Speakers of different languages think about time in different ways. In all languages, however, time is referenced as a property of space (Boroditsky, 2011). For English speakers, time moves across a horizontal plane; for Mandarin speakers, time moves down a vertical plane (Lai and Boroditsky, 2013). How different speakers think about time has important implications for how different speakers conceptualise age. Age is commonly framed as a metaphorical journey through a conceptual space (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). In material terms, however, the notion of ageing describes the systemic entropy within a biological organism. The point of reference is the circumnavigation of the local star. In the ancient world, time was often conceptualised as a recurrent cycle (Rosen, 2004). In this paper, I argue in favour of this naturalistic conceptualisation of time. From this perspective, time describes cyclical change. Crucially, how we think about the aged can be reconfigured.

1. Seasons, Cycles and Journeys: How We Think About
Change Terry McDonough

2. Background
• Language is an ‘embodied neural system’
(Feldman, 2009)
• Utterances composed of form-meaning pairs
• Schematic ‘decomposition’
• Multiple levels of analysis: “molecule to
metaphor”
• Computational and neurobiological plausibility
- Stochastic Petri nets (Narayanan et al)
- Mesoscopic brain dynamics (Freeman et al)

3. 1. How is time conceptualised?

4. Conceptualising Time
• Conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff and
Johnson, 1980);
• Metaphor as a result of analogical
mapping(s) between (concrete) source
and (abstract) target: X - - > Y [x = y]
• Time is represented as a property/aspect
of space:
- Time as an arrow:
spatial configuration - - > temporal configuration
- Life as a journey:
spatial trajectory - - > temporal trajectory
TIME
Fig. 1: Arrow of time
Fig. 2: Life-as-a-journey

5. Conceptualising Time
• Temporal derivatives:
Progress, change, ageing etc.
• Episodic memory and the
conceptualisation of episodic
event structures
• Life ‘progress’ as a sine wave
• Under-investment in downside

6. 2. Thinking about time

7. Lera Boroditsky
• TIME is represented as SPACE
• Representations dependent on first language (L1)
• L1 primes delay L2 responses; L2 primes disrupt L1 responses
• Second language (L2) delays relative to age and extent of L2 exposure
• TIME-is-SPACE representation manifests in more abstract domains
(durations, journeys: lunch queues, airports, train stations)
• Grammatical gender affects object description (see Boroditsky 2017)

8. 2000: Metaphoric structuring: Understanding time through spatial
metaphors. Cognition 75 (1), 1-28
• Is the abstract conceptual domain of TIME structured by the concrete
domain of SPACE? Is the structuring relational?
RESULTS
• SPACE and TIME share conceptual
structure (Fig 1.)
• Spatial information is equal to
temporal information (for TIME)
• Frequency of use entrenches spatial
information (for TIME)

9. 2001: Does language shape thought?: Mandarin and English speakers'
conceptions of time. Cognitive psychology 43 (1), 1-22
• Investigation of bilingual (English/Mandarin) speakers
• English frames time as a horizontal line, while Mandarin frames time as
a vertical line;
• Subjects primed with vertical/horizontal spatial metaphors;
• Mandarin speakers tended to think about time vertically even when
they were thinking for English;
• All respondents sensitive to priming:
that is, responses relative to primed axes

10. 2002: The roles of body and mind in abstract thought. Psychological
science 13 (2), 185-189. With M. Ramscar.
• How are we able to think about unobserved abstractions?
RESULTS
• Understanding of abstract concepts (TIME) dependent on material
experience (space)
• Representation of SPACE more influential than sensorimotor experience
of space
• SPACE modifies experience of TIME

11. 2008: Time in the mind: Using space to think about time. Cognition 106
(2), 579-593. With D. Casasanto.
• Do people think about time using spatial representations (distance,
durations etc.)?
RESULTS
• Metaphorical relationships between space and time exist in basic
representations of duration and distance
• Metaphorical representations of unobservable concepts (distance,
duration etc.) are built out of representations of physical experiences

12. 3. Reconfiguring Change

13. Conceptualising Age
• Second Law of Thermodynamics: entropy
in closed system
• Biological entropy: degeneration -> death!
• Metaphorical complex:
- Time is space
- Time is change
- Biological change is age
- Time is capital
- Life is spent
- Aged life = low liquidity

14. Active Aging Policy: Some ‘fuzzy’
logic…
IF we accept that AGE is CHANGE (that is, entropy in a closed biological
system:
THEN entropy equates to a reduction in potential energy (time as
capital):
BUT the reduction in potential energy in a closed system (organism) is
equal to the increase in energetic potential across an open system
(society)
Can we, then, conceptualise ageing as cyclical: autumn - - > spring?

15. Contact: t.mcdonough@lancaster.ac.uk |
www.erotao.wordpress.com