Laboratory of Cognition and Cultural Health

Chris Sinha writes: Dan Slobin's work has been an inspiration from my first encounters with psycholinguistics as an undergraduate. I first met him some thirty years ago, when I was a research assistant on the Bristol Language Development Project, which was strongly ...

Time in Culture is a short documentary that shows how ideas of time are expressed in different cultures and languages. In Western cultures time is measured by clocks and calendars using numbers. Calendars and clocks enable us to measure time intervals: years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds. The past is thought of as located behind our backs, while the future is in front or ahead. Is this the way that everyone, in every culture, thinks and talks about time? This documentary tells the story of how three indigenous cultures of Brazil, think about, talk about and experience time. The Huni Kuĩ, Kamaiurá, and Awetý people talk about time very differently from us. These cultures do not use clocks and calendars. So individuals do not count their birthdays. Instead, they think about their lives in terms of life stages and the process of learning and acquiring skills throughout the life span. For these cultures, time is thought about in terms of events and happenings, in nature and in the social world. The sounds of the crickets, the sun and the sunlight, the stars, the water level in the rivers, the rain, the breeze and the stars indicate time. The relationship between people and the environment is crucial for understanding time. Time, they say, is not behind or in front of me, but it is in my heart, in my eyes or in my mind. Vera da Silva Sinha is a PhD in Linguistics at the University of East Anglia. Her research topic is linguistic and cultural conceptualizations of time in indigenous languages of Brazil. This research investigates the relationship between spatial and temporal language and concepts, and the way in which concepts of time vary between languages and cultures. Through field research she tries to understand the way in which indigenous Amazonian concepts of time are organized and expressed in language structure, cosmologies and myths. Vera obtained her Bachelor's degree in Portuguese language and literature at the Federal University of Rondônia in 1994. She has successfully completed two Master's degrees in Social Sciences (Anthropology, Federal University of Pernambuco, 2000; Comparative Criminal Justice Studies, University of Portsmouth, 2004). She has worked in diverse academic and non-academic professional settings, from the criminal justice system, through heritage and community engagement to anthropological and linguistic research in Brazil, Sweden and the UK. Vera's research interests include indigenous and minority identities, mythic and historical narratives, immaterial heritage, number and quantificational concepts, motion, space and time. https://vimeo.com/261572557

This article reports a field study of event-based time concepts, their linguistic expression and their use in time reckoning practices in three indigenous cultures and languages of Brazil: Huni Kuĩ (Pano, North-West Amazonia), Awetý and Kamaiurá (Tupi Guaraní; Xingu National Park).

This article reports a field study of event-based time concepts, their linguistic expression and their use in time reckoning practices in three indigenous cultures and languages of Brazil: Huni Kuĩ (Pano, North-West Amazonia), Awetý and Kamaiurá (Tupi Guaraní; Xingu National Park). The results are based on ethnographic observation, interview, conversation and structured language elicitation tasks. The three languages all have rich inventories of lexical and phrasal expressions for event-based time intervals, based on environmental and celestial indices and social norms. Event-based time intervals in the domains of life stages, times of day and night, and seasons are documented. None of the cultures employ metric (calendar and clock) time units, but hybrid calendars representing blends of the 12 months yearly cycle and the indigenous seasonal indices are produced as art works. The number system in each culture and language is documented, and the use of numbers in time reckoning practices, together with notational cognitive artifacts, is described. Metonymic spatial indices for time intervals and temporal landmarks are common, but metaphoric space-time mapping is almost entirely absent. In two languages, event terms can be used in conjunction with some motion verbs (Moving Time), but these usages do not signify motion on a timeline; they are more related to appearance and disappearance. Moving Ego expressions cannot be used in any of the languages. “Past” and “future” are not lexicalized concepts, but these notions can be metaphorically conceptualized in terms of embodied perception and cognition. They are not thought of as “in front of” or “behind” the experiencer. There is no evidence in any of the three languages of a conceptual timeline. The similarities between time concepts in the three languages, and their similarity with the previously studied Amondawa language, suggests the possibility of a cultural areal complex extending over a large part of South America.

How would you think about time, and organize your life, without watches, clocks, phones and calendars? You might be surprised to know how this is possible. Learn about the event-based time concepts of three traditional, indigenous communities of Brazil. Vera da Silva Sinha has worked for many years as an anthropologist and linguist researching indigenous cultures in Brazil. She works closely with other researchers, including some who are native speakers of the languages. She will explain how time based on events in the natural and social environment governs life in three Amazonian communities. Time is not tracked by using clocks and calendars that divide time into months, hours and minutes. Instead, time is thought and talked about in terms of events and their completion. Vera will also show how in these cultures PAST and FUTURE are thought about and spoken about, using metaphors such as "the past is in my heart" and "the future is in front of my eyes". This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. What is https://youtu.be/EWCGeHhxBh0

A 5-episode probe of our complex relationship with time-from how we think and talk about it, to how we experience it. Separating scientific truth from social construction to understand what it truly means to live with time. Podcast: The Language of Time https://memory.ai/timely/abouttime