Browsing results for Emotions
Published on January 15, 2022. Last updated on January 15, 2022.
Ye, Zhengdao. (2019).The semantics of emotion: From theory to empirical analysis. Pritzker, Sonya.E., Fenigsen, Janina., & Wilce, James.M. (Eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Language and Emotion (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367855093
Abstract
This chapter provides a systematic account of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach to emotion and “affective science,” especially how it addresses three methodological questions: (a) how emotional meaning can be explicated in terms that are psychologically real to people; (b) how culture-specific meanings can be convened authentically to another linguacultural community, so that important nuances in the conceptualizations of emotions can be appreciated by cultural outsiders; and (c) how commonalities and differences in human experiences can be identified and articulated? The chapter draws upon a wide selection of NSM work across many languages, including Bislama, English, Mbula (PNG), and Chinese.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) fago, (E) horrified, (E) lele imbai pa, (E) love, (E) mata-iyoyou pa, (E) Mi kros, (E) Mi les, (E) petrified, (E) qiān cháng guà dù 牵肠挂肚, (E) téng/téng’ài, (E) terrified, (E) va ŋu/ŋú, (E) xìngfú 幸福, (E) xīnlǐ hén kŭ, (T) English
Published on January 15, 2022. Last updated on January 15, 2022.
Wierzbicka, Anna. (2019). The biblical roots of English ‘love’: The concept of ‘love’ in a historical and cross-linguistic perspective. International Journal of Language and Culture 6(2) 225-254. https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.18006.wie
Abstract
Seen from a broad cross-linguistic perspective, the English verb (to) love is quite unusual because it has very broad scope: it can apply to a mother’s love, a husband’s love, a sister’s love, etc. without any restrictions whatsoever; and the same applies to its counterparts in many other European languages. Trying to locate the origins of this phenomenon, I have looked to the Bible. Within the Bible, I have found both continuity and innovation. In the Hebrew Bible, the verb ’āhēb, rendered in the Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint with the verb agapao, implies a “preferential love”, e.g. it is used for a favourite wife of a favourite son. In the New Testament, the concept of ‘love’ loses the “preferential” components and thus becomes applicable across the board: between anybody and anybody else.
The paper argues that the very broad meaning of verbs like love in English, aimer in French, lieben in German, etc. reflects a shared conceptual heritage of many European languages, with its roots in the New Testament; and it shows that by taking a semantic perspective on these historical developments, and exploring them through the rigorous framework of NSM and Minimal English, we can arrive at clear and verifiable hypotheses about a theme which is of great general interest, regardless of one’s own religious and philosophical views and commitments.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) love, (T) English
Published on November 13, 2019. Last updated on February 9, 2020.
Farese, Gian Marco; Asano-Cavanagh, Yuko (2018/19). Analysing nostalgia in cross-linguistic perspective. Philology, 4, 213-241.
DOI: https://doi.org/103726/PHIL042019.6
Abstract:
This paper presents a contrastive semantic analysis of the English nostalgia, the Italian nostalgia and the Japanese 懐かしい natsukashii adopting the methodology of the NSM approach. It is argued that: (i) emotion terms of different languages reflect different and culture-specific conceptualizations of human feelings; (ii) the Anglo conceptualization of feelings is not valid for all cultures; and (iii) linguistic analysis is central to the analysis of human feelings. The paper challenges the claim made by some psychologists that the English word nostalgia expresses a feeling that is pancultural and criticizes the use of English emotion terms as the basis for discussions on human feelings.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) natsukashii 懐かしい, (E) nostalgia
Published on August 15, 2021. Last updated on August 15, 2021.
Vanhatalo, Ulla; Tissari, Heli; Lilja, Taru; Vehkalahti, Kimmo; & Siiroinen, Mari. (2019). “Something bad can now happen to me here”: Meaning components of emotion words. SKY Journal of Linguistics 32 (2019), 145–179
Abstract:
This paper reports on how people connect explications of emotion words to the terms they are meant to explicate. We focused on the Finnish counterparts to the following words: anger, disgust, fear, joy, love, sadness, and surprise. Our primary findings show that our participants, who were native speakers of Finnish, made the expected matches between Natural Semantic Metalanguage-based explications and the corresponding emotion words. However, there were significant differences between the emotion words, with the match rate ranging from 93% for ‘love’ to 51% for ‘sadness’. This research also contributes to our understanding of the meaning components of emotion concepts, and it may help people to talk about emotions in depth without using the conventional vocabulary for emotions.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) amae 甘え, (E) happy
Published on January 10, 2022. Last updated on January 10, 2022.
Tissari, Heli, Vanhatalo, Ulla. & Siiroinen, Mari. (2019). From corpus-assisted to corpus-driven NSM explications: The case of Finnish viha (anger, hate). In Lege artis. Language yesterday, today, tomorrow. The Journal of University of SS Cyril and Methodius in Trnava. Trnava: University of SS Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, 2019, IV (1), June 2019, p. 290-334. ISSN 2453-8035
Abstract:
NSM researchers have not used corpus data very systematically thus far. One could talk about corpus-assisted rather than corpus-based or corpus-driven research. This article suggests a way to not only base research on corpus data, but also to let it guide us in defining words in terms of NSM. It presents a new method, which we have developed. Our data come from the Suomi24 Sentences Corpus and concerns the Finnish emotion words viha (‘anger, hate’), vihata (‘to hate’) and vihainen (‘angry’).
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) anger, (E) viha, (E) vihainen, (E) vihata
Published on November 22, 2020. Last updated on November 22, 2020.
Peeters, Bert (2020). Language Makes a Difference: Breaking the Barrier of Shame. Lublin Studies in Modern Language and Literature, 44(1), 27-37.
Abstract:
This paper argues against the reification of shame and the use of Anglocentric jargon to explain what it entails. It shows how the Natural Semantic Metalanguage can be used to define shame and set it apart from related concepts in Australian Aboriginal English and in Bislama, an English creole spoken in Vanuatu.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) ashamed, (E) man sem, (E) shame, (T) shame
Published on January 15, 2022. Last updated on January 15, 2022.
Bułat-Silva, Zuzanna. (2020). Lexical-Semantic Analysis of ‘Comfort’: A Contrastive Perspective of English, European Portuguese, and Polish. In Dorothee Birke, Stella Butter (Eds.), Comfort in Contemporary Literature and Culture: The Challenges of a Concept. (21-42). Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839449028-002
Abstract
This paper investigates the relationship between the concepts of comfort and sloth. While we intuitively assume a proportional correspondence between the two – more comfort results in more sloth and vice versa – I draw on the writings of American author Thomas Pynchon to elucidate why such a straightforward conclusion fails. In fact, Pynchon points to many possible modes of sloth in different cultural contexts, which I label »Writerly Sloth«, »Readerly Sloth«, »Watcherly Sloth«, and »Laugherly Sloth«, that all individually bring about a characteristic form of comfort and discomfort. Following Pynchon’s concise overview of the historical ramifications of the philosophy of sloth since Thomas Aquinus, I attempt to connect the poetics of slothfulness with specific events of US-American literature and politics from within their respective zeitgeists, such as the refusal to work during the heyday of Wall Street capitalism or watching TV in California in the 1960s.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) comfort, (E) conforto, (E) komfort
Published on August 14, 2021. Last updated on August 16, 2021.
Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2020). TIME in Portuguese saudade and other words of longing. In Bromhead, Helen and Zhengdao Ye (eds.). Meaning, Life and Culture. Canberra: ANU Press pp 211-227
DOI: http://doi.org/10.22459/MLC.2020.11 (Open Access)
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) chóu 愁, (E) morriña, (E) saudade, (E) tęsknota
Published on August 14, 2021. Last updated on August 16, 2021.
Aznárez-Mauleón, Mónica (2020). The semantics of two loanwords in Navarrese Spanish. In Bromhead, Helen and Zhengdao Ye (eds.). Meaning, Life and Culture. Canberra: ANU Press pp 193-210.
DOI: http://doi.org/10.22459/MLC.2020.10 (Open Access)
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) chirrinta / desire, (E) ciriquiar / annoy
Published on January 15, 2022. Last updated on January 17, 2022.
Sadow, Lauren, and Peeters, Bert. (2021). “J’ai mal à la tête” and analogous phrases in Romance languages and in English [« J’ai mal à la tête et expressions analogues dans les langues romanes et en anglais »], Cahiers de lexicologie, n° 119, 2021 – 2, Lexique et corps humain, p. 207-233
DOI : 10.48611/isbn.978-2-406-12812-0.p.0207
Written in English
Résumé
L’existence de constructions syntaxiques différentes pour des phrases ayant le un sens similaire n’est pas le fruit du hasard. Nous utiliserons la métalangue sémantique naturelle pour expliquer les différentes constructions des “expressions de céphalées” courantes en français, italien, espagnol, roumain et anglais. Les explications permettront de mieux comprendre comment les locuteurs conceptualisent leurs maux de tête au quotidien, et comment leur choix de syntaxe modifie le sens de l’expression.
Abstract
The existence of different syntactic configurations for phrases with similar meanings is not by chance. In this paper, we will use the natural semantic metalanguage to offer explications for the different syntactic constructions of common “headache phrases” in French, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, English. The explications will allow us to better understand how the speakers of each language conceptualize their day-to-day headaches, and how their choice of syntax changes the expression’s meaning.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) ache, (E) Am dureri de cap, (E) Ça fait mal, (E) Ho mal di testa, (E) I have a headache, (E) it hurts, (E) J’ai mal à la tête, (E) La tête me fait mal, (E) Mă doare capul, (E) me duele, (E) Me duele la cabeza, (E) Mi fa male la testa, (E) Tengo dolor de cabeza
Published on August 22, 2023. Last updated on November 17, 2023.
Fenyvesi, Katalin, Bick, Eckhard, & Geyer, Klaus. (2022). Sadness-related Expressions in Danish and German: A Corpus-assisted NSM-analysis. Scandinavian Studies in Language, 13(1), 249-273. Retrieved from https://tidsskrift.dk/sss/article/view/135080
Abstract
The study explores sadness-related expressions in two typologically closely related languages in the natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) framework. A systematic corpus enquiry revealed the syntactic patterns and helped to identify the most frequent head-nouns of a number of Danish and German sadness- related expressions. German traurig, for instance, has a distribution similar to that of Danish sørgelig with semiotic products and clauses as subjects. However, when used with human subjects, its distribution aligns with the Danish multi-word expression ked af det. Semantic consultations conducted about the use of the most salient sadness adjectives with some speakers of Danish and German revealed fine-grained differences between German traurig and trist and Danish ked af det and trist respectively. Thus, when used with a human headword, Danish trist is more trait-like while ked af det is more state- like. The concept of sadness-related emotions in Danish and German is discussed, followed by a methodological discussion about the combinability of a quantitative corpus approach, a qualitative semantic consultation approach and NSM explications. Corpus inquiry was used to chart the adjectives’ polysemy, and as a method for creating the NSM explications, consultation data were used.
Tags: (E) ked af det, (E) sad, (E) traurig, (E) trist
Published on August 8, 2018. Last updated on October 19, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (Forthcoming). Vocabulary of emotions and its development in English, German and other languages. In Gesine Lenore Schiewer, Jeanette Altarriba, & Bee Chin Ng (Eds.), Handbook of language and emotion. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Abstract:
In broad agreement with many emotion theorists, the NSM approach sees emotion concepts as “blends” of feelings and thoughts, sometimes accompanied by potential bodily reactions. This chapter delineates the semantic fundamentals of emotion vocabulary, demonstrates a framework for fine-grained contrastive analysis, and emphasizes the greater-than-expected semantic variability across languages, epochs, and cultures.
Using examples from English and German, the chapter summarizes findings about semantic templates and semantic components of various kinds of emotion terms, including adjectives (e.g. afraid, angry, ashamed), verbs (e.g. miss, worry), and abstract nouns (e.g. happiness, depression). Minor categories and examples from other, non-European, languages are also briefly considered. It is shown that it is both possible and necessary to differentiate between similar-but-different emotion concepts in a single language, e.g. English happy, pleased, satisfied, and across different languages, e.g. English disgust vs. German Ekel. Likewise, using English happy and happiness as examples, the author shows that the same word can vary in meaning across time. Considerable weight is placed on linguistic evidence such as usage patterns, collocational data, and phraseology.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
