A culture-neutral metalanguage for mental state concepts

Abstract

In contemporary cognitive science, mental state concepts from diverse cultures are typically described via English-specific words for emotions, cognitive processes, and the like. This is terminological ethnocentrism and it produces inaccurate representations of indigenous meanings. The problem can be overcome by employing a metalanguage of conceptual analysis which is based on simple meanings such as KNOW, THINK, WANT and FEEL. Cross-linguistic semantic research suggests that these and other semantic primes are shared across all languages and cultures (Goddard & Wierzbicka 2002; cf. Wierzbicka 1999; Harkins & Wierzbicka 2001). After summarising this research, the chapter shows how complex mental state concepts from English, Malay, Swedish, and Korean can be revealingly analysed into terms which are simple, clear and transposable across languages.