Tag: (E) guilty

(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.

(1995) Dictionaries vs. encyclopedias


Wierzbicka, Anna (1995). Dictionaries vs. encyclopaedias: How to draw the line. In Philip W. Davis (Ed.), Alternative linguistics: Descriptive and theoretical modes (pp. 289-315). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

DOI: 10.1075/cilt.102.09wie

A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 11 (pp. 335-350) of:

Wierzbicka, Anna (1996). Semantics: Primes and universals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Abstract:

If by analysing language we find evidence suggesting that ‘linguistic knowledge’ differs somehow from ‘non-linguistic knowledge’, and that a distinction between the two can be drawn in a non-arbitrary way, this would support the view that the mind itself draws a distinction between a ‘mental dictionary’ and a ‘mental encyclopaedia’. This paper argues that this indeed is the case, and that by examining linguistic evidence we can indeed learn how to draw the line between ‘meaning’ and ‘knowledge’, or between ‘linguistic knowledge’ and ‘encyclopaedic knowledge’.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(1990) English – Emotions


Osmond, Meredith (1990). Unravelling the meaning of English emotion terms: Evidence from syntax. MA thesis, Australian National University. PDF (open access)

This thesis examines the meaning of various English terms of emotion , and attempts to show that aspects of their meaning can be related to their syntactic behaviour.


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