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culture, subculture and counterculture - Facultatea de Litere

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MARIANA NEAGU<br />

that they are structured, in part, by primary temporal concepts, these primary<br />

temporal concepts may be elaborated in <strong>culture</strong>-specific ways. (as suggested inn<br />

chapter 15). This may result in cultural differences in terms of cognitive mo<strong>de</strong>ls<br />

for temporality. Moreover, these mo<strong>de</strong>ls are also constituted of a range of<br />

secondary temporal concepts which are likely to be more <strong>culture</strong>-specific,<br />

especially in terms of their elaboration.” (Evans 2003: 225).<br />

Following Evans (2003) <strong>and</strong> Kövecses (2006) in their views on variation<br />

<strong>and</strong> universality we will show that motion metaphors of time in Romanian can<br />

evi<strong>de</strong>nce both aspects, thus avoiding the two extreme st<strong>and</strong>points, i.e. that of<br />

suggesting that universal aspects of the body necessarily lead to universal<br />

conceptualization <strong>and</strong> that of equally suggesting that variation in <strong>culture</strong><br />

exclu<strong>de</strong>s the possibility of universal conceptualization.<br />

First, let us consi<strong>de</strong>r instances of motion constructions that are used to talk<br />

about at least three kinds of temporal relations in English <strong>and</strong> Romanian:<br />

(a) the onset/off set of regular, recurring events:<br />

(9) E: Christmas is coming. The summer has gone.<br />

R: Vine Crăciunul. (lit. Comes the Christmas. ‘Christmas is coming’).<br />

Vara a trecut. (lit. The summer passed. ‘Summer is gone’.)<br />

(b) The finiteness of life <strong>and</strong> other relevant events in general:<br />

(10) E: Time never stops. The days keep going by.<br />

R: Timpul nu stă în loc.(lit. The time does not stop. ‘Time does not<br />

stop’). Zilele trec. (lit. The days pass. ‘Days pass by’)<br />

(c) The experience of compressed or protracted duration:<br />

(11) E: The days run past. Time drags.<br />

R: Zilele trec în goană. (lit. The days pass in a rush. ‘Days rush by’).<br />

Timpul trece încet. (lit. The time passes slowly. ‘Time passes slowly’.<br />

As we notice, many examples from English can be translated into<br />

Romanian by making use of the literal counterpart of the English phrase or a<br />

phrase that is very close in meaning to the English one. The explanation for the<br />

conceptualization of time as motion in languages that are typologically either<br />

related or distant can be found in the literal, basic correlation of motion <strong>and</strong><br />

time.<br />

It is generally known that everyday we get involved in motion situations –<br />

that is, we move relative to others <strong>and</strong> others move relative to us. We<br />

automatically correlate motion (whether by us or by others) with those events<br />

that provi<strong>de</strong> us with our sense of time, what Lakoff <strong>and</strong> Johnson (1999) call<br />

‘time-<strong>de</strong>fining events’.<br />

For instance, we correlate distance traveled with duration as in San<br />

Francisco is half an hour from Berkeley. Here, time duration, the time it takes to<br />

travel the distance (e.g. half an hour) st<strong>and</strong>s metonymically for distance. The<br />

metonymy can go the other way as well: distance can st<strong>and</strong> metonymically for<br />

time as in I slept for fifty miles while she drove. Here, fifty miles is the distance<br />

corresponding to the amount of time slept. (Lakoff <strong>and</strong> Johnson 1999: 81).<br />

150

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