Emotions across Languages and Cultures: Diversity and Universals

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Format: Paperback
Pub. Date: 1999-11-28
Publisher(s): Cambridge University Press
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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

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