Effects of lexical spatial-temporal metaphors on Mandarin and Cantonese speakers’ temporal conceptualizations

Abstract

This study investigated whether and how different types of temporal metaphors in the lexicon and individual reading habits influence native Chinese speakers’ conceptualizations of time. The results indicate that the Cantoneseand Mandarin-speaking participants constructed time expressions differently to some extent. Both groups responded faster on the transverse axis than on the vertical one, which was in accordance with the reading habits produced by the major writing/printing directions in both Mandarin and Cantonese. However, the Cantonese participants made judgments significantly faster than the Mandarin participants did in non-canonical conditions on the vertical axis. This finding, though surprising, is in line with a finding of our linguistic survey that Cantonese speakers use linguistic terms on the vertical axis to express time concepts much more often than Mandarin speakers do. This suggests that, even in the case of Chinese languages, speakers’ space and time associations can to some extend be influenced by the use of different temporal metaphors in their lexicon.