Space and time, their infiniteness and/or their limit(ation)s,
their coding, conceptualization and the relationship between the
two, have been intriguing people for millennia. Linguistics and
literature are no exceptions in this sense. This book brings
together eight essays which all deal with the expression of space
and/or time in language and/or literature. The book explores the
issues of space, time and their interrelation from two different
perspectives: the linguistic and the literary. The first
section-Time and Space in Language-contains four papers which focus
on linguistics, i.e. explore issues relative to the expression of
time and space in natural languages. The topics under consideration
include: typology regarding the expression of spatial information
in languages around the world (Ch.1), space as expressed and
conceptualized in neutral, postural and verbs of fictive motion
(Ch. 2), prepositional semantics (Ch.3), aspectuality (in Tamil,
Ch. 4). All articles propose innovative topics and/or approaches,
crossreferring when possible between space and time. Given that all
seem to propose at least some elements of "language universality"
vs. "language variability", the strong cognitivist nature of the
approach (even when the paper is not written within a cognitive
linguistic framework) represents a particularly strong feature of
the section, with a strong appeal to experts from fields that need
not necessarily be linguistic. The second section of this
volume-Space and Time in Literature-brings together four essays
dealing with literary topics. Inherent in each narrative are both
temporal and spatial implications because a literary text testifies
of a certain time, it is from and about a certain period, as well
as about a certain space, even if virtual. A particularly strong
feature of these papers is that they envision space and time as
complementary parameters of experience and not as conceptual
opposites, following the transfer of perspective through the whole
century. Departing from the late nineteenth century England's and
Croatia's fictive spaces (Ch. 5), the topic moves via the American
Southern Gothic, focusing on Faulkner from the thirties to the
early sixties (Ch. 6), via the post-WWII perspectives on history,
probing the postmodern context of temporality (Ch 7), to finally
reach the contemporary era of post 9/11 space-time (Ch 8). The
voyage from chapter five to eight is thus a journey through space
and time that allows for some answers to the nature of reality (of
a variety of space-times) as conceived by both the authors of these
essays as well as by the authors that these essays discuss. The
main goal of the editors has been to bring together different
scientific traditions which can contribute complementary concerns
and methodologies to the issues under exam; from the literary and
descriptive via the diachronic and typological explorations all the
way to cognitive (linguistic) analyses, bordering psycholinguistics
and neuroscience. One of the strengths of this volume thus lies in
the diversity of perspectives articulated within it, where the
agreements, but also the controversies and divergences demonstrate
constant changes in society which, in turn, shapes our views of
space-time/reality. All this also suggests that science and
literature are not above or apart from their culture, but embedded
within it, and that there exists a strong relativistic
interrelation between (spatio-temporal) reality and culture. The
only hope to objectively envisage any if not all of the above, is
by learning how to move (our thought) through space, time or, to
put it in simpler terms, how to shift perspectives.
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