The category of temporality in the modern Chinese language: linguocultural aspect

Abstract

The article analyzes the views of a number of linguists and researchers on the mechanisms of fixation of the basic concepts of the temporal system in Chinese and the classification of individual fragments of the realization of temporal relations in the modern Chinese language. The paper examines the correlated conceptual and grammatical categories of “time” and “temporality” in the context of the Chinese linguistic worldview, with a particular focus on the concepts of cyclic and linear time. The study shows that both approaches to the perception of time impact the structural and semantic features of the
Chinese language, reflecting deep cultural ideas about time and its role in people’s lives.
Considerable attention is paid to the linguistic elements that reflect the linear model of time, which is divided into movement along the horizontal and vertical axes. The emergence of contradictions in the perception of time on the horizontal axis caused by the existence of different models of time, emphasizes the need for further research. It is proposed to consider the anthropocentric model of the “front-back” organization of time movement
and correlate it with the linear model of movement along the horizontal axis in order to determine the level of representation of each model in the temporal plane of the modern Chinese language using specific linguistic examples.
The analysis demonstrates the need for a fundamental study of the category of temporality in Ukrainian Chinese studies and a clear definition of the means and ways of its implementation. The study emphasizes that temporality in Chinese is a multifaceted grammatical category closely related to cultural and cognitive aspects, the study of which will contribute to a better understanding of not only the Chinese language but also the cultural representations and cognitive processes of native speakers.