The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Time, space, and events in language and cognition : a comparative view

På svenska

Author

Summary, in English

We propose an event-based account of the cognitive and linguistic representation of time and temporal relations. Human beings differ from nonhuman animals in entertaining and communicating elaborate detached (as opposed to cued) event representations and temporal relational schemas. We distinguish deictically based (D-time) from sequentially based (S-time) representations, identifying these with the philosophical categories of A-series and B-series time. On the basis of cross-linguistic data, we claim that all cultures employ both D-time and S-time representations. We outline a cognitive model of event structure, emphasizing that this does not entail an explicit, separate representation of a time dimension. We propose that the notion of an event-independent, metric "time as such" is not universal, but a cultural and historical construction based on cognitive technologies for measuring time intervals. We critically examine claims that time is universally conceptualized in terms of spatial metaphors, and hypothesize that systematic space-time metaphor is only found in languages and cultures that have constructed the notion of time as a separate dimension. We emphasize the importance of distinguishing what is universal from what is variable in cultural and linguistic representations of time, and speculate on the general implications of an event-based understanding of time.

Publishing year

2014

Language

English

Pages

72-81

Publication/Series

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

Volume

1326

Issue

Flow of time

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Topic

  • General Language Studies and Linguistics
  • Learning

Keywords

  • time
  • space
  • event
  • language
  • cognition
  • culture

Status

Published

Project

  • Thinking in Time: Cognition, Communication and Learning

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0077-8923