Abstract
TIME is a highly abstract concept and prevalent in languages worldwide. Cross-cultural and cross-linguistic research suggests that TIME is embodied dissimilarly in different languages. Still the literature has not received sufficient attention in examining the differences. This study aimed to identify and compare how TIME is metaphorically represented and embodied worldwide. We investigated 14 languages; Arabic, Assamese, Chinese, English, Finnish, French, German, Japanese, Kikuyu, Persian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish, which represent nine language families. The metaphors were categorized conceptually as TIME IS AN ORGANISM, TIME IS MOTION, TIME IS SPACE, and TIME IS A VALUABLE COMMODITY. We employed a two-part paper-based task. The first part consisted of generation of metaphor items and the second part consisted of a valence rating task. The key variables considered were 'metaphor category' and 'language family' while controlling for demographic variables such as gender, age and handedness. Data from 513 participants were collected. Results showed a significant association between language categories and the valences of time metaphors. The data of this study suggest that within the languages of a certain category, there might be some similarity between the valences of words that are used to realize a given conceptual metaphor.
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Data and R codes are available at https://cutt.ly/8Vl4ekx
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Authors of this study appreciate the participants of the study, and the directors of the laboratories in each country.
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Authors’ contributions: Conception or design of the work: F.M-R | Design of the experiments: F. M-R | Data collection: all other authors | Data analysis and interpretation: F. M-R and K. P. | Drafting the article: F. M-R, H. B., O. K-Z, F. R. | Critical revision of the article: all other authors | Final approval of the version to be published: F. M-R.
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Appendices
Appendix 1
Questionnaire
Introduction
The purpose of this survey is to assess notions related to time. All the information will be kept confidential and only used for this research.
Gender: male | female.
Age: ____
Handedness: left | right.
There are many metaphors/phrases that English-speakers use to refer to the word time. Name 5 of these metaphors/phrases in English.
A. Time
i. __________________________________________________ii.__________________________________________________iii. _________________________________________________iv.__________________________________________________v. __________________________________________________
Please rate how emotionally positive/negative is each metaphor that you have written down in the page above. Please do so by making a mark anywhere in the lines below (the leftmost extreme indicates the metaphor is very negative, while the rightmost extreme indicates the metaphor is very positive; the middle of the line indicates the metaphor is neutral). Each number (i.e. i., ii. etc.) corresponds to the metaphors you write down above.
Very Negative Very Positive.i.ii.iii.iv.v.
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Khatin-Zadeh, O., Banaruee, H., Reali, F. et al. Metaphors of time across cultures. J Cult Cogn Sci 7, 219–231 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41809-023-00125-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41809-023-00125-3