Wok (‘work’) as a Melanesian Cultural Keyword: Exploring Semantic Insights from an Indigenous Tok Pisin Play Cover Image

Wok (‘work’) as a Melanesian Cultural Keyword: Exploring Semantic Insights from an Indigenous Tok Pisin Play
Wok (‘work’) as a Melanesian Cultural Keyword: Exploring Semantic Insights from an Indigenous Tok Pisin Play

Author(s): Paweł Kornacki
Subject(s): Studies of Literature, Lexis, Semantics, Sociolinguistics
Published by: Instytut Anglistyki Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Tok Pisin; creole; cultural keyword; cultural semantics; Melanesia; worldview;

Summary/Abstract: This paper offers a preliminary cultural semantic exploration of a key social concept of the Melanesian worldview advanced in the anthropological literature of the area. It is argued that the cultural meaning of this notion can be accessed by focusing on the relevant contextual and semantic properties of the corresponding Tok Pisin lexical unit wok(im) (‘work’) examined in a noteworthy cultural text approached as a source of linguistic evidence.

  • Issue Year: 31/2022
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 77-92
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: English