Goddard, Cliff & Ye, Zhengdao (Eds.) (2016). “Happiness” and “pain” across languages and cultures. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

DOI: 10.1075/bct.84

Abstract:

In the fast-growing fields of happiness studies and pain research, which have attracted scholars from diverse disciplines including psychology, philosophy, medicine, and economics, this volume provides a much needed cross-linguistic perspective. It centres on the question of how much ways of talking and thinking about happiness and pain vary across cultures, and seeks to answer this question by empirically examining the core vocabulary pertaining to happiness and pain in many languages and in different religious and cultural traditions. The authors not only probe the precise meanings of the expressions in question, but also provide extensive cultural contextualization, showing how these meanings are truly cultural. Methodologically, while in full agreement with the view of many social scientists and economists that self-reports are the bedrock of happiness research, the volume presents a body of evidence highlighting the problem of translation and showing how local concepts of happiness and pain can be understood without an Anglo bias.

Table of contents:

  1. Exploring “happiness” and “pain” across languages and cultures (Cliff Goddard & Zhengdao Ye)
  2. “Pain” and “suffering” in cross-linguistic perspective (Anna Wierzbicka)
  3. The story of “Danish happiness” (Carsten Levisen)
  4. The meaning of “happiness” (xìngfú) and “emotional pain” (tòngkŭ) in Chinese (Zhengdao Ye)
  5. Japanese interpretations of “pain” and the use of psychomimes (Yuko Asano-Cavanagh)
  6. Some remarks on “pain” in Latin American Spanish (Zuzanna Bułat-Silva)
  7. The semantics and morphosyntax of tare “hurt/pain” in Koromu (PNG) (Carol Priestley)

Each chapter has a separate entry, where more information is provided.

More information:

Previously published as:

Goddard, Cliff & Ye, Zhengdao (Eds.) (2014). “Happiness” and “pain” across languages and cultures. International Journal of Language and Culture, 1(2) (Special issue). DOI: 10.1075/ijolc.1.2

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