Cover not available
Part of
Cultural Keywords in Discourse
Edited by Carsten Levisen and Sophia Waters
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 277] 2017
► pp. 107–129

Chapter 5
Talking about Livet ‘life’ in Golden Age Danish

Semantics, discourse and cultural models

| Aarhus University
| Roskilde University
This chapter explicates the word Livet, literally ‘the life’, a cultural keyword of the Danish Golden Age (1800–1850). With evidence from Golden Age Danish and its era-specific webs of words, we explore how “life and living” were construed discursively. We discuss how they relate to contemporary discourses of “the good life” in English and the related Danish calque det gode liv. We argue that era-specific cultural semantics should not be seen as being substantially different from other kinds of culture-specific discourses and that historical varieties such as Golden Age Danish can help us dismantle the hegemonic modern and Anglo take on “narratives of life” which dominate contemporary global discourse.
Keywords: Livet , discourses of life, historical semantics, cultural models, Golden Age Danish
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The Danish Golden Age
  • 3. Livet as a cultural keyword in Golden Age discourse
  • 4.Three cultural models of Livet
  • 5.Comparative perspectives
  • 6.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 19 October 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.277.05ham
References (51)
References
Allchin, Arthur M., and Nicholas Lossky. 1997. N.F.S. Grundtvig: An Introduction to His Life and Work. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.Google Scholar
Arkiv for Dansk litteratur. 2014. [URL], Accessed 10 November, 2014.
Borish, Stephen M. 1991. The Land of the Living: The Danish Folk High Schools and Denmark’s Non-Violent Path to Modernization. Nevada City: Blue Dolphin Publishing.Google Scholar
Bromhead, Helen. 2009. The Reign of Thruth and Faith. Epistemic Expressions in 16th and 17th Century English. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Carbaugh, Donald. 2007. “Cultural Discourse Analysis: Communication Practices and Intercultural Encounters”. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 36 (3): 167–182. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clark, Herbert H., and Catherine R. Marshall. 1981. “Definite Reference and Mutual Knowledge.” In Elements of Discourse Understanding, ed. by Aravind K. Joshi, Bonnie L. Webber, Ivan A. Sag, 10–63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Clausen, Peter. 2013. Det gode livs psykologi. Hvad er et godt liv? Frederiksberg: Frydenlund.Google Scholar
D’Andrade, Roy and Claudia Strauss. 1992. Human Motives and Cultural Models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dixon, Thomas. 2003. From Passions to Emotions: The Creation of a Secular Psychological Category. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gee, James Paul. 2014. Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Goddard, Cliff. 2002. “Ethnosyntax, Ethnopragmatics, sign-functions, and culture.” In Ethnosyntax: Explorations in grammar and culture, ed. by Nick J. Enfield, 52–73. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
. 2008. “Contrastive Semantics and Cultural Psychology: English heart vs Malay hati .” In Culture, Body, and Language: Conceptualizations of Internal Body Organs across Cultures and Languages, ed. by Farzad Sharifian, René Dirven, Ning Yu and Susanne Niemeier, 75–102. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Goddard, Cliff, and Anna Wierzbicka. 2014. Words and Meanings: Lexical Semantics across Domains, Languages, and Cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gregersen, Frans. 2002. “Nordic Language History and the History of Ideas III: Nationalism Identity and Democratic Movements in the 19th and 20th Centuries.” In The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages, ed. by Oskar Bandle, 373–388. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Hansen, Erik and Lars Heltoft. 2011. Grammatik over det Danske Sprog. Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag.Google Scholar
Harkins, Jean and Anna Wierzbicka. 2001. Emotions in Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heim, Irene R. 2011. “The Semantics of Definite and Indefinite Noun Phrases.” PhD diss., University of Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Høiris, Ole. 2008. “Naturfolk, kulturfolk og træk af verdens historier.” In Romantikkens verden: Natur, menneske, samfund, kunst og kultur, ed. by Ole Højris, and Thomas Ledet, 259–283. Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag.Google Scholar
Høiris, Ole and Thomas Ledet. 2008. “Indledning.” In Romantikkens verden: Natur, menneske, samfund, kunst og kultur, ed. by Ole Højris, and Thomas Ledet, 11–29. Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag.Google Scholar
Holland, Dorothy and Naomi Quinn. 1987. Cultural Models in Language and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ihalainen, Pasi. 2006. “Between Historical Semantics and Pragmatics: Reconstructing Past Political Thought through Conceptual History,” Journal of Historical Pragmatics 7 (1): 115–143. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2007. “The Sanctification and Democratisation of ‘the Nation’ and ‘the People’ in Late Eighteenth-Century Northwestern Europe: Proposing a Comparative Conceptual History.” Contributions to the History of Concepts 3 (2): 125–151. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kragh, Helge. 2008. “H.C Ørsted, Ludvig Colding og den romantiske naturopfattelse.” In Romantikkens verden: Natur, menneske, samfund, kunst og kultur, ed. by Ole Højris, and Thomas Ledet, 107–124. Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag.Google Scholar
Koselleck, Reinhart. 2002. “Three bürgerliche Worlds? Preliminary Theoretical-Historical Remarks on the Comparative Semantics of Civil Society in Germany, England, and France.” In The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts, ed. by Reinhart Koselleck translated by Todd Samuel Presner and others, 208–217. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Levisen, Carsten. 2012a. Cultural Semantics and Social Cognition: A Case Study on the Danish Universe of Meaning. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2012b. “Review of “The Reign of Truth and Faith: Epistemic Expressions in 16th and 17th Century English” by Helen Bromhead.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 22, (1): 128–129. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2014. “The Story of “Danish Happiness”: Global Discourse and Local Semantics.” International Journal of Language and Culture 1 (2): 174–193. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2016. “The Ethnopragmatics of Speech Acts in Postcolonial Discourse: “Truth” and “Trickery” in a Transculturated South Pacific tale.” In Pragmatic Perspectives on Postcolonial Discourse: Linguistics and Literature, ed. by Christoph Schubert and Laurenz Volkmann, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 41–64.Google Scholar
. 2017. “Personhood Constructs in Language and Thought: New Evidence from Danish.” In The Semantics of Nouns, ed. by Zhengdao Ye. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 120–146.Google Scholar
Nongbri, Brent. 2013. Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept. Yale: Yale University. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Odense bys museer. 2014. [URL]. Accessed 10 November, 2014.
Østergård, Uffe. 2006. “Denmark: a Big Small State – The Peasant Roots of Danish Modernity.” In National Identity and the Varieties of Capitalism: The Danish Experience, ed. by John L. Campbell, John A. Hall and Ove K. Pedersen, 53–98. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Univeristy Press.Google Scholar
Palmer, Gary B. 1996. Toward a Theory of Cultural Linguistics. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Pedersen, Bente Klarlund. 2013. Alt om sundhed. Tanker om det gode liv. Copenhagen: Politiken.Google Scholar
Peeters, Bert. 2009. “Language and Cultural Values. The Ethnolinguistic Pathway Model.” Fulgor 4:1, 59–73.Google Scholar
, ed. 2015. “Language and Cultural Values: Adventures in Applied Ethnolinguistics.” Special issue of International Journal of Language and Culture 2 (2). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rask, Kirsten. 2002. Store Tanker i et Lille Land. Copenhagen: Gad.Google Scholar
Sharifian, Farzad. 2011. Cultural Conceptualisations and Language: Theoretical Frameworks and Applications. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stewart, Jon B. 2015. The Cultural Crises of the Danish Golden Age: Heiberg, Martensen and Kierkegaard. Copenhagen: Museeum Tusculanum Press.Google Scholar
Togeby, Ole. 1993. PRAXT : pragmatisk tekstteori, Århus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag.Google Scholar
Underhill, James W., 2012. Ethnolinguistics and Cultural Concepts: Truth, Love, Hate, and War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wierzbicka, Anna. 1979. “Ethno-Syntax and the Philosophy of Grammar. Studies in Language 3 (3): 313–383. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1992. Semantics, Culture, and Cognition: Universal Human Concepts in Culture-Specific Configurations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
. 1997. Understanding Cultures Through Their Key Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
. 2002a. “Right and Wrong: From Philosophy to Everyday Discourse.” Discourse Studies 4 (2): 225–252. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2002b. “English causative constructions in an ethnosyntactic perspective: Focusing on LET.” In Ethnosyntax: Explorations in grammar and culture, ed. by Nick J. Enfield, 162–203. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
. 2006. English: Meaning and Culture, New York: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2009. “What Makes a Good Life? A Cross-Linguistic and Cross-Cultural Perspective.” The Journal of Positive Psychology: Dedicated to Furthering Research and Promoting Good Practice, 4 (4): 260–272. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2013. Imprisoned in English: The Hazards of English as the Default Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wolf, Hans-Georg, and Franz Polzenhagen. 2009. World Englishes: A Cognitive Sociolinguistic Approach. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zuckermann, Ghil’ad. 2010. Society without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us about Contentment? New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Levisen, Carsten
2016. The story of “Danish Happiness”. In "Happiness" and "Pain" across Languages and Cultures [Benjamins Current Topics, 84], ► pp. 45 ff. DOI logo
Levisen, Carsten
2021. Pæn, flot, dejlig, andlækker. International Journal of Language and Culture 8:1 ► pp. 14 ff. DOI logo
Levisen, Carsten
2024. Chapter 2. Society in danger. In The Cultural Pragmatics of Danger [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 346], ► pp. 23 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 20 september 2024. 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.