Temporal Metaphors in English and Chinese: A Cognitive-Linguistic Contrastive Analysis

Temporal experience is abstract and cannot be directly perceived as a bounded physical entity. Conceptual Metaphor Theory therefore provides a useful framework for explaining how speakers understand time through more concrete experiential domains such as space, containers, and economic resources. Although English and Chinese share a number of temporal metaphors, they differ in the ways particular metaphorical mappings are linguistically conventionalized. This study compares four major patterns of temporal metaphor in English and Chinese: front–back orientation, up–down orientation, the container schema, and TIME IS MONEY, with the aim of identifying both shared cognitive tendencies and language-specific differences. Adopting a qualitative contrastive approach grounded in Conceptual Metaphor Theory, the study analyzes representative conventional expressions drawn from the original thesis and the cited literature. These expressions are classified according to source domain and compared in terms of mapping direction, degree of conventionalization, and linguistic function. The findings show that both languages make extensive use of spatial experience to structure temporal concepts, while differing in the conventionalization of particular mappings. English exhibits a relatively stable association between the future and the front and between the past and the back, whereas Chinese front–back terms are more context-dependent, with 前 referring either to an earlier time or to future prospects depending on the construction. Chinese also displays a highly systematic vertical temporal sequence in which 上 typically denotes an earlier time and 下 a later time, while vertical expressions in English are less systematically used for chronological sequencing and are often evaluative rather than temporal. By contrast, the container metaphor shows substantial parallels between the two languages. Both English and Chinese also conceptualize time as a valuable and limited resource, as reflected in expressions such as spend/花, waste/浪费, and save/节省. The comparison supports the view that temporal conceptualization is grounded in recurrent embodied and socio-cultural experience, while linguistic convention plays a crucial role in determining which metaphorical mappings become systematic in a particular language. The findings contribute to contrastive studies of temporal metaphor and have implications for second-language teaching and intercultural interpretation.