Cover not available

Article published In: Concentric
Vol. 45:2 (2019) ► pp.246–270

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Time passing is relative motion

Conceptualization of time in Chinese

 | National University of Tainan
 | National Chi Nan University
Published online: 1 November 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/consl.00010.hsi
Abstract
This paper reexamines the conceptual metaphor time passing is motion and deals with the problem of mapping inconsistency between the “moving ego” and “moving time” models in this conceptual metaphor. We argue that time is conceptualized as a system consisting of a dynamic component and a static component, which we call time-flow and time-landscape respectively. Adopting the notion of relative motion, we propose that the “moving ego” and “moving time” viewpoints are actually due to a shift in perspective within the same frame of relative motion. We then propose a unified metaphor about time passing, namely time passing is relative motion. In this metaphor, the ego is carried by the time-flow to move past time-landmarks over the time-landscape. We also propose that time is specifically conceptualized as a river in Chinese under this conceptual metaphor.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Moving ego vs. Moving time
    • 1.2Problem of mapping inconsistency
  • 2.Time as a flow-landscape system
    • 2.1Ego moves with time-flow
    • 2.2Ambiguity of time
    • 2.3Conceptualization of time as river in Chinese
  • 3.time passing is relative motion
    • 3.1Expressions of relative motion in Chinese
    • 3.2Frame and perspective shift in relative motion
    • 3.3Manner of movement and perspective shift
  • 4.Discussions: More supporting evidence for time-flow
    • 4.1Time is always in motion
    • 4.2Plural ego
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
References (24)
References
Ahrens, Kathleen, and Chu-Ren Huang. 2002. Time passing is motion. Language and Linguistics 3.3:491–519.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boroditsky, Lera. 2000. Metaphoric structuring: Understanding time through spatial metaphors. Cognition 75.1:1–28. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chao, Yuen-ren. 1968. A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. Berkeley & Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clark, Herbert H. 1973. Space, time, semantics, and the child. Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language, ed. by Timothy E. Moore, 27–63. New York, NY: Academic Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Croft, William, and Alan Cruse. 2004. Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Evans, Vyvyan. 2004. How we conceptualise time: Language, meaning and temporal cognition. Essays in Arts and Sciences 33.2:13–44.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. Language and Time: A Cognitive Linguistics Approach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fillmore, Charles. 1985. Frames and the semantics of understanding. Quaderni di Semantica 61:222–254.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Horn, Laurence R. 1984. Toward a new taxonomy for pragmatic inference: Q-based and R-based implicature. Meaning, Form and Use in Context, ed. by Deborah Schiffrin, 11–42. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1989. A Natural History of Negation. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lai, Vicky Tzuyin, and Lera Boroditsky. 2013. The immediate and chronic influence of spatio-temporal metaphors on the mental representations of time in English, Mandarin, and Mandarin-English speakers. Frontiers in Cultural Psychology 4:142.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1993. The contemporary theory of metaphor. Metaphor and Thought, ed. by Andrew Ortony, 202–251. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, George, and Mark Turner. 1989. More Than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moore, Kevin Ezra. 2006. Space-to-time mappings and temporal concepts. Cognitive Linguistics 17.2:199–244. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Núñez, Rafael E., Benjamin A. Motz, and Ursina Teuscher. 2006. Time after time: The psychological reality of the Ego- and Time-Reference-Point distinction in metaphorical construals of time. Metaphor and Symbol 21.3:133–146. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Núñez, Rafael E., and Eve Sweetser. 2006. With the future behind them: Convergent evidence from Aymara language and gesture in the crosslinguistic comparison of spatial construals of time. Cognitive Science 30.3:401–450. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Núñez, Rafael E., and Kensy Cooperrider. 2013. The tangle of space and time in human cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 17.5:220–229. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Radden, Günter. 2003. The metaphor time as space across languages. Zeitschrift für Interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht 8.2–3:226–239. Retrieved September 4, 2017, from [URL]
Tenbrink, Thora. 2007. Space, Time, and the Use of Language: An Investigation of Relationships. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ungerer, Friedrich, and Hans-Jörg Schmid. 2006. An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics (2nd edition). London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. The metaphorical orientation of time in Chinese. Journal of Pragmatics 44.10:1335–1354. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue