Goddard, Cliff (1991). Anger in the Western Desert: A case study in the cross-cultural semantics of emotion. Man, (N.S.) 26(2), 265-279. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2803832

This article sets out to show that by adopting a method of semantic description based on reductive, cross-translatable paraphrases (the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach) it is possible to elucidate the meanings of emotion concepts, and their similarities and differences across cultures, within a principled, formal framework. Using this approach, it explores the semantic differences between pikaringanyi, mirpanarinyi and kuyaringanyi, three expressions in the Aboriginal language of the Western Desert of Australia, each of which corresponds to some extent to the English concept of anger.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners