The spatialization of time: Symposium at ICPS2017, Vienna

Presenters:

Barbara Tversky, Stanford University, USA (Chair)

Javier Valenzuela, Dept. of English Philology, University of Murcia, Spain

Gestural information in temporal expressions: Evidence from a large multimodal corpus

Manual gestures performed concurrently with temporal expressions such as "from beginning to end" or "since

the inception of" support the idea of mental timelines coupled with a surprising degree of flexibility.

Julio Santiago, Mind, Brain, and Behavior Research Center, University of Granada, Spain

Attentional focus and the conceptual representation of time across cultures and religions

The assessment of several spatial and evaluative dimensions of time and its relation to cultural temporal values

(progress vs. tradition) and religiosity in Spain, USA, Morocco, Turkey, Taiwan, and Bosnia & Herzegovina,

supports attentional flexibility and finds that different measures of temporal experience form unexpected

groupings.

Cristóbal Pagán Cánovas, Institute for Culture and Society, University of Navarra, Spain

The poetics of time: How poetic effects are created from the conceptual integration of entrenched patterns

Analysis of the figurative mechanisms used to write about time in an extensive sample of classical and modern

poetry, as well as experimental work on poetry comprehension, reveals how space and time are blended into

each other using flexible integration of conceptual templates.

Barbara Tversky, Dept. of Psychology, Stanford University, USA (Discussant)

Abstract:

The idea that time is spatially represented has sparked much research in both linguistics and cognitive

psychology. This symposium aims at pushing the boundaries of this topic by examining data that come from

less studied modalities (gesture), cultures, and genres (poetry).

Supporting Summary:

Everyday expressions such as “Christmas is coming” initially motivated the idea that time is mentally

represented in terms of space and, more generally, that abstract concepts are represented in terms of betterunderstood

concrete concepts. This insight, elaborated under the label of conceptual metaphor, sparked a

revolution in linguistics, being one of the factors leading to the birth of cognitive linguistics. Cognitive psychology

soon followed suit and the notion of conceptual metaphor played a central role in the raise of embodied

theories. The aim of this symposium is to explore the spatialization of time in less-trodden areas. Most data so

far come from two sources: everyday linguistic expressions and written narratives (political, scientific, fiction),

and the behavior of participants from Western societies. The present symposium will push the boundaries of

this field in three ways: 1) we will cross the boundary of modality by analyzing the gestural expression of time;

2) we will cross the boundary of culture by looking at a wide set of cultures, including Morocco, Turkey, Bosnia

& Herzegovina, and Taiwan; and 3) we will cross the boundary of linguistic genres by looking at how time is

expressed in poetry. How do people gesture about time? Dr. Javier Valenzuela will describe current work on the

multimodal expression of time using Red Hen, a huge database of TV news that includes text, sound and video,

to explore the link between temporal expressions such as "from beginning to end" or "since the inception of"

and the manual gestures that speakers perform while uttering these expressions. How is time spatialized across

cultures? Dr. Julio Santiago will present an ongoing research effort aimed at tracing the spatialization of past

and future (including front-back location, distance, depth, as well as several other psychological dimensions

such as time discounting or self-continuity) and its relation to cultural temporal values (progress vs. tradition)

and religiosity in a number of samples varying in culture and religion. The countries involved are Spain, USA,

Morocco, Turkey, Taiwan, and Bosnia & Herzegovina. The religions involved are Catholic, Orthodox, Buddhist-

Taoist, and Muslim, plus agnostic-atheist participants. How do poets write about time? Dr. Cristóbal Pagán

Cánovas will explore the figurative mechanisms used by poets when writing about time and how they are

exploited creatively, using an extensive sample of classical and modern poetry and will explore how space and

time are blended into each other using flexible integration of conceptual templates. He will also touch upon

experimental work that has recently explored how this kind of poetic expressions are understood. The

symposium will end with a debate about the challenges that the new data pose to current theories of spatial

time, and which could be the most promising theoretical avenues to pursue in the future. The debate will be

framed by a short presentation by Cristóbal Pagán Cánovas outlining the main theoretical contenders in this

field and the main challenges they face, followed by open discussion.