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Sustainability and semantic diversity : A view from the Malayan rainforest

Burenhult, Niclas LU (2023) In Topics in Cognitive Science 15(3). p.546-559
Abstract
Sustainable development goals assume that basic notions such as health, life and water can be universally and easily expressed and understood across diverse communities and stakeholders. Yet there is growing evidence pointing to considerable semantic diversity in how humans represent the world in language. In this paper I discuss such semantic diversity in the context of key notions of sustainability. Focusing on an environmental term of broad relevance to sustainability goals, forest, I explore how this notion compares with assumed equivalent notions in a non-Western lesser-known speech community. Specifically, I analyze representations of treed environments in the language of the Jahai, a forager community inhabiting the rainforests of... (More)
Sustainable development goals assume that basic notions such as health, life and water can be universally and easily expressed and understood across diverse communities and stakeholders. Yet there is growing evidence pointing to considerable semantic diversity in how humans represent the world in language. In this paper I discuss such semantic diversity in the context of key notions of sustainability. Focusing on an environmental term of broad relevance to sustainability goals, forest, I explore how this notion compares with assumed equivalent notions in a non-Western lesser-known speech community. Specifically, I analyze representations of treed environments in the language of the Jahai, a forager community inhabiting the rainforests of the Malay Peninsula. The results show that an understanding of local indigenous systems of representation can be crucial to the communication and implementation of sustainability goals. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
sustainability, semantic diversity, environmental terminology, landscape, forest, Jahai
in
Topics in Cognitive Science
volume
15
issue
3
pages
14 pages
publisher
Wiley
external identifiers
  • scopus:85153526068
  • pmid:37086059
ISSN
1756-8765
DOI
10.1111/tops.12654
project
Language as key to perceptual diversity: an interdisciplinary approach to the senses
Language, cognition and landscape: understanding cross-cultural and individual variation in geographical ontology
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
f157c23c-e319-48a2-ba6a-a48583494680
date added to LUP
2022-09-03 13:32:57
date last changed
2023-12-21 10:20:10
@article{f157c23c-e319-48a2-ba6a-a48583494680,
  abstract     = {{Sustainable development goals assume that basic notions such as health, life and water can be universally and easily expressed and understood across diverse communities and stakeholders. Yet there is growing evidence pointing to considerable semantic diversity in how humans represent the world in language. In this paper I discuss such semantic diversity in the context of key notions of sustainability. Focusing on an environmental term of broad relevance to sustainability goals, forest, I explore how this notion compares with assumed equivalent notions in a non-Western lesser-known speech community. Specifically, I analyze representations of treed environments in the language of the Jahai, a forager community inhabiting the rainforests of the Malay Peninsula. The results show that an understanding of local indigenous systems of representation can be crucial to the communication and implementation of sustainability goals.}},
  author       = {{Burenhult, Niclas}},
  issn         = {{1756-8765}},
  keywords     = {{sustainability; semantic diversity; environmental terminology; landscape; forest; Jahai}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{3}},
  pages        = {{546--559}},
  publisher    = {{Wiley}},
  series       = {{Topics in Cognitive Science}},
  title        = {{Sustainability and semantic diversity : A view from the Malayan rainforest}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/tops.12654}},
  doi          = {{10.1111/tops.12654}},
  volume       = {{15}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}