Wierzbicka, Anna (1989). Soul and mind: Linguistic evidence for ethnopsychology and cultural history. American Anthropologist, 91(1), 41-58.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1989.91.1.02a00030

Abstract:

The Russian word duša ‘soul’ has a much wider scope of use than the English word soul and embodies a different folk psychology (fully congruent with what has been described as the Russian “national character”). The English word mind stands for an Anglo-Saxon folk category that has been reified as an objective category of thought. The decline and fall of the concept soul and the ascendancy of mind in English are linked with changes in the cultural history and in the prevailing Western ethnophilosophy.

Translations:

Into Polish:

Chapter 14 (pp. 522-544) of Wierzbicka, Anna (1999), Język – umysł – kultura [Language, mind, culture]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.

More information:

A more recent publication building on this one is:

Chapter 1 (pp. 31-63) of Wierzbicka, Anna (1992), Semantics, culture, and cognition: Universal human concepts in culture-specific configurations. New York: Oxford University Press.

Rating:


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners