Browsing results for Broad topics

(2020) Niger-Congo, Ewe – Ethnopragmatics

Published on June 18, 2020. Last updated on August 16, 2021.

Ameka, Felix K. 2020. “I sh.t in your mouth”: Areal invectives in the Lower Volta Basin (West Africa). In Nico Nassenstein and Anne Storch (Eds.), Swearing and cursing: contexts and practices in a critical linguistic perspective (pp. 121-144). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501511202-006

Abstract:

Languages in the Lower Volta Basin belong to different subgroups of the Kwa family: Gbe, Ga-Dangme, Ghana-Togo Mountain, and Tano, which includes Akanic and Guang languages. These languages share several features, but it is not always easy to detect which features are inherited and which are diffused from one language to the other. Taking a cue from earlier studies, where some widespread interactional
routines are either inherited, such as agoo ‘attention getter’, or diffused from one language, such as ayikoo ‘well done, continue’, which seems to have spread to the other languages from Ga, I investigate some shared maledicta and taboo expressions in the area. I focus on the performance, perlocutionary effect and uptake as well as the cultural scripts that govern the use of two invective multi-modal embodied utterances in the area. One is an emblematic gesture involving a pointed thumb and its accompanying verbal representations. A common
expression that accompanies it comes from the Ga ‘obscene insults’ sɔ́ɔ̀mi! ‘inside female genitalia’, onyɛ sɔ́ɔ̀ mli ‘inside your mother’s genitalia’, whose equivalents are also used in the other languages. The Ewe-based accompanying verbal expression is literally: ‘I defecate in your mouth’. A second form is the one commonly called ‘suck teeth’, which is spread beyond the Lower Volta Basin to the Trans-Atlantic Sprachbund. Drawing on the representation and categorization of how the enactment of these linguistic practices are reported, I demonstrate that they are viewed as insults or ways of swearing at other people because of something bad they may have done to the speaker. I call into question the universality of swearing and argue that crosslinguistic studies of swearing, cursing or cussing and such phenomena should extricate themselves from the English language labels and attend to the insider and indigenous ways of understanding acts of saying bad words to another.

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(2020) Persian – Ethnopragmatics

Published on August 7, 2017. Last updated on February 9, 2020.

Arab, Reza (2020). Ethnopragmatics of hāzer javābi, a valued speech practice in Persian. 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.

DOI: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-32-9983-2_5

Abstract:

This study, the fifth chapter in the volume in which it is published, examines the speech practice designated as hāzer javābi (literally, ‘ready response’ in Persian (Farsi)) using an ethnopragmatic approach; that is, it attempts to capture the ‘insider’ understandings of the practice by making use of semantic explications and cultural scripts. It is one of only a few papers about the Persian language that employ the ethnopragmatic approach. Section 5.1 introduces the practice, offers some classical and contemporary examples, and draws attention to differences in similar-but-different speech practices in English and some other languages. Section 5.2 describes the analytical framework, i.e. ethnopragmatics. Section 5.3 provides historical and cultural contextualization, aiming both to scaffold a more precise understanding of the concept and to explain its cultural prominence. Section 5.4 presents a script for hāzer javābi. Section 5.5 discusses broader issues and provides concluding remarks.

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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) Review of Studies in Ethnopragmatics, Cultural Semantics, and Intercultural Communication

Published on January 10, 2022. Last updated on January 10, 2022.

Gladkova, Anna. (2020). Review of Sadow, Lauren, Bert Peeters, and Kerry Mullan (eds.). 2020. Studies in Ethnopragmatics,
Cultural Semantics, and Intercultural Communication: Vol. 3. Minimal English (and beyond). Singapore: Springer. ISBN 978‐981‐329‐978‐8 Russian Journal of Linguistics, 24(4). pp. 1049—1054 DOI: 10.22363/2687‐0088‐2020‐24‐4‐1049‐1054

(2020) Spanish – Interpersonal Closeness

Published on November 22, 2020. Last updated on August 19, 2021.

Fernández, Susana S. & Cliff Goddard. (2020).  Una aproximación al estilo comunicativo de cercanía interpersonal del español a partir de la teoría de la Metalengua Semántica Natural [An Approach to the Spanish Communicative Style of Interpersonal Closeness from the Theory of Natural Semantic Metalanguage]. Pragmática Sociocultural / Sociocultural Pragmatics, 7(3), 469-493.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/soprag-2019-0022 (Open Access)

Resumen:

El presente artículo discute un estilo comunicativo típico de muchos hispanohablantes, que a menudo ha sido caracterizado en la literatura sobre pragmática y comunicación intercultural como de cercanía interpersonal y de confianza. El punto de partida teórico y metodológico es la teoría de la Metalengua Semántica Natural (NSM, por sus siglas en inglés), que propone el uso de un minivocabulario de conceptos básicos para explicar otros más com- plejos. En este caso, presentamos descripciones (que en la teoría se denominan guiones culturales) de distintos aspectos de este estilo comunicativo de cercanía y de palabras claves culturales y rasgos gramaticales relacionados con este modo de comunicar al que, consciente o inconscientemente, adhieren muchos hispanohablantes. Nos basamos en trabajos ya realizados por otros autores dentro de la NSM y proponemos también nuevas descripciones.

Abstract:

This article discusses a communicative style typical of many Spanish speakers, which has often been characterized in the literature on pragmatics and intercultural communication as interpersonal closeness. The theoretical and methodological starting point for the present analysis is the theory of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), which proposes the use of a minivocabulary of basic concepts to explain complex ones. In this case, we present descriptions – called cultural scripts within the theory – of different aspects of this communicative style of closeness and analyze cultural keywords and grammatical features related to this way of communicating, which, consciously or unconsciously, many Spanish speakers adhere to. We rely on work already done by other authors within NSM and we also propose new descriptions.

More information:

Written in Spanish.

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(2020) Spanish – Loanwords, culture-specific concepts

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)

 


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(2020) Spanish (Latin America) – Cultural key words

Published on July 28, 2020. Last updated on July 28, 2020.

Hein, Jan (2020). Cultural keywords in Porteño Spanish: viveza criolla, vivo and boludo. In Bert Peeters, Kerry Mullan, & Lauren Sadow (Eds.), Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication: Vol. 2. Meaning and culture (pp. 35-56). Singapore: Springer.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9975-7_3

Abstract:

Viveza criolla, vivo and boludo are three interrelated cultural key words in Porteño Spanish, the variety of Spanish spoken in Buenos Aires, Argentina. They have been loosely translated as “native wit and cunning”, “clever, vivacious” and “moron”, respectively. However, these translations fail to capture the exact meanings and implied logic that guide Porteños — the residents of Buenos Aires — when they use these words. This paper first looks at the historical context that saw the emergence of viveza criolla in Buenos Aires, pointing out its link to local criollo culture. It then studies how the three words have been defined in a varied sample of monolingual and bilingual dictionaries. It is  claimed that, besides issues of ethnocentric framing and circularity, viveza is not sufficiently described as an expression of local culture and sociality, and neither vivo nor boludo are appropriately captured as social categories. Finally, I use the NSM approach to capture and explore the keywords’ meanings in simple, cross-translatable terms. Semantic explications are supported with discursive evidence from common sayings, fixed expressions, news articles, tango lyrics and tweets.

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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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(2020) Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication [BOOK, vol. 1]

Published on November 15, 2019. Last updated on January 15, 2022.

Mullan, Kerry; Peeters, Bert; & Sadow, Lauren (Eds.) (2020). Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication: Vol. 1. Ethnopragmatics and semantic analysis. Singapore: Springer.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9983-2

Abstract:

This book is the first in a three-volume set that celebrates the career and achievements of Cliff Goddard, a pioneer of the NSM approach in linguistics. It explores issues in ethnopragmatics and conversational humour, with a further focus on semantic analysis more broadly.

Table of contents [NSM chapters only]:

2. A brief introduction to the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach (Lauren Sadow & Kerry Mullan)

Part I. Ethnopragmatics

3. Condolences in Cantonese and English: What people say and why (John C. Wakefield, Winnie Chor, & Nikko Lai)
4. The ethnopragmatics of English understatement and Italian exaggeration: Clashing cultural scripts for the expression of personal opinions (Gian Marco Farese)
5. Ethnopragmatics of hāzer javābi, a valued speech practice in Persian (Reza Arab)
6. “The Great Australian Pastime”: Pragmatic and semantic perspectives on taking the piss (Michael Haugh & Lara Weinglass)
7. Thứ-Bậc (‘hierarchy’) in the cultural logic of Vietnamese interaction: An ethnopragmatic perspective (Lien-Huong Vo)

Part II. Semantic analysis

10. Positive appraisal in online news comments (Radoslava Trnavac & Maite Taboada)
11. The conceptual semantics of alienable possession in Amharic (Mengistu Amberber)
12. The meanings of list constructions: Explicating interactional polysemy (Susanna Karlsson)

More information:

Each chapter will soon have its own entry, where additional information is provided.

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(2020) Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication [BOOK, vol. 2]

Published on November 15, 2019. Last updated on August 19, 2021.

Peeters, Bert; Mullan, Kerry; & Sadow, Lauren (Eds.) (2020). Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication: Vol. 2. Meaning and culture. Singapore: Springer.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9975-7

Abstract:

This book is the second in a three-volume set that celebrates the career and achievements of Cliff Goddard, a pioneer of the NSM approach in linguistics. It focuses on meaning and culture, with sections on words as carriers of cultural meaning and understanding discourse in cultural context.

Table of contents: 

1. Culture is everywhere! (Bert Peeters)

Part I. Words as carriers of cultural meaning

2. In staunch pursuit: the semantics of the Japanese terms shūkatsu ‘job hunting’ and konkatsu ‘marriage partner hunting’ (Yuko Asano-Cavanagh & Gian Marco Farese)
3. Cultural keywords in Porteño Spanish: viveza criolla, vivo and boludo (Jan Hein)
4. The “Aussie” bogan: an occasioned semantics analysis (Roslyn Rowen)
5. The comfort of home as an ethical value in Mike Packer’s Inheritance (Stella Butter & Zuzanna Bułat Silva)
6. Common Akan insults on GhanaWeb: a semantic analysis of kwasea, aboa and gyimii (Rachel Thompson)
7. Bwénaado: an ethnolexicological study of a culturally salient word in Cèmuhî (New Caledonia) (Bert Peeters & Margo Lecompte-Van Poucke)
8. Heaven and hell are here! The non-religious meanings of English heaven and hell and their Arabic and Hebrew counterparts (Sandy Habib)

Part II. Understanding discourse in cultural context

9. Postcolonial prepositions: semantics and popular geopolitics in the Danosphere (Carsten Levisen)
10. Combining NSM explications for clusters of Cantonese utterance particles: laa3-wo3 and zaa3-wo3 (Helen Hue Lam Leung)

More information:

Each chapter has its own entry, where additional information is provided.

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(2020) Swedish — List constructions

Published on January 10, 2022. Last updated on January 10, 2022.

Karlsson, Susanna. (2020). The Meanings of List Constructions: Explicating Interactional Polysemy. In Mullan, Kerry; Peeters, Bert; & Sadow, Lauren (Eds.). Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication: Vol. 1. Ethnopragmatics and semantic analysis. Singapore: Springer. pp. 223–240.

 

Abstract:

This chapter engages in the semantic explication of lists in Swedish. For this study, the author analyses lists found in a corpus of naturally occurring tele- phone conversations between friends. The study combines the framework of the natural semantic metalanguage approach with the analytical methods of interac- tional linguistics. The aim of the study is to contribute to the knowledge about how the manner of coordination contributes to our understanding of lists and how the respective list items are meant to be understood to relate to one another. In Swedish conversation, lists come in two syntactic formats: one where the conjunction is produced before the listed item and one where the conjunction comes after the item. There are also two prosodic formats: one that indicates a closed set and one that indicates an open set. The combination of the syntactic and prosodic formats results into three basic types. Explications using the natural semantic metalanguage reveal not only that the list formats display the relationship between the listed items differently but also that the speaker can draw upon the different formats to display an interpersonal stance towards what the other participants can be expected to know or understand about the list. The explications contribute to a heightened under- standing of the differences as well as the similarities of the three list types.

(2020) Vietnamese — Ethnopragmatics

Published on January 10, 2022. Last updated on January 10, 2022.

Vo, Lien-Huong, (2020). Thứ-Bậc (‘Hierarchy’) in the Cultural Logic of Vietnamese Interaction: An Ethnopragmatic Perspective. In Mullan, Kerry; Peeters, Bert; & Sadow, Lauren (Eds.). Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication: Vol. 1. Ethnopragmatics and semantic analysis. Singapore: Springer. pp. 119–135.

 

Abstract:

This study reproduces part of a larger project in the ethnopragmatics of Vietnamese. It investigates thứ-bậc (‘hierarchy’) in the cultural logic of interaction, adopting Goddard’s (2006) ethnopragmatic research paradigm within the natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) framework and using cultural scripts as the main analytical tool (Goddard and Wierzbicka 2005). Notwithstanding the meaning of ‘ranking’ in certain specific domains (such as competitions) and workplace power dimension, Vietnamese thứ-bậc is argued to be different from its counterparts in other cultures since it is commonly conceived of in terms of age difference (Tran 2016) and divided into three levels with special reference to relative age. In thứ-bậc, a greater emphasis is placed on age, which amounts to seniority, thus bringing authority, wisdom and due respect, than on other social factors. The exploration of thứ-bậc has revealed interesting aspects of Vietnamese pragmatics. Thứ-bậc is a system of cultural information available for thinking about socially and/or morally acceptable behaviour in interactions. Accordingly, it provides standards and prin- ciples for accepted verbal behaviour from a normative perspective. These standards and principles are realized through a set of normative values and communicative virtues underpinning the cultural logic of interaction, namely, lễ-phép (‘respectfulness’). The elaboration of thứ-bậc and its coexisting norms sheds light on Vietnamese cultural motives underlying Vietnamese verbal behaviour. It constitutes a basis for understanding the ethnopragmatics of Vietnamese. Although the cultural concepts presented in the study are not necessarily culture-specific, the way Vietnamese people conceive them, and perhaps, enact them in speech practice, is specifically Vietnamese. No doubt it lays the groundwork for further studies into Vietnamese interaction from the ‘insider’s perspective’.

 

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(2021) Aesthetics

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

Gladkova, Anna, & Romero-Trillo, Jesús (eds.). (2021). The Conceptualization of ‘Beautiful’ and ‘Ugly’ across Languages and Cultures. Special issue of the International Journal of Language and Culture 8:1

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.8.1

 

Contents (NSM articles only):

The linguistic conceptualization in folk aesthetics: Past, present and future. Anna Gladkova and Jesús Romero-Trillo | pp. 1–13
Pæn, flot, dejlig, and lækker : A lexical anthropology of Danish folk aesthetics. Carsten Levisen | pp. 14–34
“Is beauty only skin deep?”: The conceptualization of ‘beauty’ in Mandarin Chinese. Jock Wong and Marshal Or | pp. 35–61
“What is beauty?”: Cultural semantics of the Russian folk aesthetics. Anna Gladkova | pp. 84–105
Is ugliness in the mind of the beholder? The conceptualization of ‘ugly’ in English. Anna Gladkova and Jesús Romero-Trillo | pp. 106–127
The good, the bad… and the ugly? The conceptualization of aesthetics in Spanish. Jesús Romero-Trillo | pp. 147–168

 

(2021) Aesthetics

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

Gladkova, Anna, and Romero-Trillo, Jesús. (2021).  The linguistic conceptualization in folk aesthetics: Past, present and future. International Journal of Language and Culture 8(1): 1–13

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.00032.int

 

Abstract:

This Special Issue is dedicated to the analysis of the linguistic conceptualization of “beautiful” and “ugly” as the key concepts that are basic to aesthetic appreciation across languages and cultures within the framework of folk aesthetics. For this purpose, we present a collection of original research articles analyzing concepts related to folk aesthetics in seven languages: English, Spanish, Japanese, Russian, Danish, Persian, and Mandarin Chinese. All studies in this Special Issue focus on words and concepts as representations of culture-specific ways of aesthetic appreciation. Most of the studies are corpus-based, therefore they draw their conclusions on significant linguistic data.

 

 

 

(2021) An Anatomy of Chinese Offensive Words [BOOK]

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

Tien, Adrien, Carson, Lorna, & Jiang, Ning. (2021). An Anatomy of Chinese Offensive Words: A Lexical and Semantic Analysis. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

Abstract

This book offers a precise and rigorous analysis of the meanings of offensive words in Chinese. Adopting a semantic and cultural approach, the authors demonstrate how offensive words can and should be systematically researched, documented and accounted for as a valid aspect of any language. The book will be of interest to academics, practitioners and students of sociolinguistics, language and culture, linguistic taboo, Chinese studies and Chinese linguistics.

 

From the Foreward

This book began life as an individual project undertaken by Professor Adrian Tien. After living in Australia and Singapore, Adrian moved to Ireland in 2015 to take up a new post at Trinity College Dublin, where he was recruited to direct the growing Chinese Studies programme in the university. Within three years of his arrival, Adrian tragically passed away following a short illness. Aware of the progress of this book project, we— Adrian’s colleague Professor Lorna Carson, and his former PhD student and research assistant Dr Ning Jiang—undertook to complete the manu- script as a way of honouring Adrian’s memory, our friendship and his academic legacy. The vision for this book belongs to Adrian, and any errors or shortcomings which follow remain the responsibility of his co-authors.

 


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(2021) Australian English, American English, British English, Chinese — migrant, immigrant, refugee

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

Ye, Zhengdao. (2021). The semantics of migrant, immigrant and refugee: a cross-linguistic perspective. In Aleksandrova, Angelina and Meyer, Jean-Paul (Eds.) Nommer l’humain: descriptions, catégorisations, enjeux, 97–122. Paris: L’Harmattan.

This paper investigates and presents the meanings of words denoting people who change, either voluntarily or involuntarily, places where they live. More specifically, it contrasts the meanings of ‘migrant’, ‘immigrant’, and ‘illegal immigrant’ in three varieties of English (e.g. Australian, British and American), and provides a cross-linguistic perspective by discussing the major differences in meaning between yímin (’emigrant/immigrant’) and nánmin (‘refugee’) in Chimpse and their counterparts in English. The analytical and comparative framework used in this paper for contrastive lexico-conceptual analysis is the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) (e.g. Wierzbicka, 1972, 1996; Goddard & Wierzbicka, 2014). The paper first discusses the larger context in which this methodology is situated (Sec. 2), as well as its basic principles (Sec. 3), before introducing NSM work on nouns for people and some of the key insights on which the present study is built (Sec. 4). Sec. 5 presents the analysis of the terms in question, and § 6 summarizes the implications arising from this study.

 


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(2021) Chinese (Mandarin) – Aesthetics

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

Wong, Jock and Or, Marshal. (2021). “Is beauty only skin deep?”: The conceptualization of ‘beauty’ in Mandarin Chinese. International Journal of Language and Culture 8(1): 35–61

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.00034.won

 

Abstract:

From a semantic and cultural perspective, one could ask a number of questions regarding the English word ‘beauty’ and the adjectival form ‘beautiful’ when they are used to refer to visual aspects of people. Given that scholars and professionals in the beauty industry frequently use the words to describe people from various cultures, should we assume that each of them embodies a semantic and cultural universal? Given that plastic surgeons and beauticians improve the physical appearance of people, especially women, why do they not use the word ‘pretty’ to promote their services instead? After all, the phrase ‘pretty woman’ is also the title of a popular song first recorded by Roy Orbison in 1964 and later the name of a hugely successful 1990 movie. Why are beauty salons so called? Why are they not called prettiness salons instead? This paper attempts to address such questions by studying the meanings of two Mandarin Chinese words: mĕi/měilì 美/美 丽 (roughly, ‘beautiful’) and piàoliàng 漂亮  (roughly, ‘pretty’). The words are polysemous and this paper focuses on the meanings that are relevant to the pur- poses of describing women. It tries to explain the conceptual difference between a woman who is mĕi/měilì and one who is piàoliàng. Hopefully, the findings will shed light on some of the semantic distinctions that are impor- tant to Mandarin Chinese speakers and thus the questions raised above.

 


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