“Happiness” and “Pain” across Languages and Cultures
Editors
| Griffith University
| Australian National University
In the fast-growing fields of happiness studies and pain research, which have attracted scholars from diverse disciplines including psychology, philosophy, medicine, and economics, this volume provides a much-needed cross-linguistic perspective. It centres on the question of how much ways of talking and thinking about happiness and pain vary across cultures, and seeks to answer this question by empirically examining the core vocabulary pertaining to “happiness” and “pain” in many languages and in different religious and cultural traditions. The authors not only probe the precise meanings of the expressions in question, but also provide extensive cultural contextualization, showing how these meanings are truly cultural. Methodologically, while in full agreement with the view of many social scientists and economists that self-reports are the bedrock of happiness research, the volume presents a body of evidence highlighting the problem of translation and showing how local concepts of “happiness” and “pain” can be understood without an Anglo bias. The languages examined include (Mandarin) Chinese, Danish, English, French, German, Japanese, Koromu (a Papua New Guinean language), and Latin American Spanish.
Originally published in International Journal of Language and Culture Vol. 1:2 (2014).
Originally published in International Journal of Language and Culture Vol. 1:2 (2014).
[Benjamins Current Topics, 84] 2016. vi, 145 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
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Articles
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Exploring “happiness” and “pain” across languages and culturesCliff Goddard and Zhengdao Ye | pp. 1–18
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“Pain” and “suffering” in cross-linguistic perspectiveAnna Wierzbicka | pp. 19–43
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The story of “Danish Happiness”: Global discourse and local semanticsCarsten Levisen | pp. 45–64
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The meaning of “happiness” (xìngfú) and “emotional pain” (tòngkŭ) in ChineseZhengdao Ye | pp. 65–86
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Japanese interpretations of “pain” and the use of psychomimesYuko Asano-Cavanagh | pp. 87–108
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Some remarks on “pain” in Latin American SpanishZuzanna Bułat-Silva | pp. 109–122
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The semantics and morphosyntax of tare “hurt/pain” in Koromu (PNG): Verbal and nominal constructionsCarol Priestley | pp. 123–141
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Index
Cited by
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2021.
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2017. Coding Anger in Fiction.
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2020.
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2021. The syntax of something: Evaluative affordances of noget in Danish construction grammar.
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2017.
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This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 may 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
Subjects & Metadata
Linguistics
BIC Subject: CFG – Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis
BISAC Subject: LAN009000 – LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General