A term coined by Dan Slobin.

Captures the idea that a particular language forces its speakers to pay attention to certain aspects of scenes of experience for purposes of semantic and grammatical encoding in the native language in question. In other words, language is one form that cognition takes, and the ideas we wish to express must conform to the linguistic conventions of a given language.

time An important conceptual domain assumed by conceptual metaphor theory, cognitive grammar, the conceptual structuring system approach as well as other theoretical approaches and perspectives in cognitive linguistics.

The domain of time consists of actions and events which exhibit the properties of chronology (or progression) and duration. The nature and structure of this domain relates to and derives from neurological and cognitive aspects of subjective experience including protracted duration and temporal compression.

The cognitive linguistics of time have been studied most extensively by Vyvyan Evans. He argues that the domain of time is encoded in language at two levels of representation: the lexical concept and the cognitive model.

In cognitive grammar time, which is a basic domain, is divided into conceived time and processing time and is important for, among other things, the distinction between temporal relations and atemporal relations.

In the conceptual structuring system approach, the domains of time and space are held to constitute homologous categories and can thus exhibit conceptual alternativity.