Semantics, Culture and Cognition

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.

subjects: Psycholinguistics,  Intercultural communication,  Semantics,  Language and culture,  Linguistic universals,  Universals (Linguistics),  Sprachliche Universalien,  Kulturvergleich,  Universalien,  Bezeichnung,  Taaluniversalia,  Kultur,  Kognition,  Begriff,  Sprache,  Nationalcharakter,  Language and languages,  Semantics [MESH]