Spatial Metaphors of Time in English and Chinese from the Perspective of Cognitive Linguistics

Abstract

In Linguistics, metaphor is not only a rhetorical case, but also a cognitive means. The whole conceptual systems of human beings are built on metaphor. Through the analysis and comparisons, we can find that there are similarities and differences of the expressions of time metaphor in both English and Chinese. The commonness is from the similar cognitive ability and the sharing of the same “time as space” metaphor, and the differences result from the different socio-cultural backgrounds.