Cultural Semantics and Social Cognition: A Case Study on the Danish Universe of Meaning

Portada
Walter de Gruyter, 2012 M12 6 - 353 páginas

Presenting original, detailed studies of keywords of Danish, this book breaks new ground for the study of language and cultural values. Based on evidence from the semantic categories of everyday language, such as the Danish concept of hygge (roughly meaning, ‘pleasant togetherness’), the book provides an integrative socio-cognitive framework for studying and understanding language-particular universes. It is argued that the worlds we live in are not linguistically and conceptually neutral, but rather that speakers who live by Danish concepts are likely to pay attention to their world in ways suggested by central Danish keywords and lexical grids. By means of a sophisticated semantic methodology, the author accounts for the meanings of even highly culture-specific and untranslatable linguistic concepts.

The book offers new tools for comparative research into the diversity of semantic and cultural systems in contemporary Europe. Additionally, it contributes to the emerging discipline of cultural semantics, and to the ongoing debates of linguistic diversity, metalanguage, and the use of linguistic evidence in studies of culture and social cognition.

 

Contenido

Chapter 1 Danish as a universe of meaning
1
Key issues in contemporary cultural semantics
42
Hygge as a cultural keyword and core cultural value
80
Danish society socialisation and ethnopsychology
115
Chapter 5 The dark side of the Danes? A semantic and discursive analysis of janteloven the Jante Law ...
145
Evidence from the cognitive verbs synes and mener
165
Chapter 7 Are Danes truly the happiest people on earth? Semantics meets happiness research ...
197
Chapter 8 Conclusion
229
Appendix
238
Notes
251
References
266
Author index
316
General index
322
Derechos de autor

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Acerca del autor (2012)

Carsten Levisen, Aarhus University, Denmark.

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