Talking about Livet ‘life’ in Golden Age Danish: Semantics, discourse, and cultural models

Magnus Hamann, Carsten Levisen

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Abstract

This chapter explicates the word Livet, literally ‘the life’, a cultural keyword of the Danish Golden Age (1800–1850). With evidence from Golden Age Danish and its era-specific webs of words, we explore how “life and living” were construed discursively. We discuss how they relate to contemporary discourses of “the good life” in English and the related Danish calque det gode liv. We argue that era-specific cultural semantics should not be seen as being substantially different from other kinds of culture-specific discourses and that historical varieties such as Golden Age Danish can help us dismantle the hegemonic modern and Anglo take on “narratives of life” which dominate contemporary global discourse.
OriginalsprogEngelsk
TitelCultural Keywords in Discourse
RedaktørerCarsten Levinsen, Sophia Waters
UdgivelsesstedAmsterdam
ForlagJohn Benjamins Publishing Company
Publikationsdato20 okt. 2017
Sider107-129
Kapitel5
ISBN (Trykt)9789027256829
ISBN (Elektronisk)9789027265470
StatusUdgivet - 20 okt. 2017
NavnPragmatics and Beyond New Series
Vol/bind277
ISSN0922-842X

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