The Social Science Library » Empirical Universals of Language as a Basis for the Study of Other Human Universals and as a Tool for Exploring Cross-Cultural Differences

Empirical Universals of Language as a Basis for the Study of Other Human Universals and as a Tool for Exploring Cross-Cultural Differences

Author(s)	Wierzbicka, Anna
Abstract	My main thesis can be summed up in two sentences: first, genuine universals of culture or cognition cannot be formulated if we do not have at our disposal some well established universals of language; and second, generalizations about cross-cultural differences can be sharpened and tightened if they are based on universals of language. Genuine universals of culture or cognition can only be formulated if we have at our disposal a universal language, and similarly, only a universal language can allow us to formulate generalizations about different cultures from a culture-independent point of view. In this article, I argue that a universal, “culture-free” language suitable both for the study of human universals and the exploration of cultural differences, can be built on the basis of empirical universals of language. I also claim that such a language has already been largely constructed, thus bringing the notion of a “universal language” from the realm of utopia to the realm of everyday reality. The article shows that this language can serve as a natural semantic metalanguage for describing and exploring both universal and culture-specific forms of human thinking, and in particular, for identifying and comparing models of person across languages and cultures.
IssueNo	2
Pages	256-291
Article	Access to Article
Source	Ethos
VolumeNo	33
PubDate	June 2005
ISBN_ISSN	0091-2131
Browse Path(s)	Anthropology —-Language and Society ——–Approaches and Interpretations

Empirical Universals of Language as a Basis for the Study of Other Human Universals and as a Tool for Exploring Cross-Cultural Differences

Language and Society