THE CULTURAL AND PRAGMATIC DIFFERENCES OF THE WORD “FRIEND” IN ENGLISH AND GERMAN
Keywords:
Cross-linguistic semantics, cultural pragmatics, friendship terminology, English–German translation, intercultural communication, semantic scope of “friend”, Freund and Freundin, sociolinguistic variation, language and culture, pragmatic transfer, interpersonal relationships, second language acquisition, lexical equivalence, German-English contrastive analysis, semantic relativity.Abstract
The cultural and pragmatic differences in the use and understanding of the word “friend ” in English and its German counterparts “Freund” and “Freundin”. Although often translated directly, these terms carry divergent connotations and pragmatic uses that reflect deep-seated cultural norms regarding social closeness, privacy, and interpersonal communication. Drawing on theories from cultural linguistics, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics, this study reveals how the concept of “friendship” is linguistically encoded differently in English-speaking and German-speaking cultures.
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