Browsing results for Broad topics
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2013). Translatability and the scripting of other peoples’ souls. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 24(1), 1-22. DOI: 10.1111/taja.12018
If anthropology aims at understanding ‘others’, then obviously anthropologists must be interested in the meaning of what those ‘others’ say. But to understand what speakers of a language other than our own say, we need to know what exactly the words and grammatical categories of that other language mean. This article argues that translating indigenous categories into academic English does not allow us to capture indigenous perspectives and leads to what Geertz calls “scripting other people’s souls”. Focusing on cognitive and cultural categories from Australian Aboriginal languages usually linked with English labels such as ‘kinship obligations’ and ‘odd-numbered generations’, the article shows how the ways of thinking encoded in these languages can be explicated from the insider’s point of view, in simple words and simple sentences directly cross-translatable into the indigenous languages themselves.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) loyalty, (E) loyauté, (S) categorization of oneself in relation to other people, (S) categorization of other people in relation to oneself, (S) generational moieties, (S) mutual identification with others, (S) obligations towards extended family, (T) English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 18, 2019.
Li, Jing; Ericsson, Christer; & Quennerstedt, Mikael (2013). The meaning of the Chinese cultural keyword xin. Journal of Languages and Culture, 4(5), 75-89.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5897/JLC12.054 / Open access
Abstract:
In China, the word 心 xīn (often translated as heart) is frequently used and its concept is central to Chinese culture. However, its meaning is not exactly the same as that of the English word heart. Using qigong as the context, this article aims to explore the meaning of 心 xīn as a cultural key word to gain an in-depth understanding of Chinese culture and knowledge within that cultural system. Qigong is a Chinese health maintenance system and healing tradition that integrates physical activity with training of the mind and self-cultivation. One of qigong’s basic components is 心 xīn adjustment. It is impossible to convey the full meaning of this concept without understanding the meaning of 心 xīn. In Chinese culture, 心 xīn is the root of physical and mental life. It is the seat of all emotions, and embodies the inherent goodness of human nature and wisdom. 心 xīn helps to guide the individual’s way of life and attitude, and can lead one to deep contentment.
Rating:
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) heart, (E) mind, (E) xīn 心
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Leung, Helen Hue Lam (2013). The Cantonese utterance particle ‘gaa3’ and particle combinations: An NSM semantic analysis. In John Henderson, Marie-Eve Ritz, & Celeste Rodríguez Louro (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2012 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society (27 pp.). https://sites.google.com/site/als2012uwa/proceedings. PDF (open access)
Cantonese utterance particles occur in ordinary Cantonese conversation every one or two seconds. Speech becomes unnatural when they are omitted. They are often used in combinations of more than one, with ‘basic’ and ‘compound’ particles totalling approximately one hundred. However, it is generally agreed that the particles’ meanings are extremely elusive. This study uses the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework and natural speech data from the Hong Kong Cantonese Corpus to explain the meaning of the utterance particle gaa3 as used in statements. Gaa3 is the second most frequently used utterance particle in the corpus, and the eleventh most frequently used Cantonese word
overall. The NSM explication proposed clearly states what the ‘core’ or invariant meaning of gaa3 is. Furthermore, the explications of gaa3 and two other particles, laa1 and wo3, can reveal why they can
(or cannot) combine, and what their composite meanings are. This is a new approach to the untested idea that the meaning of particle ‘clusters’ is equal to that of the individual particles combined. The explications begin to expose a system with which the vast array and patterns of Cantonese utterance particles can be explained in a logical way.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Ye, Zhengdao (2013). Understanding the conceptual basis of the ‘old friend’ formula in Chinese social interaction and foreign diplomacy: A cultural script approach. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 33, 365-385. DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2013.846459
This study attempts to make sense of a Chinese diplomatic formula – calling or labelling one’s counterpart 中国人民的老朋友 zhōngguó rénmín de lăopéngyŏu (‘an old friend of the Chinese people’) – by unravelling its conceptual basis. It shows that this formula has deep roots in Chinese social practices, and that its use is governed by a web of intrinsically linked cultural scripts. The paper articulates these scripts in terms of the culture-independent Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), unveiling the cultural logic underlying the use of the expression and revealing the culturally distinctive Chinese way of categorizing and conceptualizing ‘friend’, which is different from the Anglophone way. On the one hand, the paper shows the crucial role that language plays in managing interpersonal relationships by Chinese speakers; on the other, it contributes to a deeper understanding of the conceptual foundations of Chinese diplomatic style, illustrating how formulaic language in diplomacy highlights aspects of social cognition that are fundamental to the speakers of a community, and therefore deserving more attention than has hitherto been the case.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) péngyŏu 朋友, (E) zìjĭrén 自己人, (S) insiders and outsiders, (S) labelling someone as a 同 tóng 'fellow' X, (S) labelling someone as a 老 lăo 'old/long-standing' X, (S) speaking differently to different categories of people, (S) 由疏至亲 yóushūzhìqīn ‘from being distant to being close’
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 13, 2018.
Levisen, Carsten (2013). On pigs and people: The porcine semantics of Danish interaction and cognition. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 33(3), 344-364. DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2013.846455
There are footprints of pigs all over the Danish language. Pig-based verbs, nouns and adjectives abound, and the pragmatics of Danish, including its repertoire of abusives, is heavily reliant on porcine phraseology. Despite the highly urbanized nature of the contemporary Danish speech community, semantic structures from Denmark’s peasant-farmer past appear to have survived and taken on a new significance in today’s society. Unlike everyday English, which mainly distinguishes pig from pork, everyday Danish embodies an important semantic distinction between grise, which roughly speaking translates as ‘nice pigs’, vis-à-vis svin, which, very roughly, translates as ‘nasty pigs’.
Focusing on the pragmatics of svin-based language, this paper demonstrates how this concept is used in Danish interaction and social cognition. The paper explores systematically the culture-specific porcine themes in Danish evaluational expressions, speech acts and interpersonal relations. The paper demonstrates that ‘pigs in language’ is far from a trivial topic and argues that cultural elaboration of “pig words” and the culture-specific meaning of pigs in Danish not only sheds light on the diverse linguistic construals of “animal concepts” in the world’s languages: it also calls for a cultural-semantic approach to the study of social cognition.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) grise, (E) griseri, (E) svin, (E) svineri, (E) tilsviner, (E) tryne, (E) tryner
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Rakić, Jelena. (2013). Emotions in English: Cultural scripts as mediators between language and culture. Facta Universitatis, Series Linguistics & Literature, 11(1), 75-89. PDF (open access)
Among studies on the English language, there is a notable absence of works on the relationship between English and its cultural underpinnings. Also, various research studies on language, emotion and culture lack descriptions of the situation in English, fostering the conclusion that English is culturally neutral. Anna Wierzbicka proposes the term Anglo-culture to cover the culture(s) behind the language, formulating cultural scripts that serve as a basis for modelling interaction, and which are founded on the
linguistic behaviour. We present those scripts relevant for understanding the domain of emotions in Anglo-culture, connecting them to the stereotypes about English reserve and politeness to show that the domain of emotions is a building block in the totality of Angloculture. The lexical items investigated show strong cultural markedness in line with the more general cultural scripts, which serves to prove that they are a useful tool for investigating the relationship between languages and cultures.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 25, 2019.
Gladkova, Anna (2013). Grammar and the influence of society and culture. In Carol A. Chapelle (Ed.), The encyclopedia of applied linguistics (pp. 2355-2362). Oxford: Blackwell.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405198431.wbeal0471
Abstract:
Language is highly sensitive to cultural and societal processes. Grammatically elaborated areas of a language commonly embed meanings or ideas that are particularly salient in the collective psyche of a people. Knowledge of these meanings or ideas can equip cultural outsiders with more effective and successful tools of communication with the representatives of the culture.
This encyclopedia entry provides some examples of studies illustrating the cultural significance of grammar within the approach of ethnosyntax. These investigations are of particular importance to applied linguistics in general and language teaching in particular. The proposed explications (referred to as formulas) can be applied in language teaching to explain meanings and use of grammatical constructions. The use of universal human concepts makes it possible to translate these explications into any language without any change in meaning.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) (diminutives), (S) feelings
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (2013). La langue de bois: un pèlerinage ethnolexicologique [La langue de bois: An ethnolexicological pilgrimage]. In Pierre Marillaud & Robert Gauthier (Eds.), La mauvaise parole: 33e Colloque d’Albi Langages et Signification (pp. 196-210). Albi/Toulouse: CALS/CPST.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (2013). Râler, râleur, râlite: discours, langue et valeurs culturelles [Râler, râleur, râlite: Discourse, language and cultural values]. In C. Claudel, P. von Münchow, M. Pordeus, F. Pugnière-Saavedra & G. Tréguer-Felten (ed.), Cultures, discours, langues: nouveaux abordages (pp. 117-141). Limoges: Lambert-Lucas.
Published on August 9, 2018. Last updated on September 8, 2018.
Metom, Lilly (2013). Emotion concepts of the Ibans in Sarawak. Singapore: Trafford.
This book explains the emotion concepts of the Ibans, one of the indigenous peoples of Sarawak, Malaysia. It is an outcome of a research study that aims to analyse the Iban emotion concepts using Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM). NSM enables emotion terminologies in Iban to be explicated and further defined along the concrete/abstract cultural continuum framework. The respondents of this study were the village community of Sbangki Panjai, a longhouse located in Lubok Antu, Sarawak. The findings reveal the core cultural values that underlie the people’s behaviours in the ways they express their emotions. The complex rules of logic called adat and the rules of speaking in this speech community that explain the Ibans’ communicative behaviours are discussed in detail in this book. The semantic analysis of the emotion words is exhaustive and comprehensive, which is necessary to reveal the complete meaning of the emotions being examined without creating ethnocentric bias. Thus, this book essentially describes how the Ibans relate themselves to others in their interaction.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on May 23, 2019.
Asano-Cavanagh, Yuko (2013). Understanding Japanese culture through a semantic analysis of kawaii ‘cute’, itai ‘pitiful’ and ita-kawaii ‘pitifully trying to be cute’. In John Henderson, Marie-Ève Ritz, & Celeste Rodríguez Louro (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2012 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society. https://sites.google.com/site/als2012uwa/proceedings.
Open access
Abstract:
This paper examines the three Japanese words kawaii ‘cute’, itai ‘pitiful’ and ita‐kawaii ‘pitifully trying to be cute’. Japanese women frequently say kawaii to show positive feelings towards objects or people. However, too much kawaii is considered undesirable. A compound word, ita‐kawaii, is used to describe women who dress or wear make‐up in an overly kawaii way. Especially when older women try to look kawaii, they are criticized as itai, or ita‐kawaii.
From a linguistic perspective, kawaii, itai, and ita‐kawaii are not lexicalized in other languages. Although the kawaii phenomenon has been thoroughly discussed by many scholars, there has been no rigorous semantic analysis of these three words. In this study, NSM is used to explicate the exact meaning of kawaii, itai, and ita‐kawaii. The analysis indicates that the meaning of itai and ita‐kawaii is related to the social norm that criticizes someone for being conceited. The kawaii and ita‐kawaii syndrome reveals a Japanese cultural characteristic enforcing people not to be out of place in society.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) ita-kawaii いた かわいい, (E) itai 痛い, (E) kawaii かわいい, (T) Japanese
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 23, 2019.
Hirakawa, Kimiko (2013). Semantic explications for the sentence-final particles bai and tai of the Japanese Hakata dialect. Osaka Literary Review, 52, 1-15.
Open access
Abstract:
This paper describes and outlines the functions of two sentence-final particles of the Japanese Hakata dialect, bai and tai. The particles in question are especially known for characterizing the Hakata dialect, which is one of the linguistic variations in Fukuoka Prefecture. Taking into account similarities as well as differences, the paper proposes descriptions for the two particles and posits explications using NSM.
Rating:
Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) bai, (E) tai
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 20, 2019.
Svetanant, Chavalin (2013). Exploring personhood constructs through language: Contrastive semantic of “heart” in Japanese and Thai. International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Communication, 7(3), 23-32.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18848/2324-7320/cgp/v07i03/53576
Abstract:
This paper aims to explore personhood constructs of the Thai community and compare them to those of the Japanese community, with special reference to heart-related terms. It carries out a linguistic inquiry into the historical side of the lexicon and compares the conceptualization of ‘heart’ in Thai and Japanese to clarify the cognitive and conceptual similarities and differences in the underlying semantic structures. The framework for semantic analysis employed in this paper is the NSM approach.
A large number of heart/mind-related words in Thai and Japanese show features that are shared across the two communities, as well as subtle cognitive and conceptual differences; for example, ใจ chai (Thai) and 気 ki (Japanese) are relatively more dynamic and sensitive to mental/psychological changes when compared to 心 kokoro (Japanese). Linguistically speaking, they keep moving around, changing shape, size, colour, and temperature. However, while the entities of ใจ chai and 心 kokoro are cognitively more substantial as emotional containers of human beings, 気 ki is treated more like the intangible energy wrapping around 心 kokoro and contains no intellectual element.
The evidence from this study suggests that a semantic explication of personhood lexicalizations is a practical approach to clarify the obscure entities and contribute to the understanding of the conceptuality of personhood constructs across languages and cultures.
Rating:
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) chai ใจ, (E) ki 気, (E) kokoro 心
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2013). Kinship and social cognition in Australian languages: Kayardild and Pitjantjatjara. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 33(3), 302-321. DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2013.846458
While many anthropologists these days dismiss the study of kinship terminologies as something that belongs – or should belong – to the past, from an Australian perspective kin terms must still be seen as an essential guide to the ways in which speakers of many languages understand their social world. This being so, establishing what these terms really mean – from an insider’s, rather than an anthropologist’s or linguist’s point of view – remains an essential task. This paper argues that while this task cannot be accomplished with traditional methods of linguistic anthropology, it can be with the techniques of NSM semantics. The paper shows how this can be done by re-analysing
some basic kin terms in Kayardild and in Pitjantjatjara.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) brother, (E) duujinda, (E) kularrinda, (E) kuta, (E) malanypa, (E) thabuju, (E) wakatha, (E) yakukathu, (S) kinship
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 3, 2019.
Priestley, Carol (2013). Social categories, shared experience, reciprocity and endangered meanings: Examples from Koromu (PNG). Australian Journal of Linguistics, 33(3), 257-281. DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2013.846457
Speakers of many Trans New Guinea or Papuan languages use a number of reciprocal person-referring expressions. Various examples are found in the Papuan language of Koromu, spoken in Madang Province, Papua New Guinea. This paper examines the meanings of Koromu reciprocal expressions that recall shared past experiences, in particular, social category terms connected with coming of age events and spontaneous nicknames created at the time events occur in the course of everyday life. The meanings are explicated in clear simple terms using Natural Semantic Metalanguage primes. The
explications point to important aspects of social cognition, including identification with significant others based on shared experience and relational concepts of personhood. Although this study points to the possibility of some language endangerment for some meanings, it also indicates the ongoing cultural importance of shared experiences, including commensality, in both rites of passage and everyday life.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 24, 2018.
Taheri Ardali, Mortaza & Jahangardi, Kiyoomarss (2013). Natural Semantic Metalanguage and lexicography. In Ataollah Koupal, Shahram Modarres Khiabani, & Javad Yaghoubi Derabi (Eds.), Proceedings of the 1st Conference on Language and Linguistics, 27 February 2013, Azad University of Karaj: Vol. 2 (pp. 413-430). Tehran: Neveeseh.
Written in Persian.
No English abstract available.
Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) qeyrat غیرت
Published on July 18, 2017. Last updated on February 9, 2020.
Hashemi, Seyede Zahra (2013). Analysis of cultural scripts of objections and responses to objections in Persian and English within Natural Semantic Metalanguage framework. Modern Journal of Language Teaching Methods, 3(1), 17-25.
Open access
Abstract:
Language is the main medium for expressing other phenomena. It expresses the beliefs, values, and meanings shared by members of a society, so it is more than a system of sounds, meaning units, and syntax. Social rules and cultural values are embedded in language and since they are not the same in different cultures they must be learnt by second and foreign language learners.
In this study, a number of social functions in Persian are analysed using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework. The results are then compared and contrasted with those obtained for English. The functions in focus are objections, and response to objections. The results of this study indicates that: the NSM is applicable to the communicative interaction routines in Persian, the cultural scripts can be used to develop an awareness of cultural differences in the learners, and the model in question is suitable for cross-cultural contrastive analysis.
More information:
This is a study in ethnopragmatics, even though the term as such is not used.
Rating:
Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (S) objections, (S) response to objections
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Nicholls, Sophie (2013). Cultural scripts, social cognition and social interaction in Roper Kriol. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 33(3), 282-301. DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2013.846456
Interactional style is an under-researched area in the study of Australian Aboriginal languages, yet it is profoundly important in negotiating access to everyday services, such as medical, legal and educational resources. This paper investigates speech routines relevant to person reference and information exchange in Roper Kriol, an Aboriginal creole language spoken in the Northern Territory of Australia. It includes evidence that at least some aspects of pragmatic style in this creole are the result of a continuity of discourse practices from the substrate languages. The data used in this research include recordings from conversations and public meetings, as well as consultation with community Elders. The conclusions are summarized in cultural script style. That is, they are written into stylized frames using simple, easily translatable words to maximize access to an insider perspective, and avoid the pitfalls of Anglocentric terms such as ‘kinship’, ‘information exchange’ and ‘person reference’.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 25, 2019.
Gladkova, Anna (2013). ‘Intimate’ talk in Russian: Human relationships and folk psychotherapy. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 33(3), 322-343.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2013.846453
Abstract:
This paper explores and describes communicative aspects of so-called ‘intimate’ relations in Russian. It illuminates the meanings of the social category terms друг drug ‘close friend’, родные rodnye ‘dear/kin’ and близкие blizkie ‘close (ones)’ and demonstrates their relationship to the culturally salient terms душа duša ‘soul, heart’ and сокровенный sokrovennyj ‘innermost, dear, hidden’. The paper contributes to our understanding of Russian relationships and social cognition and establishes connections between the meanings of these terms and selected Russian ways of talking. NSM is used to formulate semantic explications of the terms and cultural scripts.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) blizkij близкий, (E) drug друг, (E) duša душа, (E) govorit’ po dušam говорить по душам, (E) pogovorit’ po dušam поговорить по душам, (E) rodnye родные, (E) sokrovennyj сокровенный, (S) desired way of talking when one’s thoughts and feelings are openly revealed, (S) ways of talking about one’s dear and intimate knowledge
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 25, 2019.
Gladkova, Anna (2013). The Russian social category svoj: A study in ethnopragmatics. In Istvan Kecskes, & Jesús Romero-Trillo (Eds.), Research trends in intercultural pragmatics (pp. 219-238). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614513735.219
Abstract:
Terms for social categories provide a window into understanding culture. They conceptualize relationships and also relate to a culture’s communicative practices. The term for the Russian social category свой svoj possesses the status of a cultural key word. It is associated with important cultural rules of behaviour specific to people of this kind. It also exists at the intersection of other cultural rules, namely искренность iskrennost’ ‘sincerity’ and сокровенный sokrovennyj ‘innermost meanings’. The cultural scripts approach and NSM constitute reliable tools for describing these rules in terms that are universal, accessible and easily translatable into other languages.
The results of the study support the idea of a textual character of culture. Culture is best represented as a collection of rules or texts (Geertz), rather than by means of over-riding universalist concepts. The cultural scripts approach as it is implemented in ethnopragmatics is arguably the most adequate way to describe this variety of texts from a linguistic point of view.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) po-svojski по-свойски, (E) svoj свой, (S) feelings and thoughts, (S) interaction, (S) non-imposition, (S) relationships, (T) Russian
