Culture-Specific Meaning in Personal Narratives

Abstract

Homo sapiens has been defined as the creature who “makes sense,”and social sciences and humanities are all preoccupied with different aspects of meaning. The anthropologist Ulf Hannerz emphasizes the importance of sense-making, which occurs constantly through experience, interpretation, contemplation and imagination. The study of culture for anthropologists, therefore, is above all the study of meanings which people create, and which create people as members of society [Hannerz 1992:3]. Linguists, studying meaning and sense in natural language, are also increasingly concerned with cultural aspects of meaning. The study of semantic phenomena is shifting its focus from the abstract analysis of meaning and sense-making to cultural facts that exist in people and for people [Frumkina 1999:4]. Cultural psychologists are engaged in determining the role of culture for people, viewing it as a vehicle shaping human capacities. They believe that humans build their understanding of the world through active engagement with it in specific contexts carrying a history in the particular culture [Smith 2001:133]. Our ability to interpret the meaning of particular contexts and situations