Semantics, culture, and cognition
Subtitle: universal human concepts in culture-specific configurations
By: Anna Wierzbicka.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1992
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 487
Subjects: Universals (Linguistics); Semantics; Language and culture; Intercultural communication; Psycholinguistics
Description: "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 page 4.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 453-474) and index.