Wierzbicka, Anna (1987). Kinship semantics: Lexical universals as a key to psychological reality. Anthropological Linguistics, 29(2), 131-156.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/30027968
Abstract:
Is it possible to discover the psychologically real meaning of kinship terms? Some maintain that it is not, because of the non-uniqueness of possible semantic analyses. Others argue that any search for psychological reality is threatened by an almost unavoidable ethnocentrism, resulting from the use of ‘ethnographer’s English’, or any language other than that of the informants. The present paper argues that both these problems can be overcome if semantic analysis is carried out in terms of lexical universals.
More information:
A more recent publication building on this one is:
Chapter 9 (pp. 329-354) of Wierzbicka, Anna (1992), Semantics, culture, and cognition: Universal human concepts in culture-specific configurations. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
