Skip to main content
Presented to you through Paradigm Publishing Services

John Benjamins Publishing Company

Visit our Partner Page See all our books
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

The cultural cognition of time

Some anthropological perspectives

Abstract

This chapter presents an overview of some recent work in anthropology on how time cognition works and on the human measurement of time. It attempts to demonstrate how language, mind, social process and ecology interact to underpin the ways in which different cultural groups experience, use and understand time. I review how time is constituted as a domain, examining different kinds of unit by which time is divided, and thereafter consider the logics through which the organization of time is integrated. These problems include the juxtaposition of cyclical and linear notions; the intrinsic complementarity of idioms of space and time; whether ‘time as such’ is a cognitive domain and conceptual universal beyond the particularities of local culture experience; whether the architectures of dualism and cognitive economy are integral to our understanding of time; the extent to which memory and narrativity are crucial to human constructions of time; and whether certain aspects of time organization depend entirely on its encoding in language. The chapter concludes by agreeing with Stephen Levinson that the contribution of anthropology to understanding the language cognition of complex domains such as time is through its emphasis on grounded ethnography, an insistence on holistic approaches, on comparison and on the implications of integrating data from the extremes of cultural diversity.

Abstract

This chapter presents an overview of some recent work in anthropology on how time cognition works and on the human measurement of time. It attempts to demonstrate how language, mind, social process and ecology interact to underpin the ways in which different cultural groups experience, use and understand time. I review how time is constituted as a domain, examining different kinds of unit by which time is divided, and thereafter consider the logics through which the organization of time is integrated. These problems include the juxtaposition of cyclical and linear notions; the intrinsic complementarity of idioms of space and time; whether ‘time as such’ is a cognitive domain and conceptual universal beyond the particularities of local culture experience; whether the architectures of dualism and cognitive economy are integral to our understanding of time; the extent to which memory and narrativity are crucial to human constructions of time; and whether certain aspects of time organization depend entirely on its encoding in language. The chapter concludes by agreeing with Stephen Levinson that the contribution of anthropology to understanding the language cognition of complex domains such as time is through its emphasis on grounded ethnography, an insistence on holistic approaches, on comparison and on the implications of integrating data from the extremes of cultural diversity.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface vii
  4. Introduction ix
  5. Timeless concept of Temporality
  6. Temporal Reference Without the Concept of Time? 3
  7. Spatial construal of time extended
  8. Situating Events in Language 27
  9. Speaking, Gesturing, Reasoning 43
  10. Temporal Language and Temporal Thinking May Not Go Hand in Hand 67
  11. Western Conception of Time in Signed Languages: a Cognitive Linguistic Perspective 85
  12. The Mental Timeline During the Processing of Linguistic Information 103
  13. Time conceptualizations beyond space
  14. The cultural cognition of time 125
  15. When time is not space 151
  16. Metaphor and thought 187
  17. Conceptualizations of temporal categories
  18. Temporal scenery 207
  19. Marking anteriority, perfect and perfectivity in languages of mainland Southeast Asia – concepts, linguistic area 243
  20. Distributional sources of time conceptualization
  21. Reflection of temporal horizon in linguistic performance 273
  22. Time-discretising adverbials 295
  23. Author index 317
  24. Subject index 323
Conceptualizations of Time
This chapter is in the book Conceptualizations of Time
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.52.07ell

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface vii
  4. Introduction ix
  5. Timeless concept of Temporality
  6. Temporal Reference Without the Concept of Time? 3
  7. Spatial construal of time extended
  8. Situating Events in Language 27
  9. Speaking, Gesturing, Reasoning 43
  10. Temporal Language and Temporal Thinking May Not Go Hand in Hand 67
  11. Western Conception of Time in Signed Languages: a Cognitive Linguistic Perspective 85
  12. The Mental Timeline During the Processing of Linguistic Information 103
  13. Time conceptualizations beyond space
  14. The cultural cognition of time 125
  15. When time is not space 151
  16. Metaphor and thought 187
  17. Conceptualizations of temporal categories
  18. Temporal scenery 207
  19. Marking anteriority, perfect and perfectivity in languages of mainland Southeast Asia – concepts, linguistic area 243
  20. Distributional sources of time conceptualization
  21. Reflection of temporal horizon in linguistic performance 273
  22. Time-discretising adverbials 295
  23. Author index 317
  24. Subject index 323
Downloaded on 24.4.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/hcp.52.07ell/html?lang=en
Scroll to top button