Contact: Joerg Zinken
Email: joerg.zinken@port.ac.uk

Call Deadline: 31-Oct-2007 

All cultures around the world manifest some form of conceptual organization dealing with chronological experience. Although the anthropology of time is a research field with a long history (e.g., Gell, 1992; Munn, 1992), a linguistic anthropology of time is less developed than one might expect (Levinson, 2004). In recent years, cognitive linguists and psychologists have started making theoretical and empirical contributions to the understanding of how humans construe temporal concepts (e.g., Boroditski, 2000; Evans, 2004; Gentner, 2001; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Moore, 2000; N??ez & Sweetser, 2006; Shinohara, 1999; Talmy, 2000; Zinken, in press). Much research has focussed on spatial construals of time (e.g., the use of an ego-centric front-back axis to conceptualize ideas such as future and past). How exactly spatial entities and experiences might be recruited for structuring temporal construals, and what variations and invariants exist, are open questions that require more s!
 cientific investigation.

The theme session aims to further consolidate this relatively new research field, and present the state of the art to the cognitive linguistic community. Presentations are invited reporting empirical findings from cross-linguistic research, ethnographic observations, gesture studies, and experimental investigations. Special emphasis will be put on the discussion of methodological issues and theoretical questions regarding the nature of the relationship between spatial and temporal conceptualisation and linguistic expression.

Boroditsky, L. (2000). Metaphoric structuring: Understanding time through spatial metaphors. Cognition, 75, 1-28.
Evans, V. (2004). The Structure of Time: Language, Meaning and Temporal Cognition. Amsterdam, Phil.: John Benjamins.
Gell, A. (1992). The Anthropology of Time. Cultural Constructions of Temporal Maps and Images. Oxford: Berg.
Gentner, D. (2001). Spatial metaphors in temporal reasoning. In M. Gattis(Ed.), Spatial schemas and abstract thought (pp. 203-222). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Levinson, S. C. (2004). Time for a linguistic anthropology of time. Current Anthropology, 43(Supplement), 122-123.
Moore, K. E. (2000). Spatial Experience and Temporal Metaphors in Wolof: Point of View, Conceptual Mapping, and Linguistic Practice. University of California, Berkeley.
Munn, N. D. (1992). The cultural anthropology of time: a critical essay. Annual Review of Anthropology, 21, 93-123.
N??ez, R. E., & Sweetser, E. (2006). With the future behind them: Convergent evidence from Aymara language and gesture in the crosslinguistic comparison of spatial construals of time. Cognitive Science, 30, 1-49.
Shinohara, K. (1999). Typology of space-time mappings. Unpublished manuscript.
Talmy, L. (2000). Toward a cognitive semantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Zinken, J. (in press). Temporal frames of reference. In P. Chilton & V. Evans (Eds.), Language, cognition, and space. The state of the art and new directions. London: Equinox. 

Theme Session Call for Papers

Spatial Construals of Time: Theoretical and Empirical Issues

Part of ICLC 10 in Cracow, 15 - 20 July 2007

Organizers:

Rafael Nunez, Vera da Silva Sinha, Chris Sinha, Eve Sweetser, Jorg Zinken

Abstracts:

We invite abstracts of max. 1,000 words (including references). Abstracts should explicitly state research questions and context, methods, results, and implications. Please send your abstract to Jorg Zinken: joerg.zinken@port.ac.uk