“Happiness” and “Pain” across Languages and Cultures
Editors
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
Published online on 18 July 2016
Published online on 18 July 2016
© 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 | pp. 143–145
Cited by (13)
Cited by 13 other publications
Goddard, Cliff, Tine-Marie Junker & Zhengdao Ye
2024. Chapter 11. Security , Sicherheit , ānquán
. In The Cultural Pragmatics of Danger [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 346], ► pp. 217 ff.
Levisen, Carsten & Zhengdao Ye
2024. Chapter 1. “When bad things happen to people”. In The Cultural Pragmatics of Danger [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 346], ► pp. 1 ff.
Romero-Trillo, Jesús & Irina Rozina
Sakaba, Hiromichi
Durst-Andersen, Per & Stine Evald Bentsen
Gladkova, Anna & Jesús Romero-Trillo
2021. The linguistic conceptualization in folk aesthetics. International Journal of Language and Culture 8:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Goddard, Cliff, Ulla Vanhatalo, Amie A. Hane & Martha G. Welch
Levisen, Carsten
Levisen, Carsten
Sadow, Lauren & Kerry Mullan
Goddard, Cliff, Maite Taboada & Radoslava Trnavac
Levisen, Carsten & Sophia Waters
2017. Chapter 1. How words do things with people. In Cultural Keywords in Discourse [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 277], ► pp. 1 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 26 october 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.
Subjects
Main BIC Subject
CFG: Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General