The Influence Of Space-time Metaphors On The Construction Of Mental Time Line

The relationship between language and thought has always been a controversial topic.In this study,three experiments were conducted to examine if space-time metaphors could change people’s temporal thinking.The experiments compared the mental time line(MTL)of monolingual English speakers,monolingual Arabic speakers,English-Chinese bilinguals and Arabic-Chinese bilinguals,to answer the three research questions:(1)How do first language(L1)space-time metaphors affect people’s construction of MTL?(2)How do second language(L2)space-time metaphors affect people’s construction of MTL in the short term?(3)How do L2 space-time metaphors affect people’s construction of MTL in the long run?Experiment 1 adopted the temporal congruency categorization paradigm and recruited 20 monolingual English speakers and 20 monolingual Arabic speakers as participants.They were presented with images depicting constructions and were supposed to determine whether the image depicted the past or the future by hitting keys placed sagittally or vertically.The E-Prime program tracked their judgment response time(RT).Experiment 2 adopted the same paradigm as Experiment 1 and recruited 20 Engl ish monolinguals and 19 Arabic monolinguals as participants.Before formal trials,participants were subjected to metaphor training,which taught participaants a Chinese-like new way of discussing time.Experiment 3 recruited 20 English-Chinese bilinguals and 20 Arabic-Chinese bilinguals(Chinese is their L2)as participants.This experiment’s materials and paradigm were identical to those of the first experiment.Results demonstrated that:(1)Sagittally,both English and Arabic monolinguals responded significantly faster to stimuli presenting space-time mappings compatible with those of their space-time metaphors(future=front)than to stimuli offering incompatible mappings(past=front).However vertically,opposing key-mapping did not produce noticeably different RTs.Monolingual English and Arabic speakers had identical sagittal MTL,but no vertical MTL.This pattern was consistent with the pattern of space-time metaphors in their native languages;(2)After metaphor training,English and Arabic monolingual participants showed MTLs resembling those of the untrained.Their MTLs were not altered by a brief metaphor training;(3)Vertically,Arabic-Chinese bilinguals responded significantly faster to stimuli presenting space-time mappings compatible with Chinese space-time metaphors(past=up)than to stimuli offering mappings incompatible with Chinese space-time metaphors(future=up),whereas English-Chinese bilinguals did not exhibit a similar difference.While the MTL of English-Chinese bilinguals was the same as that of English monolinguals,Arabic-Chinese bilinguals displayed MTLs resembling those of Chinese monolinguals.This study supported the linguistic relativity hypothesis,which stated that linguistic patterns could influence concept formation.In terms of how L2 might affect time representation,this study rectified the findings of previous studies,which either supported or refuted the role of L2 in building time representation.This study suggested that the influence of L2 on cognition was not absolute and could be affected by multiple factors.It remains to be further explored if the influence imposed by the acquisition and use of a L2 can lead to the fundamental restructuring of basic conceptual structures such as time and space.