The cultural semantics of the Japanese emotion terms 'Haji' and 'Hazukashii'

This paper presents a cultural semantic analysis of the Japanese emotion terms haji and hazukashii, made using the methodology of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM). Th e paper has three aims: (i) to pinpoint the conceptions of haji and hazukashii as emotion terms in Japanese language and culture; (ii) to highlight the diff erences in meaning with their typical English translations shame and embarrassing, and show that haji and hazukashii refl ect two different, culture-specific emotion conceptions; (iii) to emphasise the suitability of NSM for cross-cultural comparisons of emotion terms in diff erent languages and, in turn, for cross-cultural training. The examples adduced are taken from various sources, including a Japanese dictionary, the Kotonoha corpus of Japanese language and Japanese novels.