Publications

Publication details [#1739]

Akos, Ostor. 1996. Review of Alverson, Hoyt. 'Semantics and Experience: Universal Metaphors of Time in English, Mandarin, Hindi, and Sesotho'. Baltimore; London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. 1995. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 3 : 136–139.

Abstract

Is time universal or culturally specific? Is it a category concept, or a term of linguistic usage? Anthropologists have argued these questions for generations. How do we define time to begin with? Is it subjective experience, objective measurement, or culturally constituted category? What is a category for one is experience or variant of usage for another. Alverson would cut through all this: boldly asserting that time is a universal he argues that relativist anthropologists have confused category and practice. Taking a phenomenological approach to language, he classifies. (Ostor Akos)