Language, Culture, and Mind

Examines how social relationships are developed and maintained through language.

Based on fieldwork carried out in a Mayan village in Guatemala, this book examines local understandings of mind through the lens of language and culture. It will be of interest to researchers and students working within the disciplines of anthropology, linguistics, psychology, and philosophy.Based on fieldwork carried out in a Mayan village in Guatemala, this book examines local understandings of mind through the lens of language and culture. It focuses on a variety of grammatical structures and discursive practices through which mental states are encoded and social relations are expressed: inalienable possessions, such as body parts and kinship terms; interjections, such as 'ouch' and 'yuck'; complement-taking predicates, such as 'believe' and 'desire'; and grammatical categories such as mood, status and evidentiality. And, more generally, it develops a theoretical framework through which both community-specific and human-general features of mind may be contrasted and compared. It will be of interest to researchers and students working within the disciplines of anthropology, linguistics, psychology, and philosophy.