Tag: (E) emotion

(1994) English – Emotions

Wierzbicka, Anna (1994). Cognitive domains and the structure of the lexicon: The case of emotions. In Lawrence A. Hirschfeld, & Susan A. Gelman (Eds.), Mapping the mind: Domain specificity in cognition and culture (pp. 431-452). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

In trying to discover how knowledge (or at least basic, “foundational” knowledge) is stored and organized in the human mind we can rely, in a considerable measure, on language. There may be concepts that are not lexicalized in natural language, but these are probably less common, less basic, and less salient in a given speech community than those that have achieved lexicalization; they are also less accessible to study. Words provide evidence for the existence of concepts. Lexical sets, sharing a similar semantic structure, provide evidence for the existence of cohesive conceptual wholes (or fields). If it is hypothesized that knowledge is organized in the mind in the form of “cognitive domains,” then conceptual fields detectable through semantic analysis of the lexicon can be regarded as a guide to those domains. These general assumptions are illustrated in this paper by reference to a specific semantic domain: that of emotion terms. For reasons of space, the discussion must remain brief, sketchy, and selective.

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(1994) English, Polish – Emotions and cultural scripts

Wierzbicka, Anna (1994). Emotion, language, and cultural scripts. In Shinobu Kitayama, & Hazel Rose Markus (Eds.), Emotion and culture: Empirical studies of mutual influence (pp. 133-196). Washington: American Psychological Association.

Abstract:

This chapter explores the relationship between emotion and culture, and between emotion and cognition. It examines the concept of emotion, and argues that it is culture-specific and rooted in the semantics of the English language, as are also the names of specific emotions, such as sadness, joy, anger, or fear. It shows that both the concept of emotion and the language-specific names of particular emotions can be explicated and elucidated in universal semantic primes (NSM).

NSM provides a necessary counterbalance to the uncritical use of English words as conceptual tools in the psychology, philosophy, and sociology of emotions. It offers a suitable basis for description and comparison of not only emotions and emotion concepts but also of cultural attitudes to emotions. Different cultures do indeed encourage different attitudes toward emotions, and these different attitudes are reflected in both the lexicon and the grammar of the languages associated with these cultures.

The chapter is divided into two parts. The first part discusses the language-specific character of emotion concepts and grammatical categories; the need for lexical universals as conceptual and descriptive tools; the doctrine of basic emotions and the issue of the discreteness of emotions; and the relationships among emotions, sensations, and feelings. The second part, on cultural scripts (with special reference to the Anglo and Polish cultures), explores attitudes toward emotions characteristic of different cultures (in particular, the Anglo and Polish cultures) and shows how these attitudes can be expressed in the form of cultural scripts formulated by means of universal semantic primes.

Translations:

Into Polish:

Chapter 5 (pp. 163-189) of Wierzbicka, Anna (1999), Język – umysł – kultura [Language, mind, culture]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(1995) Chinese (Mandarin) – Emotions / Ethnopsychology and personhood

Kornacki, Paweł (1995). Heart & face: Semantics of Chinese emotion concepts. PhD thesis, Australian National University.

Open access

Abstract:

This thesis uses NSM to explore the conceptual organization of a subset of the emotion vocabulary of Modern Standard Chinese. Chapter One (Introduction) provides background information on the analytic perspective adopted in the thesis, the sources of data, and a preliminary discussion of some of the issues in the early Chinese ethnotheory of “emotion”. Chapter Two explicates the key concept of 心 xin ‘heart/mind’, which is the cognitive, moral, and emotional ‘centre’ of a person. Chapter Three discusses two related notions, 面子 miànzi and 脸 liăn, usually glossed in English by means of the word face; both notions speak to the culturally perceived relevance to the self of other people’s judgements. Chapter Four develops this theme further, dealing with the ‘social feelings’ of Chinese, i.e. reactions to the things people say and think about us. Chapter Five focuses on the semantic field of Chinese ‘anger’-like expressions. Chapter Six analyses the lexical data pertinent to the conceptualization of different kinds of subjectively ‘bad’ feelings, whereas Chapter Seven discusses the emotional reactions to various types of good situations and events.

Wherever possible, the thesis seeks to probe into the culturally based aspects of the conceptual structure of emotion words by drawing on a variety of anthropological, psychological and sociological studies of the Chinese society. On the methodological level, the thesis attempts to demonstrate that the bias inherent in conducting the cultural analysis with complex, language-specific notions (e.g., ‘anger’, ‘shame’, ‘happiness’) can be subverted through a recourse to universally shared simple meanings.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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