Migrating Meanings: Sharing Keywords in a Global World
James W. Underhill, Mariarosaria Gianninoto, and Mariarosaria Gianninoto
Abstract
Exploring the roots of four keywords for our times: Europe, the citizen, the individual, and the people, Mariarosaria Gianninoto’s and James Underhill’s Migrating Meanings (2019) takes a broad view of conceptualization by taking on board various forms of English, (Scottish, American, and English), as well as other European languages (German, French, Spanish & Czech), and incorporating in-depth contemporary and historical accounts of Mandarin Chinese. The corpus-based research leads the authors to conclude that the English keywords are European concepts with roots in French and parallel traditi ... More
Exploring the roots of four keywords for our times: Europe, the citizen, the individual, and the people, Mariarosaria Gianninoto’s and James Underhill’s Migrating Meanings (2019) takes a broad view of conceptualization by taking on board various forms of English, (Scottish, American, and English), as well as other European languages (German, French, Spanish & Czech), and incorporating in-depth contemporary and historical accounts of Mandarin Chinese. The corpus-based research leads the authors to conclude that the English keywords are European concepts with roots in French and parallel traditions in German. But what happens to Chinese words when they come into contact with migrating meanings from Europe? How are existing concepts like the people transformed? This book goes beyond the cold analysis of concepts to scrutinize the keywords that move people and get them excited about individual rights and personal destinies. With economic, political and cultural globalisation, our world is inseparable from the fates of other nations and peoples. But how far can we trust English to provide us with a reliable lingua franca to speak about our world? If our keywords reflect our cultures and form parts of specific cultural and historical narratives, they may well trace the paths we take together into the future. This book helps us to understand how other languages are adapting to English words, and how their worldviews resist ‘anglo-concepts’ through their own traditions, stories and worldviews.
Keywords:
American,
citizen,
corpus,
corpora,
Czech Chinese Europe,
French,
German,
individual,
keywords,
migrating meanings,
people,
Scottish,
worldview
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2019 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780748696949 |
Published to Edinburgh Scholarship Online: May 2021 |
DOI:10.3366/edinburgh/9780748696949.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
James W. Underhill, author
Rouen University
Mariarosaria Gianninoto, author
Université Grenoble Alpes
Mariarosaria Gianninoto, author
Université Grenoble Alpes
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