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A Corpus-Based Comparison of the Pragmatic Use of Qian and Hou to Examine the Applicability of Space–Time Metaphor Hypothesis in Early Child Mandarin

The Universal Space–Time Mapping Hypothesis suggests that temporal expression is based on spatial metaphor for all human beings. This study examines its applicability in the Chinese language using the data elicited from the Early Childhood Mandarin Corpus (ECMC) (Li and Tse, 2011), which collected t...

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Autores principales: Tsung, Linda, Wu, Dandan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7847851/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33536960
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.565763
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author Tsung, Linda
Wu, Dandan
author_facet Tsung, Linda
Wu, Dandan
author_sort Tsung, Linda
collection PubMed
description The Universal Space–Time Mapping Hypothesis suggests that temporal expression is based on spatial metaphor for all human beings. This study examines its applicability in the Chinese language using the data elicited from the Early Childhood Mandarin Corpus (ECMC) (Li and Tse, 2011), which collected the utterances produced by 168 Mandarin-speaking preschoolers in a semistructured play context. The unique pair of Chinese words, qian (前/before/front) and hou (后/after/back), which can be used to express either time (before/after) or space (front/back) in daily communication, was the unit of analysis. The results indicated that: (1) there was a significant age effect in the production of “qian/hou,” indicating that the period before the age of 4.5 may be critical for the development of temporal and spatial expression; (2) the pair was produced to express time (before/after) much earlier than space (front/back), indicating that the expression of time might not necessarily be based on the spatial metaphor; and (3) the pair was used more frequently to express time (before/after) than space (front/back) by the preschoolers, thus challenging the hypothesis.
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spelling pubmed-78478512021-02-02 A Corpus-Based Comparison of the Pragmatic Use of Qian and Hou to Examine the Applicability of Space–Time Metaphor Hypothesis in Early Child Mandarin Tsung, Linda Wu, Dandan Front Psychol Psychology The Universal Space–Time Mapping Hypothesis suggests that temporal expression is based on spatial metaphor for all human beings. This study examines its applicability in the Chinese language using the data elicited from the Early Childhood Mandarin Corpus (ECMC) (Li and Tse, 2011), which collected the utterances produced by 168 Mandarin-speaking preschoolers in a semistructured play context. The unique pair of Chinese words, qian (前/before/front) and hou (后/after/back), which can be used to express either time (before/after) or space (front/back) in daily communication, was the unit of analysis. The results indicated that: (1) there was a significant age effect in the production of “qian/hou,” indicating that the period before the age of 4.5 may be critical for the development of temporal and spatial expression; (2) the pair was produced to express time (before/after) much earlier than space (front/back), indicating that the expression of time might not necessarily be based on the spatial metaphor; and (3) the pair was used more frequently to express time (before/after) than space (front/back) by the preschoolers, thus challenging the hypothesis. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-01-18 /pmc/articles/PMC7847851/ /pubmed/33536960 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.565763 Text en Copyright © 2021 Tsung and Wu. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Tsung, Linda
Wu, Dandan
A Corpus-Based Comparison of the Pragmatic Use of Qian and Hou to Examine the Applicability of Space–Time Metaphor Hypothesis in Early Child Mandarin
title A Corpus-Based Comparison of the Pragmatic Use of Qian and Hou to Examine the Applicability of Space–Time Metaphor Hypothesis in Early Child Mandarin
title_full A Corpus-Based Comparison of the Pragmatic Use of Qian and Hou to Examine the Applicability of Space–Time Metaphor Hypothesis in Early Child Mandarin
title_fullStr A Corpus-Based Comparison of the Pragmatic Use of Qian and Hou to Examine the Applicability of Space–Time Metaphor Hypothesis in Early Child Mandarin
title_full_unstemmed A Corpus-Based Comparison of the Pragmatic Use of Qian and Hou to Examine the Applicability of Space–Time Metaphor Hypothesis in Early Child Mandarin
title_short A Corpus-Based Comparison of the Pragmatic Use of Qian and Hou to Examine the Applicability of Space–Time Metaphor Hypothesis in Early Child Mandarin
title_sort corpus-based comparison of the pragmatic use of qian and hou to examine the applicability of space–time metaphor hypothesis in early child mandarin
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7847851/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33536960
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.565763
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