The Czech zdravý rozum and the English common sense through the prism of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse the meaning of the salient Czech concept of zdravý rozum, and compare it with its English equivalent, common sense. It does so by using the natural semantic metalanguage, a universal and elementary metalanguage originated by Anna Wierzbicka.

This metalanguage represents a shared conceptual core of, presumably, all natural languages, so it is independent of any particular culture and can serve as a non-ethnocentric tertium comparationis for the purposes of intercultural ethnolinguistic research. In this study, it serves to compare and contrast two unique and highly complex concepts that enable us to gain some insight into two different linguistic worldviews - and their respective cultures.

Keywords

• ethnolinguistics
• intercultural semantics
• cultural linguistics
• linguistic anthropology
• Anna Wierzbicka
• Natural Semantic Metalanguage
• linguistic worldview
• common sense
• zdravý rozum