This course, taught by an expert in semantics and the author of many books in this field, provides practical training for anyone interested in the study of meaning, intercultural communication, or translation. It focuses on basic and universal human concepts and their role as a tool for comparing and explaining meanings across languages and cultures. The course explores semantic universals and their implications for semantic analysis on all levels of language, including lexicon, grammar and discourse. The course aims at improving the student's skills in exploring and describing the meaning of words, constructions and whole texts in the context of the study of languages and the 'stream of life'.

Topics discussed will include the following: semantic analysis and the current social, political and moral debates (e.g. the debates around the concept of 'genocide'); semantic universals and the issue of 'primitive thought'; comparing grammatical categories across languages; the semantics of modals, the semantics of evidentials; social categories and kinship terms; human bodies and their parts; human emotions and values, with a special focus on happiness; cultural scripts and intercultural communication; physical activities; semantic molecules and semantic templates; non verbal communication; semantics and social cognition (with a focus on reflexive and reciprocal constructions); practice in writing explications and cultural scripts.

1. Analyse the meaning of words, phrases and grammatical constructions in different languages.
2. Articulate the meaning of expressions through the natural semantic metalanguage in a precise and clear way.
3. Articulate cultural norms through 'cultural scripts'.
4. Clarify ideas, values and norms through simple and universal concepts.
5. Participate effectively in a collective thinking process leading towards a consensus about the meaning of expressions and ideas.

Two 2,500 word essays (90%) and class participation, including class presentation (10%).

A two-hour weekly seminar

Weekly readings as specified in the Course Schedule

Semantics LING2008 or equivalent, or with permission of Lecturer

A. Wierzbicka, Semantics: primes and universals, OUP, 1996
Reading Brick