Time and Tenses across Languages and Cultures | Cultural Differences and Direction of Time
PART 1
Did you know that different cultures and languages conceptualise
and talk about time in different ways?
The EAL Bites | Knowledge Bank consists of posts and videos talking about EAL pedagogy, research and other information around EAL learners which I think might interest teaching and support staff. I’m hoping chunking them into small bites will make them easier to fit into your busy week. Topics are inspired by past and present observations and conversations with staff and students. Have a topic you’d like me to address? Please get in touch.
In this Time and Tenses Across Languages and Cultures series, we’re going to talk about time and tenses across languages and cultures. The inspiration for this series came from conversations I’ve had with various subject teachers about the difficulties EAL students may encounter when discussing, writing, or conceptualizing topics related to time in English during your lessons.
Over the three posts, we will consider:
Part 1 | Cultural Differences and Direction of Time;
Part 2 | Grammatical Structures;
Part 3 | Idiomatic Expressions; and ways of Supporting EAL Learners.
The article below expands upon the the video above, whilst also detailing links and references mentioned.
Did you know…
…Not everyone thinks about time the same way?
Did you know that different cultures and languages conceptualise and talk about time in different ways?
Hopefully, this series may help you to understand some of the reasons why EAL students may be struggling to talk, write or think about things involving time in English in your lessons. I, for one, can now see where “down weekend” came from in a GCSE practice question I’ve recently marked…
Cultural Differences
Time perception and expression varies across cultures
Historically, different cultures have distinct ways of conceptualizing and organizing time. Cultures with a more fluid, cyclical or relative view of time may struggle to adapt to the linear and punctual orientation of English time expressions and societal norms.
Monochronic, Polychronic, or both?
For example, monochronic cultures favour doing one thing at a time and adhere more strictly to deadlines and schedules, whilst polychronic cultures view deadlines as things which are more like flexible ideals, and prefer doing many things at once.
Cultures which are typically considered monochronic include many Western cultures as well as some others influenced by those cultures. Many typically polychronic cultures include South American, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and Asian ones.
With ever-increasing cross-cultural interaction and exposure, these trends can vary with context, such as business versus social interactions, or even simply by individual preference. China is often considered a mix of both tendencies, perhaps favouring polychronic characteristics, particularly in its traditional cultural practices and social interactions. However, this can vary on individual, regional and contextual levels.
Monochronic people:
Create detailed future plans and schedules
Adhere strictly to deadlines
Disapprove of tardiness
Tackle tasks one by one when feasible, avoiding multitasking
Remain on task until everything is completed
Limit small talk and irrelevancies in workplace or business gatherings
Value clear start and end points for tasks and activities
Polychronic people:
Don’t consider lateness as negatively
Treat to-do lists and schedules with greater flexibility, regularly altering or removing items
Value the cultivation of robust relationships with others
Adjust and re-prioritise activities based on evolving needs
Embracing the idea that each activity or event should unfold organically rather than follow a strict schedule
You can find out more in this discussion.
Linear and Cyclical Approaches
Another perspective on time is to consider it in terms of linear and cyclical approaches.
Western societies typically embrace a linear perception of time, characterized by distinct beginnings and endings. Time is perceived as a finite resource, influencing individuals' life organization, particularly in work settings, where schedules, goals, and deadlines are paramount. Those who fail to meet deadlines are often deemed unsuccessful. Individuals do not perceive the future as unpredictable, but as something they can shape through careful planning.
On the other hand, numerous non-Western cultures may perceive time as cyclical and infinite. Days, seasons, even life is perpetually cyclical, with descendants carrying on for their ancestors. Time is not perceived as a finite resource. Consequently, greater importance is placed on doing things correctly and nurturing relationships, rather than adhering to arbitrary deadlines.
The Direction of Time
Conceptually, time often naturally flows in the same direction as traditional writing in different cultures
Other than for artistic or design purposes, cultures naturally think of time as moving in their customary direction of writing. This applies to both pictorial and linguistic representations.
Many cultures, including Anglophone ones, generally draw timelines horizontally, from left to right. In English, we move meetings forward or push deadlines back. Several cultures and languages that traditionally write from right to left, such as Arabic, Hebrew and Persian, may view time progressing in that direction. Drawing timelines vertically is less common, but is sometimes still used in cultures with traditional vertical writing systems, such as Japanese and Chinese, although horizontal writing is becoming more prevalent there these days. I’ll talk about using “up” and “down” in the next section of this blog.
Researchers have found that Individuals who speak different languages can process temporal information more efficiently when it is structured in accordance with the spatial organization (direction of time) of their respective languages (Miles, et al., 2011). In a second experiment, they tasked Chinese-English bilingual participants with arranging images of both a young, mature, and elderly Brad Pitt and Jet Li. Interestingly, they arranged the images of Brad Pitt horizontally, positioning the young version to the left and the older version to the right. However, the same individuals arranged the images of Jet Li vertically, with the young iteration at the top and the elderly at the bottom. This contextual shift in behaviour suggests a strong connection between culture and meaning.
Two interesting examples of spatial temporal representations from the speaker’s perspective
In the central Andes, the Aymara language employs the term "nayra" to denote both past events and objects situated in front of the speaker. Conversely, "Qhipa" signifies back or behind and is integrated into expressions related to the future. This understanding of time is also reflected in gestures. When discussing a future event, speakers may point backward or wave over their shoulders, whereas they extend their hands and arms forward to signify a past event, with a greater reach indicating events that occurred in the distant past. The Aymara people appear to associate time with sources of knowledge. Since they cannot perceive the future, they regard it as behind them. Conversely, as the past has already been lived through, it is regarded in a similar manner to how one observes what lies ahead of them. (Núñez & Sweetser, 2006)
In a remote Indigenous Australian community, residents of Pormpuraaw organize time based on cardinal directions: from east to west. This means time progresses from left to right when facing south, from right to left when facing north, towards the body when facing east, and away from the body when facing west. (Boroditsky & Gaby, 2010)
If you would like to read more
about how the direction of time in cultures can affect our conceptualisation of time, please see the “Links, Further Info & References” section at the end of this post.
As a complete aside, did you know that Greek has been written in various directions over time? It was originally written from right to left. Other languages which are also closely related to the Phoenician scripts follow the same writing direction, including Hebrew and Aramaic). Right to left writing was superseded in Greek by a writing style known as “boustrophedon” (which literally means “to turn like oxen” when ploughing). In boustrophedon writing, the direction alternated with each line, so one line would be written from right to left, and the next line would be written from left to right, resembling the ploughing pattern of an ox in a field. This was a practice used by many old writing systems. Eventually, during the fifth century BCE, the direction of left to right gradually gained prevalence. I wonder whether anyone has looked at their conceptualisation of time and whether it was affected by these changes?
“Up” and “Down”
can be used in idiomatic expressions or metaphors when referring to temporal concepts
Mandarin Examples
While the terms "up" and "down" are not commonly used to conceptualize time in most languages, there are examples where they can be used in idiomatic expressions or metaphors when referring to temporal concepts. This makes sense, given the discussion in the previous section.
Here you can see some examples from Mandarin and Japanese:
Mandarin Examples
Japanese Examples
Do we do anything similar in English?
Perhaps we’ll discuss that a bit further “down the road”.
Part 2 will look at temporal grammatical structures across languages and cultures. In the meantime, I have put links to some interesting articles discussing spacial representations of time below.
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Links, Further Info & References
Back to the Future. (n.d.). Retrieved 7 February 2024, from https://www.science.org/content/article/back-future [Full Text]
Boroditsky, L. (2001). Does Language Shape Thought?: Mandarin and English Speakers’ Conceptions of Time. Cognitive Psychology, 43(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1006/cogp.2001.0748
Boroditsky, L., & Gaby, A. (2010). Remembrances of Times East: Absolute Spatial Representations of Time in an Australian Aboriginal Community. Psychological Science, 21(11), 1635–1639.
Bylund, E., & Athanasopoulos, P. (2017). The Whorfian time warp: Representing duration through the language hourglass. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 146(7), 911–916. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000314
Chen, M. K. (2013). The Effect of Language on Economic Behavior: Evidence from Savings Rates, Health Behaviors, and Retirement Assets. American Economic Review, 103(2), 690–731. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.103.2.690
Evans, V., & Chilton, P. A. (Eds.). (2010). Language, cognition and space: The state of the art and new directions. Equinox Pub.
Fuhrman, O., & Boroditsky, L. (2010). Cross-Cultural Differences in Mental Representations of Time: Evidence From an Implicit Nonlinguistic Task. Cognitive Science, 34(8), 1430–1451. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1551-6709.2010.01105.x [Full Text - Free Access]
Li, Y., Casaponsa, A., Wu, Y. J., & Thierry, G. (2019). Back to the future? How Chinese-English bilinguals switch between front and back orientation for time. NeuroImage, 203, 116180. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116180
Miles, L. K., Tan, L., Noble, G. D., Lumsden, J., & Macrae, C. N. (2011). Can a mind have two time lines? Exploring space–time mapping in Mandarin and English speakers. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 18(3), 598–604. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-011-0068-y [Full Text - Open Access]
Núñez, R. E., & Sweetser, E. (2006). With the Future Behind Them: Convergent Evidence From Aymara Language and Gesture in the Crosslinguistic Comparison of Spatial Construals of Time. Cognitive Science, 30(3), 401–450. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog0000_62 [Full Text - Free Access]
O’Grady, W., Archibald, J., & Katamba, F. (Eds.). (2011). Contemporary linguistics: An introduction (2nd, [U.K.] ed ed.). Longman.
Shanghai International Studies University (SISU). (n.d.). Introducing monochronic and polychronic time. FutureLearn. [Article & Video]
Special Thanks to Helena Hon for supporting this series.
In the 2nd EAL Bites | Speedy Tip of this series, I’m going to briefly talk about Making Input Comprehensible with Paralinguistic Features: what they are, whether they’re universal, and whether you should use them when you’re speaking to EAL learners.