Time positioning and the adjuncts “đã”, “đang” and “sẽ” in Vietnamese discourses

Abstract

The article discusses how Vietnamese people position time in the discourses and use the words “đã”, “đang” and “sẽ” in utterances with ways of positioning time. By employing event- time metaphorical mappings to conceptualize time, Vietnamese people flexibly position time when making utterances in discourses. With such time mappings, the terms “past”, “present” and “future” of events are based on the relationships of “anterior”, “concurrent” and “subsequent” of the events mentioned and the words “đã”, “đang” and “sẽ” are used based on the conceptualization instead of the space-time metaphorical mappings with the tenses of past, present and future. Additionally, since the words “đã”, “đang” and “sẽ” are used in utterances to express the speakers’ conceptualization of the event’s existence, these words can be changed or removed from the utterances.