Imprisoned in English argues that in the present English-dominated world, social sciences and the humanities are locked in a conceptual framework grounded in English and that most scholars in these fields are not aware of the need to break away from this framework to reach a more universal, culture-independent perspective on things human. Indeed they are typically not aware that any problem exists, and resistant to its being pointed out. The book engages with current debates across a range of disciplines, including philosophy, anthropology, sociology, evolutionary science, psychology, and cognitive science, as well as linguistics. The topics include values, emotions, social cognition, intercultural communication, endangered languages, human universals vs. human diversity, the evolution of consciousness, etc. It is a book dedicated to one central idea: the blind spot in contemporary social sciences and the prevailing global discourse on values, the human condition, human relations, and so on, which results from the "invisibility " of English as an increasingly globalized way of thinking and talking.

About the Author
Professor of Linguistics, Australian National University, and author of Semantics, Culture, and Cognition (1992); Semantics: Primes and Universals (1996): Understanding Cultures Through their Keywords (1997); What did Jesus Mean? (2001), and English: Meaning and Culture (2006)

Reviews
Imprisoned in English is an heroic attempt to truly understand 'others' as subjects rather than objects without assimilating their understandings to one's own. The book summarizes the author's influential and monumental plan for a great escape from ethnocentrism and conceptual parochialism in the humanities and social sciences. * Richard A. Shweder, Harold Higgins Swift Distinguished Service Professor, University of Chicago *
This book is the latest outstanding product of Anna Wierzbicka's research, driven by her cross-cultural approach and theory of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM). Wierzbicka is excellent in showing how much we are imprisoned in culture-specific English concepts. The book is powerful, and recommended for everyone who is interested in languages. * Istvan Kecskes, founding editor of the journal Intercultural Pragmatics *



Book Information
ISBN 9780199321506
Author Anna Wierzbicka
Format Paperback
Page Count 304
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 408g
Dimensions(mm) 155mm * 231mm * 23mm