culture, subculture and counterculture - Facultatea de Litere

METAPHORICAL THOUGHT IN CULTURE:
THE ISSUE OF TIME IN ROMANIAN
to other times (SEQUENCE IS RELATIVE POSITION ON A PATH or simply,
SEQUENCE IS POSITION).
While the two types of Ego-Based Model (The Moving Ego and The
Moving Time) construe temporal existence from ego’s perspective (they are
perspective-specific), THE SEQUENCE IS POSITION Model does not involve any
particular perspective (it is perspective-neutral).
In SEQUENCE IS POSITION the relative position of a particular temporal
moment or event is determined with respect to another temporal moment or
event as in
English: The sound of an explosion followed the flash. I will graduate before I
get married. I graduated before I got married. She will be abroad in the weeks
preceding Easter. A reception followed the talks.
Romanian: După convorbiri a urmat o conferiţă de presă “A press conference
followed the talks”. Va pleca la Dublin în săptămâna premergătoare
Crăciunului. “She’ll leave for Dublin in the week preceding Christmas.”
Moore’s proposal for the description of time metaphors is based on the use
of relatively concrete temporal concepts such as times in sequence, now and
future as in the table below 8 :
SEQUENCE IS RELATIVE POSITION ON A PATH (Example: An
announcement followed dinner)
SOURCE FRAME
TARGET FRAME
ORDERED MOTION
SUCCESSION
Moving entities at different points on a one-dimensional path -> Times in
sequence
An entity that is ahead of another entity -> A time that is earlier than another
time
An entity that is behind another entity -> A time that is later than another time
As the SEQUENCE IS POSITION Model is perspective-neutral and
consequently not relevant for our discussion of similarities and differences
between cultural realizations of motion metaphors of time in English and
Romanian, let us focus more on the ego-based metaphors that are perspectivespecific
and are likely to disclose significant aspects for our topic.
3. The Ego-Based Models in English and Romanian
3.1 The Moving Ego Model or The Ego as Figure of Motion.
In the case of the Moving Ego Model, temporal events are conceptualized
as locations with respect to which the experiencer moves. Thus, the experiencer
can move towards and then past these temporal events as in
English: I am going to do that. We’re moving up on Christmas. We’ve reached
August already. We’re fast approaching the autumn term. You must go forward
with this plan. She’s passed the deadline.
143