Restricted accessArticle commentaryFirst published online 2012-7
Defining Pain: Natural Semantic Metalanguage Meets IASP: A Comment on Wierzbicka’s “Is Pain a Human Universal? A Cross-Linguistic and Cross-Cultural Perspective on Pain”
When it comes to communication of pain, Anna Wierzbicka (2012) takes issue with the scientific definition of pain and turns to natural semantic metalanguage (NSM). However, “pain” is not one of the 64 semantic primes in NSM, and therefore Wierzbicka suggests words such as “body,” “bad,” and “don’t want.” This blurs the boundaries between pain and other aversive sensations and it also challenges certain clinical features of the pain experience.
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