Age and Language Effects on Temporal Cognition in Chinese and English

Abstract

Younger and older L1 Chinese speakers differ in where they place their focus—young adults look more to the future, while older adults value the past—yet neither group faces toward the past. Instead, all L1 Chinese participants consistently adopt a future-facing perspective. When interpreting ambiguous temporal expressions, they rely on S-Time: “前” (“qian”, front) refers to earlier (past) moments and “后” (“hou”, back) to later (future) moments. This reflects a reference frame of S-Time rather than a backward orientation toward the past. In contrast, L1 English speakers prefer D-Time, mapping “front” onto the future and “back” onto the past. Together, these findings show that although age shifts temporal focus among L1 Chinese speakers, cultural and values background determines the dominant reference frames of temporal representations and cognition—S-Time for L1 Chinese speakers and D-Time for L1 English speakers.

Keywords

D-time / ego face towards / S-time / temporal focus

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