ABSTRACT

Previous psycholinguistic studies have suggested that English and Spanish express temporal duration through different metaphors. English tends to use the time-as-length metaphor (e.g. I have been waiting for a long time), while Spanish prefers the time-as-quantity metaphor (e.g. he esperado mucho tiempo; ‘I have waited much time’). However, these results conflated two different construals: the temporal duration construal, which can use length or quantity metaphors, (e.g. long time, that didn’t last much time) and the time-as-a-resource construal, which mostly employs quantity metaphors (e.g. you spent too much time). This study confirms through corpus linguistic data that English favors the time-as-length metaphor when expressing temporal duration, while it favors the time-as-quantity metaphor when expressing the time-as-a-resource construal. On the other hand, Spanish employs the time-as-quantity metaphor both in the duration and the resource construal. In addition, English shows a higher frequency of time-as-resource expressions, while Spanish shows a higher frequency of duration metaphors. This difference might be explained by the fact that English has been classified as a monochronic culture, conceptualizing time as a valuable object, while Spanish is a polychronic culture, categorizing time in a more abstract and flexible way.

摘要

先前的心理语言学研究表明，英语和西班牙语通过不同的隐喻表达时间长度。英语倾向于使用时间长度的隐喻（例如，我已经等了很长时间），而西班牙语倾向于使用时间定量的隐喻（例如，他等了很多时间；“我已经等了很多时间”）。但是，这些结果混淆了两个不同的解释：时间持续时间解释，可以使用长度或数量的隐喻（例如，很长的时间，不会持续很长时间）；以及时间即资源的解释，主要使用数量。隐喻（例如，您花了太多时间）。这项研究通过语料库语言数据证实，英语在表达时间持续时间时倾向于按时长的隐喻，而在表达时间即资源解释时则倾向于按量的时间隐喻。另一方面，西班牙语在持续时间和资源构造上都采用了时间量喻。另外，英语显示时间即资源表达的频率较高，而西班牙语显示持续时间隐喻的频率较高。可以通过以下事实来解释这种差异：英语已被归类为单时性文化，将时间概念化为有价值的对象，而西班牙语是一种多时性文化，以更抽象和灵活的方式对时间进行分类。