Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: The Semantics of Human Interaction (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs, Vol 53) [Paperback]

Anna Wierzbicka (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 3110137879 | ISBN-13: 978-3110137873 | Publication Date: November 1992

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.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The book can be regarded as a recapitulation of results obtained in all former scholarly projects carried by its author. [It] is one if the best manuals of widely understood pragmatics and ethnolinguistics of human speech, the more so as the traditoinal grammars and handbooks of linguistics usually leave the ethnography of speech in the background of linguistics analyses."Tomasz Wicherkiewicz in: Linguistics and Oriental Studies from Poznan --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Anna Wierzbicka is Professor at Australian National University, Canberra. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 516 pages
• Publisher: Mouton De Gruyter (November 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3110137879
• ISBN-13: 978-3110137873
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,673,013 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars discoveries about other cultures, June 9, 2007

By 

Irina Khoutyz (Krasnodar, Russia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: The Semantics of Human Interaction (Mouton Textbook) (Paperback)

This book is excellent for those who are interested to know how and why people from different cultures usually express their likes and dislikes, compliments and invitations. You will see what to expect and how to interpret the phrases of your foreign friends and colleagues. The author illustrates speech patters and certain words' connotations that we have acquired through our cultural traditions in a simple manner - you don't have to be a linguist to understand her ideas.
I used many examples in my Introduction to Linguistics lectures with the first year students and I think they really enjoyed them.
The book really makes you rethink everything that you have already learned about people from other countries.