Chapter 14. ‘Advice’ in English and in Russian: A contrastive and cross-cultural perspective

Abstract

This paper argues that the English word advice encodes a language-specific perspective on the universe of discourse and that to analyse discourse in other languages and cultures in terms of this culture-specific English word would involve imposing on them an Anglocentric perspective. The paper introduces a different approach – the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach – based on 60 or so simple and universal human concepts. Using the NSM framework, the paper presents a comparative analysis of Russian and Anglo communicative norms and values associated with the English words advice and advise and their closest Russian counterparts, and demonstrates how the differences in the meanings of these words go hand-in-hand with differences in cultural practices, norms, and values. The paper concludes by proposing contrastive “cultural scripts” for English and Russian, which can be of practical use in language teaching, intercultural communication and education.