Metaphor is one of the most important issues in Cognitive Linguistics. This paper tests the contemporary theory of metaphor, particularly, the conceptual metaphor of “Time as Space Metaphor” in children fiction books. The research method is descriptive-analytic and data gathering has been library based. Sixty children story books have been chosen by the researchers from three different age groups: 5-7 year-olds; 7-9 year-olds; and 9-11year-old children. Then, the sentences which have the conceptual metaphor of “The Time as Space Metaphor” were chosen. This study concludes that: (1) Persian native children learn the concept of time which is spatial not only by the linear movement in the space but also by movement in different dimension; (2) Persian native children learn the concept of time which is spatial by the use of ontological metaphors; and (3) the contemporary theory of metaphor is a useful means of teaching ‘time’ to Persian native children.

Keywords: metaphor, Time, cognitive linguistics, Cognitive Semantics, Lakoff Theory

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