Linguistics Society of Iran Language and Linguistics 23223847 16 31 2020 06 21 Perceptual Processing of Temporal Metaphor in Bilingual Kurdish-Persian Congenitally Blind Children Perceptual Processing of Temporal Metaphor in Bilingual Kurdish-Persian Congenitally Blind Children 227 242 7584 10.30465/lsi.2020.7584 FA Elham Sobati Department of English Language and Literature, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Humanities, Ilam University, Iran. Shahla Raghibdoust Department of General Linguistics, Associate Professor, Faculty of Literature and Foreign Languages, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran. Tahereh Afshar Department of English Language and Literature, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Humanities, Ilam University Journal Article 2022 03 12 Based on the theory of Lakoff and Johnson's conceptual metaphors (1999), time is metaphorically conceptualized through moving in space. Because time is a mental ability which individuals perceive through tangible and understandable experiences, such as location and motion events. The objectives of the present study were to investigate and compare the role of visual status and the effect of gender in the metaphorical understanding of the time concept in the subjects. Using the deictic pointing test, 203 directional metaphorical gestures to refer to the three past, present, and future tenses of the pointing gestures of 29 subjects who were fluent in both Ilami Kurdish and Persian, in three groups of sighted, blindfolded, and congenital blind children, ages 6-9 years, were collected and analyzed. Of these, a total of 191 motions were considered correct. The findings showed that the state of vision affects the metaphorical understanding of time as space. the blind subjects, unlike the sighted ones who often depicted the present tense by pointing downwards, employed a varied directional pattern to refer to the present. In addition, the sighted pointed to the front to depict the future tense, while the blind used both the front and the right directions to depict this time. Also, the same speed of male and female subjects in doing spatial and temporal deictic pointing subtests demonstrated the insignificance of gender in the subject performance speed (p > 0.05). Based on the theory of Lakoff and Johnson's conceptual metaphors (1999), time is metaphorically conceptualized through moving in space. Because time is a mental ability which individuals perceive through tangible and understandable experiences, such as location and motion events. The objectives of the present study were to investigate and compare the role of visual status and the effect of gender in the metaphorical understanding of the time concept in the subjects. Using the deictic pointing test, 203 directional metaphorical gestures to refer to the three past, present, and future tenses of the pointing gestures of 29 subjects who were fluent in both Ilami Kurdish and Persian, in three groups of sighted, blindfolded, and congenital blind children, ages 6-9 years, were collected and analyzed. Of these, a total of 191 motions were considered correct. The findings showed that the state of vision affects the metaphorical understanding of time as space. the blind subjects, unlike the sighted ones who often depicted the present tense by pointing downwards, employed a varied directional pattern to refer to the present. In addition, the sighted pointed to the front to depict the future tense, while the blind used both the front and the right directions to depict this time. Also, the same speed of male and female subjects in doing spatial and temporal deictic pointing subtests demonstrated the insignificance of gender in the subject performance speed (p > 0.05). https://lsi-linguistics.ihcs.ac.ir/article_7584_44d5ec303a81339c0d05ec3cab0fccfa.pdf