Nicholls, Sophie (2003). The semantics of pain and suffering. BA(Hons) thesis, University of New England.
What exactly do we mean when we say ‘it hurts’, complain of ‘aches and pains’, or speak of ‘suffering’ and ‘agony’? Despite their importance to physiology and to philosophy, surprisingly little lexical semantic analysis has been done on the English “lexicon of pain”. Common problems in defining these terms include: the negotiation of any division between ‘emotional’ and ‘physical’ pain, and also the creation of a hermeneutical cycle by defining ‘pain’ concepts in terms of each other. It is also clear that “pain-like” concepts differ significantly across languages, but to study cross-linguistic variation with precision, we first need clear and precise definitions of the English terms.
My aim is to present and justify explications for English word pain and a set of fourteen related words , ache, sore, hurt, suffering, agony, sharp pain, shooting pain, burning pain, stinging pain, twinge of pain, headache, toothache, stomachache, and earache. I will do this working within the Natural Semantic Metalanguage framework developed by Anna Wierzbicka and colleagues. For each of these terms I will examine current definitions and etymology, and I will present examples of usage and discussion of each proposed explication. The discussion will be used to compare semantic components of the explications, and to clearly expound the meanings and functions of these words.
