Space and Time in Languages and Cultures: Language, culture, and cognition

Description

This is an interdisciplinary volume that focuses on the central topic of the representation of events, namely cross-cultural differences in representing time and space, as well as various aspects of the conceptualisation of space and time. It brings together research on space and time from a variety of angles, both theoretical and methodological. Crossing boundaries between and among disciplines such as linguistics, psychology, philosophy, or anthropology forms a creative platform in a bold attempt to reveal the complex interaction of language, culture, and cognition in the context of human communication and interaction. The authors address the nature of spatial and temporal constructs from a number of perspectives, such as cultural specificity in determining time intervals in an Amazonian culture, distinct temporalities in a specific Mongolian hunter community, Russian-specific conceptualisation of temporal relations, Seri and Yucatec frames of spatial reference, memory of events in space and time, and metaphorical meaning stemming from perception and spatial artefacts, to name but a few themes. The topic of space and time in language and culture is also represented, from a different albeit related point of view, in the sister volume Space and Time in Languages and Cultures: Linguistic diversity (HCP 36) which focuses on the language-specific vis-à-vis universal aspects of linguistic representation of spatial and temporal reference. Space and Time in Languages and Cultures. Language, culture, and cognition Editorial page Title page LCC Data Table of contents Editors and contributors Foreword: Space and time in languages, cultures, and cognition Introduction: Linguistic, cultural, and cognitive approaches to space and time 1. Preliminary remarks 2. The contributions to the volume 3. Perspectives for future research References I. Linguistic and conceptual representation of events 1. Event-based time intervals in an Amazonian culture 1. Introduction 2. Calendars and time reckoning: Anthropological perspectives 3. Amondawa culture and society: An overview 4. Time intervals in Amondawa language and culture 5. Time and the human lifespan in Amondawa 6. Discussion References 2. Vagueness in event times: An epistemic solution 1. Introduction 2. Temporal vagueness vs predicate vagueness 3. What is it that is vague? 4. Selecting a theory for temporal vagueness 5. Conclusions References 3. Aspectual coercions in content composition 1. Introduction 2. Background 3. From type presupposition to coercion 4. A sketch of a formal theory of lexical meaning 5. Modality, aspect, and the verbal complex 6. Conclusion References 4. Back to the future: Just where are forthcoming events located? 1. Introduction 2. Spatio-kinetic metaphors for time and the role of Ego 3. On the nature of the future tense 4. Future locations 5. Epistemic metaphors 6. Conclusion References II. Cultural perspectives on space and time 5. The “Russian” attitude to time 1. Introduction 2. Semantics of the syntactic phraseme X v X ‘X to X’ 3. Pragmatics of the syntactic phraseme X v X ‘X to X’ 4. Conclusions References 6. Two temporalities of the Mongolian wolf hunter 1. Introduction 2. Pleasing the White Father and producing hiimor’ 3. Wolf, hiimor’, and predation 4. Hiimor’ and temporality 5. Concluding remarks References 7. Koromu temporal expressions: Semantic and cultural perspectives 1. Introduction 2. Geographic and sociolinguistic setting 3. Time and Koromu morphosyntax 4. Semantic primes and semantic molecules 5. Basic temporal adverbs and temporal primes in Koromu 6. Time, days, and parts of a day 7. Counting the days - a deictic centred system 8. Traditional perspectives on asi ‘months’ 9. Conclusion References Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Appendix 3 Appendix 4 8. Universals and specifics of ‘time’ in Russian 1. Introduction 2. The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) as a tool of semantic description 3. Russian temporal expressions and cultural attitudes to time 4. Concluding remarks References III. Conceptualizing spatio-temporal relations 9. Linguistic manifestations of the space-time (dis)analogy 1. Preliminaries 2. The extensive noun-verb parallelism 3. Asymmetries 4. The multiple roles of time 5. The dynamic conception of space 6. Summation References 10. Vectors and frames of reference: Evidence from Seri and Yucatec 1. Introduction 2. Orientation and frames of reference 3. Data collection and methods 4. Seri and Yucatec data 5. Frames of reference and vectors 6. Conclusion References 11. Verbal and gestural expression of motion in French and Czech 1. The conceptual category of motion and language diversity 2. Impact of language on the conceptualisation of motion 3. Co-speech gesture 4. The present study and hypotheses 5. Participants 6. Materials 7. Procedure 8. Speech and gesture coding 9. Results 10. Discussion and conclusion References 12. Language-specific effects on lexicalisation and memory of motion events 1. Introduction 2. The current study: Recognition and verbalisation with increased memory load 3. Methods and materials 4. Results 5. Discussion 6. Conclusions References 13. Space and time in episodic memory: Philosophical and developmental perspectives 1. Introduction 2. Digging deeper: The Kantian roots 3. Why this is a ‘minimalist’ view of episodic memory 4. Objections: This minimalist account of episodic memory is neither (a) about memory, nor (b) episo 5. Testing these ideas 6. The Tim and Tom experiment 7. Discussion and coda References 14. Conceptualizing the present through construal aspects: The case of the English temporal construc 1. Introduction 2. Analytical tools: A general introduction 3. The analysis 4. Conclusions References 15. From perception of spatial artefacts to metaphorical meaning 1. Introduction 2. Method and material 3. Mental imagery for paths or roads 4. Metaphorical and non-metaphorical uses of path or road 5. Discussion 6. Conclusion References Contents of the companion volume: Linguistic diversity Name index Subject index Language index