Constructional semantics: Cognitive, functional and typological approaches, Helsinki, Finland. August 25, 2018.
2017
Dodge, Ellen, and Elise Stickles. Analyzing metaphoric source-domain language in corpora: A MetaNet approach. Paper presented at the 14th meeting of the International Cognitive Linguistics Conference (ICLC 14), Tartu, Estonia. July 13, 2017.
Stickles, Elise. An experimental approach to multimodal metaphoric utterances. Paper presented at the 14th meeting of the International Cognitive Linguistics Conference (ICLC 14), Tartu, Estonia. July 13, 2017.
Dodge, Ellen, Trott, Sean, Gilardi, Luca, and Elise Stickles. Grammar scaling: Leveraging FrameNet data to increase Embodied Construction Grammar coverage. Paper presented at the AAAI Spring Symposium on Construction Grammar and Natural Language Understanding, Stanford, California. March 27, 2017.
2016
Stickles, Elise and Ellen Dodge. A computationally-aided frame and construction-based analysis of motion metaphors in corpora. Paper presented at the 9th meeting of the International Conference on Construction Grammar, Juiz de Fora, Brazil. October 6, 2016.
Stickles, Elise. A multimodal Embodied Construction Grammar approach to image schematic structure in metaphoric gesture. Paper presented at at the 7th meeting of the International Society for Gesture Studies (ISGS 7), Paris, France. July 22, 2016.
Stickles, Elise, and Ellen Dodge. Literal vs. figurative language use affects the frequency of syntactic patterns. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Washington, D.C. January 7, 2016.
2015
Stickles, Elise, and Tasha N Lewis. The effects of stimulus modality on interpretation of ambiguous temporal metaphors. Paper presented at the 13th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference (ICLC 13), Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. July 22, 2015.
David, Oana, Dodge, Ellen, Stickles, Elise, and Jisup Hong. Metonymy, metaphors and constructions in a corpus-based Embodied Construction Grammar framework. Paper presented at the 13th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference (ICLC 13), Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. July 24, 2015.
Dodge, Ellen, Hong, Jisup, and Elise Stickles. MetaNet: Deep semantic automatic metaphor analysis. Paper presented at the 3rd Workshop on Metaphor in NLP, NAACL HLT 2015. Denver, CO. June 5, 2015.
2014
Stickles, Elise, David, Oana, and Eve Sweetser. Frame role type constraints and frame metonymy in metaphoric interpretation. Poster presented at the 11th meeting of the High Desert Linguistics Society (HDLS 11), Albuquerque, NM. November 14, 2014.
Stickles, Elise Dodge, Ellen and Jisup Hong. A construction-driven, MetaNet-based approach to metaphor extraction and corpus analysis. Paper presented at the 12th meeting of Conceptual Structure, Discourse, and Language (CSDL 12), Santa Barbara, CA. November 7, 2014.
Dodge, Ellen, David, Oana, Stickles, Elise, and Eve Sweetser. Constructions and Metaphor: Integrating MetaNet and Embodied Construction Grammar. Paper presented at the 8th International Conference on Construction Grammar (ICCG 8), Osnabrück, Germany. September 4, 2014.
David, Oana, Dodge, Ellen, Hong, Jisup, Stickles, Elise, and Eve Sweetser. Building the MetaNet metaphor repository: The natural symbiosis of metaphor analysis and construction grammar. Paper presented at the 8th International Conference on Construction Grammar (ICCG 8), Osnabrück, Germany. September 4, 2014.
The relation of color naming and the environment. Poster presented at the 36th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Quebec City, Canada. July 26, 2014.
Lewis, Tasha N., and Elise Stickles. Does physical co-presence mediate the effects of gesture on spatiotemporal metaphor?: Gestural priming in virtual discourse space. Paper presented at the 6th meeting of the International Society for Gesture Studies (ISGS 6), San Diego, CA. July 11, 2014.
Semantic change in the visual-spatial modality: Evidence from cross-linguistic body-part naming. Paper presented at the 6th meeting of the International Society for Gesture Studies (ISGS 6), San Diego, CA. July 8, 2014.
2013
Dodge, Ellen, Hong, Jisup, Stickles, Elise, and Oana David. The MetaNet Wiki: A collaborative online resource for metaphor and image schema analysis. Paper presented at the 12th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference (ICLC 12), Edmonton, AB. June 26, 2013.
Stickles, Elise, and Tasha N. Lewis. Can viewpoint and gesture prime spatiotemporal metaphor use?: The function of gestural metaphoric iconicity in resolving linguistic ambiguity. Paper presented at the 12th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference (ICLC 12), Edmonton, AB. June 25, 2013.
Hong, Jisup, Stickles, Elise, and Ellen Dodge. The MetaNet metaphor repository: Formalized representation and analysis of conceptual metaphor networks. Paper presented at the 12th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference (ICLC 12), Edmonton, AB. June 24, 2013.
2012
Focus Constructions in ASL: Evidence from Pseudoclefting and Doubling. Paper presented at the 36th Penn Linguistics Colloquium, University of Pennsylvania. March 24, 2012.
2010
Metaphors in the Modals: ASL Modals and Mental Spaces. Paper presented at the 4th meeting of the International Society for Gesture Studies (ISGS 4), Frankfurt (Oder), Germany. July 26, 2010.
Invited and Non-refereed Presentations +
2024
Stickles, Elise. Implementing a multilingual MetaNet:Challenges and lessons learned when designing a metaphor database. Invited talk, California State Northridge University Linguistics Department. March 12, 2024.
2023
Stickles, Elise. The climate emergency: What can linguists bring to the table? Part of a panel roundtable titled Ecologies, an event in the Critical Conversations series. UBC Department of English Language and Literatures, Vancouver, BC. 2023, February 1.
2022
Stickles, Elise. The role of metaphor in conceptualizing issues, big and small. Part of a panel presentation titled Finding our way: How movement shapes cognition, the third event in the series Moving On: New Research on Migration, Borders, and Health. Green College Leading Scholars Series. Green College, Vancouver, BC. 2022, November 6.
2021
Stickles, Elise. Metaphor is not just the cherry on top of the literary sundae. Green College Leading Scholars Series: Academic appetizer happy hour with Green College Leading Scholars. Green College, Vancouver, BC. 2021, February 17.
Stickles, Elise. An epidemic of poverty, a tsunami of cases, and an onslaught of disease: The metaphoric construal of social Issues as physical harm. Plenary speaker, UBC Language Sciences Undergraduate Research Conference. February 13, 2021.
2020
Stickles, Elise. Usage-based approaches to metaphor analysis and construction grammar. Invited talk, UBC Linguistics Colloquium. October 2, 2020.
2018
Stickles, Elise, Lewis, Tasha N., and Matthew W. Kirkhart. The effects of mental imagery and spatial reasoning skills on gesture production. The UC Berkeley Gesture and Multimodality Group. April 6, 2018.
2017
An experimental approach to metaphoric gesture. Presentation and Workshop at the UC Berkeley Gesture and Multimodality Group. March 10, 2017.
2016
Dodge, Ellen, Stickles, Elise, and Oana David. Computationally-aided deep analysis of cancer metaphors in web-based text. Talk presented at Workshop on Metaphor in Cancer Discourse, UC Berkeley. April 30, 2016.
A corpus approach to grammar and metaphoric gesture. Presentation and Workshop at the UC Berkeley Gesture and Multimodality Group. April 1, 2016.
2015
Image schemas in metaphoric path and manner gestures. Presentation and Workshop at the UC Berkeley Gesture and Multimodality Group. November 13, 2015.
2013
Stickles, Elise, and Tasha N. Lewis. Metaphoric gesture primes spatiotemporal metaphor use. Paper presented at the Stanford-Berkeley Talks, Stanford, CA. June 7, 2013.
2012
Defining Co-Presence: The Source for Higher Gesture Rate in Face-to-Face Communication? (EMCL 2012 Report). Presentation and Workshop at the UC Berkeley Gesture Group. September 28, 2012.
2010
Modality in American Sign Language. Presentation and Workshop at the UC Berkeley Gesture Group. May 7, 2010.
Wh-Movement in ASL: Visual Feature Checking. Paper presented at UC Berkeley Syntax and Semantics Circle. March 19, 2010.
Teaching and Student Supervision +
Courses taught at UBC
English 111: Approaches to Non-fictional Prose – What We Talk about When We Talk about Language
English 112: Strategies for University Writing
English 229: Topics in the Study of Language and/or Rhetoric – Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics
English 321: English Grammar and Usage
English 328: Metaphor, Language, and Thought
English 330: The Structure of Modern English: Sounds and Words
English 508A: Linguistic Studies of Contemporary English – Construction Grammar: Creativity, Multimodality, Metaphor
Language Sciences (APSC 402, ASTU 402, FRST 402, LFS 402, LLED 402, and PHAR 402): Living Language: Science and Society
Student supervision
PhD students
Kamal Abou Mikhael (current)
PhD committee
Kelsey Wilson (current)
Kim Grogan (current)
Veronika Larsen (current)
Schuyler Laparle (UC Berkeley, 2019): The shape of discourse: How gesture structures conversation
MA students
Caitlin Johnstone (2022): The differential impacts of metaphor on climate doomism
MA thesis reader
Kelsey Wilson (2020): Finding comedy in errors : evaluating intentional ambiguity in children’s puns
Undergraduate honours thesis reader
Chloe Dack (2023): Orientational and temporal metaphor in American presidential slogans
Ethan Barnes (2020): The polarized viewpoint phenomenon: How metaphorical models inhibit cognitive coordination in polarized discourse
Joan Koh (2020): The construction of narratives through proper names in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings
Grants Awarded +
External
2023 £2000 (~$3,321 CAD)
Researching and Applying Metaphor Building Bridges Fund: Climate hope: countering doomism and eco-anxiety
2022 $247,521 CAD
SSHRC Insight Grant, Waging metaphorical war: Cross-linguistic analysis of metaphors for cancer, COVID-19, and climate change
Internal
2023 $8,000 CAD
UBC Language Sciences Member Funding Award, Communicating hope: Countering eco-anxiety and climate doomism in research and practice
2023 $3,000 CAD
UBC Arts Undergraduate Research Award, La lutte métaphorique contre le cancer au Canada et en France: Dialectical variation in French metaphors for cancer
2022 $10,000 CAD
Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies Catalyst Collaboration Fund, Differential impacts of metaphor on climate doomism and eco-anxiety in English and French
2022 $3,521 CAD
UBC SSHRC Explore Faculty of Arts Graduate Research Assistant (RA) Support Grant, Documenting metaphors for COVID-19 in the Canadian bilingual context
2021 $2,500 CAD
UBC/SSHRC GRF Bridge Funding, Viral discourse: evaluating the impact of metaphoric language in the COVID-19 pandemic
2020 $4,835 CAD
UBC Hampton Fund New Faculty Research Grant, Transition and Expansion of the MetaNet Metaphor Identification and Analysis System
Professional Activities & Service +
Department and University committees
English Dept Undergraduate Committee member, 2024
English Dept Graduate Committee member; MA sub-committee member; and curriculum sub-committee member, 2021-2023
UBC Green College Leading Scholars Program, 2021-2023
English Dept Hiring Committee member (History of the English Language), 2021-2022
English Dept Online Teaching Working Group, committee member, May 2020-2021
Publication peer review
Signed Language and Gesture Research in Cognitive Linguistics, published by de Gruyter Mouton, 2021
Language Resources and Evaluation, 2019
Cognitive Linguistics, 2017-2018
Cognitive Science, 2017
Gesture, 2016
Conference committees
Student scholarship adjudication committee, International Cognitive Linguistics Conference 16. Conference held at Düsseldorf, Germany, August 7-11, 2023.
Scientific committee (abstract reviewer), International Cognitive Linguistics Conference 16. Conference held at Düsseldorf, Germany, August 7-11, 2023.
Scientific committee (abstract reviewer), Political Discourse: New Approaches to New Challenges? Conference held at the University of Lorraine (Nancy), March 7-8, 2022.
Academic society membership
- Canadian Linguistic Association
- International Society for Gesture Studies
- International Cognitive Linguistics Association
- Researching and Applying Metaphor
UC Berkeley & Stanford University
2017-2019
Pre-Major Advisor
Stanford University
2015-2016
Social Sciences Matrix Seminar Metaphor: Across Datasets and Methodologies
UC Berkeley
2013-2016
Mentor, UC Berkeley Linguistics Research Apprenticeship Program
Mentor/research advisor to undergraduate research assistants/undergraduate research projects
Founding Co-Organizer, UC Berkeley Linguistics CogNetwork
2011-2015
Scientific committee (abstract reviewer), Berkeley Linguistics Society 38, 39, 40, 41, 42. Conferences held at UC Berkeley.
2010-2011
Executive Committee, Berkeley Linguistics Society
Prior Teaching & Work Experience +
Stanford University
2016-2019
Postdoctoral Fellow, Thinking Matters Program
Team-teaching of interdisciplinary first year undergraduate critical thinking seminars
Courses taught:
- Breaking Codes, Finding Patterns
- Food Talks: The Language of Food
- Why So Few? Gender and Diversity in Leadership
- 100,000 Years of War
- Worlds of Sound: Learning to Listen
Summer 2018, 2019
Instructor, Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies Institute
UC Berkeley
2012-2015
Graduate Student Researcher, MetaNet project
2010-2015
Graduate Student Instructor
Courses taught:
- Introduction to Cognitive Science
- Gesture, Cognition, and Culture
- Endangered Languages: What We Lose when a Language Dies
- Training for New Linguistics Teaching Assistants
- Language and Linguistics
- Introduction to Linguistic Science
- The Mind and Language
- Metaphor
2010
Graduate Student Researcher, Up! Project (longitudinal psycholinguistics corpus development)
Summer Schools & Additional Education +
2012
Empirical Methods in Cognitive Linguistics 6
Hosted by Case Western University, Cleveland, OH
2009-2012
Coursework in American Sign Language and Deaf Culture Studies
Berkeley City College
2009
Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute
Hosted by UC Berkeley