Wierzbicka, Anna (1992). Semantics, culture, and cognition: Universal human concepts in culture-specific configurations. New York: Oxford University Press.
Abstract:
To what extent are languages essentially the same? Is every word in our language translatable into every other language or are some of our words and concepts culture-specific? Rejecting analytical tools derived from the English language and Anglo culture and replacing them with NSM, this innovative study argues that every language constitutes a different guide to reality. The lexicons of different languages do indeed seem to suggest different conceptual universes. Not everything that can be said in one language can be said in another, and this is not just a matter of certain things being easier to say in one language than in another.
The book investigates a wide variety of languages and cultures from a universal, language-independent perspective and integrates insights from linguistics, cultural anthropology and cognitive psychology.
Table of contents:
Introduction
I. Linguistic evidence for ethnopsychology
1. Soul, mind, and heart
2. Fate and destiny
II. Emotions across cultures
3. Are emotions universal or culture-specific?
4. Describing the indescribable
III. Moral concepts across cultures
5. Apatheia, smirenie, humility
6. Courage, bravery, recklessness
IV. Names and titles
7. Personal names and expressive derivation
8. Titles and other forms of address
V. Kinship semantics
9. Lexical universals and psychological reality
10. ‘Alternate generations’ in Australian Aboriginal languages
VI. Language as a mirror of culture and ‘national character’
11. Australian English
12. The Russian language
Translations:
Into Polish (Introduction only):
Wierzbicka, Anna (1991). Uniwersalne pojęcia ludzkie i ich konfiguracje w różnych kulturach. Etnolingwistyka, 4, 7-40.
Into Russian:
[Introduction]: Вежбицкая, Анна [Wierzbicka, Anna] (1993). СЕМАНТИКА, КУЛЬТУРА И ПОЗНАНИЕ: ОБЩЕЧЕЛОВЕЧЕСКИЕ ПОНЯТИЯ В КУЛЬТУРОСПЕЦИФИЧНЫХ КОНТЕКСТАХ*. THESIS, 1993 vol 3, pp. 185–206.
[Chapters 2 and 12]: Chapters 12 (pp. 424-497) and 10 (pp. 331-388) of Вежбицкая, Анна [Wierzbicka, Anna] (2011). Семантические универсалии и базисные концепты, под ред. А.Д. Кошелев [Semantic universals and basic concepts, ed. A.D. Koshelev]. Москва [Moscow]: Языки славянских культуры [Languages of Slavic Culture].
More information:
Chapter 1 builds on: Soul and mind: Linguistic evidence for ethnopsychology and cultural history (1989)
Chapter 3 builds on: Human emotions: Universal or culture-specific? (1986)
Chapters 7 and 8 build on: Prototypes in semantics and pragmatics: Explicating attitudinal meanings in terms of prototypes (1989)
Chapter 9 builds on: Kinship semantics: Lexical universals as a key to psychological reality (1987)
Chapter 10 builds on: Semantics and the interpretation of cultures: The meaning of ‘alternate generations’ devices in Australian languages (1986)
Chapter 11 builds on: Does language reflect culture? Evidence from Australian English (1986)
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
The tags mentioned below are limited to those not listed in work on which this book is based.
