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249The meaning of color terms: semantics, culture, and cognitionCognitive Linguistics 1 (1): 99-150. 1990.
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151Semantics: primes and universalsOxford University Press. 1996.Conceptual primitives and semantic universals are the cornerstones of a semantic theory which Anna Wierzbicka has been developing for many years. Semantics: Primes and Universals is a major synthesis of her work, presenting a full and systematic exposition of that theory in a non-technical and readable way. It delineates a full set of universal concepts, as they have emerged from large-scale investigations across a wide range of languages undertaken by the author and her colleagues. On the basis…Read more
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93“Universals of colour” from a linguistic point of viewBehavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (4): 724-725. 1999.Saunders and van Brakel's observation that “linguistic evidence provides no grounds for the universality of basic color categories” also applies to the concept of “colour” itself. The language of “seeing” is rooted in human experience, and its basic frame of reference is provided by the universal rhythm of “light” days and “dark” nights and by the fundamental and visually salient features of human environment: the sky, the sun, vegetation, fire, the sea, the naked earth.
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76On Emotions and on Definitions: A Response to IzardEmotion Review 2 (4): 379-380. 2010.This commentary argues that the question of metalanguage is a key issue in emotion research. Izard (2010) ignores this issue (and all the earlier literature relating to it, including the debate in Emotion Review, 2009, 1[1]), and thus falls into the old traps of circularity, obscurity, and ethnocentrism. This commentary rejects Izard’s claim that “emotion” defies definition, and it offers a viable definition of “emotion” formulated in simple and universal human concepts, using the English versio…Read more
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66Talking about emotions: Semantics, culture, and cognitionCognition and Emotion 6 (3): 285-319. 1992.The author argues that the so-called “basic emotions”, such as happiness, fear or anger, are in fact cultural artifacts of the English language, just as the Ilongot concept of liget, or the Ifaluk concept of song, are the cultural artifacts of Ilongot and Ifaluk. It is therefore as inappropriate to talk about human emotions in general in terms of happiness, fear, or anger as it would be to talk about them in terms of liget or song. However, this does not mean that we cannot penetrate into the em…Read more
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65The semantics of grammarJohn Benjamins. 1988.Introduction 1. Language and meaning Nothing is as easily overlooked, or as easily forgotten, as the most obvious truths. The tenet that language is a tool ...
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61Is Pain a Human Universal? A Cross-Linguistic and Cross-Cultural Perspective on PainEmotion Review 4 (3): 307-317. 2012.Pain is a global problem whose social, economic, and psychological costs are immeasurable. It is now seen as the most common reason why people seek medical (including psychiatric) care. But what is pain? This article shows that the discourse of pain tends to suffer from the same problems of ethnocentrism and obscurity as the discourse of emotions in general. Noting that in the case of pain, the costs of miscommunication are particularly high, this article offers a new paradigm for communicating …Read more
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55Introduction: the body in description of emotionPragmatics and Cognition 10 (1): 1-26. 2002.Anthropologists and linguists have long been aware that the body is explicitly referred to in conventional description of emotion in languages around the world. There is abundant linguistic data showing expression of emotions in terms of their imagined ¿locus¿ in the physical body. The most important methodological issue in the study of emotions is language, for the ways people talk give us access to ¿folk descriptions¿ of the emotions. ¿Technical terminology¿, whether based on English or otherw…Read more
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49Language and Metalanguage: Key Issues in Emotion ResearchEmotion Review 1 (1): 3-14. 2009.Building on the author's earlier work, this paper argues that language is a key issue in understanding human emotions and that treating English emotion terms as valid analytical tools continues to be a roadblock in the study of emotions. Further, it shows how the methodology developed by the author and colleagues, known as NSM (from Natural Semantic Metalanguage), allows us to break free of the “shackles” (Barrett, 2006) of English psychological terms and explore human emotions from a culture-in…Read more
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44Understanding others requires shared conceptsPragmatics and Cognition 20 (2): 356-379. 2012.“It is a noble task to try to understand others, and to have them understand you but it is never an easy one”, says Everett. This paper argues that a basic prerequisite for understanding others is to have some shared concepts on which this understanding can build. If speakers of different languages didn’t share some concepts to begin with then cross-cultural understanding would not be possible even with the best of will on all sides. Current Anthropology For example, Everett claims that Pirahã h…Read more
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42Kisses, handshakes, bows: The semantics of nonverbal communicationSemiotica 103 (3-4): 207-252. 1995.
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36From 'Consciousness' to 'I Think, I Feel, I Know': A Commentary on David ChalmersJournal of Consciousness Studies 26 (9-10): 257-269. 2019.David Chalmers appears to assume that we can meaningfully discuss what goes on in human heads without paying any attention to the words in which we couch our statements. This paper challenges this assumption and argues that the initial problem is that of metalanguage: if we want to say something clear and valid about us humans, we must think about ourselves outside conceptual English created by one particular history and culture and try to think from a global, panhuman point of view. This means …Read more
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35""Why" kill" does not mean" cause to die": the semantics of action sentencesFoundations of Language 13 (4): 491-528. 1975.
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34The meaning of the particle lah in Singapore EnglishPragmatics and Cognition 11 (1): 3-38. 2003.In this paper we try to crack one of the hardest and most intriguing chestnuts in the field of cross-cultural pragmatics and to identify the meaning of the celebrated Singaporean particle lah — the hallmark of Singapore English. In pursuing this goal, we investigate the use of lah and seek to identify its meaning by trying to find a paraphrase in ordinary language which would be substitutable for lah in any context. In doing so, we try to enter the speakers’ minds, and as John Locke urged in his…Read more
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33Indirect Reports and Pragmatics in the World Languages (edited book)Springer Verlag. 2018.This volume addresses the intriguing issue of indirect reports from an interdisciplinary perspective. The contributors include philosophers, theoretical linguists, socio-pragmaticians, and cognitive scientists. The book is divided into four sections following the provenance of the authors. Combining the voices from leading and emerging authors in the field, it offers a detailed picture of indirect reports in the world’s languages and their significance for theoretical linguistics. Building on th…Read more
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31The “History of Emotions” and the Future of Emotion ResearchEmotion Review 2 (3): 269-273. 2010.This article focuses on the emergence of a new subfield of emotion research known as “history of emotions.” People’s emotional lives depend on the construals which they impose on events, situations, and human actions. Different cultures and different languages suggest different habitual construals, and since habitual construals change over time, as a result, habitual feelings change, too. But to study construals we need a suitable methodology. The article assumes that such a methodology is provi…Read more
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28Lexical universals of kinship and social cognitionBehavioral and Brain Sciences 33 (5): 403-404. 2010.Jones recognizes the existence of out of which NSM semantics has identified these primitives through a cross-linguistic search for lexical universals ( stands for Natural Semantic Metalanguage and also for the corresponding linguistic theory). These empirical universals provide, I argue, a better bridge between cognitive anthropology and evolutionary psychology than the abstract constructs of OT, with dubious claim to conceptual reality
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26The semantics of human facial expressionsPragmatics and Cognition 8 (1): 147-184. 2000.This paper points out that a major shift of paradigm is currently going on in the study of the human face and it seeks to articulate and to develop the fundamental assumptions underlying this shift. The main theses of the paper are: 1) Facial expressions can convey meanings comparable to the meanings of verbal utterances. 2) Semantic analysis (whether of verbal utterances or of facial expressions) must distinguish between the context-independent invariant and its contextual interpretations. 3) C…Read more
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24Defining Emotion ConceptsCognitive Science 16 (4): 539-581. 1992.This article demonstrates that emotion concepts—including the so‐called basic ones, such as anger or sadness—can be defined in terms of universal semantic primitives such as “good”, “bad”, “do”, “happen”, “know”, and “want”, in terms of which all areas of meaning, in all languages, can be rigorously and revealingly portrayed.The definitions proposed here take the form of certain prototypical scripts or scenarios, formulated in terms of thoughts, wants, and feelings. These scripts, however, can b…Read more
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22Japanese Cultural Scripts: Cultural Psychology and “Cultural Grammar”Ethos: Journal of the Society for Psychological Anthropology 24 (3): 527-555. 1996.
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20Pragmatics and Cognition: The meaning of the particlePragmatics and Cognition 11 (1): 3-38. 2003.In this paper we try to crack one of the hardest and most intriguing chestnuts in the field of cross-cultural pragmatics and to identify the meaning of the celebrated Singaporean particle lah — the hallmark of Singapore English. In pursuing this goal, we investigate the use of lah and seek to identify its meaning by trying to find a paraphrase in ordinary language which would be substitutable for lah in any context. In doing so, we try to enter the speakers' minds, and as John Locke urged in his…Read more
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20Can there be common knowledge without a common language?Common Knowledge 21 (1): 141-171. 2015.This essay argues that, since Kant wrote in German and since German has no word for “right” corresponding in meaning to the English word, it is a case of conceptual anglocentrism to say, as many anglophone philosophers do, that Kant reformulated the foundations of ethics by formulating them in terms of the “right” rather than the “good.” Further, the essay shows how the German word Pflicht, central to Kant's ethics, does not correspond in meaning to the English word duty, whose cultural roots li…Read more
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18Reading human faces: Emotion components and universal semanticsPragmatics and Cognition 1 (1): 1-23. 1993.It is widely believed that there are some emotions which are universally associated with distinctive facial expressions and that one can recognize, universally, an angry face, a happy face, a sad face, and so on. The "basic emotions " are believed to be part of the biological makeup of human species and to be therefore "hardwired". In contrast to this view, Or tony and Turner have suggested that it is not emotions but some components of emotions which are universally linked with certain facial e…Read more
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16Empirical Universals of Language as a Basis for the Study of Other Human Universals and as a Tool for Exploring Cross‐Cultural DifferencesEthos: Journal of the Society for Psychological Anthropology 33 (2): 256-291. 2005.
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16IntroductionPragmatics and Cognition 10 (1-2): 1-25. 2002.Anthropologists and linguists have long been aware that the body is explicitly referred to in conventional description of emotion in languages around the world. There is abundant linguistic data showing expression of emotions in terms of their imagined ‘locus’ in the physical body. The most important methodological issue in the study of emotions is language, for the ways people talk give us access to ‘folk descriptions’ of the emotions. ‘Technical terminology’, whether based on English or otherw…Read more
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14Overcoming Anglocentrism in Emotion ResearchEmotion Review 1 (1): 21-23. 2009.Since English is not a neutral scientific language for the description of emotions (or anything else), then the key question is what (meta)language other than English can be used instead. I draw a distinction between “experiential meaning” which can only be acquired through lived experience, and “compositional meaning” which can be adequately portrayed in the mini-language of universal human concepts (NSM) developed through wide-ranging cross-linguistic investigations. The article rejects both t…Read more
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14Lingua mentalis: the semantics of natural languageAcademic Press. 1980.Semantics of natural language; includes some Australian language examples.
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13Pain: Universal but Culturally ShapedEmotion Review 4 (3): 324-325. 2012.Response to comments by Fabrega, Fernandez, and Hinton
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Australian National UniversityRegular Faculty
Acton, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Language |
Meta-Ethics |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
European Philosophy |