Synopses & Reviews
In this ground-breaking book, Anna Wierzbicka brings psychological, anthropological and lingusitic insights to bear on our understanding of the way emotions are expressed and experienced in different cultures, languages, and social relations. The expression of emotion in the face, body and modes of speech are all explored and Wierzbicka shows how the bodily expression of emotion varies across cultures and challenges traditional approaches to the study of facial expressions. This book will be invaluable to academics and students of emotion across the social sciences.
Synopsis
This ground-breaking new book explores the bodily expression of emotion in worldwide and culture-specific contexts.
Synopsis
In this ground-breaking new book, Anna Wierzbicka explores human emotions and how they are expressed in faces, bodies, and modes of speech; and she places the findings into both worldwide and culture-specific contexts.
Table of Contents
Introduction; Part I. Feelings, Languages and Cultures: 1. Emotions or feelings?; 2. Breaking the âhermeneutical circleâ; 3. âExperience-nearâand âexperience-distantâconcepts; 4. Describing feelings through prototypes; 5. âEmotionsâ: disruptive episodes or vital forces that mould our lives?; 6. Why words matter; 7. Emotion and culture; 8. The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) as a tool for cross-cultural analysis; 9. An illustration: âsadnessâin English and in Russian; 10. The scope of this book; Part II. Defining Emotion Concepts: Discovering âCognitive Scenariosâ: 1. âSomething good happenedâand related concepts; 2. âSomething bad happenedâand related concepts; 3. âBad things can happenâand related concepts; 4. âI donât want things like this to happenâand related concepts; 5. Thinking about âsomeone elseâ; 6. Thinking about ourselves; 7. Concluding remarks; Part III. A Case Study of Emotion in Culture: German âAngstâ: 1. Angst as a peculiarly German concept; 2. Heideggerâs analysis of angst; 3. Angst in the language of psychology; 4. Angst in everyday language; 5. Defining angst; 6. The German angst in a comparative perspective; 7. Lutherâs influence on the German language; 8. Eschatological anxieties of Lutherâs times; 9. The meaning of angst in Lutherâs writings; 10. Martin Lutherâs inner life and its possible impact on the history of angst; 11. Lutherâs possible role in the shift from angst âafflictionâto angst âanxiety/fearâ; 12. The great social and economic anxieties of Lutherâs times; 13. Uncertainty vs certainty, angst vs sicherheit; 14. Certainty and ordnung; 15. Conclusion; Part IV. Reading Human Faces: 1. The human face: a âmirrorâor a âtoolâ; 2. From the âpsychology of facial expressionâto the âsemantics of facial expressionâ; 3. âSocialâdoes not mean âvoluntaryâ; 4. What kind of âmessagesâcan a face transmit?; 5. Messages are not âdimensionsâ; 6. âThe face aloneâor âthe face in contextâ?; 7. Analyzing facial behaviour into meaningful components; 8. Summing up the assumptions; 9. In what terms should facial behaviour be described?; 10. Humans and primates: a unified framework for verbal, non-verbal, and preverbal communication; 11. The meaning of eyebrows drawn together; 12. The meaning of âraised eyebrowsâ; 13. The meaning of the âwide open eyesâ(with immobile eyebrows); 14. The meaning of a turned down mouth; 15. The meaning of tightly pressed lips; 16. Conclusion: the what, the how, and the why in reading human faces; Part V. Russian Emotional Expression: 1. Introduction; 2. Emotion and the body; 3. Conclusion; Part VI. Comparing Emotional Norms across Languages and Cultures: Polish vs Anglo-American: 1. Emotion and culture; 2. The scripts of âsincerityâ; 3. The scripts of interpersonal âwarmthâ; 4. The scripts of âspontaneityâ; 5. Conclusion; Part VII. Emotional Universals: 1. âEmotional universalsâ- genuine and spurious; 2. A proposed set of âemotional universalsâ; 3. Conclusion; Further reading; Index.