Emotions across Languages and Cultures: Diversity and Universals

by Anna Wierzbicka

• ISBN13: 9780521590426
• ISBN10: 0521590426
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-11-28
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

In this ground-breaking new book, Anna Wierzbicka brings psychological, anthropological and linguistic insights to bear on our understanding of the way emotions are expressed and experienced in different cultures, languages, and culturally-shaped social relations. The expression of emotion in the face, body and modes of speech are all explored and Wierzbicka shows how the bodily expression of emotion varies across cultures and challenges traditional approaches to the study of facial expressions. As well as offering a new perspective on human emotions based on the analysis of language and ways of talking about emotion, this fascinating and controversial book attempts to identify universals of human emotion by analysing empirical evidence from different languages and cultures. This book will be invaluable to academics and students of emotion across the social sciences.

Table of Contents

List of figures	viii
Acknowledgments	ix
List of abbreviations	xi
Introduction: feelings, languages, and cultures	1	(48)
Emotions or feelings?	1	(6)
Breaking the ``hermeneutical circle''	7	(3)
``Experience-near'' and ``experience-distant'' concepts	10	(2)
Describing feelings through prototypes	12	(5)
``Emotions'': disruptive episodes or vital forces that mould our lives?	17	(7)
Why words matter	24	(7)
Emotion and culture	31	(3)
The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) as a tool for cross-cultural analysis	34	(4)
An illustration: ``sadness'' in English and in Russian	38	(7)
The scope of this book	45	(4)
Defining emotion concepts: discovering ``cognitive scenarios''	49	(74)
``Something good happened'' and related concepts	50	(10)
``Something bad happened'' and related concepts	60	(12)
``Bad things can happen'' and related concepts	72	(15)
``I don't want things like this to happen'' and related concepts	87	(10)
Thinking about other people	97	(11)
Thinking about ourselves	108	(13)
Concluding remarks	121	(2)
A case study of emotion in culture: German Angst	123	(45)
``Angst'' as a peculiarly German concept	123	(3)
Heidegger's analysis of ``Angst''	126	(2)
``Angst'' in the language of psychology	128	(2)
Angst in everyday language	130	(4)
Defining Angst	134	(3)
The German Angst in a comparative perspective	137	(2)
Luther's influence on the German language	139	(2)
Eschatological anxieties of Luther's times	141	(2)
The meaning of Angst in Luther's writings	143	(5)
Martin Luther's inner life and its possible impact on the history of Angst	148	(3)
Luther's possible role in the shift from Angst ``affliction'' to Angst ``anxiety/fear''	151	(7)
The great social and economic anxieties of Luther's times	158	(1)
Uncertainty vs. certainty, Angst vs. Sicherheit	159	(4)
Certainty and Ordnung	163	(3)
Conclusion	166	(2)
Reading human faces	168	(48)
The human face: a ``mirror'' or a ``tool''?	168	(4)
From the ``psychology of facial expression'' to the ``semantics of facial expression''	172	(3)
``Social'' does not mean ``voluntary''	175	(2)
What kind of ``messages'' can a face transmit?	177	(1)
Messages are not ``dimensions''	178	(2)
``The face alone'' or ``the face in context''?	180	(2)
Analysing facial behaviour into meaningful components	182	(3)
Summing up the assumptions	185	(1)
In what terms should facial behaviour be described?	186	(5)
Humans and primates: a unified framework for verbal, non-verbal, and preverbal communication	191	(4)
The meaning of eyebrows drawn together	195	(6)
The meaning of ``raised eyebrows''	201	(5)
The meaning of the ``wide open eyes'' (with immobile eyebrows)	206	(2)
The meaning of a down-turned mouth	208	(3)
The meaning of tightly pressed lips	211	(2)
Conclusion: the what, the how, and the why in the reading of human faces	213	(3)
Russian emotional expression	216	(24)
Introduction	216	(3)
Emotion and the body	219	(15)
Conclusion	234	(6)
Comparing emotional norms across languages and cultures: Polish vs. Anglo-American	240	(33)
Emotion and culture	240	(1)
The scripts of ``sincerity''	241	(10)
The scripts of interpersonal ``warmth''	251	(4)
The scripts of ``spontaneity''	255	(16)
Conclusion	271	(2)
Emotional universals	273	(35)
``Emotional universals''--genuine and spurious	273	(2)
A proposed set of ``emotional universals''	275	(30)
Conclusion	305	(3)
Notes	308	(10)
References	318	(20)
Index	338