Does time flow vertically in Chinese? The quest for groundbreaking evidence for linguistic relativity

时间在中文里是垂直流动的吗？

• 批准号: ES/V010492/1
• 负责人: Yang Li
• 金额: $ 11.19万
• 依托单位: Bangor University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FV010492%2F1
• 关键词: Does; time; flow; vertically; Chinese

Chinese refers to time in strikingly different ways to the English language. For instance, "the year after next" in Chinese, hou nian, literally translates to 'back year' in English. Therefore, on the front-back axis, Chinese expressions violates the convention of having the future associated with the front space (and the past with the back space). This could be a moot point of course if the difference in expression across languages had no impact on thinking. Many prominent language scholars have argue that such differences in terminology are uninteresting (see for instance Pinker, 2007) because they say that such word differences have no repercussions on thought. However, such arguments are mostly if not entirely based on intuition rather than scientific data. Therefore, the establishment of a link between expressions specific to one language, such as Chinese, and mental representations such as time conceptualisation, are critical in the debate which has become known as the linguistic relativity debate.Previous studies (e.g., Boroditsky, 2001; Boroditsky, Fuhrman & McCormick, 2011) have provided some evidence in favour of a linguistic relativity effect in relation to time conceptualisation. However, such studies based solely on behavioural measurements and conducted in conditions where participants are likely to become aware of the critical manipulations implemented, can only fuel the debate, because it remains an open question whether individuals having specific expressions in their native language to express time actually think differently about time, or whether they are merely influenced by conscious references to language whilst performing a task (the weak version of linguistic relativity according to Pinker, 2007).Providing rigorous and definitive evidence for a link between specific language expressions and thought patterns requires the use of methods that do not solely rely on behavioural measurements and that predictively assess unconscious thought processes. This is exactly what the applicant has set out to do during her PhD, and indeed, we already obtained evidence for back-to-front orientation inversion operating unconsciously in Chinese-English bilinguals using measures of brain activity (Li et al., 2019).Here, we intend to go beyond showing that specific words can conflict with time-space relationships by investigating generalization effects of language expressions on thinking. The goal is to provide the first tangible and scientifically robust evidence that Chinese native speakers conceptualise the passing of time not only on a horizontal (front-back) axis, but also along a vertical axis by extending 'vertical' thinking to expressions of time that make no reference to the vertical axis (or in fact no reference to space). In an experiment that requires physical reconfiguration of the research laboratory of the applicant's mentor, we will investigate how temporal expressions of Chinese referring to the upper and lower space to express past and future events interfere with the sound origin of speech in the environment around the participant. For example, the Chinese words shang zhou refer to 'last week' and literally translate into "up week" in English. When such expression is presented through a loudspeaker situated above the head of the participant, is it easier to process for their brain than when the loudspeaker is situated below their chair? We hypothesise that it will be the case. Critically, however, will this effect also apply for temporal expressions like qu nian - "last year", which literally translate into "gone year" and has no relationship to space? We contend that any interference between the origin of speech in space and the past/future reference of purely temporal expressions in Chinese would be the first compelling evidence for an effect of language expression on time conceptualisation. Such a finding would represent groundbreaking new evidence in the field of linguistic relativity.

汉语指代时间的方式与英语截然不同。例如，中文中的“后年”在英文中直译为“后年”。因此，在前后轴上，汉语表达违反了将来与前面的空间相关联（过去与后面的空间相关联）的惯例。当然，如果不同语言之间的表达差异对思维没有影响，这可能是一个有争议的问题。许多著名的语言学者认为，术语上的这种差异是无趣的（例如，参见Pinker， 2007），因为他们说，这种词的差异对思想没有影响。然而，这些论点大部分（如果不是完全的话）是基于直觉而不是科学数据。因此，在一种语言的特定表达（如汉语）和心理表征（如时间概念化）之间建立联系，在被称为语言相对论辩论的辩论中至关重要。先前的研究（例如，Boroditsky, 2001; Boroditsky, Fuhrman & McCormick, 2011）已经提供了一些证据，支持与时间概念化有关的语言相对性效应。然而，这种仅仅基于行为测量的研究，在参与者可能意识到所实施的关键操作的情况下进行，只会加剧争论，因为使用母语表达时间的特定表达的个体是否真的对时间有不同的看法，这仍然是一个悬而未决的问题。或者他们是否只是在执行任务时受到有意识的语言参考的影响（根据Pinker， 2007年的语言相对论的弱版本）。为特定语言表达和思维模式之间的联系提供严格而明确的证据，需要使用的方法不仅依赖于行为测量，还需要对无意识思维过程进行预测性评估。这正是申请人在攻读博士学位期间所做的事情，事实上，我们已经通过测量大脑活动获得了中英双语者无意识地进行前后方向反转的证据（Li et al., 2019）。在这里，我们打算通过研究语言表达对思维的概括效应来超越特定词语与时空关系的冲突。我们的目标是提供第一个切实和科学有力的证据，证明母语为汉语的人不仅在水平（前后）轴上概念化时间的流逝，而且通过将“垂直”思维扩展到不涉及垂直轴（或实际上不涉及空间）的时间表达，从而沿着垂直轴概念化时间的流逝。在一个需要对申请人导师的研究实验室进行物理重构的实验中，我们将研究汉语指代上下空间来表达过去和未来事件的时态表达如何干扰参与者周围环境中的语音来源。例如，汉语“上周”指的是“上周”，在英语中直译为“上一周”。当这样的表达通过位于参与者头顶的扬声器呈现时，他们的大脑是否比扬声器位于椅子下方时更容易处理？我们假设情况会是这样。然而，关键的是，这种效应是否也适用于像“去年”这样的时态表达，它的字面意思是“逝去的一年”，与空间无关？我们认为，语言在空间上的起源与汉语纯时间表达的过去/未来指称之间的任何干扰，将是语言表达对时间概念化影响的第一个令人信服的证据。这样的发现将代表语言学相对论领域开创性的新证据。