Osnovni zadatak ovog rada jeste da pruži pregled dosadašnjih psiholingvističkih istraživanja koja su se bavila upotrebom prostornih elemenata i odnosa za potrebe opisivanja vremena. Radi se pre svega o empirijskim radovima koji su obeležili debatu o ulozi maternjeg jezika u procesu prostorne konceptualizacije fenomena vezanih za vreme, i pokušaju da se prostorno-vremenske veze stave u neovorfijanski kontekst. Rad najpre daje teorijski pregled nekoliko studija koje upućuju na važnost ispitivanja prostorno-vremenskih odnosa, nakon čega sledi prikaz članaka koji su učestvovali u pomenutoj debati. Počeće se od rada Lere Borodicki iz 2001. godine u kome autorka nastoji da dokaže da maternji jezik u jednoj poprilično velikoj meri određuje to kako govornik konceptualizuje vreme (Boroditsky 2001), što predstavlja ideju blisku onim koje oživljavaju postulate Sapir-Vorfove hipoteze. Uslediće i pregled istraživanja koja na jednako validan empirijski ili teorijski način osporavaju ovakvo viđenje uticaja jezika na poimanje stvarnosti (npr. Chen 2007; January and Kako 2007; Tse and Altarriba 2008). Nakon prikazanih empirijskih rezultata, rad se osvrće i na eventualne postupke kojima bi ovo polje istraživanja moglo da se unapredi.
The main aim of this article is to overview a number of recent psycholinguistic studies related to the usage of spatial elements and relations for the purpose of describing time. This predominantly includes those empirical papers that marked the controver- sial debate on the role of native language in the process of spatial conceptualization of time-related phenomena and the attempt of put the spatio-temporal relations into a Neo-Whorfian context. The paper gives a theoretical overview related to the impor- tance of studying spatio-temporal links, which is followed by an outline of several articles which were part of the mentioned debate. The first one will be Boroditsky’s 2001 paper, in which she tried to prove that one’s native language largely determines the way in which one conceptualizes time, which gets very close to the ideas stemming from the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. This is followed by the description of three studies (Chen 2007; January and Kako 2007; Tse and Altarriba 2008) which failed to replicate Boroditsky’s experimental procedures, and opposed the interpretation of the results in several different ways. Finally, after summing up and comparing the results, the paper offers a set of ideas that could possibly improve some future endeavours in the field.