Wierzbicka, Anna (1995). The relevance of language to the study of emotions. Psychological Inquiry, 6(3), 248-252. DOI: 10.1207/s15327965pli0603_13
A commentary on R. S. Lazarus’s paper in the same issue. No abstract available.
(1995) Emotions (desire)
Harkins, Jean (1995). Desire in language and thought: A study in cross-cultural semantics. PhD thesis, Australian National University. PDF (open access)
This thesis is a semantic-typological study of desiderative constructions in languages of the world. Focussing on both meaning and grammatical structures, it explores how the properties of desiderative expressions in languages of the world reflect universal elements and language-specific configurations of meaning.
Chapter One sets out the nature and scope of the work, explaining the purpose of examining desiderative constructions across languages, and outlining the theoretical context and orientation of the study. Chapter Two presents a typological overview of desiderative expressions in a selection of languages from diverse genetic groups throughout the world, noting cross-linguistic trends in lexical relations and syntactic patterns associated with desiderative constructions. Chapter Three focusses on grammatical properties of desiderative expressions across languages, exploring how the semantics and grammar of different construction types interact with the meanings of individual lexemes to encode a range of desiderative meanings. Chapter Four examines multifunctional grammatical morphemes with desiderative functions, using the principles of NSM analysis to investigate whether they have a single meaning or semantic core, or are truly polysemous. A set of procedures is proposed for specifying how many meanings a grammeme has, and how these relate to its various grammatical functions. Chapter Five compares constructions where a desiderative expression takes a complement clause (as in English I want to dance), and those where a desiderative grammeme occurs within the same clause that represents the wanted event (as in the Kayardild equivalent Ngada wirrka-ju), and explores the interpropositional nature of desiderative meaning. Chapter Six pursues the question of WANT as a semantic and lexical universal, in view of the diversity of desiderative constructions across languages. Specific criteria are proposed for the assessment of semantic equivalence across languages, and for distinguishing language-specific phenomena from potentially universal elements and configurations of meaning. This leads to a proposal for a ‘universal syntax’ of desiderative meaning. The influence of cultural values and attitudes on the expression of desire is explored with a view to explaining aspects of the interaction between social and linguistic structure and its impact on the range and types of desiderative constructions found in different languages, and how a theory of language universals might deal with processes of language change.
(1995) Malay – ‘Love’
Goddard, Cliff (1995). ‘Cognitive mapping’ or ‘verbal explication’? Understanding love on the Malay Archipelago. Semiotica, 106(3/4), 323-354.
This is a review article of Karl G. Heider’s 1991 book Landscapes of emotion: Mapping three cultures of emotion in Indonesia. It is argued that a failure to grasp the nettle on the issue of translation, the exclusive reliance on a narrow range of artificial questionnaire-generated data and the lack of depth in the ethnographic commentary prevent Heider from making substantial progress toward his goal of understanding how culture influences emotion. For the purpose of modeling linguistic and cultural meanings, there is no escape from language, and the problem of translation must be faced fairly and squarely. Much progress has been made within linguistic semantics, especially within the NSM (Natural Semantic Metalanguage) approach led by Anna Wierzbicka, toward developing a systematic and non-ethnocentric approach to verbal explication. An attempt is made to show how this approach can be fruitfully and revealingly applied to the semantic analysis of some Malay emotion words.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(1995) Semantics of the human face
Wierzbicka, Anna (1995). Emotion and facial expression: A semantic perspective. Culture and Psychology, 1, 227-258. DOI: 10.1177/1354067×9512005
This paper addresses some basic conceptual issues that must be clarified before the real controversies about the nature and universality of emotions and their expression can be clearly stated. To begin with, it argues that interpretative categories such as ‘anger’, ‘fear’, ‘disgust’, ‘sadness’ and ‘enjoyment’ are language-specific and culture-specific, and cannot identify any human universals in the area of emotions (even if such universals did exist). Furthermore, the paper shows how different emotions can be identified in terms of cognitive scenarios associated with them and how cognitive scenarios can be phrased in terms of universal human concepts. It also shows how clearly identifiable “facial components” or configurations of “facial components” (i.e. aspects of facial behaviour) can be linked with cognitive components (and with feelings identifiable through such components). Finally, it puts forward and illustrates a hypothesis about an iconic basis of the “semantics of the human face”.
Throughout the paper, the author tries to demonstrate that the use of conceptual primitives allows us to explore human emotions from a universal, language-independent perspective. Since every language imposes its own classification upon human emotional experience, English words such as anger or sadness are cultural artefacts of the English language, not culture-free analytical tools. On the other hand, conceptual primitives such as GOOD and BAD, or WANT, KNOW, SAY and THINK are not cultural artefacts of the English language but belong to the universal “alphabet of human thoughts” apparently lexicalized in all languages of the world. The author argues that basing our analysis on lexical universals we can free ourselves from the bias of our own language and reach a universal, culture-independent perspective on human cognition in general and on human emotions in particular.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(1995) Various languages – Emotions
Wierzbicka, Anna (1995). Everyday conceptions of emotion: A semantic perspective. In James A. Russell, José-Miguel Fernández-Dols, Antony S. R. Manstead, & J. C. Wellenkamp (Eds.), Everyday conceptions of emotion: An introduction to the psychology, anthropology and linguistics of emotion (pp. 17-47). Dordrecht: Kluwer.
The most important controversy in the study of emotions is that between “universalists” like Spiro and “culturalists” like Lutz. This paper argues that both sides in the debate are defending an important aspect of the truth; but that they both err in taking a partial truth for the whole truth, and that this is where their conflict arises. The important truth that Spiro (among many others) is defending is that of the “psychic unity of humankind”. The important truth that Lutz (among many others) is defending is that “universal human nature” must not be identified, unwittingly, with Anglo culture reflected in the English language.
The emotional intensity of the “Spiro-Lutz” controversy stems no doubt from the fact that both sides feel they are defending an important truth. And so they are. But Spiro errs when he thinks that to defend the “universal human nature” he must defend the universality of concepts such as ‘anger’ or ‘sadness’ (or, for that matter, ’emotion’), and Lutz errs when she thinks that to combat ethnocentrism she must question the validity of concepts such as FEEL or THINK as basic conceptual tools in describing and comparing cultures; and also, when she implies that psychology is doomed to remaining, for ever, an “ethnopsychology” since there are no universals in which a genuinely culture-independent psychology could find a foothold.
Any meaningful comparison presupposes the existence of a tertium comparationis. Different cultures reflect and promote different conceptions of ’emotion’ (that is, of those aspects of human life that are defined with reference to the concept FEEL); but all these different conceptions can all be meaningfully compared in terms of human universals encoded in all human languages.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(1996) English (Aboriginal), Maori – Emotions (shame)
Harkins, Jean (1996). Linguistic and cultural differences in concepts of shame. In David Parker, Rosamund Dalziell, & Iain Richard Wright (Eds.), Shame and the modern self (pp. 84-96). Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing.
Shame is one of a set of ‘social emotions’ that have a strong influence upon the behaviour of individuals in relation to the society in which they live. Emotions of this kind, and related norms of behaviour, are socially constructed within a particular linguistic and cultural context. Serious cross-cultural misunderstanding can result from assuming that emotions, or the behaviour associated with them, will be the same for different cultural groups. For example, shame-like emotions in some contexts can strongly motivate people to conform, but in others they can increase a person’s alienation from and hostility to society. This essay examines shame-like concepts in some languages of Aboriginal Australia and the Pacific, showing how the NSM (Natural Semantic Metalanguage) method of analysing emotion words and cultural rules can pinpoint the cognitive and emotive elements contained within culture-specific emotion concepts, and can make some predictions about ‘scripts’ for behaviour associated with these emotions.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(1996) Malay – “Social” emotions
Goddard, Cliff (1996). The “social emotions” of Malay (Bahasa Melayu). Ethos, 24(3), 426-464. DOI:
Studies of cultural variation in emotional meanings have played an important part in the development of the interdisciplinary field of cultural psychology. It is now widely accepted that the language of emotion can be an invaluable window into culture-specific conceptualizations of social life and human nature. Such studies inevitably involve explorations in cross-linguistic semantics. Despite their undoubted value, however, from the point of view of linguistic semantics these inquiries have been informal in the sense that they have not utilized any rigorous framework for semantic analysis. It is the premise of this article that a suitably rigorous method of cross-cultural semantic analysis is the NSM (Natural Semantic Metalanguage) approach developed primarily by Anna Wierzbicka. The present study applies the NSM approach to a subset of the emotion vocabulary of Malay (Bahasa Melayu), the national language of Malaysia. The underlying theoretical question is the extent to which emotion concepts are culturally constituted. The related methodological problem is how to analyse and describe emotion terms in a way that does not take Western/English language emotion concepts as neutral or natural scientific categories.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(1997) Biblical Hebrew – Emotion words
Myhill, John (1997). What is universal and what is language-specific in emotion words: Evidence from Biblical Hebrew. Pragmatics and Cognition, 5(1), 79-129. DOI: 10.1075/pc.5.1.07myh
This paper proposes a model for the analysis of emotions in which each emotion word in each language is made up of a universal component and a language-specific component; the universal component is drawn from a set of universal human emotions which underlie all emotion words in all languages, and the language-specific component involves a language-particular thought pattern which is expressed as part of the meanings of a variety of different words in the language. The meanings of a variety of emotion words of Biblical Hebrew are discussed and compared with the meanings of English words with the same general meaning; it is shown that a number of the Biblical Hebrew words (though by no means all) directly represent the biblical conception of God and the role of God combined with one or another of the proposed universal emotions.
Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
(1997) Emotion research
Harkins, Jean, & Wierzbicka, Anna (1997). Language: A key issue in emotion research. Innovation in Social Sciences Research, 10(4), 319-331. DOI: 10.1080/13511610.1997.9968537
Linguistic evidence shows significant differences in the use of supposedly equivalent words for emotions in different languages and cultural settings, even in the case of emotions thought to be as basic or widespread as ‘anger’. This paper argues that such differences in usage often reflect differences in semantic content, and shows how the NSM (Natural Semantic Metalanguage) approach can provide a way of making explicit both the similarities and the differences in meanings of related emotion words. Stating the semantic components of a word’s meaning in this way also facilitates understanding of these emotion words in their cultural and social context, in relation to cultural values, norms of behaviour, and cultural identity.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(1997) English – Prepositions in emotion construal
Osmond, Meredith (1997). The prepositions we use in the construal of emotion: Why do we say fed up with but sick and tired of? In Susanne Niemeier, & René Dirven (Eds.), The language of emotions: Conceptualization, expression, and theoretical foundation (pp. 111-133). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/z.85.09osm
On the basis of my findings I submit that the prepositions used in the construction X is adj./past part. ___ Y are indeed meaningful. The eight prepositions represent eight ways of construing a situation in which an emotion is related to its appraised object. The conditions under which combinations of emotion term, preposition, and following nominal are predictable, are conceptual, not structural.
While there is some NSM in this paper, it does not contain any fully developed explications.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(1997) English, Malay – ‘Surprise’
Goddard, Cliff (1997). Contrastive semantics and cultural psychology: ‘Surprise’ in Malay and English. Culture & Psychology, 3(2), 153-181. DOI: 10.1177/1354067X9700300204
This paper argues that psychology has yet to come fully to grips with the extent of semantic variation between languages, and that it can benefit, in this regard, from certain developments in linguistic semantics. It outlines Anna Wierzbicka’s ‘Natural Semantic Metalanguage’ (NSM) approach to cross-cultural semantics, and demonstrates the approach through a contrastive study of ‘surprise-like’ words from two languages: Malay (terkejut, terperanjat, hairan) and English (surprised, amazed, shocked, startled). It is shown that there is no exact Malay equivalent to English surprise; and also that there is no semantic core shared by the various terms, only a loose set of cross-cutting and overlapping semantic correspondences. These results are at odds with the classic “basic emotions” position, which would have it that ‘surprise’ is a universal and discrete biological syndrome. The overriding contention of the paper is that Wierzbicka’s approach to linguistic semantics can furnish psychology with valuable new analytical and descriptive tools.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(1998) German – Emotions
Wierzbicka, Anna (1998). Angst. Culture & Psychology, 4(2), 161-188.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X9800400202
Abstract:
The author examines the meaning, and the cultural history, of the German word Angst (roughly a cross between ‘anxiety’ and ‘fear’ but with a touch of mystery or existential insecurity), which is much more common, and culturally more salient, than the word Furcht (roughly ‘fear’). She shows that from a German point of view ‘Angst’ seems a far more ‘basic’ emotion than ‘fear’, and she investigates the possible roots of the concept of ‘Angst’ in Luther’s language, inner struggles and theology. The author seeks to demonstrate that by studying the semantic system of a language in a rigorous way and within a coherent methodological framework, one can both reveal and document the cultural underpinnings of emotions – even the most elusive and unfathomable ones such as Angst.
Translations:
Into Russian:
Chapter 12 (pp. 547-610) of Вежбицкая, Анна (1999), Семантические универсалии и описание языков [Semantic universals and the description of languages]. Москва [Moscow]: Языки русской культуры [Languages of Russian Culture].
Chapter 2 (pp. 44-122) of Вежбицкая, Анна (2001), Сопоставление культур через посредство лексики и прагматики [Comparison of cultures through vocabulary and pragmatics]. Москва [Moscow]: Языки Славянской Культуры [Languages of Slavic Culture].
More information:
A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 3 (pp. 123-167) of:
Wierzbicka, Anna (1999). Emotions across languages and cultures: Diversity and universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(1998) Indonesian – Emotions (shame)
Mulyadi (1998). Makna malu dalam Bahasa Indonesia (Kajian “wacana kebudayaan”) [Shame-related meanings in Bahasa Indonesia (A study in “cultural discourse”)]. Linguistika, 6, 46-57.
Written in Indonesian.
This article discusses the meaning of malu in Indonesian. The two problems the author focuses on are the semantic description of malu and
its socio-cultural aspects. The analysis is based on the “cultural scripts” approach. The results show that the semantic explication of malu in prototypical scripts involves components such as ‘thinking, ‘feeling’, ‘wanting’, and ‘seeing’, while the sociocultural aspects include the norm of politeness in speaking as well as social relationships like intimacy and non-intimacy.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
(1998) Japanese – Cultural values (OMOIYARI)
Travis, Catherine (1998). Omoiyari as a core Japanese value: Japanese-style empathy? In Angeliki Athanasiadou, & Elzbieta Tabakowska (Eds.), Speaking of emotions: Conceptualisation and expression (pp. 83-103). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110806007.55
This paper presents a semantic analysis of the Japanese concept of omoiyari, a key word representing core Japanese values. Omoiyari is essential to successful communication and the maintaining of harmonious relations in Japan. A full understanding of this word is extremely insightful into Japanese culture, revealing a great deal about the Japanese “indirect” communicative style; the importance of being “in tune” with others’ unexpressed desires and feelings; the “interdependence” on which group relations are based in Japan; and, in the light of all these factors, the Japanese perception of individuality, or “selfhood”. Furthermore, an understanding of omoiyari provides analysts with a tool with which to examine and describe Japanese culture, allowing them to adopt a kind of Japanese perspective, and thus to gain greater comprehension of some of the values and attitudes on which the society operates.
Omoiyari essentially represents a kind of “intuitive” understanding of the unexpressed feelings, desires and thoughts of others, and doing something for them on the basis of this understanding. Previous analyses of this word have been carried out without establishing an explicit definition of omoiyari, and it has been defined in terms of apparently “close” English equivalents. Such an approach is inherently flawed, as there is no one word for omoiyari in English. It is possible to fully define omoiyari in a way that makes its meaning accessible to non-Japanese speakers, and that is by using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage as developed by Wierzbicka and colleagues. This paper will present such a definition, established through an analysis of usage examples. This will then be compared with the meaning of one of its “close” English equivalents, and probably the word most commonly used to translate omoiyari, which is empathy. It shall be shown that, although these two words are similar in some respects, their meanings have much less in common than may be perceived through a superficial analysis, and that these differences reflect real differences in the respective cultures to which these words belong.
(1998) Russian – Emotions
Wierzbicka, Anna (1998). “Sadness” and “anger” in Russian: The non-universality of the so-called “basic human emotions”. In Angeliki Athanasiadou, & Elzbieta Tabakowska (Eds.), Speaking of emotions: Conceptualisation and expression (pp. 3-28). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110806007.3
Abstract:
The English words sad and angry (or sadness and anger) do not have exact equivalents in Russian, just as the Russian words грусть grust’, печаль pečal’, and сердиться serdit’sja do not have exact equivalents in English. How, then, are we to understand claims that ‘sadness’ or ‘anger’ are universal human emotions?
Emotions cannot be identified without words, and words always belong to particular cultures and carry with them a culture-specific perspective. The only words that are, in a sense, culture-independent are lexical universals, realized in English as good and bad, want, know, feel, think, and say, and so on. Any innate and universal cognitive scenarios that play a special role in human emotional lives all over the world would have to be identified via such lexical universals, not via culture-specific words such as sadness or anger. It may be true that ‘sadness’ and ‘anger’ are universally found in all cultures; but they are found there by native speakers of English. Observers looking at these cultures from a different cultural perspective will probably find something else.
Translations:
Into Russian:
Chapter 10 (pp. 503-525) of Вежбицкая, Анна (1999), Семантические универсалии и описание языков [Semantic universals and the description of languages]. Москва [Moscow]: Языки Русской Культуры [Languages of Russian Culture].
Chapter 1 (pp. 15-43) of Вежбицкая, Анна (2001), Сопоставление культур через посредство лексики и прагматики [Comparison of cultures through vocabulary and pragmatics]. Москва [Moscow]: Языки Славянской Культуры [Languages of Slavic Culture].
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(1998) Russian – Emotions
Wierzbicka, Anna (1998). Russian emotional expression. Ethos, 26(4), 456-483.
Translated into Russian as:
Вежбицкая, А. [Wierzbicka, Anna] (1999). Выражение эмоций в русском языке: заметки по поводу «Русско-английского словаря коллокаций, относящихся к человеческому телу». In Вежбицкая, А. [Wierzbicka, Anna], Семантические универсалии и описание языков, под ред. Татьяна В. Булыгиной [Semantic universals and the description of languages, ed. Tatyana V. Bulygina] (pp. 526-546). Москва [Moscow]: Языки русской культуры [Languages of Russian Culture].
This article examines Russian “emotional ideology” as reflected in the Russian language, and especially in the Russian collocational system. Colloquial collocations involving the human body, seen as an organ of emotional expression, are the focusfor comparingfolk models of the body and emotion in Russian and Anglo cultures. A theory of “cultural scripts” forms the basis of generalizations from the linguistic evidence.
(1998) Russian – Emotions (prepositional constructions)
Mostovaja, Anna D. (1998). On emotions that one can “immerse into”, “fall into” and “come to”: The semantics of a few Russian prepositional constructions. In Angeliki Athanasiadou, & Elzbieta Tabakowska (Eds.), Speaking of emotions: Conceptualisation and expression (pp. 295-330). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110806007.295
This paper examines the projection of a few spatial relations such as ‘an object being immersed in a deep container’, ‘a person coming to a place’ and ‘an object located in a place’ into the domain of emotions. In this paper I will attempt to describe what kinds of words referring to emotions and inner states can be treated as containers for those experiencing them in four Russian constructions with the preposition
V ‘in/into’ and different verbs. We will see that although all of these constructions present an emotion experienced by a person as if it were a container or a place, semantic constraints on X are different for
each of the four constructions. Differences in semantic constraints associated with the constructions are caused by differences in meaning between verbs used in the constructions.
(1999) Emotions across languages and cultures [BOOK]
Wierzbicka, Anna (1999). Emotions across languages and cultures: Diversity and universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Abstract:
This ground-breaking book brings psychological, anthropological and linguistic insights to bear on our understanding of the way emotions are expressed and experienced in different cultures, languages and culturally shaped social relations. The expression of emotion in the face, body and modes of speech are all explored. The author shows how the bodily expression of emotion varies across cultures and challenges traditional approaches to the study of facial expressions. As well as offering a new perspective on human emotions based on the analysis of language and ways of talking about emotion, this fascinating and controversial book attempts to identify universals of human emotion by analysing empirical evidence from different languages and cultures.
Table of contents:
- Introduction: feelings, languages, and cultures
- Defining emotion concepts: discovering ‘‘cognitive scenarios’’
- A case study of emotion in culture: German Angst
- Reading human faces
- Russian emotional expression
- Comparing emotional norms across languages and cultures: Polish vs. Anglo-American
- Emotional universals
More information:
Chapter 3 builds on: Angst (1998)
Chapter 4 builds on: Reading human faces: Emotion components and universal semantics (1993)
Chapter 5 builds on: Russian emotional expression (1998)
Various parts of other chapters build on: Emotion, language, and ‘‘cultural scripts’’ (1994)
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
The list of tags below is incomplete. It will be updated in due course.
(1999) English – Emotions
Bardzokas, Chrisovalandis & Dirven, René (1999). Conceptualizations in the domain of ‘happiness’ in English: The value of explications and cultural scripts. RASK (International Journal of Language and Communication), 9-10, 157-188.
Abstract:
In English, conceptualization within the domain of happiness involves a great many emotion words that may appear as nouns, adjectives or even verbs and that are often very close in meaning to one another. They can therefore be expected to be defined in highly circular ways in most current dictionaries. This paper investigates whether NSM can meet the requirement of describing each of the concepts in the domain of happiness in English in a non-circular and exhaustive way. One of the most remarkable results of the application of the NSM approach to the eleven happiness-related concepts selected is the very clear delimitation of and distinction between four groups of concepts: imminent states of happiness, “doing forms” of happiness, event-like forms of happiness, and transient states of happiness.
Rating:
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
(1999) English, Greek – ‘Anger’
Bardzokas, Chrisovalandis (1999). The language of anger. MA thesis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
This dissertation offers an analysis of the hotly debated emotion concept of ‘anger’. For the purpose of this analysis, two influential models are put forward: the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (or NSM) as well as the cognitive processes of metaphor and metonymy introduced by Lakoff and Johnson. The results of the research are far from trivial. In terms of emotion analysis, the two models provide insight into the conceptualization of ‘anger’ and, specifically, comparative insight into the English concept of ‘anger’ and the Greek conceptual equivalent expressed in the word thymos. In terms of model evaluation, the two types of analysis yield results that can be readily contrasted and assessed on the basis of the kinds of insight they offer.
A revised version of Chapter 2 of this thesis – the one that specifically engages with the NSM model – has been published as:
Bardzokas, Chrisovalandis (2004). Contrastive semantics of English “anger” and Modern Greek “θymos”. LAUD Working Papers, Series A, General and Theoretical Papers, 582.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
