New Space–Time Metaphors Foster New Nonlinguistic Representations

Hendricks, Rose; Boroditsky, Lera

doi:10.1111/tops.12279

Cited by 30 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Given that in Mandarin most words expressing temporal past and future consist of past‐in‐front/future‐at‐back metaphors (Chen, ; Peng, ; Experiment 1), if habitual use of certain space–time metaphors can indeed influence one's time conceptions (Boroditsky, ; Hendricks, Bergen, & Marghetis, ; Hendricks & Boroditsky, ; Li, Casaponsa, Wu, & Thierry, ), one possibility is that, under the influence of past‐in‐front/future‐at‐back metaphors, some Mandarin speakers may form past‐in‐front/future‐at‐back space–time mappings in the long run. Especially, we did not find evidence for the effect of individual TFI (temporal focus index) on the temporal diagram placements within the Chinese participants in the neutral‐wording condition.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Which Is in Front of Chinese People, Past or Future? The Effect of Language and Culture on Temporal Gestures and Spatial Conceptions of Time

Zheng

Swerts

2019

Cognitive Science

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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' cospeech 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-infront/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 Correspondence should be sent to Yan Gu, Faculty of Brain Sciences, Psychology and Language Sciences,This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.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.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Which Is in Front of Chinese People, Past or Future? The Effect of Language and Culture on Temporal Gestures and Spatial Conceptions of Time

Zheng

Swerts

2019

Cognitive Science

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“…2 Interestingly, after learning Chinese vertical spatial metaphors, English speakers are also more inclined to think of time vertically (Boroditsky, 2001;Hendricks & Boroditsky, 2015). Additionally, Boroditsky found that Chinese speakers can conceptualise time vertically, even when they think in English.…”

Section: Theories Accounting For Chinese Vertical Gesturing About Timementioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptual and lexical effects on gestures: the case of vertical spatial metaphors for time in Chinese

Mol

Hoetjes

et al. 2017

Language, Cognition and Neuroscience

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The linguistic metaphors of time appear to influence how people gesture about time. This study finds that Chinese English bilinguals produce more vertical gestures when talking about Chinese time references with vertical spatial metaphors than (1) when talking about time conceptions in the English translations, and (2) when talking about Chinese time references with no spatial metaphors. Additionally, Chinese English bilinguals prefer vertical gestures to lateral gestures when perceiving Chinese time references with vertical spatial metaphors and the corresponding English translations, whereas there is no such preference when perceiving time references without spatial metaphors. Furthermore, this vertical tendency is not due to the fact that vertical gestures are generally less ambiguous than lateral gestures for addressees. In conclusion, the vertical gesturing about time by Chinese English bilinguals is shaped by both the stable language-specific conceptualisations, and the online changes in linguistic choices. ARTICLE HISTORY

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“…Answering “Friday” implies choosing the ego-moving perspective, because people would imagine themselves moving toward the future, hence “forward” is interpreted as moving in the direction from Wednesday to Friday. In contrast, answering “Monday” means choosing the time-moving perspective, because people would imagine the future moving toward them, hence “forward” is interpreted as moving in the direction that time is moving from Wednesday to Monday (Hendricks and Boroditsky, 2017). In recent studies, this method has been used extensively to investigate how people choose different time movement perspectives (Boroditsky and Ramscar, 2002; Margolies and Crawford, 2008; Hauser et al, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Influence of Event Valence and Emotional States on the Metaphorical Comprehension of Time

Zheng

Liu

et al. 2019

Front. Psychol.

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Time is generally conceptualized in terms of space as reflected in temporal-spatial metaphors. Two observation perspectives have been proposed in the front-back axis of the temporal-spatial metaphor. One is called “ego-moving perspective” and the other “time-moving perspective.” They are used to represent different relative motion between time and the observer. Previous studies have demonstrated the psychological reality of both perspectives. They also provided evidence that emotion can influence a perspective choice. In general, a positive emotion tends to facilitate the adoption of ego-moving perspective, whereas, a negative emotion tends to promote the adoption of time-moving perspective. However, it is unclear how the motivational dimension of emotion might influence the preference. The current study aimed to address the question by identifying conditions in which emotional valence or motivational attribute affects the choice of time movement perspective. An ambiguous temporal question and a visualized time motion schema were adopted to probe participants' metaphorical representation of time when they were affected by emotion. Study 1 investigated how a future emotional event would affect participants' choice of the time movement perspective. The results showed that positive future events led to a higher propensity to adopt an ego-moving perspective compared with negative future events. Study 2 explored participants' tendency to choose time movement perspective for a vague or neutral future event, after they were induced into a particular emotional state. The results showed that when being in an emotional state of approach-motivation individuals were more likely to adopt an ego-moving perspective. In contrast, being in an emotional state of avoidance-motivation, individuals were more likely to take a time-moving perspective. Taken together, these results suggest that the emotional valence of future events can influence the choice of time movement perspectives; and the motivational dimension of present emotional states plays an important role when contemplating a neutral future event.

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New Space–Time Metaphors Foster New Nonlinguistic Representations

Cited by 30 publications

References 35 publications

Which Is in Front of Chinese People, Past or Future? The Effect of Language and Culture on Temporal Gestures and Spatial Conceptions of Time

Which Is in Front of Chinese People, Past or Future? The Effect of Language and Culture on Temporal Gestures and Spatial Conceptions of Time

Conceptual and lexical effects on gestures: the case of vertical spatial metaphors for time in Chinese

The Influence of Event Valence and Emotional States on the Metaphorical Comprehension of Time

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