Article published in:
“Happiness” and “Pain” across Languages and Cultures
Edited by Cliff Goddard and Zhengdao Ye
[Benjamins Current Topics 84] 2016
► pp. 19–43

“Pain” and “suffering” in cross-linguistic perspective

| Australian National University
This chapter builds on findings of the author’s 1999 book Emotions Across Languages and Cultures: Diversity and Universals, which tentatively identified eleven universals pertaining to human emotions. The chapter probes some of those “emotional universals” further, especially in relation to “laughing”, “crying”, and “pain”. At the same time, the author continues her campaign against pseudo-universals, focussing in particular on the anthropological and philosophical discourse of “suffering”. The chapter argues for the Christian origins of the concept of “suffering” lexically embodied in European languages, and contrasts it with the Buddhist concept of “dukkha”, usually rendered in Anglophone discussions of Buddhism with the word suffering.
Keywords: Buddhism, Christianity, crying, laughing, Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), pain, suffering
Published online: 26 July 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.84.02wie
References
Bauer, W
(1979) A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature. Translated by W.F. Arndt & F.W. Gingrich. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Brown, D
(1991) Human universals. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Bułat Silva, Zusanna
This volume). Some remarks on “pain” in Latin American Spanish.
Bruner, J
(1990) Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: University of Harvard Press.Google Scholar
Donald, M
(2001) A mind so rare: The evolution of human consciousness. New York: Farrar Strauss and Giroux.Google Scholar
Dowrick, C
(2004) Beyond depression: A new approach to understanding and managing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ekman, P., Friesen, W.V., & Ellsworth, P
(1972) Emotion in the human face: Guidelines for research and an integration of findings. New York: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Ferm, V
(Ed.) (1945) The encyclopedia of religion. Secaucus, N.J.: Poplar Books.Google Scholar
Goddard, C
(2008) Natural semantic metalanguage: The state of the art. In C. Goddard (Ed.), Cross-linguistic semantics (pp. 1–34). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Goddard, C., & Wierzbicka, A
(2014) Words and meanings: Lexical semantics across domains, languages and cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jamison, Kay
(1997) An unquiet mind: A memoir of moods and madness. London: Picador.Google Scholar
John Paul II
(1984) Salvifici Doloris: On the Christian meaning of suffering. Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana.Google Scholar
Kittel, G., & Friedrich, G
(1985) Theological dictionary of the New Testament. (Abridged in one volume by Geoffrey W. Bromiley). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans.Google Scholar
Laughren, M., Hale, K., & Warlpiri Lexicography Group
(2006) Warlpiri-English encyclopaedic dictionary. Electronic files. St. Lucia: University of Queensland.Google Scholar
Lewis, C., & Short, C
(1962) A Latin dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Michaelis, W
(1985) Pathema. In Kittel & Friedrich (Eds.), 802.Google Scholar
Moore, C
(2005) George and Sam. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Obeyesekere, G
(1985) Depression, Buddhism, and the work of culture in Sri Lanka. In A. Kleinman & B. Good (Eds.), Culture and depression: Studies in the anthropology and cross-cultural psychiatry of affect and disorder (pp. 134–152). Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Oxford English Dictionary
“weep, v.”. OED Online [accessed December 2013]. Oxford University Press.
Park, L
(1992) Cross-cultural explanations of illness: Murdock revisited. Committee on Human Development, Lawrence Park, Chicago, IL.Google Scholar
Plessner, H
(1970) Laughing and crying: A study of the limits of human behavior. Evanston: North Western University Press.Google Scholar
Price, R
(1996) Three Gospels. New York: Touchstone.Google Scholar
Rahula, W
(1974) What the Buddha taught. New York: Grove Weidenfeld.Google Scholar
Thérèse Sainte
(2012) Histoire d’une âme. n.p.: Cerf et Desclée De Brouwer.Google Scholar
Sawyer, J.F
(1986) Isaiah, Volume 2. Edinburgh: The Saint Andrews Press.Google Scholar
Shweder, R
(2003) Why do men barbecue?: Recipes for cultural psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Smart, N
(1989) The world’s religions: Old traditions and modern transformations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thérèse de Lisieux, Saint
(1977) Autobiography of a saint: The complete and authorized text of ‘L’histoire d’une âme’. Translated by Ronald Knox. London: Fontana.Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, A
(1999) Emotions across languages and cultures: Diversity and universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2012a) Is pain a human universal?: A cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective on pain. Emotion Review, 4(3), 307–317. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2012b) Is “pain” a human universal? Conceptualization of “pain” in English, French and Polish. Colloquia Communia, 1(92), 29–53.Google Scholar
Ye, Z
(2006) Why the ‘inscrutable’ Chinese face? Emotionality and facial expression in Chinese. In C. Goddard (Ed.), Ethnopragmatics: Understanding discourse in cultural context (pp. 127–170). New York/Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar