DRAFT version. Final version appears in Cognitive Linguistics 27(2): 205—234. 205 With the future coming up behind them: Evidence that Time approaches from behind in Vietnamese Karen Sullivan and Linh Thuy Bui Karen Sullivan ksull@uq.edu.au School of Languages and Cultures, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia Linh Thuy Bui buithuylinh83@gmail.com School of Languages and Cultures, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia Abstract Vietnamese speakers can describe the future as behind them and gesture forwards to indicate the past, which suggests they use a conceptual model of Time in which the future is behind and the past is in front. This type of model has previously been shown to be pervasive only among older speakers of Aymara in the Andes (Núñez and Sweetser 2006). Whereas Time in the Aymara model does not “move”, the present data show that Time in Vietnamese can “approach” from behind the Ego and “continue forward” into the past. To our knowledge, no other language has been identified with a model where Time moves from behind Ego to in front. Recognition of this model in Vietnamese will open up new research opportunities, particularly since the model does not seem to be endangered in Vietnamese. Keywords: time metaphor, gesture, Vietnamese, Aymara 1 Introduction Human beings around the world use spatial models to understand Time. However, these models differ across languages. When English speakers say that they are leaving the past behind and moving ahead to the future, for example, they are using one of several spatial models of Time found in English. In this particular model, the speaker or other experiencer (the “Ego”) is conceptualized as “moving” through a series of events. When an event is in the future, Ego is metaphorically understood as “moving toward” that event. For example, a speaker may say that she is coming