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Part of
Studies in Figurative Thought and Language
Edited by Angeliki Athanasiadou
[Human Cognitive Processing 56] 2017
► pp. 296–321

Chapter 12
The psychological reality of spatio-temporal metaphors

| Lancaster University
| University of Cambridge
| Stockholm University

Time provides essential structure to human experience. This chapter reviews the available empirical evidence for a fundamental metaphoric structure such as time is space in figurative language and thought. The chapter is organized into three over-arching themes: Motion through time, temporal succession, and duration estimation. A large part of the experimental evidence lends support to the psychological reality of the time is space metaphor, revealing the inextricable link between conceptual metaphor in language and time perception. The review also reveals that linguistic space-time mappings may be overridden by cultural conventions, calling for further empirical cross-linguistic and cross-cultural exploration within experimental cognitive linguistics.

Keywords: duration estimation, experimental cognitive linguistics, time perception
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Motion through time
  • 3.Temporal succession
  • 4.Duration estimation
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 26 April 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.56.12ath
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