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Abstract This article examines the space-time metaphor in Chinese speakers’ co-speech gestures by adopting the elicitation method. The results showed that: 1) Chinese native speakers’ space-time metaphor gestures include “PAST IS UP, FUTURE IS DOWN”, “PAST IS FRONT, FUTURE IS BACK”, “PAST IS BACK, FUTURE IS FRONT” and “PAST IS LEFT, FUTURE IS RIGHT”. 2) The “front/back” time-space metaphor gestures are the most frequent ones for Chinese native speakers followed by “up/down” with the lease frequent ones “right/left” space-time metaphor gestures. The differences may possibly result from speakers’ bodily experience and cultural influence. The whole research shows that the exploration of gestural metaphors used by speakers is beneficial for testifying Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Think for Speaking Theory in a multimodal dimension.
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2014, Vol. 0 
