Wok (‘work’) as a Melanesian Cultural Keyword: Exploring Semantic Insights from an Indigenous Tok Pisin Play

Abstract

This paper offers a preliminary cultural semantic exploration of a key social concept of the Melanesian worldview advanced in the anthropological literature of the area. It is argued that the cultural meaning of this notion can be accessed by focusing on the relevant contextual and semantic properties of the corresponding Tok Pisin lexical unit wok(im) (‘work’) examined in a noteworthy cultural text approached as a source of linguistic evidence.

Keywords

• tok pisin
• creole
• cultural keyword
• cultural semantics
• melanesia
• worldview