A HUMAN BEING - The Universal Model

"Although undoubtedly cultural models of a person vary cross-culturally, there is also a remarkably “thick” and rich folk model that is universal. We can identify this model simply by identifying certain ways of speaking that we find in all languages." Anna Wierzbicka

#Person #People #Psychology #Society #Sociology #Ethics #Anthropology #Religion #Economics #Politics #Finance #DecisionMaking #Wierzbicka #SemanticPrimes #NaturalSemanticMetalanguage

"WOLNOŚĆ" ("freedom" in Polish)
(a) everyone wants to think something like this:
(b) when I do something I do it because I want to do it
(c) not because someone says to me: "you have to do it because I want this"
(d) it is very bad if people in a country can't think this
(e) it is very good if people in a country can think this

Source: Anna Wierzbicka, Understanding Cultures Through Their Key Words.

#freedom #SemanticPrimes #wolność #AnnaWierzbicka

"SVOBODA" ("freedom" in Russian)

(a) someone (X) can think something like this:
(b) if I want to do something, I can do it
(c) when I do something, I don't have to think:
I can't do it as I want to do it because some (other) people do/say something
(d) X feels something good because of this

#freedom #SemanticPrimes #svoboda #AnnaWierzbicka

The concept of "FREEDOM" is culture-specific.

"FREEDOM" (in English)
(a) someone (X) can think something like this:
(b) if I want to do something I can do it
(c) no one else can say to me: "you can't do it because I don't want this"
(d) if I don't want to do something I don't have to do it
(e) no one else can say to me: "you have to do it because I want this"
(f) this is good for X
(g) it is bad if someone cannot think this

#freedom #SemanticPrimes #AnnaWierzbicka