Gu, Yan (2022) Time in Chinese hands: Gesture and sign. In: Time Representations in the Perspective of Human Creativity. Human Cognitive Processing, 75 . John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, pp. 209-232. ISBN 9789027257413. Official URL: https://benjamins.com/catalog/hcp.75.10gu
Gu, Yan (2022) Time in Chinese hands: Gesture and sign. In: Time Representations in the Perspective of Human Creativity. Human Cognitive Processing, 75 . John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, pp. 209-232. ISBN 9789027257413. Official URL: https://benjamins.com/catalog/hcp.75.10gu
Gu, Yan (2022) Time in Chinese hands: Gesture and sign. In: Time Representations in the Perspective of Human Creativity. Human Cognitive Processing, 75 . John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, pp. 209-232. ISBN 9789027257413. Official URL: https://benjamins.com/catalog/hcp.75.10gu
Abstract
This chapter examines how Chinese people (Mandarin monolinguals; Mandarin-English bilinguals; deaf Chinese Sign Language (CSL) signers; Mandarin learners of CSL) use gestures and signs to creatively represent time. All groups spatialize time on the lateral, vertical, and sagittal axes, but differ in their choices of axes and directions of movements. For instance, Mandarin-English bilinguals produce more vertical time gestures in Mandarin than in English. Mandarin speakers can produce past-in-front and past-at-back gestures, whereas CSL deaf signers only exploit past-at-back signs. Mandarin learners of CSL perform more past-at-back gestures than Mandarin-speaking non-signers. In short, cultural, linguistic, and bodily experiences can jointly shape how Chinese people express time creatively in different modalities.
| Item Type: | Book Section |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | bimodal bilinguals, Chinese Sign Language, Mandarin, time spatialization |
| Subjects: | P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics |
| Divisions: | Faculty of Science and Health > Psychology, Department of |
| SWORD Depositor: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
| Depositing User: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
| Date Deposited: | 17 Dec 2025 13:43 |
| Last Modified: | 17 Dec 2025 13:43 |
| URI: | http://repository.essex.ac.uk/id/eprint/34075 |
Available files
Filename: Gu_Time in Chinese hands. Gesture and sign_chapter_AAM.pdf