Browsing results for Broad topics
Published on September 9, 2018. Last updated on September 9, 2018.
Ratna Erawati, Ni Ketut & Ngurah Sulibra, I Ketut (2017). Speech act verb in Old Javanese: Natural Semantics Metalanguage analysis. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 4(2), 71-80. PDF (open access)
Based on their semantic components, verbs in Old Javanese are classified into states, processes, and actions. Speech verbs are a subtype of the latter. In this paper, they are analysed with the help of NSM theory. Based on the analysis of the speech verbs included, we can see that each of them reflects two important components of semantics (dictum and illocutionary purpose) that show similar overall meaning but subtle differences from one verb to another.
The speech act verbs included belong to the following general categories: ask, reply, request, tell, promise, call, scold, persuade, advise, discuss, complain, accuse, entertain, mock, berate.
Crude application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) adaya, (E) adoya, (E) agosthi, (E) ajêmur, (E) akon, (E) amalĕh, (E) amañcana, (E) amarimisi, (E) ambada, (E) amid, (E) aminta, (E) amisuh, (E) Amitĕkĕti, (E) amrahasana, (E) añeta, (E) angdalih, (E) angĕdö, (E) angundang, (E) añjaluk, (E) añodya, (E) apunagi, (E) atag, (E) atutur, (E) cumala, (E) cumarita, (E) dumalih, (E) dumĕlingakĕn, (E) makon, (E) maminta, (E) masahur, (E) masamaya, (E) masasambat, (E) matakwan, (E) mataña, (E) matutur, (E) mawrĕta, (E) sumahur, (E) sumapa, (E) tumaña, (E) tumon, (E) umaradhana
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 25, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2017). The meaning of kinship terms: A developmental and cross-linguistic perspective. In Zhengdao Ye (Ed.), The semantics of nouns (pp. 19-62). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198736721.003.0002
This chapter seeks to portray the meanings of some basic kin terms in English and some other European languages in a new way, holding on to two principles: that all the meanings one posits have to be open to intuitive verification by ordinary native speakers, and that the meanings posited for individual kin words should add up to a coherent overall picture. To achieve this, the chapter aims at an account that could make sense in a developmental as well as cross-linguistic perspective: there must be some imaginable developmental progression from the meanings of children’s kin words such as mummy and daddy to the meanings of kin terms hypothesized as operating in adult speech. The chapter shows that semantic components phrased in the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) allow us to reconstruct such a progression in a way that is both rigorous and testable and that makes sense to ordinary speakers, including language learners.
See also:
Kotorova, Elizaveta (2018). Analysis of kinship terms using Natural Semantic Metalanguage: Anna Wierzbicka’s approach. Russian Journal of Linguistics, 22(3), 701-710.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) aunt, (E) auntie, (E) babuška, (E) child, (E) children, (E) ciocia (Polish), (E) ciotka (Polish), (E) daughter, (E) djadja, (E) djadjuška, (E) granddaughter, (E) grandfather, (E) grandma, (E) grandmother, (E) granny, (E) hermana (Spanish), (E) mama, (E) maman, (E) mother, (E) mum, (E) mummy, (E) nana, (E) pa, (E) papa, (E) sister, (E) tetja, (E) tetuška, (E) uncle, (E) wuj (Polish), (E) wujek (Polish)
Published on December 17, 2017. Last updated on March 14, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2017). Natural Semantic Metalanguage and lexicography. In Patrick Hanks, & Gilles-Maurice de Schryver (Eds.), International handbook of modern lexis and lexicography (online). Berlin: Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-45369-4_14-1
Abstract:
This chapter gives perspectives on meaning description in lexicography from the standpoint of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach to linguistics, which among contemporary approaches to linguistics can claim the longest and most serious engagement with lexical semantics.
Note:
The Handbook is classified as a “Living Reference Work”, which means it is being continously updated. It was first published in 2017.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) birrimbirr, (E) mind, (T) English, (T) semantic molecules, (T) Spanish
Published on October 15, 2017. Last updated on September 13, 2018.
Braga Mattos, Ana Paulla (2017). Subúrbio and suburbanos: Two cultural keywords in Brazilian discourse. In Carsten Levisen & Sophia Waters (Eds.), Cultural keywords in discourse (pp. 157-182). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/pbns.277.07mat
This chapter studies the Brazilian Portuguese key words subúrbio ‘suburb’ and suburbanos ‘suburb dwellers’. Despite formal similarities, the English cityscape word suburb conveys a very different concept than subúrbio. In dictionaries, the cultural semantics of the words subúrbio ‘suburb’ and suburbanos ‘suburb dwellers’ is largely missing. This is unfortunate since the semantic richness of these words shed light on Brazilian discourses of urbanism and on a culturally-specific way of categorising people in the urban space. Using evidence from a range of different Brazilian discourses and speakers’ reflections on the two words, I propose a semantic explication for each, using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) to adequately account for the complex and cultural meaning of the words – seen from an insider’s perspective.
Published on October 15, 2017. Last updated on June 17, 2019.
Aragón, Karime (2017). Visuality, identity and emotion: Rosa mexicano as a Mexican Spanish keyword. In Carsten Levisen & Sophia Waters (Eds.), Cultural keywords in discourse (pp. 131-156). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.277.06ara
Abstract:
This chapter presents a semantic and ethnopragmatic analysis of the Mexican Spanish colour word rosa mexicano. This word functions as a symbol of Mexican identity and serves as a cultural key word for Mexican Spanish speakers. It appears in a variety of discourses, such as international and cross-cultural relations, the arts, education and discursive representations of national self-perception. After providing a semantic analysis of the meaning of the word, the chapter moves on to an ethnopragmatic examination, articulating cultural scripts for the visual, identificational and emotional meanings associated with rosa mexicano discourse.
Rating:
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) rosa mexicano, (S) rosa mexicano
Published on August 11, 2017. Last updated on August 15, 2021.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2017). W co wierzą chrześcijanie? Opowieść o Bogu i o ludziac [What Christians believe: The story of God and people]. Kraków: Znak.
Abstract:
What do Christians believe?
Does anyone who thinks of themselves as Christian know what they actually believe? – asks the author provocatively, and in an innovative way she presents the reader the most important truths of faith, as transmitted by the Holy Scriptures and the Apostolic writings.
Anna Wierzbicka’s book is a tale of Christian faith based on the results of extensive research on the languages of the world. In the forty chapters of The story of God and people, the author retells and re-thinks the basics of Christian faith using so-called minimal language, that is, using words and sentences understandable to everyone, having equivalents in all languages of the world. The book is a semantic and theological experiment, and at the same time, it is an experiment in cross-cultural communication: Minimal Polish and Minimal English match, word for word and phrase by phrase.
Preceded by an extensive introduction, The story of God and people does not use traditional religious or scientific language, and allows both Christians and non-Christians to look at faith in a fresh way.
More information:
Written in Polish. A more recent publication building on this one is:
Wierzbicka, Anna (2019). What Christians believe: The story of God and people in minimal English. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on April 2, 2018. Last updated on June 29, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2018). Emotions of Jesus. Russian Journal of Linguistics, 22(1), 38-53.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22363/2312-9182-2018-22-1-38-53 / Open access
Abstract:
The idea that we can pinpoint what Jesus meant with one word, from a particular language (be it Russian, English, Greek or Aramaic), is simplistic. To fully understand Jesus’ teaching about ‘anger’ in a precise and unbiased way, we need to go beyond single words of this or that language; we need to try to articulate it through simple sentences couched in universal words. In addition, what applies to Jesus’ teaching about emotions also applies to Jesus’ ’emotional practice’. What did he feel when he saw someone doing something very bad, or someone to whom something very bad was happening?
NSM allows us to replace crude formulations such as “Did Jesus feel angry?” or “What did Jesus teach about anger?” with questions that are far more fine-grained, and that enable us to reach far more fine-grained and meaningful answers.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) adēmonein αδημονείν, (E) aganakteo αγανακτέο, (E) ekthambeisthai εκθαμβεισθαι
Published on May 19, 2019. Last updated on June 25, 2019.
Gladkova, Anna, & Larina, Tatiana (2018). Anna Wierzbicka, language, culture and communication. Russian Journal of Linguistics, 22(4), 717-748.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22363/2312-9182-2018-22-4-717-748 / Open access
Abstract:
This introduction to the second part of a special issue of the Russian Journal of Linguistics marking Anna Wierzbicka’s 80th birthday focuses on her research in the area of language and culture. It surveys some of the fundamental concepts of Wierzbicka’s research program in cultural semantics and ethnopragmatics, in particular cultural key words and cultural scripts, both of which she unpacks using the universal human concepts of NSM. The article also discusses the concept of Minimal Language as a recent development in the NSM program and presents associated research in a variety of fields.
More information:
Simultaneously published in English and Russian. The Russian version follows the English one.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) sud'ba судьба, (S) imposition, (S) non-imposition, (S) personal autonomy, (S) sincerity
Published on August 18, 2018. Last updated on September 13, 2018.
Levisen, Carsten (2018). The grammar of violence: Insights from Danish ethnosyntax and the Wierzbicka-Pinker debate. Etnolingwistyka, 30, 145-167. DOI: 10.17951/et.2018.30.145. PDF (open access)
This paper explores the Danish key word vold ‘violence, abuse’ and scrutinizes its associated ethnosyntax, which is hidden in compound morphology. Focusing on the compounds hustruvold ‘wife vold’ and politivold ‘police vold’, it explores the conceptual syntax embedded in such coinages. Exploring more recent constructs, such as forældrevold ‘parent vold’, the author argues that Danish ethnosyntax embodies a view of the world in which traditional authority figures (men, police, parents) are coded as aggressors, whereas women, citizens and children are coded as victims.
In more general terms, the paper aims to open a new ethnolinguistic research agenda for the study of negative sociality constructs and the positive value system hidden in them. It does so by drawing attention to the differences and similarities of violence-related concepts in ethnolinguistic communities, and to the key role played by ethnosyntax in the elaboration of violence, vold, and similar concepts.
The paper also proposes an explication for the Bislama word faetem ‘punch, fight physically’.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) faetem, (E) vold, (S) domestic violence against women, (S) police violence, (T) Danish
Published on August 7, 2017. Last updated on February 16, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2018). “Joking, kidding, teasing”: Slippery categories for cross-cultural comparison but key words for understanding Anglo conversational humor. Intercultural Pragmatics, 15(4), 487-514. DOI: 10.1515/ip-2018-0017
Terms like to joke (and joking) and to tease (and teasing) have a curious double life in contrastive and interactional pragmatics and related fields. Occasionally they are studied as metapragmatic terms of ordinary English, along with related expressions such as kidding. More commonly they are used as scientific or technical categories, both for research into English and for cross-linguistic and cross-cultural comparison. Related English adjectives such as jocular and mock are also much used in a growing lexicon of compound terms, such as jocular abuse, mock abuse, jocular mockery, and the like.
Against this background, the present paper has three main aims.
In the first part, it is argued that the meanings of the verbs to joke and to tease (and related nouns) are much more English-specific than is commonly recognized. They are not precisely cross-translatable even into European languages such as French and German. Adopting such terms as baseline categories for cross-cultural comparison therefore risks introducing an Anglocentric bias into our theoretical vocabulary. Nor can the problem be easily solved by attributing technical meanings to the terms.
Detailed analysis of the everyday meanings of words like joking and teasing, on the other hand, can yield insights into the ethnopragmatics of Anglo conversational humour. This task is undertaken in the second part of the paper. The important English verb to kid and the common conversational formulas just kidding and only joking are also examined. The semantic methodology used is the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach.
Building on the NSM analyses, the third part of the paper considers whether it is possible to construct a typological framework for conversational humour based on cross-translatable terminology.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) amusing, (E) funny, (E) humour, (E) joke, (E) kid, (E) laugh, (E) tease, (T) English
Published on October 18, 2018. Last updated on August 15, 2021.
Sadow, Lauren (2018). Can cultural scripts be used for teaching interactional norms? Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 41(1), 91-116. DOI: 10.1075/aral.17030.sad
Although improving the teaching of invisible culture is a recognized need in the TESOL sector, no systematic approach has been developed yet for this purpose, in spite of scholarly calls for a more nuanced focus in classrooms and evidence that teachers are willing to apply such an approach. This paper attempts to bridge the gap between theory and pedagogical need by suggesting that the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) is a useful tool in ELT through which resources for teachers and learners can be developed. In particular, it discusses the results of a pilot study into using cultural scripts to teach cultural norms, demonstrating how they can be applied to classroom teaching situations, and discussing how materials can be developed from the theories.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (S) disagreement, (S) doing what one wants, (S) saying what one wants
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:
- Analyzing address practices from a cultural semantic point of view
- “Sorry boss”: an unrecognized category of English address nouns
- “Prego, signore”: the semantics of Italian “titles” used to address people
- “Hi, how are you?”
- “Ciao!” or “ciao ciao”?
- “Dear customers, …”
- “Caro Mario,” “Gentile cliente,” “Egregio dottore”
- “Best wishes,” “kind regards,” “yours sincerely”
- “Distinti,” “cordiali,” “affettuosi saluti”
- Italian cultural scripts for address practices
- Australian cultural scripts for address practices
- Address practices in intercultural communication
- Concluding remarks
More information:
Revised version of the author’s PhD thesis, Australian National University (2017).
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) (titles of address), (E) a presto, (E) affettuosi saluti, (E) affettuoso, (E) all best, (E) all the best, (E) best, (E) best regards, (E) best wishes, (E) caro, (E) ciao, (E) ciao ciao, (E) cordiali saluti, (E) cordialmente, (E) dear, (E) distinti saluti, (E) egregio, (E) gentile, (E) hi, (E) kind, (E) kind regards, (E) regards, (E) saluti, (E) signora, (E) signore, (E) signori, (E) signorina, (E) simpatico, (E) sincerely, (E) un bacio, (E) un caro saluto, (E) un saluto, (E) vabbè, (E) vabbene, (E) warmest wishes, (E) yours, (E) yours sincerely, (S) address practices, (T) Italian
Published on August 20, 2018. Last updated on June 17, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2018). How much longer can the Berlin and Kay paradigm dominate visual semantics? English, Russian and Warlpiri seen ‘from the native’s point of view’. In Diana Young (Ed.), Rematerializing colour: From concept to substance (pp. 67-90). Herefordshire: Sean Kingston Publishing.
Abstract:
How does the outsider linguist find out if speakers of another language have colour terms? Using the Australian Aboriginal language Warlpiri as a starting point, the author argues that interpretation of the patterns of names produced in response to stimuli (such as Munsell colour chips) is difficult, and one has to take care not to assign English terms to those patterns. That is, in trying to interpret what a word means, we cannot assume that kardirri means ‘white’, because speakers produced this word when looking at chips with colours that English speakers might call ‘white’. The focus here is on determining the senses (intensions) of words – that is, on finding language-specific categories. The Warlpiri lack a word approximating the English word ‘colour’. It is claimed that, if speakers do not have a word for a category such as colour, it is hard to say that in their minds they see the world in terms of a cognitive category ‘colour’ (which is not to deny that they have colour vision).
Examination of dictionary entries in the Warlpiri-English Dictionary establishes the importance of the properties ‘visual conspicuousness’ (the startling pink prunus trees), ‘things shining somewhere’ (sunlight gleaming on the white cockatoos), ‘visual contrasts within an object’ (the dappled pink and green of the japonica hedge), and creating colour reference by comparison with things in the world around (kunjuru ‘smoke’, kunjuru-kunjuru ‘like smoke’, a term conventionally applied to smoke-coloured things). However, even though the Dictionary is a good starting-place for raising such hypotheses, it cannot help us test them, since it is a collection of all words, with little comment on whether they are used frequently or not, and since the words come from several dialects.
The author argues against using the word ‘colour’ in the English definitions and translations in the dictionary, because this creates or reinforces a belief that the Warlpiri have a linguistic category of ‘colour’.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) kunjuru-kunjuru, (E) sky, (E) yukuri-yukuri, (T) English
Published on September 5, 2018. Last updated on September 7, 2018.
Hoffrén, Tuomas (2018). Minä haluan tehdä näin. Minä ajattelen: tämä on hyvä – Natural Semantic Metalanguage suomenkielisessä S2 – kirjallisuudessa [I want to do this. I think: this is good – Natural Semantic Metalanguage in Finnish L2 literature]. Unpublished MA thesis, University of Tampere, Finland. PDF (open access)
Written in Finnish.
How present are NSM primes in Finnish L2-literature? The relevance of NSM for foreign language teaching – be it of Finnish as a second or a foreign language (S2) or of another language (L2) – is based on the assumption that the semantic primes are: 1) easy to learn, 2) common in language per se, and 3) efficient in situations in which the learner has no knowledge of a word or a concept they want to use in the target language. The research question addressed in the thesis is therefore whether these words are taught to learners already in the early stages of their learning.
The research material consists of one widely used S2-textbook: Hyvin menee! (‘It is going well!’) 1. The material is deemed sufficient in determining certain general rules or principles in the area, but the need for further research involving textbooks as well as other materials used in teaching is acknowledged.
The theoretical framework is provided by the NSM approach, on the one hand, and by Second Language Acquisition research (SLA), on the other. Two major areas of research, linguistics and pedagogy, are thus combined. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are used. Aspects that need to be acknowledged when using and studying NSM are presented qualitatively. A precise statistical (and therefore quantitative) analysis is based on these aspects.
The analysis shows that the observed 76 primes (an increased number due to differences between Finnish and English) are somewhat unevenly divided in the book. Some primes are very common, others are not present at all. The earlier chapters have fewer primes in them, but the number of primes, along with their distribution, increases notably as the book proceeds. Texts is where the highest number of primes is displayed, but primes are also largely present in the exercises.
The research sets the scene for the elaboration of a possible method of teaching that relies on semantic primes. It outlines a picture of the present situation, on which new research can be built.
No rating is provided.
Published on April 3, 2018. Last updated on May 27, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2018). Speaking about God in universal words, thinking about God outside English. In Paul Chilton, & Monika Kopytowska (Eds.), Religion, language, and the human mind (pp. 19-51). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190636647.003.0002
Abstract:
This chapter argues that vocabulary that is not intelligible to many “ordinary speakers” and not translatable into most languages of the world imprisons its users in a conceptual space defined by culture-specific English words and prevents genuine cross-cultural dialogue about God and religion. It seeks to demonstrate that it is possible to speak about God without relying on such complex and culturally shaped concepts and to think about God and religion afresh, in a new conceptual language based on the lexical and grammatical common core of all languages. As a result of a program of cross-linguistic investigations, researchers believe that we now have a very good idea of what the shared lexical and grammatical core of all languages looks like and believe that different language-specific versions of this common core can function as minimal languages and be used for furthering understanding across cultures without bias.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on August 17, 2017. Last updated on June 29, 2019.
Effendi, Diyan Ermawan & Muchammadun (2018). “Happiness” in Bahasa Indonesia and its implication to health and community well-being. The Asian EFL Journal, 20(8), 279-291.
Open access
Abstract:
“Happiness” has become an important aspect in Indonesia’s well-being as well as in the health and longevity of its population. This paper examines the meaning of three closely related Indonesian emotion words encountered in happiness-related discourse: bahagia, senang, and gembira. Using NSM to describe the native Indonesian experience on the three emotions, the authors depict bahagia, senang, and gembira as personal feelings that last for different lengths of time. Another difference they capture relates to the “otherness” characteristics of each emotion. Finally, the paper suggests studies on emotions and happiness to promote community well-being and health as an emerging research domain for applied linguists.
More information:
Also published (open access) as:
Effendi, Diyan Ermawan & Muchammadun (2017). “Happiness” in Bahasa Indonesia and its implication to health and community well-being. The Asian EFL Journal, TESOL Indonesia Special Conference Edition, 7, 109-121.
Rating:
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) bahagia, (E) gembira, (E) senang
Published on September 25, 2018. Last updated on September 25, 2018.
Kotorova, Elizaveta (2018). Analysis of kinship terms using Natural Semantic Metalanguage: Anna Wierzbicka’s approach. Russian Journal of Linguistics, 22(3), 701-710. DOI: 10.22363/2312-9182-2018-22-3-701-710. PDF (open access)
Written in Russian.
This paper provides a brief overview of some publications by Anna Wierzbicka devoted to the study of kinship terms in different languages and cultures. The paper considers the approach of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), proposed by Wierzbicka for describing the semantics of kinship terms based on the use of lexical universals and shows the advantages of this approach in comparison with other methods of analysis. It demonstrates advantages of this method over other methods of semantic analysis, including overcoming eurocentrism tendencies in the analysis of kinship terms.
The paper contains Russian versions of some of the explications proposed in:
Wierzbicka, Anna (2016). New perspectives on kinship: Overcoming the Eurocentrism and scientism of kinship studies through lexical universals. In Nancy Bonvillain (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of linguistic anthropology (pp. 62-79). New York: Routledge.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2016). Back to ‘mother’ and ‘father’: Overcoming the eurocentrism of kinship studies through eight lexical universals. Current Anthropology, 57(4), 408-429.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2017). The meaning of kinship terms: A developmental and cross-linguistic perspective. In Zhengdao Ye (Ed.), The semantics of nouns (pp. 19-62). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Published on November 19, 2017. Last updated on August 21, 2018.
Peeters, Bert, & Marini, Maria Giulia (2018). Narrative Medicine across languages and cultures: Using Minimal English for increased comparability of patients’ narratives. In Cliff Goddard (Ed.), Minimal English for a global world: Improved communication using fewer words (pp. 259-286). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-62512-6_11
Narrative medicine is an approach to medicine which seeks to combine with and enhance conventional evidence-based medicine by adding perspectives and experience in medical humanities. The chapter expounds on the importance of effective communication with patients and in particular on the importance of having some structured protocols (scripts, interview prompts, and the like) to encourage more comprehensive and effective patient narratives and to allow for increased comparability between them. It tells the story of an emerging collaboration with Minimal English and an international pilot study applying Minimal English to such protocols.
Appendix A reproduces the new Narrative Medicine storyline, written in Minimal Italian and in Minimal English.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) Narrative Medicine storyline
Published on January 15, 2022. Last updated on January 15, 2022.
Wierzbicka, Anna. (2018). Polskie słowo Boże w perspektywie porównawczej [The Polish word God in comparative perspective]. In Jolanta Chojak and Zofia Zaron (eds.) Ku rzeczom niebłahym, 221–234. Wydanie I, Warszawa: BEL Studio.
Written in Polish
Abstract
All European languages have a word for God, and this word means exactly the same in all of them. But when it comes to addressing God, the situation is very different. 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. These words, phrases, and grammatical forms both reflect and shape the speakers’ habitual way of thinking about God and relating to God. Often, they also reflect some other aspects of their cultural memory and historical experience. This paper is about the Polish vocative Boże, commonly used in Polish to address God in prayer. The paper discusses the meaning of this vocative comparing it with addressative expressions such as O God in English, Mon Dieu in French and Gospodi in Russian, within the framework of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM).
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) Boże!, (E) Dieu, (E) God, (E) O God, (E) Panie, (E) Господи (Gospodi)
Published on April 27, 2019. Last updated on July 28, 2020.
Thompson, Rachel (2019). Tweaa! – A Ghanaian interjection of “contempt” in online political comments. Ampersand, 6.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amper.2019.100047 / Open access
Abstract:
This study examines the use of tweaa [tɕʏɪaa], an Akan emotive interjection that expresses contempt for a person, in the Corpus of GhanaWeb Comments in Ghana’s 2016 Election (CGCGE16). CGCGE16 comprises reader comments posted in the build-up to Ghana’s presidential elections in December 2016 on www.ghanaweb.com, a news website that guarantees freedom of speech and ensures citizen participation in online sociopolitical discussions. The study employs NSM to unpack the meaning of tweaa and give a fuller understanding of its rhetorical power in online political discourse. It points out that tweaa is derogatory and expresses lack of respect for the user’s target, thus, according to traditional Ghanaian values, its use is unacceptable, especially during asymmetrical interactions. Citizens, however, hide behind the shield of anonymity guaranteed by online platforms, and their ability to circumvent traditional gatekeepers of acceptable speech forms during online discourse, and freely use tweaa to vent their feelings against authority figures.
Rating:
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) tweaa!, (E) Wow!
