Abstract
The present study investigates deliberate and spontaneous temporal gestures in
Mandarin speakers. The results of our analysis show that when asked to gesture
about past and future events deliberately (Study 1), Mandarin speakers tend to
mimic space-time mappings in their spoken metaphors or graphic conventions for
time in Chinese culture, including sagittal mappings (front/past, back/future),
vertical mappings (up/past, down/future), and lateral mappings (left/past,
right/future). However, in their spontaneous co-speech gestures about time
(Study 2), more congruent gestures were produced on the lateral axis than on the
vertical axis. This suggests that although Mandarin speakers could think about
time vertically, they still showed a horizontal bias in their conceptions of
time. Speakers were also more likely to gesture according to future-in-front
mappings despite more past-in-front mappings found in spoken Chinese, suggesting
a dissociation of temporal language and temporal thought. These results
demonstrate that gesture is useful for revealing the spatial conceptualization
of time.
As Violence Unfolds: A Space–Time Study of Situational Triggers of Violent Victimization Among Urban Youth
