Goddard, Cliff (2020). Overcoming the linguistic challenges for ethno-epistemology: NSM perspectives. In Masaharu Mizumoto, Jonardon Ganeri and Cliff Goddard (Eds.), Ethno-epistemology: New directions for global epistemology (pp. 130-153). New York: Routledge.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003037774-7
Abstract:
Scholars working in ethno-epistemology need to tread carefully in how they formulate their discussions in order to circumvent or minimize several dangers, such as conceptual imposition from English or other home languages, relying too heavily on some semantic subtlety peculiar to their own language, and misinterpreting unfamiliar patterns of polysemy or metaphor in another language. The NSM approach to meaning offers a well developed framework for overcoming these dangers. Based on a decades-long program of conceptual analysis and cross-linguistic empirical research, NSM is the only comprehensive approach to meaning that confronts the challenges of Anglocentrism and Eurocentrism head on, by seeking to base its representations on simple words with equivalents in all languages. It offers the prospect of authentically modelling the thoughts and meanings of ordinary native speakers, insofar as it uses non-technical words that are accessible to speakers in their own language. It also provides procedures for dealing with ambiguity and vagueness of words, including how to distinguish lexical polysemy (distinct-yet-related meanings) from semantic generality. This presentation overviews the NSM program, summarizing the research base behind it and exemplifying its key concepts and methods with examples relevant to ethno-epistemology. The paper contends that the NSM program can provide a metalanguage for ethno-epistemology.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
