Moisejeva, Natalija (2017). The semantic analysis of the English cultural key word ‘right’ and its equivalents in Italian and Lithuanian. S.l.: LAP (Lambert Academic Publishing).
The present research paper aims at providing an insight into the nature of the English cultural key word right and its expression in Italian and Lithuanian as well as into the various cultural scripts underlying this concept. The analysis is based on the theory of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) and theories of Cultural Key Words and Cultural Scripts elaborated by Anna Wierzbicka and Cliff Goddard in the 1990s. They claim that, apart from common words that are clear to everyone, there exist certain culture-specific concepts fully understandable only to the representatives of a specific culture. The main attention of this study is, therefore, focused on revealing the meaning groups underlying the English word right and their expression in Italian and Lithuanian, as well as on formulating cultural scripts underlying each meaning group using semantic primes from the Natural Semantic Metalanguage. The source of the findings is the original version of George Orwell’s 1984 as well as its two translations.
A 2010 article with a similar title, by the same author but more limited in its scope, does not contain any NSM explications. That earlier article is available online [PDF (open access)].
