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Multilingual Cognition and Language Use: Processing and typological perspectives
Edited by Luna Filipović and Martin Pütz
[Human Cognitive Processing 44] 2014
► pp. 183–202

Is space-time metaphorical mapping universal?

Time for a cultural turn

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Space and time are often thought to be closely related, if conceptually distinct, cognitive and semantic domains. “Time as space” is a common conceptual and linguistic metaphor in diverse languages, and it has been proposed that this is a universal of human thought and language. This proposal, and the related assumption that the domain of “time as such” is equivalently given for all languages and cultures, are criticized. Research on crosslinguistic variation in the language of space and time needs to supplement experimental studies with the ethnographic linguistic exploration of the more profoundly intercultural sources of language variation, situated in diverse, multi-level material-symbolic socio-cognitive artefacts and niches.

Keywords: crosslinguistic variation, intercultural sources of language variation
Published online: 10 June 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.44.07sin
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Cited by

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Birth, Kevin K.
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