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When time is not space: The social and linguistic construction of time intervals and temporal event relations in an Amazonian culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2014

Chris Sinha ,
Vera Da Silva Sinha ,
Jörg Zinken  and
Wany Sampaio
Chris Sinha
Affiliation:
University of Portsmouth
Vera Da Silva Sinha
Affiliation:
University of Portsmouth
Jörg Zinken
Affiliation:
University of Portsmouth
Wany Sampaio*
Affiliation:
Federal University of Rondônia
*
Correspondence addresses: Professor Chris Sinha, Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth, King Henry Building, King Henry I Street, Portsmouth, PO1 2DY, UK. E-mail: chris.sinha@port.ac.uk
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Abstract

It is widely assumed that there is a natural, prelinguistic conceptual domain of time whose linguistic organization is universally structured via metaphoric mapping from the lexicon and grammar of space and motion. We challenge this assumption on the basis of our research on the Amondawa (Tupi Kawahib) language and culture of Amazonia. Using both observational data and structured field linguistic tasks, we show that linguistic space-time mapping at the constructional level is not a feature of the Amondawa language, and is not employed by Amondawa speakers (when speaking Amondawa). Amondawa does not recruit its extensive inventory of terms and constructions for spatial motion and location to express temporal relations. Amondawa also lacks a numerically based calendric system. To account for these data, and in opposition to a Universal Space-Time Mapping Hypothesis, we propose a Mediated Mapping Hypothesis, which accords causal importance to the numerical and artefact-based construction of time-based (as opposed to event-based) time interval systems.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , March 2011 , pp. 137 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2011

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