Wierzbicka, Anna (1986). Human emotions: Universal or culture-specific? American Anthropologist, 88(3), 584-594.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1986.88.3.02a00030
Abstract:
The search for ‘fundamental human emotions’ has been seriously impeded by the absence of a culture-independent semantic metalanguage. The author proposes a metalanguage based on a postulated set of universal semantic primitives, and shows how language-specific meanings of emotion terms can be captured and how rigorous cross-cultural comparisons of emotion terms can be achieved.
More information:
A more recent publication building on this one is:
Chapter 3 (pp. 119-134) 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
