国外隐喻研究多偏向印欧语系语言，其中就“空间—时间隐喻”专题进行系统研究的也不多。国内相关研究多集中在汉语以及汉语和英、俄、日等外语的对比分析，忽略了和国内民族语的对比，且民族语自身的“空间—时间隐喻”研究也很少，更不用说将国内民族语与其它东西方语言进行共时或历时地研究。本文以现代隐喻学理论及其最新发展为理论框架，采用语言类型学方法，打破以往研究的不足，综合考虑了语言的传统谱系分类、语言分布区域及其它类型学标准，选取了以下10种语言：中国境内汉语、傣语、藏语和景颇语，境外英语、西班牙语、俄语、印地语、芬兰语和土耳其语，由它们作为两个子样本构成一个比较均衡的语言样本，通过考察这两个子样本中“空间—时间隐喻”的类型与特点，一方面展示这个概念隐喻的普遍性和多样性，另一方面试图从语言使用和人类心理认知等角度加以阐释，以深化和完善现代隐喻理论及“空间—时间隐喻”类型学研究，并进行东西方时间观念的对比观照。对上述语言进行详尽调查研究的基础上，根据空间源域的知识和空间域向时间域映射过程的特点，本文发现可以从众多语料中将“时间是空间”基本概念隐喻归纳为六个子类型：（1）时间的维度—“时间一维性”隐喻；（2）时间的形状—“时间是线形”和“时间是圆形”隐喻；（3）时间的运动—“时间是流水”、“时间在动”和“自我在动”隐喻；（4）时间的方向—“面向未来”和“面向过去”隐喻；（5）时间的度量—“时间是距离”、“时间是数量”和“时间是人体”隐喻；（6）时间的容器—“时间的内外”和“时间的容量”隐喻。这六种子类型及“时间是空间”基本概念隐喻几乎是本文语言样本中语言所共有的，本文从人类语言的发展规律、发展趋势和人类心理的共性来解释这一共性。同时一个语言内部、同一语系内部、同一语族内部，不同语系之间、不同语族之间和不同语言之间，“时间是空间”概念隐喻的各种语言表达呈多样性。这种多样性表现在八个方面：（1）语系之间最大的不同；（2）“前—后”的时间指向不同；（3）“前—后”在同一个语言内部表现多样性；（4）“上—下”时间隐喻具有浓厚的文化特殊性；（5）印地语的圆形时间表达丰富形象；（6）“时间的运动”充分展示了时间的动态性；（7）汉藏语系用五官名称表达人体朝向；（8）“时间的度量”表达形式不同。本文认为“时间是空间”概念隐喻具有上述多样性表现，其原因大致有两个：（1）语言因素。包括“时间是空间”概念隐喻源域的选择、推理、语言表现力、约定俗成的程度、文化特殊性等七个方面；（2）认知因素。一是人类对社会和文化的身体体验不同，包括自然地理环境、宗教文化和社会经济形态等，这些因素促使某个语言社团对源域和目标域形成一定的基本认识和看法，在语言表达上选择源域、选择源域的各个表现面、源域映射到目标域的过程等方面都会造成不同。二是由于某一语言集团的心理使用偏好不同，在共有的几种认知和表达手段中，他们可能会偏好使用一种而放弃了其它种。在结论部分，本文以“时间是空间”隐喻为参项，关注语言样本当今的使用情况，得出“时间是空间”隐喻有两种基本的模式：（1）基本的“空间—时间隐喻”模式。这一模式中的语言直接以具体的、表达空间方位的语词（如“前—后”、“长短”、“内—外”等）来表达时间概念，时间表达显得简洁直接。英语、西班牙语、土耳其语等属于这一类；（2）扩展的“空间—时间”模式。汉语、藏语、傣语、景颇语是这一类的典型成员，芬兰语、俄罗斯语、印地语等也大致属于这一类。它们的空间域不仅由表示空间方位的语词组成，还包括比空间方位具体程度更高的人体或动物体（如“头”、“眼”、“臀/尾”等）、人的住所（如“房顶”）和人所处的自然地理环境（如“山”、“水”等）等语词，因而相应的时间表达也具有这些事物的特征，显得生动直白。

Most researches about metaphor are in Indo-European languages, of which the systematic studies on spatiotemporal metaphor are very few. And there are quite a few studies in China in Han or between Han and some foreign languages like English, Russian, Japanese but few in minority languages, let alone the ones between Chinese minority languages and other languages of the orient and the occident. The paper focuses on spatiotemporal metaphors in a balanced corpus containing 10 languages in different language families, continents and cultural background-4 Indo-European languages, i.e. English, Spanish, Russian and Hindi, 4 Sino-Tibetan languages, i.e. Mandarin Chinese, Jingpho, Dai and Tibetan, 2 others, i.e. Turkish and Finnish on the base of Modern Metaphor Theory and its followers, hoping to contribute to the establishment of the universal status of this cognitive phenomenon without ignoring its apparent diversity across and even within cultures, to help place the modern metaphor theories into a wider cross-cultural perspective, to start the typological research between the eastern and western cultures and languages, and most importantly to help deepen the cognitive research of Chinese minority languages.It is found that there exist 6 categories of TIME AS SPACE metaphor in above languages (1) time has dimensionality-TIME IS UNIDIRECTIONAL metaphor, (2)time has shape-TIME IS LINEAR metaphor, and TIME IS CIRCLE metaphor, (3)time is moving-TIME IS RIVER metaphor, TIME-MOVING metaphor, and EGO-MOVING metaphor, (4)time has direction-FACE-FUTURE metaphor, and FACE-PAST metaphor, (5)time is measurable-TIME LENGTH metaphor, TIME QUANTITY metaphor and TIME IS HUMAN BEING metaphor, (6) time is container-IN-OUT metaphor and TIME HAS VOLUME metaphor. And TIME AS SPACE metaphor as well as its six sub-categories are common in the 10 languages which belong to different families, continents, cultures or word orders, the reasons for that are in the flowing: (1)almost the same development and trend of human languages, (2) the universal cognitive psychology of human being.On both the cognitive and linguistic levels, these metaphors are not only nearly universal but also diverse in 8 factors, no matter between language families or in individual language. The dissertation analyzes them in detail from two perspectives. One is from the linguistic level, i.e. the difference of source domain, entailment, culture-sensitive degree and so like. The other is from cognitive level, including two factors-one is different embodiment of society and culture, i.e. different geological features, religious background and socio-economic formation, the other is mental preference for a certain language group.In the concluding paragraph, it is found that there are two linguistic and cognitive models of TIME IS SPACE metaphor on the ground of above data and analysis. (1) BASIC SPATIOTEMPORAL model. Its source domain contains mainly the words and phrases about the space such as front-back, up-down and etc., thus its linguistic expressions of time are simply and direct. English, Spanish and Turkish are its members. (2) EXTENDED SPATIOTEMPORAL model. Its source domain has the same contents with the former but has its unique features, in other words, it has much more linguistical temporal expressions such as the body of human being or the animal, the man’s shelter as well as the natural surroundings like river, mountain ,sun, moon, seasons and etc. in which human being are living. Its prototypes are Han, Tibetan, Jhingpo and Dai, and its other members are Hindi, Russian and Finnish.