Publications

Publication details [#14658]

Li, Heng and Jijia Zhang. 2019. The Effects of Spatio-temporal Metaphors on Chinese Advanced English Learners’ Time Cognition. Foreign Languages and Their Teaching 5. 104+150 pp.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
Chinese
ISBN
10046038

Abstract

The vast majority of previous studies on the influence of time metaphors on time cognition have mainly focused on natives speakers of different languages and cultures. Little attention has been paid to second language learners. This study examined the effects of spatial metaphoric representation of time on Chinese advanced English learners’ time cognition through two experiments. Experiment 1 showed that, in a neutral context, Chinese advanced English learners’ use of time-moving/ego-moving time metaphor had no difference, suggesting that both L1 and L2 influence time cognition. Experiment 2 showed that, in a difficult semantic processing task, Chinese advanced English learners tended to depend on Chinese time thinking to infer temporal relationships. The results indicate that, when testing the Language Relativity Hypothesis, we should pay attention to the different influence of language on different conceptual categories and that context may offset the influence of language on cognition.