Starting from the overwhelming view that time is metaphorically conceptualized in terms of space, this study will, on the one hand, take the time interval words into minute analysis to confirm our view of event conceptualization of time at a more basic level along with space–time metaphoric conceptualization of time at a relational level. In alignment with the epistemology of the time–space conflation of the Chinese ancestors, our view is supported by the systematic examination of evidence related to the cultural (...) origins of the conceptualization of time, through a scrutiny of the original meanings and construction of words related to intervals of time in Mandarin Chinese. This study offers a new explanation of how: the conceptualization of time in Chinese is realized through metonymic cognition and words related to specific intervals of time are coined based on the metonymic conceptualization of related events or a corresponding event schema. Five major types of event-based metonymies are identified, and their interactive functions are illustrated. Based on this evidence, we argue that the double nature of both metaphoric and metonymic time conceptualization in Mandarin Chinese lies in the fact that time interval words can be used in its time categorial sense or as a time entity which suggests the etymological origins of Chinese as ideograph. It is concluded therefore that the event-based metonymy conceptualization of time can provide better insights into the characteristics of Chinese modes of thinking and its influences on the perception of and interaction with the world. This study can also serve as good evidence for the shaping effect of language on cognition. (shrink)

This study investigates whether there is a relation between the semantics of linguistic expressions that indicate temporal distance and the spatial properties of their co-speech gestures. To this date, research on time gestures has focused on features such as gesture axis, direction, and shape. Here we focus on a gesture property that has been overlooked so far: the distance of the gesture in relation to the body. To achieve this, we investigate two types of temporal linguistic expressions are addressed: proximal (...) (e.g., near future, near past) and distal (e.g., distant past, distant future). Data was obtained through the NewsScape library, a multimodal corpus of television news. A total of 121 co-speech gestures were collected and divided into the two categories. The gestures were later annotated in terms of gesture space and classified in three categories: (i) center, (ii) periphery, and (iii) extreme periphery. Our results suggest that gesture and language are coherent in the expression of temporal distance: when speakers locate an event far from them, they tend to gesture further from their body; similarly, when locating an event close to them, they gesture closer to their body. These results thus reveal how co-speech gestures also reflect a space-time mapping in the dimension of distance. (shrink)

According to the Temporal Focus Hypothesis, people’s sagittal mental space-time mappings are conditioned by their temporal-focus attention. Based on this, it can be predicted that, by virtue of their future-oriented thinking, individuals with high anxiety should be more likely to think about time according to the future-in-front mapping than those with low anxiety. Utilizing a combined correlational and experimental approach, we found converging evidence for this prediction. Studies 1 and 2 found that individuals higher in dispositional anxiety and state anxiety, (...) who characteristically worry about the future, were more likely to conceptualize the future as in front of them and the past as behind than individuals lower in dispositional anxiety and state anxiety. Study 3 showed that participants who were induced with anxiety mood tended to map the future on a frontal position, compared to those in the baseline condition. These findings shed further light on the Temporal Focus Hypothesis, thus providing the first experimental evidence that emotional experience can influence people’s temporal-focus attention in determining their metaphorical sagittal orientation of time. (shrink)

Journal Name: Cognitive Linguistics Issue: Ahead of print.

The temporal‐focus hypothesis claims that whether people conceptualize the past or the future as in front of them depends on their cultural attitudes toward time; such conceptualizations can be independent from the space–time metaphors expressed through language. In this paper, we study how Chinese people conceptualize time on the sagittal axis to find out the respective influences of language and culture on mental space–time mappings. An examination of Mandarin speakers' co‐speech gestures shows that some Chinese spontaneously perform past‐in‐front/future‐at‐back (besides future‐in‐front/past‐at‐back) (...) gestures, especially when gestures are accompanying past‐in‐front/future‐at‐back space–time metaphors (Exp. 1). Using a temporal performance task, the study confirms that Chinese can conceptualize the future as behind and the past as in front of them, and that such space–time mappings are affected by the different expressions of Mandarin space–time metaphors (Exp. 2). Additionally, a survey on cultural attitudes toward time shows that Chinese tend to focus slightly more on the future than on the past (Exp. 3). Within the Chinese sample, we did not find evidence for the effect of participants' cultural temporal attitudes on space–time mappings, but a cross‐cultural comparison of space–time mappings between Chinese, Moroccans, and Spaniards provides strong support for the temporal‐focus hypothesis. Furthermore, the results of Exp. 2 are replicated even after controlling for factors such as cultural temporal attitudes and age (Exp. 3), which implies that linguistic sagittal temporal metaphors can indeed influence Mandarin speakers' space–time mappings. The findings not only contribute to a better understanding of Chinese people's sagittal temporal orientation, but also have additional implications for theories on the mental space–time mappings and the relationship between language and thought. (shrink)

Human languages typically employ a variety of spatial metaphors for time (e.g., “I'm looking forward to the weekend”). The metaphorical grounding of time in space is also evident in gesture. The gestures that are performed when talking about time bolster the view that people sometimes think about regions of time as if they were locations in space. However, almost nothing is known about the development of metaphorical gestures for time, despite keen interest in the origins of space–time metaphors. In this (...) study, we examined the gestures that English‐speaking 6‐to‐7‐year‐olds, 9‐to‐11‐year‐olds, 13‐to‐15‐year‐olds, and adults produced when talking about time. Participants were asked to explain the difference between pairs of temporal adverbs (e.g., “tomorrow” versus “yesterday”) and to use their hands while doing so. There was a gradual increase across age groups in the propensity to produce spatial metaphorical gestures when talking about time. However, even a substantial majority of 6‐to‐7‐year‐old children produced a spatial gesture on at least one occasion. Overall, participants produced fewer gestures in the sagittal (front‐back) axis than in the lateral (left‐right) axis, and this was particularly true for the youngest children and adolescents. Gestures that were incongruent with the prevailing norms of space–time mappings among English speakers (leftward and backward for past; rightward and forward for future) gradually decreased with increasing age. This was true for both the lateral and sagittal axis. This study highlights the importance of metaphoricity in children's understanding of time. It also suggests that, by 6 to 7 years of age, culturally determined representations of time have a strong influence on children's spatial metaphorical gestures. (shrink)

concepts cannot be directly perceived through senses. How do people represent abstract concepts in their minds? According to the Conceptual Metaphor Theory, people tend to rely on concrete experiences to understand abstract concepts. For instance, cognitive science has shown that time is a metaphorically constituted conception, understood relative to concepts like space. Across many languages, the “past” is associated with the “back” and the “future” is associated with the “front”. However, space-time mappings in people’s spoken metaphors are not always consistent (...) with the implicit mental metaphors they are using to conceptualize time in their minds, suggesting a dissociation between temporal language and temporal thought. Beyond the influences of language, the Temporal Focus Hypothesis proposes that people’s spatial conceptions of time are shaped by their attentional focus on temporal events. In general, people conceptualize the past as being in front to the extent that their culture is past-oriented, and the future as being in front to the extent that their culture is future-oriented. Recent lines of research have provided preliminary evidence that people’s implicit space-time mappings are malleable and likely result from multiple factors related to temporal focus, ranging from those relating to contextual features, such as cultural attitudes toward time, to those more tightly tied to the individual, such as age-related differences. By building upon and extending these findings, the overall aim of this thesis is to ascertain the generalizability of the Temporal Focus Hypothesis and further investigate the range of factors that may influence people’s spatializations of time, focusing specifically on previously unexplored within-cultural differences, political ideology, religion, real life experiences, pregnancy, temporal landmarks, circadian rhythms and chronotype, and personality. Together, these studies demonstrate that people’s implicit space-time mappings may vary according to their temporal focus, which can be explained by the Temporal Focus Hypothesis. The findings of these studies also shed new light on the Temporal Focus Hypothesis by extending the range of factors that may influence people’s conceptions of time, and reveal the malleability and flexibility of time representations. (shrink)