"The relationship between landscape and culture seen through language is an exciting and increasingly explored area. This ground-breaking book contributes to the linguistic examination of both cross-cultural variation and unifying elements in geographical categorization. The study focuses on the contrastive lexical semantics of certain landscape words in a number of languages. The aim is to show how geographical vocabulary sheds light on the culturally - and historically - shaped ways people see and think about the land around them. Notably, the study presents landscape concepts as anchored in a human-centred perspective, based on our cognition, vision, and experience in places. The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach allows an analysis of meaning which is both fine-grained and transparent. The book is aimed, first of all, at scholars and students of linguistics. Yet it will also be of interest to researchers in geography, environmental studies, anthropology, cultural studies, Australian Studies, and Australian Aboriginal Studies because of the book's cultural take"--.

• Landscape and Culture – Cross-linguistic Perspectives
• Editorial page
• Title page
• LCC data
• Table of contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1. Landscape and culture
  • 1.1 Introduction: mountains as brute facts?
  • 1.2 Language and culture in the landscape
  • 1.3 Landscape categories
  • 1.4 The folk picture of the world
  • 1.5 Previous landscape work
  • 1.6 A human-centred perspective
  • 1.7 The case of Australia
  • 1.8 The natural semantic metalanguage
  • 1.9 Interpretation of landscape terms in this book
  • 1.10 Languages treated in this book
  • 1.11 Fieldwork
  • 1.12 Outline of this book
• 2. Flowing-water places
  • 2.1 The river takes on the characteristics of the culture of which it is a part
  • 2.2 Flowing-water places in English
  • 2.3 Flowing-water places in French
  • 2.4 A long water place in Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara: karu
  • 2.5 Concluding remarks
• 3. Elevated places
  • 3.1 Do mountains exist?
  • 3.2 Mountain and hill in English, puli in Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara
  • 3.3 Mountain and mountains
  • 3.4 Cordillera and sierra in Spanish
  • 3.5 Cliff words in English and Spanish
  • 3.6 Concluding remarks
• 4. Semantics by ‘the sea’
  • 4.1 The sea is in our being
  • 4.2 The sea, the ocean
  • 4.3 The beach, the seaside
  • 4.4 The coast, the shore
  • 4.5 Islands, peninsulas
  • 4.6 Bays, coves
  • 4.7 Concluding remarks
• 5. Desert in Australian English and Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara eco-zones
  • 5.1 People say it’s just a desert
  • 5.2 Desert in Australian English
  • 5.3 Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara eco-zone words – an overview
  • 5.4 Puti eco-zone in Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara
  • 5.5 Puli eco-zone in Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara
  • 5.6 Pila and tali in Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara
  • 5.7 Concluding remarks
• 6. Human intent in the landscape
  • 6.1 Modification of the environment is the essence of agriculture
  • 6.2 Paddocks in Australian English
  • 6.3 Meadows and fields in British English
  • 6.4 Nyaru in Pitjantjatjatjara/Yankunytjatjara
  • 6.5 Dams in Australian English
  • 6.6 Tjukitji in Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara
  • 6.7 Concluding remarks
• 7. The bush in Australian English
  • 7.1 The term bush has assumed great importance in the Australian lexicon
  • 7.2 The bush across Englishes
  • 7.3 The bush of the Australian landscape
  • 7.4 The bush as a human domain
  • 7.5 The bush vs. the city
  • 7.6 Concluding remarks
• 8. Concluding remarks
  • 8.1 Introduction
  • 8.2 Culture in the landscape
  • 8.3 Final remarks
• References
• Appendix 1 . Recordings information
• Name index
• Subject index