CrossCultural Pragmatics: The Semantics of Human Interaction

by Anna Wierzbicka

This book challenges the approaches to human interaction based on supposedly universal 'maxims of conversation' and 'principles of politeness,' which fly in the face of reality as experienced by millions of people crossing language boundaries (refugees, immigrants, etc.) and which cannot help in the practical tasks of cross-cultural communication and education. In contrast to such approaches, this book is both theoretical and it shows that in different societies, norms of human interaction are different and reflect different cultural attitudes and values and it offers a framework within which different cultural norms and different ways of speaking can be effectively explored, explained, and taught.The book discusses data from a wide range of languages and it shows that the meanings expressed in human interaction and the different 'cultural scripts' prevailing in different speech communities can be clearly and intelligibly described and compared by using a 'natural semantic metalanguage,' based on empirically established universal human concepts. As the book shows, this metalanguage can be used as a basis for teaching successful cross-cultural communication, including the teaching of languages in a cultural context.

Genres: Linguistics, Nonfiction

540 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Anna Wierzbicka is Professor of Linguistics at Australian National University. Her many books include Semantics: Primes and Universals (OUP 1996), Emotions across Languages and Cultures (CUP 1999), and Experience, Evidence & Sense: The hidden cultural legacy of English (OUP 2010). Professors Goddard and Wierzbicka are co-editors of two collective volumes: Semantic and Lexical Universals and Meaning and Universal Grammar (John Benjamins, 1994 and 2002).

Reviews

[Rima Muryantina · Rating 5 out of 5]

An awesome book written by my favourite linguist and my favourite lecturer, Prof. Anna Wierzbicka.

I like the way she put so many examples from languages around the world to see different culture from the insiders' point of view. NSM really is a powerful theory!

And I like reading the meaningful ramble in her introductory note! haha. it's fun to read how a inguist struggles so that her theory could be accepted world-wide.