A Contrastive Study Of Metaphorical Time Orientation In Chinese And English

Spatio-temporal metaphor is a cross-language metaphor in which temporal concepts and relations are expressed by spatial terms.Its instances are easy to find in both English and Chinese,such as“Christmas is coming”and“????”,in which space is the source domain while time is the target domain.Different from space,time is transient and has a special status that it functions as the fourth dimension of all events;this is why in metaphors there are various mismatches between the two domains.Time orientation in spatio-temporal metaphors is one of these mismatches:temporal earlier concepts(past)can either be mapped with IN-FRONT(Monday is before Tuesday/???????)or BEHIND(The task before us is a daunting one/???????????)terms in space.The question that whether people are facing the past or the future when they conceptualize temporal relation has long been a fascinating topic of linguistic studies.In English,this question has been studied in many literature on spatial and temporal frames of reference.As to Chinese,discussion about this question is still insufficient.Previous studies about Chinese spatio-temporal metaphor propose that compared with English,Chinese speakers have a different metaphorical time orientation.However,based on linguistic evidences,this thesis suggests that both English and Chinese have two contrasting mappings of IN-FRONT/BEHIND concepts onto temporal concepts.The cause of two mappings is our two modes of conceptualization of time: when we conceptualize time in a static way,the mover in the metaphor determines the front-behind configuration of the metaphor;when we conceptualize time as a relatively stationary sequence,the spatial IN-FRONT concepts map with temporal earlier concepts.Spatio-temporal metaphors in both English and Chinese can be divided into two kinds: motion metaphors of time and SEQUENCE IS RELATIVE POSITION ON A PATH(SRP)metaphor.Motion metaphors of time refer to those spatial expressions about temporal motions,including MOVING EGO(1)metaphor(We are approaching Christmas),EGO-CENTERED MOVING TIME metaphor(Christmas is approaching),NOW IS A MOVER metaphor(It is getting closer to midnight),TIME IS A MOVER metaphor(Time keeps moving forward),A SITUATION IS A MOVER metaphor(The party went on from dawn to dusk),and PURPOSEFUL ACTIVITY metaphor(We are halfway through the job).(2)For MOVING EGO and EGO-CENTERED MOVING TIME,one of their common attribute is that an Ego's perspective is always necessary.Besides,the Ego's position divides the whole time universe into three parts: the past of Ego,the present position of Ego and the future of Ego.Both MOVING EGO and EGO-CENTERED MOVING TIME are metaphors about temporal motions,therefore there is always a mover in them,which is another common attribute shared by them.According to Langacker's proposal,since temporal motion is also a kind of motion,we have reason to propose here that they are conceptualized in a sequential way in which processing time corresponds to conceived time.As for SEQUENCE IS RELATIVE POSITION ON A PATH(SRP)metaphor,one of its important characteristics is the absence of Ego's point of view.In an SRP metaphor,temporal points or intervals are seen as components of a spatial sequence.Temporal relation expressed by SRP is in fact the relative positions of temporal entities on time axis.Therefore,different from MOVING EGO or EGO-CENTERED MOVING TIME,time in SRP is only divided into two parts: the relatively earlier part(maps with IN-FRONT concepts)and the relatively later part(maps with BEHIND concepts).Since SRP metaphor profiles no motion scenario but a relative position,according to Langacker,the whole temporal relation is scanned as a gestalt.And this time,the conceptualization is completed at once.When temporal relation is viewed as a whole,as in SRP metaphor,the earlier time maps onto the front section of space and the later time onto the rear section.When temporal relation is viewed with a motion scenario,the direction of temporal relation is determined by the direction of motion.In MOVING EGO and EGO-CENTERED MOVING TIME,Ego always moves from earlier to later(We are approaching Christmas.)and time moves from later to earlier(Friday is coming/Friday is here/Friday has passed.).This is not always true,as in TIME IS A MOVER metaphor,time can also move toward the future.All these subtypes of spatio-temporal metaphor are included in the research object of this thesis.To be more specific,this thesis mainly investigates metaphorical time orientation involved in spatio-temporal metaphors,that is when and why IN-FRONT concepts can refer to both earlier time and later time.Although sentences such as“??????????????”contains the meaning of temporal motion and to some extent can be seen as an example of EGO CENTERED MOVING TIME,it is hard to tell its orientation(whether the motion is toward the past or the future);therefore these sentences will not be discussed in this thesis.The investigation shows that there is reason to believe that motion metaphors of time and SRP metaphor represent two ways to conceptualize temporal relations in both languages.With contrastive studies between English and Chinese,above proposals are supported by linguistic evidences from both languages.The main purpose of this thesis is to prove that speakers of both English and Chinese have the same metaphorical time orientation.With cognitive grammar analysis,this thesis further proposes two conceptualizations of spatio-temporal metaphor which may have the potential to be proved in more languages.