Browsing results for Address forms and social cognition

(2013) Social cognition

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 3, 2018.

Goddard, Cliff (2013). The semantic roots and cultural grounding of ‘social cognition’. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 33(3), 245-256. DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2013.846454

Social cognition (roughly, how people think about other people) is profoundly shaped by culture. It cannot be insightfully studied except by methods that are able to tap into the perspectives of cultural insiders, while avoiding the pitfalls of conceptual and terminological Anglocentrism. This paper shows how the analytical concepts and techniques developed by the NSM approach to language description, such as semantic explications and cultural scripts, can meet these requirements. It argues that the metalanguage of semantic primes, the outcome of a decades-long programme of research, is well adapted to modelling local culturally grounded modes of social cognition in fine detail.

Semantics; Social Cognition; Sociality Concepts; Cultural Scripts; Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM); Cultural Key Words

(2014) Chinese (Mandarin) – Opposites

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.

Ye, Zhengdao (2014). Opposites in language and thought: A Chinese perspective. In Gabriella Rundblad, Aga Tytus, Olivia Knapton, & Chris Tang (Eds.), Selected papers from the 4th UK Cognitive Linguistics Conference (pp. 284-302). London: UK Cognitive Linguistics Association. PDF (open access)

There is a strong view held by many semanticists that ‘oppositeness’ is lexically embodied in every language. This suggests that antonymous thought may be an inherent feature of human cognition. However, in the available literature on the sense relations of opposites, most of the analyses in English focus on adjectives, in particular gradable adjectives. How ‘oppositeness of meaning’ is actually construed by speakers from other languages and cultures, in particular by those from non-Indo-European languages, has largely been unexplored.

This paper fills the gap by providing a Chinese language perspective. It first illustrates the critical role opposites play in the word and conceptual formation in Chinese. It then offers a fined-grained case analysis of two pairs of culturally salient complementary noun opposites designating social categories as a way of gaining insight into varied construals and conceptualizations of the nature of ‘oppositeness of meaning’.

A central methodological concern is how culturally distinctive ways of thinking about the relationships between the two members of a complementary pair can be reflected and captured. The paper proposes that the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), in particular its ‘cultural scripts’ theory branch, provides a possible solution. Related methodological issues discussed in the paper include subtypes of complementary opposites, cultural scripts vs. logical formulation, the issue of markedness, and the role of culture in the semantics of Chinese opposites.


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(2014) English (Australia), French – “Sociality” terms

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on January 15, 2022.

Waters, Sophia Elizabeth (2014). The cultural semantics of “sociality” terms in Australian English, with contrastive reference to French. PhD thesis, University of New England.

This thesis investigates the lexical semantics of nice and a set of other superficially “simple” sociality concepts (rude, polite and manners) in Australian English. When appropriately analysed, these words reveal much about the socially accepted and approved ways of behaving in Australian society. As expected of heavily culture-laden words, nice and rude lack precise translation equivalents in many languages and can be regarded as cultural key words. The comparative reference to French (for example, nice vs. gentil lit. ‘kind’, rude vs. mal élevé lit. ‘badly brought up’) highlights differences in ways of behaving and construals of sociality.

The thesis engages with the (im)politeness literature, and addresses the problem of transparent definitions of sociality words as they are used by ordinary speakers. This thesis enriches the current literature on (im)politeness and sociality by providing clear and accessible lexical semantic analyses of these words in Australian English, in a range of contexts, collocations and constructional frames in 24 explications. The methodology for the semantic analysis is the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach. The lexical semantic analysis of the abstract noun manners pioneers the theoretical innovation of “manners scripts”, which are an extension of the cultural scripts approach.

A quasi-ethnographic approach was taken to compile the dataset of example sentences of Australian English and French sourced from the search engine Google. These form a purpose-built corpus of almost 3000 tokens.


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(2014) Tagalog – Terms of address

Published on July 27, 2017. Last updated on August 31, 2018.

Waga, Andrew Ike B. (2014). A semantic differentiation of the name marker pairs Kuya/Ate and Manong/Manang using Natural Semantic Metalanguage. BA thesis, University of the Philippines Diliman. DOCX (open access)

This undergraduate thesis uses Natural Semantic Metalanguage to semantically differentiate the name markers Kuya/Ate and Manong/Manang. The semantic explications are then compared to their literal meanings provided by the UP Diksiyonaryong Filipino. This research also investigates how gender could be a factor in one’s linguistic choices, particularly how it affects one’s use of the two name marker pairs.

This research demonstrates the validity of the use of NSM as it is able to come up with thorough semantic explications of the name markers kuya/ate and manong/manang. This study also demonstrates how one’s gender influences one’s motivations in using language, specifically in the use of name markers to address people. Through Deborah Tannen’s Difference and Dominance Approaches, this study shows how each gender has sex-specific motivations in language use.


Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner

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(2015) German – Terms of address (HERR)

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.

Wierzbicka, Anna (2015). A whole cloud of culture condensed into a drop of semantics: The meaning of the German word Herr as a term of address. International Journal of Language and Culture, 2(1), 1-37. DOI: 10.1075/ijolc.2.1.01wie

(2016) English – STRANGER, ACQUAINTANCE

Published on July 1, 2017. Last updated on May 3, 2019.

Ye, Zhengdao (2016). Stranger and acquaintance in English: Meaning and cultural scripts. In Agnieszka Uberman, & Teodor Hrehovčík (Eds.), Text – sentence – word: Studies in English linguistics: Vol. 2 (pp. 119-130). Rzeszów: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Rzeszowskiego.

In English, stranger, acquaintance and friend are perhaps the most common and salient terms for describing social relations that are not place or kinship based. What makes these social categories so special and distinctive in English? The question becomes even more intriguing if we consider that in many languages and cultures, human relations in the social sphere revolve around different social categories.

It is the purpose of this paper to seek an answer to the above question. It aims to shed light on the role and function of the English social category words in question from the standpoint of meaning and culture. Given that Anna Wierzbicka has discussed the meaning of the English term friend at great length, this paper will focus on the less analysed stranger and acquaintance. It seeks to articulate the meanings of both, and spell out some of the assumptions underlying the associated interactional values and norms widely shared by Anglophone speakers.

The two social category words analysed in this paper can be considered as co-occurring concepts of politeness in English. This paper shows how the study of the semantics of words of this nature contributes to a better understanding of the “politeness phenomenon” characteristic of Anglophone society.


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(2016) French – Terms of address

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 31, 2018.

Wierzbicka, Anna (2016). Making sense of terms of address in European languages through the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM). Intercultural Pragmatics, 13(4), 499-527. DOI 10.1515/ip-2016-0022

Building on the author’s earlier work on address practices and focusing on the French words monsieur and madame, this paper seeks to
demonstrate that generic titles used daily across Europe have relatively stable meanings, different in different languages, and that their semantic analysis can provide keys to the speakers’ cultural assumptions and attitudes. But to use these keys effectively, we need some basic locksmith skills. The NSM approach, with its stock of primes and molecules and its mini-grammar for combining these into explications and cultural scripts, provides both the necessary tools and the necessary techniques. The unique feature of the NSM approach to both semantics and pragmatics is the reliance on a set of simple, cross-translatable words and phrases, in terms of which interactional meanings and norms can be articulated, compared, and explained to linguistic and cultural outsiders. Using this approach, this paper assigns intuitive, intelligible and cross-translatable meanings to several key terms of address in French and English, and it shows how these meanings can account for many aspects of these terms’ use. The paper offers a framework for studying the use of terms of address in Europe and elsewhere and has implications for language teaching, cross-cultural communication and education.


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(2016) German, Polish – Terms of address: HERR vs. PAN

Published on May 12, 2018. Last updated on August 31, 2018.

Wierzbicka, Anna (2016). Terms of address as keys to culture and society: German Herr vs. Polish Pan. Acta Philologica [Uniwersytet Warszawski], 49, 29-44.

This article takes up a theme addressed many years ago by Andrzej Bogusławski: a semantic and cultural comparison of the Polish and German terms of address Pan and Herr. Focussing on these two words, the paper seeks to demonstrate that despite their apparent insignificance, generic titles used daily across Europe can reveal complex and intricate webs of cultural assumptions and attitudes and provide keys to the inmost recesses of the speakers’ cultural and social world. At the same time, the paper argues that to use these keys effectively, we need some basic locksmith skills; and it tries to show that the NSM approach to semantics and pragmatics can help us develop such skills. The explications posited here possess, it is argued, predictive and explanatory power that is beyond the reach of traditional analyses operating with technical labels such as “formal”, ”polite”, “respectful”, “egalitarian” and so on. The paper has implications for language teaching and cross-cultural communication and education in Europe and beyond.


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(2016) Japanese — Politeness

Published on January 15, 2022. Last updated on January 15, 2022.

Haugh, Michael. (2016). The role of English as a scientific metalanguage for research in pragmatics: Reflections on the metapragmatics of “politeness” in Japanese. East Asian Pragmatics, 1(1), 39–71.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1558/eap.v1i1.27610

Abstract

Much of the theorisation undertaken in pragmatics has afforded English a privileged place, not only as the object of analysis but also as the means through which such theoretical discussions have been accomplished. Yet as a number of researchers have pointed out, the language in which the description, analysis, and theorisation of pragmatic phenomena is undertaken can have an influence on how the research object(s) in question are understood. In this article, the role of English as our scientific metalanguage in research on ‘politeness’ in Japanese is considered. It is argued that in order to start managing such challenges for research in pragmatics we need to go beyond the study of abstract or decontextualised meanings of words and move towards the analysis of emic concepts and emic practices. It is concluded that rather than abandoning notions such as ‘politeness’ in favour of seemingly less culturally imbued terms, what is needed instead is greater awareness of what the use of English as a scientific metalanguage both affords for researchers working in pragmatics, along with the challenges it can create for such work.

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(2017) Chinese (Mandarin) – Social relation nouns

Published on May 16, 2017. Last updated on September 2, 2019.

Ye, Zhengdao (2017). The semantics of social relation nouns in Chinese. In Zhengdao Ye (Ed.), The semantics of nouns (63-88). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198736721.003.0003

Abstract:

This study investigates the nature of Chinese social grouping by analysing the meaning and conceptual structure of a set of nouns that denote salient social relations in Chinese and that form two pairs of complementary opposites. It discusses in detail the commonalities and differences underlying the construals of semantic relation within and between both pairs and offers a semantic method to represent them. The study brings to attention the social categories and associated ways of conceptualizing social and meaning relations that are not often talked about in English, and illustrates that an in-depth analysis of social relation nouns enables researchers to access non-obvious aspects of human social cognition, therefore contributing to a deeper knowledge and understanding of the priorities at play in human social categorization.

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(2017) Italian, French, German – Address pronouns

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 31, 2018.

Wierzbicka, Anna (2017). Terms of address in European languages: A study in cross-linguistic semantics and pragmatics. In Keith Allan, Alessandro Capone, & Istvan Kecskes (Eds.), Pragmemes and theories of language use (pp. 209-238). Berlin: Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-43491-9_12

One of the deepest differences between English-based human interaction and the interaction based on the languages of continental Europe has to do with terms of address. For speakers of languages like French, Italian, or German it goes without saying that “polite” words such as vous, Lei and Sie are indispensable in daily exchanges with others. What do these words actually mean? To what extent do their meanings differ from one European language to another? Why can some of these terms, for example, vous, be applied to God (or to one’s spouse), whereas others, for example, Sie, cannot?

There has been an upsurge of interest in both nominal and pronominal terms of address in recent years, but most publications in this area focus on frequencies, forms, functions, and sociolinguistic variation, with virtually no mention of meaning. To uncover the secrets hidden in the meanings of such essential tools of daily communication and to bring to light their cultural significance, we need an appropriate methodology. As I hope to show in the present paper, NSM semantics provides the necessary tools and techniques.


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(2018) English, Italian – The cultural semantics of address practices [BOOK]

Published on August 7, 2017. Last updated on November 9, 2019.

Farese, Gian Marco (2018). The cultural semantics of address practices: A contrastive study between English and Italian. Lanham: Lexington.

Abstract:

This book presents a contrastive analysis of various forms of address used in English and Italian from the perspective of cultural semantics, the branch of linguistics that investigates the relationship between meaning and culture in discourse. The objects of the analysis are the interactional meanings expressed by different forms of address in these two languages, which are compared adopting the methodology of the NSM approach. The forms analysed include greetings, titles and opening and closing salutations used in letters and e-mails in the two languages. Noticeably, the book presents the first complete categorization of Italian titles used as forms of address ever made on the basis of precise semantic criteria.

The analysis also investigates the different cultural values and assumptions underlying address practices in English and Italian, and emphasizes the risks of miscommunication caused by different address practices in intercultural interactions. Every chapter presents numerous examples taken from language corpora, contemporary English and Italian literature and personal e-mails and letters.

The book encourages a new, innovative approach to the analysis of forms of address: it proposes a new analytical method for the analysis of forms of address which can be applied to the study of other languages systematically. In addition, the book emphasizes the role of culture in address practices and takes meaning as the basis for understanding the differences in use across languages and the difficulties in translating forms of address of different languages. Combining semantics, ethnopragmatics, intercultural communication and translation theory, this book takes an interdisciplinary approach and brings together various fields in the social sciences: linguistics, anthropology, cross-cultural studies and sociology.

Table of contents:

  1. Analyzing address practices from a cultural semantic point of view
  2. “Sorry boss”: an unrecognized category of English address nouns
  3. “Prego, signore”: the semantics of Italian “titles” used to address people
  4. “Hi, how are you?”
  5. “Ciao!” or “ciao ciao”?
  6. “Dear customers, …”
  7. “Caro Mario,” “Gentile cliente,” “Egregio dottore”
  8. “Best wishes,” “kind regards,” “yours sincerely”
  9. “Distinti,” “cordiali,” “affettuosi saluti”
  10. Italian cultural scripts for address practices
  11. Australian cultural scripts for address practices
  12. Address practices in intercultural communication
  13. Concluding remarks

More information:

Revised version of the author’s PhD thesis, Australian National University (2017).

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(2019) Danish — Humour

Published on January 15, 2022. Last updated on August 18, 2023.

Levisen, Carsten. (2019). The Cultural Semantics of Untranslatables: Linguistic Worldview and the Danish Language of Laughter. In A. Glaz (Ed.), Languages – Cultures – Worldviews: Focus on Translation (pp. 319-346). Palgrave Macmillan. Palgrave studies studies in translating and interpreting

Abstract

Through an in-depth case study of humour concepts in Danish, the chapter develops a cultural-semantic analysis of the untranslatables of laughter, and provides a new account of the worldview engendered by such words. The Danish language of laughter is particularly rich in synaesthetic humour metaphor; the chapter sets out to explicate key categories within this class: sort humor ‘black, murky humour,’ plat humor ‘flat, plain humour,’ fed humor ‘fat humour,’ and tør humor ‘dry humour.’ The analysis is undertaken within the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework of analysis and takes an explicitly translational approach to language, culture, and worldview. Providing a roadmap for how to navigate in the landscape of translatables and untranslables, the chapter contributes to both translational semantics and linguistic worldview studies.

 


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(2019) Danish — Humour, interjections

Published on August 18, 2023. Last updated on August 18, 2023.

Levisen, Carsten. (2019). Laughter interjections: Contributions to a lexical anthropology of humour (with special reference to Danish). Scandinavian Studies in Language, 10(1), 110-130.

 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7146/sss.v10i1.114674

Abstract
The purpose of this paper is threefold. Firstly, it seeks to fill a gap in the literature on interjections by suggesting that ‘laughter interjections’ (words such English haha or hehe) make up an important type of interjections that has so far not been accounted for in cross-linguistic work on interjections. Secondly, it argues that laughter interjections are thick with cultural meaning, and that they can play an important role for an “emic turn” in humour studies. Third, it develops a case study on “Danish funniness” with a point of departure in the Danish paradigm of laughter interjections. The paper explores humourous discourse from the perspective of these culturally specific expressive words, and provides high definition analysis of two Danish laughter interjections tøhø and hæhæ, using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage technique of explication. The general framework of the study is Lexical Anthropology, an approach to meaning analysis that combines insights from lexical semantics and linguistic anthropology.

 


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(2019) Spanish (Spain) – Address forms and social cognition; Ethnopragmatics

Published on August 3, 2020. Last updated on August 3, 2020.

Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2019). Los vocativos de cariño en español peninsular: un enfoque desde la Metalengua Semántica Natural. Sociocultural Pragmatics, 7(3), 445-467.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/soprag-2019-0013

Abstract:

This article adopts an ethnopragmatic approach to the interpretation of linguistic strategies through their relation with cultural aspects which underlie their usage. The focus is on the relation between Spanish cultural scripts and nominal forms of address (terms of endearment) used in Peninsular Spanish. Cultural scripts would appear to be the perfect tool for explicating the sociocultural premises behind the interpretations we make of the function that terms of endearment have in Spanish politeness. Of particular interest are typically
Spanish scripts of “expressiveness”, “complimenting others”, “treating others with affection” and “being friendly”, and terms of endearment such as alma, ‘soul’, vida, ‘life’, cielo, ‘heaven’ and cariño, ‘love’. The explication of the semantic content of the terms of endearment on the one hand and the underlying sociocultural values on the other, applies the method of semantic and pragmatic analysis known as NSM.

More information:

Written in Spanish.

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(2020) Australian English — Humour

Published on January 15, 2022. Last updated on January 15, 2022.

Haugh, Michael, & Weinglass, Lara. (2020). “The Great Australian Pastime”: Pragmatic and Semantic Perspectives on Taking the Piss. In Kerry Mullan, Bert Peeters, & Lauren Sadow (Eds.), Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication: Vol. 1. Ethnopragmatics and semantic analysis (pp. 75-94). Singapore: Springer.

Abstract

The claim that Australians place considerable value on not taking oneself too seriously lies at the heart of discourses on Anglo-Australian identity. While laughter and playful talk are ubiquitous across languages and cultures, Australians are claimed to pride themselves on being able to joke and laugh at themselves (and others) in almost any context, no matter how dire or serious the circumstances appear to be. One of the key practices that has often been noted is that of ‘taking the piss’, where the pretensions of others are (gleefully) punctured through cutting, mocking remarks. Yet despite its apparent importance for Australians, there has been surprisingly little empirical study of actual instances of it. This lacuna is arguably a consequence of the complexity of studying a phenomenon that is simultaneously semantic and pragmatic in character. Ethnopragmatics is one of the few extant approaches that is specifically designed to directly tackle this problem. In this approach, ‘semantic explications’, which address what a word or phrase means, provide the basis for proposing ‘cultural scripts’, which address what members of a culture are held to (normatively) do in social interaction and the cultural value placed on doing things in that way. In this chapter, we analyse data drawn from spoken corpora to address the question of whether “taking the piss” might be best approached as a kind of ‘semantic explication’ or as a ‘cultural script’, and what the consequences of framing it as one or other might be for research on the role of ‘humour’ more generally in social interaction amongst Australian speakers of English.

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(2020) French — Humour

Published on January 15, 2022. Last updated on January 15, 2022.

Waters, Sophia. (2020). The lexical semantics of blaguer: French ways of bringing people together through persuasion, deception and laughter. European Journal of Humour Research 8 (4) 31–47

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7592/EJHR2020.8.4.Waters

Abstract

This study presents a lexical semantic analysis of the French verb blaguer and related expressions. This verb belongs to a suite of “French humour practices”, and French-English dictionaries translate it as ‘to joke’. However, Anglo-specific terminology such as “joke” does not match the conceptual semantics of blaguer and its related noun blague. Relying on Anglo- specific terms to categorise culture-specific practices perpetuates conceptual and terminological Anglocentrism. This study furthers the call to avoid the dangers of sustaining Anglocentrism in the theoretical vocabulary of humour studies (Goddard & Mullan 2020; Goddard 2018; Wierzbicka 2014a).
Working from the assumption that semantic categories reflect particular ways of speaking, thinking, and behaving, this study’s goal is to capture the insider perspective that French speakers have about the meaning of the verb blaguer and the noun blague. Making local understandings more obvious and accessible to cultural and linguistic outsiders will increase cross-cultural understanding and foster appreciation for the different ways that speakers construct and interpret their world with words (Levisen & Waters 2017).
The analytical tool for this study is the technique of semantic explication couched in the simple cross-translatable and culture-neutral words of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (Goddard & Wierzbicka 2014). Carefully chosen example sentences are drawn from Google searches (google.fr) of authentic language use of the verb blaguer and the noun blague. Comparative reference is made to the verb ‘to joke’ from Australian English to highlight the differences in the conversational humour cultures of French and English speakers (Goddard & Mullan 2020; Béal & Mullan 2013, 2017).

 


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(2020) Polish, English, French, German, Russian — Address terms, Religion

Published on January 15, 2022. Last updated on January 15, 2022.

Wierzbicka, Anna. (2020). Addressing God in European languages: different meanings, different cultural attitudes. Russian Journal of Linguistics 24 (2). 259—293. DOI: 10.22363/2687-0088- 2020-24-2-259-293

Abstract

All European languages have a word for God, and this word means exactly the same in all of them. However, speakers of different European languages tend to relate to God in different ways. Each group has its own characteristic ways of addressing God, encoded in certain words, phrases and grammatical forms, which both reflect and shape the speakers’ habitual ways of thinking about God and relating to God. Often, they also reflect some other aspects of their cultural memory and historical experience. In this paper I will compare the meanings of the vocative expressions used for addressing God in several European languages, including “Gospodi” in Russian, “O God” in English, “Mon Dieu” in French, “Herr” in German, and “Boże” in Polish. But to compare those meanings, we need a common measure. I believe such a common measure is available in the “NSM” framework, from Natural Semantic Metalanguage (see e.g. Goddard and Wierzbicka, 2014; Wierzbicka 2014a and 2018a; Gladkova and Larina 2018a, b).
The data is taken mainly from well-known works of literature, such as Lev Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Boris Pasternak’s poem “V bol’nice” (“In Hospital”) for Russian, Charles Peguy’s Le mystère de la charité de Jeanne d’Arc and its English translation by Julien Green for French and English, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s prison poems and Heinrich Böll’s novel Billard um halbzehn for German. The results have shown that each European language offers its users a range of options for addressing God. Some of these options are shared, others appear to be unique to the language. All are underpinned by broader historical phenomena. The exact nature of all these links remains to be investigated.

Аннотация

Во всех европейских языках есть слово для обозначения Бога, и это слово имеет одинаковое значение. Тем не менее, носители разных европейских языков, как правило, обращаются к Богу по-разному. У каждой группы есть свои характерные способы обращения к Богу, зако- дированные в определенных словах, фразах и грамматических формах, которые отражают и формируют привычные способы мышления о Боге и отношение к Богу. Часто они также от- ражают некоторые другие аспекты культурной памяти и исторического опыта.Статья посвя- щена сопоставлению значений вокативных слов и фраз, используемых для обращения к Богу на нескольких европейских языках, включая «Господи» на русском языке, «O God» на ан- глийском языке, «Mon Dieu» на французском языке, «Herr» на немецком и «Boże» на поль- ском. Для сравнения этих значений необходимо единое измерение. Есть все основания пола- гать, что в качестве такого измерения может быть использован Естественный Семантическмй Метаязык (NSM) (см., например, Goddard and Wierzbicka, 2014; Wierzbicka 2014a и 2018a; Gladkova and Larina 2018a, b и др.). Материал для исследования был взят в основном из из- вестных литературных произведений, таких как роман Льва Толстого «Анна Каренина» и стихотворение Бориса Пастернака «В больнице» для русского языка, «Мистерия о милосер- дии Жанны Д’Арк» Шарля Пеги и ее английский перевод Жюльена Грина для французского и английского языков, тюремные стихи Дитриха Бонхеффера и роман Генриха Белля «Биль- ярд в половине десятого» для немецкого языка. Результаты показали, что каждый европей- ский язык предлагает своим пользователям различные варианты обращения к Богу. Некото- рые из них являются общими, другие представляются уникальными для того или иного языка. Все они обусловлены более широким историческим контекстом, конкретное влияние которого еще предстоит изучить.

 


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(2020) Spanish (Latin American) – Discursive constructions

Published on August 15, 2021. Last updated on August 15, 2021.

Hein, Jan. (2020). Europeanized Places, Europeanized People: The Discursive Construction of Argentina. Journal of Postcolonial Linguistics, 2(2020), 28–45

(Open Access)

 

Abstract:

A remarkable feature of Argentine national discourse is the variety of forms which perpetuate the ideologies of 19th century leaders endorsing the absolute Europeanization of the nascent Argentine nation-state. Among these forms are a number of multiword expressions that construe Argentine places and people as essentially “European”, such as the famous Buenos Aires es la París de Sudamérica (‘Buenos Aires is the Paris of South America’) and Los argentinos descienden de los barcos (‘Argentines descend from the ships’). This paper combines the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach (Goddard & Wierzbicka 2014; Levisen & Waters 2017; Goddard 2018) and Conceptual Blending Theory (Fauconnier 1999; Coulson & Oakley 2000; Fauconnier & Turner 2002) to explore the conceptual architecture of these two expressions and the discourses around which they are organized, offering original insights into the construal of places and people in Argentine postcolonial discourse.

 


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