ABSTRACT
The cross-modal representation of time in terms of entity, motion, and space is discussed with a set of 165 speech-gesture cases of temporal span, deictic time, and sequence time. A span of time is commonly conceptualized as entity and motion; deictic time and sequence time are metaphorized in terms of space. There are two spatial timelines in the Chinese language, one on the vertical plane and the other on the sagittal plane. In gesture, three timelines are involved: up-down, front-back, and left-right. While sagittal representation is common across languages, verticality is Chinese-specific, and laterality is gesture-specific. English and Chinese show a high consistency in producing the gestural depiction of temporal ideas primarily on the lateral plane. In the case of the sagittal plane, the use of the ego-based and time-based perspectives in English, Spanish, Arabic, and in the varieties of Mandarin spoken in Taiwan, Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, and Shandong varies within a language and across languages. Further, the involvement of two spatial directions on the same or distinct timelines takes up the large majority of cases. In the lateral representation of time, the spatialization of temporal anteriority and posteriority tends to be done along a left-to-right time flow in English and some Chinese dialects, but along a right-to-left time flow in Arabic and Hebrew. Taiwan Mandarin does not show an unequivocal inclination to favor one direction or the other, which fact may have been influenced by the exposure to both the traditional and western styles of literacy and time- and sequence-related practices in Taiwan. Taken together, the spoken and gestural representations reveal diversity, complexity, and language specificity in the conceptualization of temporal ideas.
