Tag: (S) hygge

(2012) Danish – Cultural key words


Levisen, Carsten (2012). Cultural semantics and social cognition: A case study on the Danish universe of meaning. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110294651

Abstract:

This book contributes to the emerging discipline of cultural semantics, and to the ongoing debates of linguistic diversity, metalanguage, and the use of linguistic evidence in studies of culture and social cognition. Presenting original, detailed studies of key words of Danish, it breaks new ground for the study of language and cultural values, offering new tools for comparative research into the diversity of semantic and cultural systems in contemporary Europe.

Based on evidence from the semantic categories of everyday language, such as the Danish concept of hygge (roughly ‘pleasant togetherness’), the book provides an integrative socio-cognitive framework for studying and understanding language-particular universes. The author uses NSM to account for the meanings of highly culture-specific and untranslatable linguistic concepts. It is argued that the worlds we live in are not linguistically and conceptually neutral, but rather that speakers who live by Danish concepts are likely to pay attention to their world in ways suggested by central Danish key words and lexical grids.

Rating:


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2016) Ethnopragmatics, foreign language teaching


Fernández, Susana S. (2016). Etnopragmatik og interkulturel competence: Didaktiske nytænkninger i fremmedsprogsundervisningen [Ethnopragmatics and intercultural competence: Didactic innovations in foreign language teaching]. Ny forskning i grammatik, 23, 38-54.

Open access

Abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to explore the possible pedagogical application of ethnopragmatics in the field of language learning and teaching with the purpose of promoting intercultural communicative competence. Ethnopragmatics examines cultural aspects of language and communication from an insider’s perspective. Its pedagogical potential lies in its consistent attempts to unravel the values, beliefs and norms that underpin the verbal behaviours of a cultural group and to do so without cultural bias.

More information:

Written in Danish. An earlier English version of this paper was published as:

Fernández, Susana S. (2016). Possible contributions of ethnopragmatics to second language learning and teaching. In Sten Vikner, Henrik Jørgensen, & Elly van Gelderen (Eds.), Let us have articles betwixt us: Papers in historical and comparative linguistics in honour of Johanna L. Wood (pp. 185-206). Aarhus: Aarhus University.

Rating:


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