Wierzbicka, Anna (2004). ‘Happiness’ in cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective. Daedalus, 133(2), 34-43. DOI: 10.1162/001152604323049370
Also published as:
Wierzbicka, Anna (2007). “Happiness” in cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective. Slovo a Smysl – Word and Sense, 8. HTML (open access)
A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 5 (pp. 102-126) of:
Goddard, Cliff, & Wierzbicka, Anna (2014). Words and meanings: Lexical semantics across domains, languages, and cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199668434.001.0001
Progress in cross-cultural investigations of happiness and subjective well-being requires a greater linguistic and cross-cultural sophistication than that evident in much of the existing literature on the subject. To compare meanings across languages, we need a well-founded semantic metalanguage; and to be able to interpret self-reports across cultures, we need a methodology for exploring cultural norms that may guide the interviewees in their responses. It is the author’s firm belief that the Natural Semantic Metalanguage can solve the first problem and that the methodology of cultural scripts can solve the second. Together, they bring significant advances to the intriguing and controversial field of happiness studies.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
