English And Chinese Orientational Metaphors Of TIME: A Contrastive Study From The Perspective Of Cognitive Models Of TIME

The relationship between time and space is a topic with everlasting charms. From thephilosophical perspective, time and space are two indispensable elements of the world,interdependent with each other. However, from the cognitive perspective, they are distinct fromeach other, or in other words, they occupy different positions in people’s cognition. This could beattributed to the fact that the conceptualizations of the two concepts do not take placesimultaneously. As it has been pointed out by cognitive linguists, space is people’s primarysphere of experience as well as the foundation for the perception of other concepts, particularlythose abstract and intangible ones (Ungerer&Schmid,2003:258). Many abstract concepts areperceived in light of space and TIME is no exception. Resorting to space and its category toconceptualize time leads to the spatial metaphorization of time and orientational metaphor ofTIME comes into being consequently.This study takes orientational metaphors of TIME as its focus and carries out a systematicstudy of the similarities and differences between English and Chinese orientational metaphors ofTIME, a contrastive study from the perspective of cognitive models of TIME. The English dataof this study comes from novels, magazines and online corpus (BNC); the Chinese data comesfrom Chinese contemporary literary works and online corpus (CCL). Through an analysis whichis qualitative in nature, it makes the following major findings: First of all, according to the natureas well as the feature of orientational metaphor of TIME, we could divide it into two types,namely, orientational metaphor of TIME in its broad sense and that in its narrow sense. In termsof the nature, while the former type (i.e. orientational metaphor of TIME in its broad sense)focuses on the dynamic relationship between time and its observers, the latter (i.e. orientationalmetaphor of TIME in its narrow sense) puts emphasis on the mapping from specific spatialconcepts to TIME the target domain. This mapping process results in time’s assuming theproperties of such spatial concepts as FAR/NEAR, LONG/SHORT, IN/OUT, HIGH/LOW,UP/DOWN and DEEP. In terms of the linguistic feature, while the metaphorical expressions ofthe former type are characterized by verbs which denote the dynamic relationship between timeand its observer, the expressions of the latter type mainly feature adjectives which denote spatialconcepts and on which the metaphoricality of the expressions depends. Secondly, cognitivemodel of TIME plays an essential role in facilitating people’s temporal conceptualization. Itsimportance should not be overlooked or undermined, in spite of the fact that most people areunaware of it and thus have taken it for granted. This study reveals that cognitive model of TIMEis cultural-specific. To a large extent, the similarities and differences between English and Chinese orientational metaphors of TIME are equal to the similarities and differences betweenEnglish and Chinese cognitive models of TIME. Thirdly, in terms of the orientational metaphorof TIME in its broad sense, the similarities between English and Chinese lie in the threecognitive models of TIME shared by these two languages: moving-time model, moving-egomodel, and moving-time and moving-ego model. The differences between English and Chineseare reflected in the temporal orientation of the observer: while the English observer is orientedtowards the future (or front-to-the-future), the Chinese observer is mainly past-oriented (orfront-to-the-past). In terms of the orientational metaphor of TIME in its narrow sense, thesimilarities between English and Chinese lie in the similar mapping process from spatialconcepts (i.e. FAR/NEAR, LONG/SHORT, IN/OUT, and DEEP) to TIME the target domain. Allthese concepts could be employed to describe the concept of TIME. The differences betweenEnglish and Chinese are revealed in the fact that while in English HIGH/LOW can refer totemporal concepts, in Chinese UP/DOWN can represent earlier/later time.This study has both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, it serves to updateand enrich the current research related to orientational metaphors of TIME. Practically, it hassome implications for foreign language teaching (FLT) as well. It is suggested that cognitivemodels of TIME discussed in this study should be introduced to students in class, so as tofacilitate their conceptualization of time on the one hand, and to enhance their ability to producemetaphorical expressions on the other hand.