Sympathy, Compassion, and Empathy in English and Russian: A Linguistic and Cultural Analysis

Abstract

In this corpus-based study I contribute to the description and analysis of linguistic and cultural variation in the conceptualization of 'sympathy', 'compassion', and 'empathy'. On the basis of a contrastive semantic analysis of 'sympathy', 'compassion', and 'empathy' in English and their Russian translational equivalents, 'sočuvstvie', 'sostradanie', and 'sopereživanie', I demonstrate significant differences in the conceptualization of these words, which I explain by reference to the prevalence of different models of social interaction in Anglo and Russian cultures, as well as different cultural attitudes towards emotional expression. As a methodology I apply the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), which is based on empirically established lexical and grammatical universals, and argue that it is a powerful tool in contrastive studies.