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Chinese–English bilinguals processing temporal–spatial metaphor

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Abstract

The conceptual projection of time onto the domain of space constitutes one of the most challenging issues in the cognitive embodied theories. In Chinese, spatial order (e.g., “大树前”/da shu qian/, in front of a tree) shares the same terms with temporal sequence (三月前”, /san yue qian/, before March). In comparison, English natives use different sets of prepositions to describe spatial and temporal relationship, i.e., “before” to express temporal sequencing and “in front of” to express spatial order. The linguistic variations regarding the specific lexical encodings indicate that some flexibility might be available in how space–time parallelisms are formulated across different languages. In the present study, ERP (Event-related potentials) data were collected when Chinese–English bilinguals processed temporal ordering and spatial sequencing in both their first language (L1) Chinese (Experiment 1) and the second language (L2) English (Experiment 2). It was found that, despite the different lexical encodings, early sensorimotor simulation plays a role in temporal sequencing processing in both L1 Chinese and L2 English. The findings well support the embodied theory that conceptual knowledge is grounded in sensory-motor systems (Gallese and Lakoff, Cogn Neuropsychol 22:455–479, 2005). Additionally, in both languages, neural representations during comprehending temporal sequencing and spatial ordering are different. The time–spatial relationship is asymmetric, in that space schema could be imported into temporal sequence processing but not vice versa. These findings support the weak view of the Metaphoric Mapping Theory.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant from National Social Science Foundation of China (12CYY027), a grand from Beijing Higher Education Young Elite Teacher Project (YETP1518), Platform PXM2013_014221_000033 and Special Items Fund of Beijing International Studies University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of English Language, Literature and Culture and Center for Language and Cognition, Beijing International Studies University, Beijing, China

    Jin Xue & Qian Zhao

  2. Department of Neurology, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

    Jie Yang

Authors
  1. Jin Xue
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  2. Jie Yang
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  3. Qian Zhao
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jin Xue.

Additional information

This article is part of the Special Section on “Embodied Social Cognition,” guest-edited by Fernando Marmolejo Ramos and Amedeo Dangiulli.

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Xue, J., Yang, J. & Zhao, Q. Chinese–English bilinguals processing temporal–spatial metaphor. Cogn Process 15, 269–281 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-014-0621-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-014-0621-5

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