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It is widely assumed that there is a natural, prelinguistic conceptual domain of time whose linguistic organization is universally structured via metaphoric mapping from the lexicon and grammar of space and motion. We challenge this assumption on the basis of our research on the Amondawa (Tupi Kawahib) language and culture of Amazonia. Using both observational data and structured field linguistic tasks, we show that linguistic space-time mapping at the constructional level is not a feature of the Amondawa language, and is not employed by Amondawa speakers (when speaking Amondawa). Amondawa does not recruit its extensive inventory of terms and constructions for spatial motion and location to express temporal relations. Amondawa also lacks a numerically based calendric system. To account for these data, and in opposition to a Universal Space-Time Mapping Hypothesis, we propose a Mediated Mapping Hypothesis, which accords causal importance to the numerical and artefact-based construction of time-based (as opposed to event-based) time interval systems.

Our aim in this article is to argue that an adequate account of semantic development in early ®rst language acquisition requires a theory and methodology that synthesize the insights of cognitive and cultural linguistics with a Vygotskian sociocultural approach to human development. This involves recasting and extending the notion of embodiment, which is a central philosophical underpinning of cognitive linguistics. We discuss evidence from the cross-linguistic and cross-cultural study of spatial semantic development, and argue that current controversies regarding language-speci®c acquisition strategies and universal cognitive bases of semantic development may best be resolved by viewing the issue of``linguistic relativity'' in a sociocultural, as well as a grammatical, perspective.

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The focus in blending theory on the dynamics of meaning construction makes it a productive tool for analysing psychological processes in a developmental perspective. However, blending theory has largely preserved the traditionally mentalist and individualist assumptions of classical cognitive science. This article argues for an extension of the range of both theory and data, to encompass the socially collaborative, culturally and materially grounded nature of the human mind. An approach to young children's symbolic play in terms of conceptual blending is presented, together with an analysis of an episode of sociodramatic play which highlights the role of cultural material objects as crucial meaning-bearing elements in the blend. From a developmental perspective, conceptual blending can be viewed as a microgenetic process, in which not only cognitive strategies, but social roles, relationships and identities are negotiated by participants in social and communicative interactions. #