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Semantics, culture, and cognition : universal human concepts in culture-specific configurations

Author: Anna Wierzbicka
Publisher: Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1992.
Edition/Format:   Book : EnglishView all editions and formats
Summary:
"Not everything that can be said in one language can be said in another. The lexicons of different languages seem to suggest different conceptual universes. Investigating cultures from a universal, language-independent perspective, this book rejects analytical tools derived from the English language and Anglo-culture and proposes instead a "natural semantic metalanguage" formulated in English words but based on  Read more...
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Details

Material Type: Internet resource
Document Type: Book, Internet Resource
All Authors / Contributors: Anna Wierzbicka
ISBN: 0195073258 9780195073256 0195073266 9780195073263
OCLC Number: 24010651
Description: viii, 487 p. ; 24 cm.
Contents: [pt.] 1. Linguistic evidence for ethnopsychology and ethnophilosophy. Soul, mind, and heart --
Fate and destiny --
[pt.] 2. Emotions across cultures. Are emotions universal or culture-specific? --
Describing the indescribable --
[pt.] 3. Moral concepts across cultures. Apatheia, smirenie, humility --
Courage, bravery, recklessness --
[pt.] 4. Names and titles. Personal names and expressive derivation --
Titles and other forms of address --
[pt.] 5. Kinship semantics. Lexical universals and psychological reality --
'Alternate generations' in Australian aboriginal languages --
[pt.] 6. Language as mirror of culture and 'national character.' Australian English --
The Russian language.
Responsibility: Anna Wierzbicka.

Abstract:

"Not everything that can be said in one language can be said in another. The lexicons of different languages seem to suggest different conceptual universes. Investigating cultures from a universal, language-independent perspective, this book rejects analytical tools derived from the English language and Anglo-culture and proposes instead a "natural semantic metalanguage" formulated in English words but based on lexical universals. The outcome of two and a half decades of research, the metalanguage is made of universal semantic primitives in terms of which all meanings, including the most culture-specific ones, can be described and compared in a precise and illuminating way. Integrating insights from linguistics, cultural anthropology, and cognitive psychology, and written in simple, non-technical language Semantics, culture, and cognition isaccessible not only to scholars and students, but also to the general reader interested in semantics and the relationship between language and culture."--Cover, p. 4.

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