nsm-approach.net

This introduction to a special issue of the journal IJOLC argues that the cross-linguistic study of subjective experience as expressed, described and construed in language cannot be set on a sound footing without the aid of a systematic and non-Anglocentric approach to lexical semantic analysis. This conclusion follows from two facts, one theoretical and one empirical. The first is the crucial role of language in accessing and communicating about feelings. The second is the demonstrated existence of substantial, culture-related differences between the meanings of emotional expressions in the languages of the world.

The authors contend that the NSM approach to semantic and cultural analysis provides the necessary conceptual and analytical framework to come to grips with these facts. This is demonstrated in practice by the studies of happiness-related and pain-related expressions across eight languages, undertaken by the contributors to the special issue. At the same time as probing the precise meanings of these expressions, the authors provide extensive cultural contextualization, showing in some detail how the meanings they analyse are truly “cultural meanings”.

The project exemplified by the special issue can also be read as a linguistically-anchored contribution to cultural psychology, the quest to understand and appreciate the mental life of others in a full spirit of psychological pluralism.

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Re-issued as:

Goddard, Cliff & Ye, Zhengdao (2016). Exploring “happiness” and “pain” across languages and cultures. In Cliff Goddard & Zhengdao Ye (Eds.), “Happiness” and “pain” across languages and cultures (pp. 1-18). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/bct.84.01god

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