- Email: [email protected]
The language of space and time
Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 691–694
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Pragmatics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma
Editorial
The language of space and time 1. Introduction
SPACE and TIME can be said to represent the most fundamental and pervasive domains of our experience, arguably along with others such as life, matter, force, mind, vision, or meaning (Croft, 1993), all of which constitute basic elements of thought and linguistic representation. SPACE and TIME, however, are additionally intriguing because of their various implications for perception and conception just as well as for the natural sciences. Not surprisingly, therefore, the investigation of these domains has sustained many researchers’ interest across various disciplines such as (psycho) linguistics, philosophy, experimental psychology, cognitive psychology, physics, mathematics, architecture, geography, and artificial intelligence for centuries. Moreover, the domains also appear to be strongly interrelated. While references to time as the ‘‘fourth dimension’’ (complementing the three dimensions in space) are often heard in everyday language and sometimes employed in mathematical theories (e.g., Rucker, 1977), a broad range of scientific evidence (e.g., Piaget, 1946) also supports the notion of a close conceptual relationship starting from early childhood. The joint yet diversified interest in this topic has been reflected in numerous major research projects across the world, a broad range of publications both within and across individual disciplines, and recurring workshops associated with major events as diverse as the International Cognitive Science Conference, the International Conference on Computer Vision, the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, the International Workshop on Time, Space, and Movement, and the International Pragmatics Conference – to name just a few of those involved within recent years. The close connection between the domains of SPACE and TIME also affects the investigation of natural language expressions for spatial and temporal phenomena (e.g., Clark, 1973; Miller and Johnson-Laird, 1976; Fillmore, 1997). Similar or even identical terms are used in both domains across a great number of languages, and they typically share a similar etymology (Haspelmath, 1997). In addition, a variety of consistent and pervasive metaphors indicate a close conceptual relationship between spatial and temporal relations (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). While the general relevance of these issues has been appreciated for many years, more recent developments have raised a renewed interest in identifying the specific shared schemata underlying spatial and temporal language usage. New evidence about the features as well as limitations of such domain-transcending constructs has been put forward both with respect to theoretical considerations and emerging from empirical investigation (e.g., Boroditsky, 2000; Evans, 2004; Gentner, 2001; Moore, 2006; Núñez and Sweetser, 2006; Talmy, 2000; Tenbrink, 2007; Zinken, 2009). This research results in a more differentiated picture of the relationship between the conceptual domains of SPACE and TIME than has been available before. However, it also opens up new questions concerning how exactly spatial concepts may be employed for structuring temporal experience, the range of variability between languages, and whether there are fundamental differences between the domains of SPACE and TIME that may not be overcome when referring to time in terms of space. Particular research issues in these areas concern all linguistic levels, spanning grammatical distributions and syntactic contexts, parallels in the semantics of spatial and temporal expressions, systematic patterns of language usage (in monologue and dialogue), differentiated accounts of metaphorical extensions, and language-independent conceptualizations underlying the representation of SPACE and TIME in language and gesture. Further questions concern the notion of metaphor as a major mechanism for conceptual transfer, about which questions of various kinds have been raised. For instance, Tyler and Evans (2003) propose that it may be more to the point to refer to experiential correlation rather than metaphor, as the latter notion raises a range of connotations that may lead to false conclusions. Others have proposed that the concepts may not be as closely intertwined conceptually as evidence from the linguistic surface may suggest (see Gentner, 2001, for a discussion of various alternatives). For example, Habel and Eschenbach (1997) suggest that SPACE and TIME may merely share a range of conceptual aspects that accordingly get to be represented in similar ways in the language used for both domains. Moreover, metaphors may be more or less entrenched in language, ranging from conventional to creative (Svanlund, 2007). Such considerations motivate theoretical discussion as well as diversified empirical investigation that has considerably enhanced scientific knowledge about these issues within a reasonably short time span. 0378-2166/$ – see front matter ß 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2010.06.019
692
Editorial / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 691–694
In this spirit, the present special issue presents a timely collection of a range of findings from different perspectives, pushing ongoing debates further and highlighting new insights based on substantial exchanges between experts in the field. It combines selected contributions from two recent workshops focusing on these topics, held at the major linguistic conferences IPrA (Conference of the International Pragmatics Association, Go¨teborg, 2007) and ICLC (International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Krakow, Poland, 2007). Following these two lively and inspiring workshops, discussions and the development of ideas were carried further, resulting in the current selection of papers that represent a far more intricate and consistent account of current knowledge in the field than would have been possible prior to the workshops and the ensuing scientific exchange. The articles report theoretical as well as empirical findings resulting from cross-linguistic research, corpus analysis, knowledge representation and modeling, and psycholinguistic experimentation. Special emphasis is put on the discussion of methodological issues and theoretical questions regarding the nature of the relationship between spatial and temporal conceptualization and linguistic expression. Together, the various contributions in this issue provide a representative sample of the state of the art in the field, highlighting the shared and distinct features exhibited by the language used for the two prominent conceptual domains of SPACE and TIME. 2. Contributions The contributions in this special issue highlight the prominent issues in the field as just outlined in various ways, complementing each other by virtue of their distinct perspectives. The following overview starts with the most general articles dealing with the basic relationship between temporal and spatial concepts. Galton’s paper adopts a knowledge representation perspective, addressing the fundamental concepts characterizing spatial and temporal domains in much detail. Tenbrink’s article was written on the basis of earlier accounts of reference frames, with the aim of reconciling competing proposals and unresolved issues by providing a toolbox for analysis. The next two articles empirically address the question of metaphorical transfer in language and thought. Graf presents the results of a corpus analysis highlighting the high degree of conventionality in actual linguistic usage when employing spatiotemporal metaphors. Kranjec and McDonough’s findings highlight the psychological reality of the underlying spatial concepts in spite of such a conventionality. The remaining two articles complete the picture by supplying novel and re-analyzed cross-linguistic findings relevant to the field. Shinohara and Pardeshi question the universality of a particular type of space-time mapping, highlighting the flexibility of languages such as Japanese and Marathi in this regard. Moore reconsiders findings on Japanese, Wolof, and Aymara by providing a more systematic account of the underlying concepts than had been available before. Following this short sketch I will now provide a somewhat more detailed summary of each of these contributions, highlighting how they relate to and complement each other. In his insightful article called ‘‘Time Flies But Space Doesn’t: Limits to the Spatialisation of Time’’, Antony Galton carefully examines the key attributes of the conceptual domains of SPACE and TIME. His account provides a framework against which it becomes possible to establish more precisely just how metaphorical concepts of time may rest on concepts of space. Galton shows that only a subset of temporal metaphors are purely based on space, namely those that rest on the conceptual attributes of extension, linearity, and directedness. However, a fundamental aspect of time that is not mirrored in space concerns its transience – the fact that things change – and many metaphors of time still involve this (essentially temporal) aspect in some way or other, in a somewhat circular fashion. Tenbrink’s article ‘‘Reference Frames of SPACE and TIME in Language’’ proposes a consistent framework for representing spatial and temporal reference frames, starting from the seminal account of Levinson (2003) but extending that framework further in various non-trivial ways. Simple spatial models are used to illustrate how underlying basic concepts – entities representing roles, and the relationships between them – are employed by speakers in flexible ways across a broad variety of spatial and temporal situations. The framework includes, on the one hand, static and dynamic as well as external and internal spatial relationships, and on the other hand, temporal relationships between events and possibly observers, distinguishing between deictic and non-deictic concepts as well as between the complementary metaphorical concepts of MOVING TIME and MOVING EGO. This account allows for capturing a range of important distinctions systematically, providing a toolbox for further investigation across the fundamental conceptual domains of SPACE and TIME. In particular, differentiating consistently between static and dynamic situations allows for resolving Galton’s transience problem. Some of the temporal concepts can be modeled by re-using static reference frames in a metaphorical way. Others, in contrast, rely on dynamic spatial reference frames that already incorporate notions of time by differentiating between the time before and the time after movement. Eva-Maria Graf addresses ‘‘Adolescents’ use of spatial time metaphors: A matter of cognition or sociocommunicative practice?’’ in her contribution. Based on a thorough and comprehensive corpus analysis, she questions the widespread assumption that linguistically reflected space-based concepts of time directly reflect the language users’ underlying (spatial) concepts and their readiness to metaphorically extend notions from one domain to another, more abstract one. Her empirical findings clearly show that, across developmental stages, adolescents predominantly (or even exclusively) rely on conventional language usage rather than introducing creative and innovative extensions of spatial notions. This is true across various categories of temporal concepts which have been similarly described by Galton as depending on metaphor to diverse degrees. This result raises the question to what extent it is justified to categorize temporal expressions as metaphorical at all. While Graf herself adopts the widespread convention of assuming a metaphorical source for most temporal expressions (at least historically), she presents a differentiated picture ranging from highly conventionalized to creative. In Tenbrink’s
Editorial / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 691–694
693
framework, in contrast, only those expressions have been classified as metaphorical that are semantically spatial (such as behind) but may be used in a temporal sense in creative metaphors (and sometimes, as in the case of looking forward to, in conventionalized idioms). Such differences in terminology may contribute to the high amount of confusion in the field. Graf’s work highlights the broad range of variability concerning the notion of metaphor, which needs to be accounted for in the exploration of the conceptual relationship between SPACE and TIME precisely because of the extreme rarity of truly creative metaphors in natural language usage. This insight certainly motivates further work in a similar direction. Alexander Kranjec and Laraine McDonough’s paper ‘‘Pointing to the future: Embodied time as an explicit construct’’ deals with the extent to which humans react to systematic correspondences between linguistic items and spatial assignments. In their study, participants had to point to a front or back direction in order to guess where a particular picture tile described to them was located. The concepts used in the study were subtly but systematically associated with temporal relationships. While none of the participants assigned a particular direction to a concept without becoming aware of the temporal structure in the linguistic stimuli, under certain circumstances some of the participants reacted to the regularities in the stimuli by systematically applying front and back directions to past and future items. Thus, no matter how conventionalized metaphors may be in actual language usage (as described by Graf), the transfer between SPACE and TIME is still open to – and in some contexts dependent on – conscious reflection. Specifically, the conscious mapping process occurs for deictic temporal relations employing past and future concepts, but not for non-deictic ones, which express earlier/later concepts. This corresponds to Galton’s finding that not all aspects of temporal relationships can be traced back to metaphorical transfer derived from spatial concepts. The authors note that this kind of distinction between different types of temporal concepts could not be detected in earlier work focusing primarily on the differentiation between two types of metaphorical movement – moving time versus moving ego. This point is also supported by Tenbrink’s framework by the analysis of the particularly intricate spatiotemporal relationships involved, for example, in the notion of moving a scheduled meeting forward. In their contribution titled ‘‘The more in front, the later: The role of ‘‘positional terms’’ in the metaphoric construal of time’’, Kazuko Shinohara and Prashant Pardeshi focus on the expression of non-deictic temporal relations, together with linguistic terms denoting specific temporal events with clear dates and/or positions in a temporal sequence (the so-called positional terms). In Japanese and Marathi (at least), the occurrence of such terms influences the assignment of metaphorical ordering: regularly, earlier events are then associated with the back direction, and later events with the front direction – quite opposite to the usual pattern which has been shown to be fairly consistent across a range of languages including English (as highlighted also by Tenbrink’s account). Additionally, non-temporal sequences share the same pattern in these languages if represented in relation to a fixed structure. The conceptual ‘‘logic’’ underlying these contradictory matching processes still calls for further research. In any case, the fact that Kranjec and McDonough’s empirical studies did not support any systematic assignment of either the front or the back direction with earlier times may represent a parallel to the flexibility of linguistic assignments highlighted by Shinohara and Pardeshi’s research. Finally, Kevin Ezra Moore addresses ‘‘Ego-perspective and field-based frames of reference: temporal meanings of FRONT in Japanese, Wolof, and Aymara’’. This work offers further details (using cross-linguistic evidence) for two of the temporal concepts proposed in Tenbrink’s framework. On the one hand, Moore’s field-based path-configured frame of reference corresponds to the non-deictic absolute reference frame within Tenbrink’s framework; on the other hand, his ego-perspective path-configured frame of reference roughly corresponds to Tenbrink’s deictic non-projective dynamic concepts of time, with elements of the projective static (intrinsic) concepts in the case of the weeks ahead (exemplifying how different frameworks and models may equally account for the available data). The main point of Moore’s contribution, however, consists of a proposal of reconciling the Aymara case – in which, according to Núñez and Sweetser (2006), the future is conceptualized as being behind (rather than in front of) the speaker – with the systematic reference frames proposed in earlier research. Moore suggests that this phenomenon can be explained as a case of conceptual blending between the field-based and egoperspective reference frames, yielding a consistent notion of earlier times in front of later times independent of the presence of an observer. 3. Conclusion Altogether, the following generalizations emerge from a synthesis of the various contributions of this special issue: - The conceptual domains of SPACE and TIME cannot be consistently separated from each other; notions of motion, which incorporate aspects of both, are central to concepts and reference frames in both domains. However, it is nevertheless possible to distinguish consistently and systematically between metaphorical and non-metaphorical concepts, especially if differences in conventionality are accounted for. - Time shares many conceptual aspects with space, but the domains also differ in fundamental respects, such as the directed one-dimensionality and transience of time, and the ensuing somewhat less intricate nature as well as transferability of temporal reference frames. - The language used for the domains of SPACE and TIME, as well as the abstract spatial models that can be conceived of as underlying linguistic usage, show a high degree of overlap and similarity. Both creative metaphorical and nonmetaphorical or frozen metaphorical language samples systematically relate to the abstract conceptual features that characterize human thought similarly in both domains.
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Editorial / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 691–694
- However, temporal concepts may also be expressed fully independently of spatial concepts. English, for instance, has a range of terms that are exclusively or predominantly used for time rather than space. The assignment of spatial schemata to temporal relations, whenever it occurs, is systematic yet flexible. Spatial schemata cover a broad range of different concepts that can be mapped in various ways to the one-dimensional relations expressed when talking about time. Some of these mappings, again, are culturally dependent, such as whether a future (or later) event is conceptualized as being in front or behind an observer or an earlier event. - Much of the language used for time, whether based on metaphorical transfer or not, is highly conventional and regular (at least in English). Flexible and creative metaphorical extensions of spatial concepts for temporal relations remain exceptional in actual language usage, although – whenever they do appear – they consistently fit in with the systematic patterns underlying conceptual analogies between SPACE and TIME. - English speakers are at least partly aware of the correspondence between SPACE and TIME in language. Thus, in spite of the conventionality of language usage, the interrelationship between the domains remains subject to conscious reflection and manipulation under circumstances that render such an awareness relevant. None of these insights are trivial or currently shared knowledge in research dealing with the interrelationship between SPACE and TIME. The current special issue thus pushes forward the state of the art in fundamental and non-trivial respects, opening up new issues and directions of important research in the area. Acknowledgements Thanks to all of the contributors to the present volume for their patience and enduring willingness to review and revise iteratively until the final product was completed. More importantly, the high amount of energy invested into ongoing debates is appreciated. Without such exchange this special issue may have emerged as a loose collection of essentially unrelated, partly contradictory ideas. Partial funding from the DFG (SFB/TR 8 Spatial Cognition) is gratefully acknowledged. References Boroditsky, Lera, 2000. Metaphoric structuring: understanding time through spatial metaphors. Cognition 75, 1–28. Clark, Herbert H., 1973. Space, time, semantics and the child. In: Moore, T.E. (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language. N.Y. Academic Press, pp. 27–63. Croft, William, 1993. The role of domains in the interpretation of metaphors and metonymies. Cognitive Linguistics 4 (4), 335–370. Evans, Vyvyan, 2004. The Structure of Time: Language, Meaning and Temporal Cognition. John Benjamins, Amsterdam, Phil.. Fillmore, Charles J., 1997. Lectures on Deixis. Indiana, Bloomington. Gentner, Dedre, 2001. Spatial metaphors in temporal reasoning. In: Gattis, M. (Ed.), Spatial Schemas and Abstract Thought. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 203–222. Habel, Christopher, Eschenbach, Carola, 1997. Abstract structures in spatial cognition. In: Freksa, C., Jantzen, M., Valk, R. (Eds.), Foundations of Computer Science – Potential – Theory – Cognition. Springer, Berlin, pp. 369–378. Haspelmath, Martin, 1997. From Space to Time. Temporal Adverbials in the World’s Languages. Lincom, München. Lakoff, George, Johnson, Mark, 1980. Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Levinson, Stephen C., 2003. Space in Language and Cognition. Cambridge University Press. Miller, George A., Johnson-Laird, Philip N., 1976. Language and Perception. Cambridge University Press. Moore, Kevin E., 2006. Space to time mappings and temporal concepts. Cognitive Linguistics 17-2, 199–244. Núñez, Rafael E., Sweetser, Eve, 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, 1–49. Piaget, Jean, 1946. Le Développement de la Notion de Temps chez l’Enfant. PUF, Paris. Rucker, Rudolf von Bitter, 1977. Geometry, Relativity and the Fourth Dimension. Dover Publications. Svanlund, Jan, 2007. Metaphor and convention. Cognitive Linguistics 18 (1), 47–89. Talmy, Leonard, 2000. Toward a Cognitive Semantics. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Tenbrink, Thora, 2007. Space, Time, and the Use of Language. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin. Tyler, Andrea, Evans, Vyvyan, 2003. The Semantics of English Prepositions: Spatial Sciences, Embodied Meaning, and Cognition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Zinken, Jo¨rg, 2009. Temporal frames of reference. In: Evans, V., Chilton, P. (Eds.), Language, Cognition, and Space. The State of the Art and New Directions. Equinox, London.
Thora Tenbrink SFB/TR 8 Spatial Cognition, FB10 Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Sciences, University of Bremen, Postfach 330440, 28334 Bremen, Germany Tel.: +49 421 218 64212; fax: +49 421 218 98 64212 E-mail address: [email protected] 26 June 2010
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Pragmatics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma
Editorial
The language of space and time 1. Introduction
SPACE and TIME can be said to represent the most fundamental and pervasive domains of our experience, arguably along with others such as life, matter, force, mind, vision, or meaning (Croft, 1993), all of which constitute basic elements of thought and linguistic representation. SPACE and TIME, however, are additionally intriguing because of their various implications for perception and conception just as well as for the natural sciences. Not surprisingly, therefore, the investigation of these domains has sustained many researchers’ interest across various disciplines such as (psycho) linguistics, philosophy, experimental psychology, cognitive psychology, physics, mathematics, architecture, geography, and artificial intelligence for centuries. Moreover, the domains also appear to be strongly interrelated. While references to time as the ‘‘fourth dimension’’ (complementing the three dimensions in space) are often heard in everyday language and sometimes employed in mathematical theories (e.g., Rucker, 1977), a broad range of scientific evidence (e.g., Piaget, 1946) also supports the notion of a close conceptual relationship starting from early childhood. The joint yet diversified interest in this topic has been reflected in numerous major research projects across the world, a broad range of publications both within and across individual disciplines, and recurring workshops associated with major events as diverse as the International Cognitive Science Conference, the International Conference on Computer Vision, the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, the International Workshop on Time, Space, and Movement, and the International Pragmatics Conference – to name just a few of those involved within recent years. The close connection between the domains of SPACE and TIME also affects the investigation of natural language expressions for spatial and temporal phenomena (e.g., Clark, 1973; Miller and Johnson-Laird, 1976; Fillmore, 1997). Similar or even identical terms are used in both domains across a great number of languages, and they typically share a similar etymology (Haspelmath, 1997). In addition, a variety of consistent and pervasive metaphors indicate a close conceptual relationship between spatial and temporal relations (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). While the general relevance of these issues has been appreciated for many years, more recent developments have raised a renewed interest in identifying the specific shared schemata underlying spatial and temporal language usage. New evidence about the features as well as limitations of such domain-transcending constructs has been put forward both with respect to theoretical considerations and emerging from empirical investigation (e.g., Boroditsky, 2000; Evans, 2004; Gentner, 2001; Moore, 2006; Núñez and Sweetser, 2006; Talmy, 2000; Tenbrink, 2007; Zinken, 2009). This research results in a more differentiated picture of the relationship between the conceptual domains of SPACE and TIME than has been available before. However, it also opens up new questions concerning how exactly spatial concepts may be employed for structuring temporal experience, the range of variability between languages, and whether there are fundamental differences between the domains of SPACE and TIME that may not be overcome when referring to time in terms of space. Particular research issues in these areas concern all linguistic levels, spanning grammatical distributions and syntactic contexts, parallels in the semantics of spatial and temporal expressions, systematic patterns of language usage (in monologue and dialogue), differentiated accounts of metaphorical extensions, and language-independent conceptualizations underlying the representation of SPACE and TIME in language and gesture. Further questions concern the notion of metaphor as a major mechanism for conceptual transfer, about which questions of various kinds have been raised. For instance, Tyler and Evans (2003) propose that it may be more to the point to refer to experiential correlation rather than metaphor, as the latter notion raises a range of connotations that may lead to false conclusions. Others have proposed that the concepts may not be as closely intertwined conceptually as evidence from the linguistic surface may suggest (see Gentner, 2001, for a discussion of various alternatives). For example, Habel and Eschenbach (1997) suggest that SPACE and TIME may merely share a range of conceptual aspects that accordingly get to be represented in similar ways in the language used for both domains. Moreover, metaphors may be more or less entrenched in language, ranging from conventional to creative (Svanlund, 2007). Such considerations motivate theoretical discussion as well as diversified empirical investigation that has considerably enhanced scientific knowledge about these issues within a reasonably short time span. 0378-2166/$ – see front matter ß 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2010.06.019
692
Editorial / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 691–694
In this spirit, the present special issue presents a timely collection of a range of findings from different perspectives, pushing ongoing debates further and highlighting new insights based on substantial exchanges between experts in the field. It combines selected contributions from two recent workshops focusing on these topics, held at the major linguistic conferences IPrA (Conference of the International Pragmatics Association, Go¨teborg, 2007) and ICLC (International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Krakow, Poland, 2007). Following these two lively and inspiring workshops, discussions and the development of ideas were carried further, resulting in the current selection of papers that represent a far more intricate and consistent account of current knowledge in the field than would have been possible prior to the workshops and the ensuing scientific exchange. The articles report theoretical as well as empirical findings resulting from cross-linguistic research, corpus analysis, knowledge representation and modeling, and psycholinguistic experimentation. Special emphasis is put on the discussion of methodological issues and theoretical questions regarding the nature of the relationship between spatial and temporal conceptualization and linguistic expression. Together, the various contributions in this issue provide a representative sample of the state of the art in the field, highlighting the shared and distinct features exhibited by the language used for the two prominent conceptual domains of SPACE and TIME. 2. Contributions The contributions in this special issue highlight the prominent issues in the field as just outlined in various ways, complementing each other by virtue of their distinct perspectives. The following overview starts with the most general articles dealing with the basic relationship between temporal and spatial concepts. Galton’s paper adopts a knowledge representation perspective, addressing the fundamental concepts characterizing spatial and temporal domains in much detail. Tenbrink’s article was written on the basis of earlier accounts of reference frames, with the aim of reconciling competing proposals and unresolved issues by providing a toolbox for analysis. The next two articles empirically address the question of metaphorical transfer in language and thought. Graf presents the results of a corpus analysis highlighting the high degree of conventionality in actual linguistic usage when employing spatiotemporal metaphors. Kranjec and McDonough’s findings highlight the psychological reality of the underlying spatial concepts in spite of such a conventionality. The remaining two articles complete the picture by supplying novel and re-analyzed cross-linguistic findings relevant to the field. Shinohara and Pardeshi question the universality of a particular type of space-time mapping, highlighting the flexibility of languages such as Japanese and Marathi in this regard. Moore reconsiders findings on Japanese, Wolof, and Aymara by providing a more systematic account of the underlying concepts than had been available before. Following this short sketch I will now provide a somewhat more detailed summary of each of these contributions, highlighting how they relate to and complement each other. In his insightful article called ‘‘Time Flies But Space Doesn’t: Limits to the Spatialisation of Time’’, Antony Galton carefully examines the key attributes of the conceptual domains of SPACE and TIME. His account provides a framework against which it becomes possible to establish more precisely just how metaphorical concepts of time may rest on concepts of space. Galton shows that only a subset of temporal metaphors are purely based on space, namely those that rest on the conceptual attributes of extension, linearity, and directedness. However, a fundamental aspect of time that is not mirrored in space concerns its transience – the fact that things change – and many metaphors of time still involve this (essentially temporal) aspect in some way or other, in a somewhat circular fashion. Tenbrink’s article ‘‘Reference Frames of SPACE and TIME in Language’’ proposes a consistent framework for representing spatial and temporal reference frames, starting from the seminal account of Levinson (2003) but extending that framework further in various non-trivial ways. Simple spatial models are used to illustrate how underlying basic concepts – entities representing roles, and the relationships between them – are employed by speakers in flexible ways across a broad variety of spatial and temporal situations. The framework includes, on the one hand, static and dynamic as well as external and internal spatial relationships, and on the other hand, temporal relationships between events and possibly observers, distinguishing between deictic and non-deictic concepts as well as between the complementary metaphorical concepts of MOVING TIME and MOVING EGO. This account allows for capturing a range of important distinctions systematically, providing a toolbox for further investigation across the fundamental conceptual domains of SPACE and TIME. In particular, differentiating consistently between static and dynamic situations allows for resolving Galton’s transience problem. Some of the temporal concepts can be modeled by re-using static reference frames in a metaphorical way. Others, in contrast, rely on dynamic spatial reference frames that already incorporate notions of time by differentiating between the time before and the time after movement. Eva-Maria Graf addresses ‘‘Adolescents’ use of spatial time metaphors: A matter of cognition or sociocommunicative practice?’’ in her contribution. Based on a thorough and comprehensive corpus analysis, she questions the widespread assumption that linguistically reflected space-based concepts of time directly reflect the language users’ underlying (spatial) concepts and their readiness to metaphorically extend notions from one domain to another, more abstract one. Her empirical findings clearly show that, across developmental stages, adolescents predominantly (or even exclusively) rely on conventional language usage rather than introducing creative and innovative extensions of spatial notions. This is true across various categories of temporal concepts which have been similarly described by Galton as depending on metaphor to diverse degrees. This result raises the question to what extent it is justified to categorize temporal expressions as metaphorical at all. While Graf herself adopts the widespread convention of assuming a metaphorical source for most temporal expressions (at least historically), she presents a differentiated picture ranging from highly conventionalized to creative. In Tenbrink’s
Editorial / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 691–694
693
framework, in contrast, only those expressions have been classified as metaphorical that are semantically spatial (such as behind) but may be used in a temporal sense in creative metaphors (and sometimes, as in the case of looking forward to, in conventionalized idioms). Such differences in terminology may contribute to the high amount of confusion in the field. Graf’s work highlights the broad range of variability concerning the notion of metaphor, which needs to be accounted for in the exploration of the conceptual relationship between SPACE and TIME precisely because of the extreme rarity of truly creative metaphors in natural language usage. This insight certainly motivates further work in a similar direction. Alexander Kranjec and Laraine McDonough’s paper ‘‘Pointing to the future: Embodied time as an explicit construct’’ deals with the extent to which humans react to systematic correspondences between linguistic items and spatial assignments. In their study, participants had to point to a front or back direction in order to guess where a particular picture tile described to them was located. The concepts used in the study were subtly but systematically associated with temporal relationships. While none of the participants assigned a particular direction to a concept without becoming aware of the temporal structure in the linguistic stimuli, under certain circumstances some of the participants reacted to the regularities in the stimuli by systematically applying front and back directions to past and future items. Thus, no matter how conventionalized metaphors may be in actual language usage (as described by Graf), the transfer between SPACE and TIME is still open to – and in some contexts dependent on – conscious reflection. Specifically, the conscious mapping process occurs for deictic temporal relations employing past and future concepts, but not for non-deictic ones, which express earlier/later concepts. This corresponds to Galton’s finding that not all aspects of temporal relationships can be traced back to metaphorical transfer derived from spatial concepts. The authors note that this kind of distinction between different types of temporal concepts could not be detected in earlier work focusing primarily on the differentiation between two types of metaphorical movement – moving time versus moving ego. This point is also supported by Tenbrink’s framework by the analysis of the particularly intricate spatiotemporal relationships involved, for example, in the notion of moving a scheduled meeting forward. In their contribution titled ‘‘The more in front, the later: The role of ‘‘positional terms’’ in the metaphoric construal of time’’, Kazuko Shinohara and Prashant Pardeshi focus on the expression of non-deictic temporal relations, together with linguistic terms denoting specific temporal events with clear dates and/or positions in a temporal sequence (the so-called positional terms). In Japanese and Marathi (at least), the occurrence of such terms influences the assignment of metaphorical ordering: regularly, earlier events are then associated with the back direction, and later events with the front direction – quite opposite to the usual pattern which has been shown to be fairly consistent across a range of languages including English (as highlighted also by Tenbrink’s account). Additionally, non-temporal sequences share the same pattern in these languages if represented in relation to a fixed structure. The conceptual ‘‘logic’’ underlying these contradictory matching processes still calls for further research. In any case, the fact that Kranjec and McDonough’s empirical studies did not support any systematic assignment of either the front or the back direction with earlier times may represent a parallel to the flexibility of linguistic assignments highlighted by Shinohara and Pardeshi’s research. Finally, Kevin Ezra Moore addresses ‘‘Ego-perspective and field-based frames of reference: temporal meanings of FRONT in Japanese, Wolof, and Aymara’’. This work offers further details (using cross-linguistic evidence) for two of the temporal concepts proposed in Tenbrink’s framework. On the one hand, Moore’s field-based path-configured frame of reference corresponds to the non-deictic absolute reference frame within Tenbrink’s framework; on the other hand, his ego-perspective path-configured frame of reference roughly corresponds to Tenbrink’s deictic non-projective dynamic concepts of time, with elements of the projective static (intrinsic) concepts in the case of the weeks ahead (exemplifying how different frameworks and models may equally account for the available data). The main point of Moore’s contribution, however, consists of a proposal of reconciling the Aymara case – in which, according to Núñez and Sweetser (2006), the future is conceptualized as being behind (rather than in front of) the speaker – with the systematic reference frames proposed in earlier research. Moore suggests that this phenomenon can be explained as a case of conceptual blending between the field-based and egoperspective reference frames, yielding a consistent notion of earlier times in front of later times independent of the presence of an observer. 3. Conclusion Altogether, the following generalizations emerge from a synthesis of the various contributions of this special issue: - The conceptual domains of SPACE and TIME cannot be consistently separated from each other; notions of motion, which incorporate aspects of both, are central to concepts and reference frames in both domains. However, it is nevertheless possible to distinguish consistently and systematically between metaphorical and non-metaphorical concepts, especially if differences in conventionality are accounted for. - Time shares many conceptual aspects with space, but the domains also differ in fundamental respects, such as the directed one-dimensionality and transience of time, and the ensuing somewhat less intricate nature as well as transferability of temporal reference frames. - The language used for the domains of SPACE and TIME, as well as the abstract spatial models that can be conceived of as underlying linguistic usage, show a high degree of overlap and similarity. Both creative metaphorical and nonmetaphorical or frozen metaphorical language samples systematically relate to the abstract conceptual features that characterize human thought similarly in both domains.
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- However, temporal concepts may also be expressed fully independently of spatial concepts. English, for instance, has a range of terms that are exclusively or predominantly used for time rather than space. The assignment of spatial schemata to temporal relations, whenever it occurs, is systematic yet flexible. Spatial schemata cover a broad range of different concepts that can be mapped in various ways to the one-dimensional relations expressed when talking about time. Some of these mappings, again, are culturally dependent, such as whether a future (or later) event is conceptualized as being in front or behind an observer or an earlier event. - Much of the language used for time, whether based on metaphorical transfer or not, is highly conventional and regular (at least in English). Flexible and creative metaphorical extensions of spatial concepts for temporal relations remain exceptional in actual language usage, although – whenever they do appear – they consistently fit in with the systematic patterns underlying conceptual analogies between SPACE and TIME. - English speakers are at least partly aware of the correspondence between SPACE and TIME in language. Thus, in spite of the conventionality of language usage, the interrelationship between the domains remains subject to conscious reflection and manipulation under circumstances that render such an awareness relevant. None of these insights are trivial or currently shared knowledge in research dealing with the interrelationship between SPACE and TIME. The current special issue thus pushes forward the state of the art in fundamental and non-trivial respects, opening up new issues and directions of important research in the area. Acknowledgements Thanks to all of the contributors to the present volume for their patience and enduring willingness to review and revise iteratively until the final product was completed. More importantly, the high amount of energy invested into ongoing debates is appreciated. Without such exchange this special issue may have emerged as a loose collection of essentially unrelated, partly contradictory ideas. Partial funding from the DFG (SFB/TR 8 Spatial Cognition) is gratefully acknowledged. References Boroditsky, Lera, 2000. Metaphoric structuring: understanding time through spatial metaphors. Cognition 75, 1–28. Clark, Herbert H., 1973. Space, time, semantics and the child. In: Moore, T.E. (Ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language. N.Y. Academic Press, pp. 27–63. Croft, William, 1993. The role of domains in the interpretation of metaphors and metonymies. Cognitive Linguistics 4 (4), 335–370. Evans, Vyvyan, 2004. The Structure of Time: Language, Meaning and Temporal Cognition. John Benjamins, Amsterdam, Phil.. Fillmore, Charles J., 1997. Lectures on Deixis. Indiana, Bloomington. Gentner, Dedre, 2001. Spatial metaphors in temporal reasoning. In: Gattis, M. (Ed.), Spatial Schemas and Abstract Thought. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 203–222. Habel, Christopher, Eschenbach, Carola, 1997. Abstract structures in spatial cognition. In: Freksa, C., Jantzen, M., Valk, R. (Eds.), Foundations of Computer Science – Potential – Theory – Cognition. Springer, Berlin, pp. 369–378. Haspelmath, Martin, 1997. From Space to Time. Temporal Adverbials in the World’s Languages. Lincom, München. Lakoff, George, Johnson, Mark, 1980. Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Levinson, Stephen C., 2003. Space in Language and Cognition. Cambridge University Press. Miller, George A., Johnson-Laird, Philip N., 1976. Language and Perception. Cambridge University Press. Moore, Kevin E., 2006. Space to time mappings and temporal concepts. Cognitive Linguistics 17-2, 199–244. Núñez, Rafael E., Sweetser, Eve, 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, 1–49. Piaget, Jean, 1946. Le Développement de la Notion de Temps chez l’Enfant. PUF, Paris. Rucker, Rudolf von Bitter, 1977. Geometry, Relativity and the Fourth Dimension. Dover Publications. Svanlund, Jan, 2007. Metaphor and convention. Cognitive Linguistics 18 (1), 47–89. Talmy, Leonard, 2000. Toward a Cognitive Semantics. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Tenbrink, Thora, 2007. Space, Time, and the Use of Language. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin. Tyler, Andrea, Evans, Vyvyan, 2003. The Semantics of English Prepositions: Spatial Sciences, Embodied Meaning, and Cognition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Zinken, Jo¨rg, 2009. Temporal frames of reference. In: Evans, V., Chilton, P. (Eds.), Language, Cognition, and Space. The State of the Art and New Directions. Equinox, London.
Thora Tenbrink SFB/TR 8 Spatial Cognition, FB10 Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Sciences, University of Bremen, Postfach 330440, 28334 Bremen, Germany Tel.: +49 421 218 64212; fax: +49 421 218 98 64212 E-mail address: [email protected] 26 June 2010