Tag: (E) shame

(2020) English, Australian Aboriginal English, Bislama – Shame

Peeters, Bert (2020). Language Makes a Difference: Breaking the Barrier of Shame. Lublin Studies in Modern Language and Literature,  44(1), 27-37.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17951/lsmll.2020.44.1.27-37 (Open Access)

Abstract:
This paper argues against the reification of shame and the use of Anglocentric jargon to explain what it entails. It shows how the Natural Semantic Metalanguage can be used to define shame and set it apart from related concepts in Australian Aboriginal English and in Bislama, an English creole spoken in Vanuatu.

Rating:


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

Tagged as: , , ,

(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:

  1. Introduction: feelings, languages, and cultures
  2. Defining emotion concepts: discovering ‘‘cognitive scenarios’’
  3. A case study of emotion in culture: German Angst
  4. Reading human faces
  5. Russian emotional expression
  6. Comparing emotional norms across languages and cultures: Polish vs. Anglo-American
  7. 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.

Tagged as: ,

(2003) French – Emotions (shame)

Koselak, Arkadiusz (2003). Approche sémantique du concept de honte [A semantic approach of the concept of shame]. Pratiques, 117-118, 51-76. DOI: 10.3406/prati.2003.1995. PDF (free access)

Written in French.

The twofold aim of this paper is to characterize honte ‘shame’ as an emotion and to describe how it surfaces in some common French phrases. The approach is in part linguistic, in part non-linguistic. In the linguistic and more specifically semantic analysis of honte, the author takes his cue from different theoretical frameworks, including the NSM approach.


Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner

Tagged as: , , , , ,

(1990) English (Aboriginal) – Emotions (shame, shyness)

Harkins, Jean (1990). Shame and shyness in the Aboriginal classroom: A case for “practical semantics”. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 10(2), 293-306. DOI: 10.1080/07268609008599445

Aboriginal students in many parts of Australia talk about their experiences of difficulty and discomfort in certain fairly common classroom situations, for example when the teacher calls on an individual student to answer a question, or when a student is singled out for either reprimand or praise. The name for this experience, in most varieties of Australian Aboriginal English, is SHAME. The word SHAME is used by Aboriginal speakers in circumstances where non-Aboriginal speakers would not speak of being ashamed. This paper seeks to demonstrate that proper semantic analysis can lead us to a much clearer understanding and statement of the concept underlying the Aboriginal use of this word, and how it differs from related concepts such as ‘being ashamed’, ‘shyness’, and ’embarrassment’. Such semantic information can be of immediate practical use in cross-cultural communication situations such as the classroom.


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

Tagged as: , , ,

(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

Tagged as: , , ,

(2016) Japanese – Emotions

Farese, Gian Marco (2016). The cultural semantics of the Japanese emotion terms ‘haji’ and ‘hazukashii’. New Voices in Japanese Studies, 8, 32-54.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21159/nvjs.08.02 / Open access

Abstract:

This paper presents a cultural semantic analysis of the Japanese emotion terms 恥 haji and 恥ずかしい hazukashii. The paper has three aims: (i) to pinpoint the conceptions of 恥 haji and 恥ずかしい hazukashii as emotion terms in Japanese language and culture; (ii) to highlight the differences in meaning with their typical English translations shame and embarrassing, and show that 恥 haji and 恥ずかしい hazukashii reflect two different, culture-specific emotion conceptions; (iii) to emphasize the suitability of NSM for cross-cultural comparisons of emotion terms in different languages and, in turn, for cross-cultural training.

Rating:


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

Tagged as: , , , ,