Browsing results for Broad topics
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 27, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1999). What did Jesus mean? The Lord’s Prayer translated into universal human concepts. In Ralph Bisschops, & James Francis (Eds.), Metaphor, canon and community: Jewish, Christian and Islamic approaches (pp. 180-216). Canterbury: Peter Lang.
Abstract:
The aim of this paper is not to suggest that Bible translators around the globe should henceforth start translating the Lord’s Prayer into universal concepts, avoiding culture-specific images and metaphorical terms such as father, kingdom, or bread. Images and terms of this kind are part and parcel of Jesus’ teaching, and some equivalents for them must be forged in any language into which the Gospels are translated.
The intended meaning of these images and terms, however, can be further elucidated in a language so simple that even a child can understand it, and based on concepts that are universally available. It is also important to recognize that behind the use of imagery and metaphor lie very specific messages – messages that can be reconstructed in a largely non-metaphorical language, and in any case without any metaphors that are not universal.
More information:
An earlier version of this chapter was published in 1995 and reissued in 2011 (with different pagination) in the LAUD Working Papers, Series A, General and Theoretical Papers, 360.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) bread, (E) deliver, (E) earth, (E) evil, (E) Father, (E) forgive, (E) heaven, (E) kingdom, (E) temptation, (E) trespass, (E) trespasses
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Ye, Zhengdao (2000). The language of emotions in Chinese: A study based on Hong Lou Meng. MA thesis, Australian National University.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2000). *Semantics, emotions and the meaning of the gospels. In Teresa Cabré, & Cristina Gelpi (Eds.), Lèxic, corpus i diccionaris (pp.103-121). Barcelona: Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Institut Universitari de Lingüística Aplicada.
Published on August 10, 2018. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Fabiszak, Małgorzata (2000). An application of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage to diachronic semantics. In Irma Taavitsainen, Terttu Nevalainen, Päivi Pahta, & Matti Rissanen (Eds.), Placing Middle English in context (pp. 293-312). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110869514.293
This paper is a methodological exercise in which Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), developed as a method of objective description in cross-cultural research, is applied to diachronic data concerning four Middle English emotion terms from the semantic field of ‘joy’. Wierzbicka’s framework provides the means for describing the data neatly, improves their processing, and contributes to the efficiency of their presentation. The application of her formal methodology has made the usage patterns characteristic of the analysed emotion terms more transparent and easier to generalise over.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) bliss, (E) blithe, (E) delight, (E) joy
Published on December 18, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wong, Jock Onn (2000). The ‘mE’ particle of Singlish. National University of Singapore Centre for Advanced Studies Research Papers Series, 18, 25 pp.
The non-standard variety of Singapore English commonly known as Singlish has a set of particles the meanings of which have intrigued and also evaded many researchers. These researchers have described the meanings of the particles mostly with a functional approach, in which the functions of a particle under study are listed, and the meaning of the particle characterized in terms of these functions. Results have proved futile. In this paper, the meaning of the Singlish particle ‘mE’ (commonly spelt ‘meh’ elsewhere) is described using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach, which involves corpus study, native speaker introspection, and a reductive paraphrase using semantic primitives to represent the invariant meaning. With this semantic model, the meaning of ‘mE’ can be clearly, precisely, and unambiguously stated in simple English. The semantic formula is shown to be applicable to all instances of use, thus achieving empirical adequacy.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) me (particle), (E) meh
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 16, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2000). Lexical prototypes as a universal basis for cross-linguistic identification of “parts of speech”. In Petra M. Vogel, & Bernard Comrie (Eds.), Approaches to the typology of word classes (pp. 285-318). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110806120.285
Abstract:
According to the hypothesis outlined in this paper, so-called ‘parts of speech’ can be defined and compared across languages on the basis of certain universal exemplars. It is interesting to note, however, that the approach based on exemplars can be combined, to some extent, with considerations based on universal syntax — that is, on combinatorial and substitutional properties of classes based on lexical universals. On the basis of the present cursory examination of the traditional parts of speech, and of some of their modern extensions, it is hypothesized that word classes with a wider typological significance can always be expected to have some universal syntactic properties. The most important point, however, is that to be an effective tool in the description and comparison of languages, the metalanguage of linguistics must be based on empirically established linguistic universals; this applies to parts of speech as much as to any other aspect of linguistic typology and linguistic description.
Translations:
Into Russian:
Chapter 4 (pp. 134-170) of Вежбицкая, Анна (1999), Семантические универсалии и описание языков [Semantic universals and the description of languages]. Москва [Moscow]: Языки русской культуры [Languages of Russian Culture].
Chapter 7 (pp. 216-254) of Вежбицкая, Анна (2011), Семантические универсалии и базисные концепты [Semantic universals and basic concepts]. Москва [Moscow]: Языки славянских культуры [Languages of Slavic Culture].
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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on April 28, 2018. Last updated on September 8, 2018.
Metom, Lilly (2000). An application and interpretation of Iban emotion concepts of shame/shyness, anger and apology using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage and concrete/abstract cultural continuum. In Michael Leigh (Ed.), Borneo 2000: Ethnicity, culture and society. Proceedings of the Sixth Biennial Borneo Research Conference (pp. 250-277). Kuching: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak.
Cultures differ in their style of communication. Iban culture is no exception. The style of interaction and communication of the Ibans is also unique; expressions of emotion in Iban cannot be simply explained or translated into English since meanings and use of the expressions are culture-specific. Furthermore, drawing on the fact that Iban people are more “concrete” in their relation with other members of the group, expressions of emotion such as anger, embarrassment, joy, fear and others are normally conveyed non-verbally. Hence, this paper explores and investigates how these emotion concepts are expressed and used in the daily conduct of the Iban people. Three categories of selected Iban emotions are explicated and analysed here, namely the emotion expression of shame/shyness, the emotion expression of anger, and the emotion expression of apology. In order to explain culturally the emotion words, Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) is used as an analytical tool to explicate the words, so as to avoid ethnocentric bias.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) adat, (E) jaga adat, (E) kudi, (E) malu, (E) minta ampun, (E) pedis ati, (E) ransi, (E) sorry
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 29, 2018.
Hasada, Rie (2000). An exploratory study of expression of emotions in Japanese: Towards a semantic interpretation. PhD thesis, Australian National University. PDF (open access)
The present study explores the emotional world of Japanese people. Using the framework of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage theory, this thesis attempts to explicate the conceptual organization of aspects of Modern Standard Japanese, with a special focus on the lexicon. This thesis also aims to explicate the cultural norms that are related to the emotion words/expressions with the use of culture-independent, universal Natural Semantic Metalanguage. A great amount of data is taken from various sources: TV or radio broadcasting, actual conversation, published literature both in Japanese and English, film scripts, dialogues in magazines, newspaper/magazine articles, comic books, advertisements, letters, dictionaries, and popular songs.
The work is organized in the following way. Chapter 1 is the introduction. Chapter 2 consists of a review of the literature on emotions and includes philosophical, anthropological, and psychological approaches. Chapter 3 demonstrates the importance of linguistic study for the research on emotions, and suggests the Natural Semantic Metalanguage as the most appropriate method for achieving the main goals of this thesis. Chapter 4 discusses the grammatical features of emotion expression sentences. Chapter 5 deals with those body parts terms which are related to emotions in Japanese. Chapters 6 to 11 explicate the meanings of various Japanese emotion words and expressions. Chapter 12 focuses on communication of nonverbal emotion in Japanese culture. Chapter 13 examines characteristic Japanese speakers’ attitudes towards emotions. Chapter 14 is the conclusion.
Wherever possible, the thesis seeks to probe into culturally-based aspects of the conceptual structure of emotion words/expressions, by drawing on a variety of anthropological, psychological, and sociological studies of Japanese society.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) (non-verbal communication), (E) ai 愛, (E) aishi 愛し, (E) aisuru 愛する, (E) akogareru 憧れる, (E) atama ni kuru 頭にき, (E) atama o kaku, (E) aware, (E) haji 恥, (E) hara ga tatsu 腹が立っ, (E) hara o tateru 腹を立てる, (E) hara 腹, (E) hazukashii 恥ずかしい, (E) horeru 惚れる, (E) ijirashii いじらしい, (E) itooshii いとおしい, (E) itoshii 愛しい, (E) jihi, (E) joo, (E) kanashii 悲しい, (E) kawaisoo かわいそう, (E) kenage 健気, (E) ki 気, (E) kinodoku 気の毒, (E) koi 恋, (E) koishii 恋しい, (E) koisuru 恋する, (E) kokoro 心, (E) kowai 怖い, (E) kuyashii 悔しい, (E) mune 胸, (E) mushi 虫, (E) nasake 情け, (E) nasakenai 情けない, (E) natsukashii 懐かしい, (E) omoiyari 思いやり, (E) osoreru 恐れる, (E) osoroshii 恐ろしい, (E) sabishii 寂しい, (E) setsunai 切ない, (E) shiawase 幸せ, (E) suki 好き, (E) tanoshii 楽しい, (E) tere-warai 照れ笑い, (E) terekusai 照れくさい, (E) tsurai 辛い, (E) uchooten 有頂天, (E) ureshii 嬉しい, (E) wabishii わびしい, (E) zoq, (S) affection, (S) emotions
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 27, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2000). The salt of the earth: Explaining the meaning of some of Jesus’ sayings in the Sermon on the Mount. In L. L. Iomdin, & L. P. Krysin (Eds.), Slovo v tekste i v slovare. Sbornik statej k semidesjatiletiju akademika J. D. Apresjana (pp. 61-76). Moscow: Jazyki Russkoj Kul’tury.
Contribution to a festschrift honouring J. D. Apresjan.
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on January 26, 2020.
Amberber, Mengistu (2001). Testing emotional universals in Amharic. In Jean Harkins & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.), Emotions in crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 39-72). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110880168.35
In her 1999 book Emotions across languages and cultures: Diversity and universals, Wierzbicka proposes the following set of working hypotheses:
a. All languages have a word for FEEL.
b. In all languages, feelings can be described as “good” or “bad”.
c. All languages have “emotive” interjections (i.e. interjections expressing cognitively-based feelings).
d. All languages have some “emotion terms” (i.e. terms for cognitively-based feelings).
e. All languages have words overlapping (though not identical) in meaning with the English words ‘angry’, ‘afraid’, and ‘ashamed’.
f. All languages have words comparable (though not necessarily identical) in meaning to ‘cry’ and ‘smile’.
g. In all languages, people can describe cognitively-based feelings via observable bodily symptoms.
h. In all languages, cognitively-based feelings can be described via bodily sensations.
i. In all languages, cognitively-based feelings can be described via figurative “bodily images”.
j. In all languages, there are alternative grammatical constructions for describing (and interpreting) cognitively-based feelings.
The main purpose of the present study is to test the above set of hypotheses in Amharic. The description and analysis presented in the study shows that emotional universals are borne out by the Amharic data. Explications are proposed for words that roughly correspond to the English phrases be happy/be joyful, be sad/be disappointed, be angry at someone/rebuke/reprimand, be ashamed/be embarrassed/be shy, his face became ashen (with fright), I felt sorry.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) affərə, (E) ahe, (E) azzənə, (E) tədəssətə, (E) tək'ot't'a
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on December 8, 2019.
Harkins, Jean (2001). Talking about anger in Central Australia. In Jean Harkins, & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.), Emotions in crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 201-220). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110880168.197
This exploration of a small group of emotion expressions in the Arrernte language of Central Australia takes the view that it is useful and illuminating, when investigating emotional or other meanings, to cultivate awareness of the cultural and intercultural dimensions of the enterprise, and to see both the processes and outcomes of the investigation in this light. It demonstrates the practicality of the NSM approach in facilitating intercultural discussion and understanding of people’s emotional life and behaviour in cultural context, and, furthermore, as a tool for stating meanings in the language of inquiry.
This small study has found confirmation for several of the hypotheses about emotional meanings put forward by Wierzbicka and other practitioners of the NSM approach to semantic analysis, and has raised some questions about other parts of the theory. There was surprising convergence between the Arrernte perceptions and the NSM picture of emotions as cognitively based feelings. Arrernte anger-like feelings all contain the impulse to act, proposed as a universal of anger-like feelings by Wierzbicka (1999). The Arrernte ayeye akweke did not have the full prototype structure for cognitively based feelings (“sometimes a person thinks…”, etc.) proposed by Wierzbicka (1999). An attempt to apply such a frame rendered the ayeye akweke unintelligible in Arrernte, and it is not entirely clear how this problem could be resolved, or whether it would be appropriate to do so. A simplified frame for practical definitional purposes may be the way to go, as it could very well be the case that the full prototype structure is a little too abstract for workable natural language definitions.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) ahele-irreme, (E) akiwarre, (E) arnkelye
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on December 8, 2019.
Ye, Zhengdao (2001). An inquiry into “sadness” in Chinese. In Jean Harkins, & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.), Emotions in crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 359-404). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110880168.359
This paper attempts to overcome the methodological problems that plague emotion studies by relying on the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM). Through the explication of three so-called “sadness-like” Chinese emotion terms (悲 bēi, 哀 ai, and 愁 chóu), this paper will show how the NSM approach can provide a neutral comparative grid for further inquiries into the meaning of emotion concepts across languages and cultures.
The paper first provides a very general discussion of the Chinese emotion lexicon from a morphological point of view, followed by an in-depth semantic analysis of 悲 bēi, 哀 ai, and 愁 chóu in NSM. The discussion draws on linguistic evidence, including well-known textual examples, lexicalized items and conventionalized phrases and idioms that are familiar to the Chinese ear.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) ai 哀, (E) bēi 悲, (E) chóu 愁, (T) Chinese
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on December 8, 2019.
Kornacki, Paweł (2001). Concepts of anger in Chinese. In Jean Harkins, & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.), Emotions in crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 259-292). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110880168.255
This paper focuses on five Mandarin Chinese words – 怒 nu, 生气 shēngqì, 恼(火) nao(huo), 憤 fen, 討厭 taoyan – as well as their figurative associations and elaborations, all of which are pertinent to the conceptualization of the “emotions” often rendered with, or comparable to, the English words angry or anger. Ever since Darwin’s classic treatment of emotions, “anger”, “something like anger”, or “a family of anger concepts/expressions” have been recurrently proposed by a number of Western psychologists as one of the “fundamental”, “universal”, “primitive” or “basic” human “emotions”, but this approach has also been criticized. My aim here will be to examine some of the insights that the analysis of the Chinese lexical data might contribute to this debate.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) fèn 憤, (E) năo 恼, (E) năohuo 恼火, (E) nù 怒, (E) shēngqì 生气, (E) tăoyàn 讨厌
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 27, 2018.
Ye, Zhengdao (2001). Los sentimientos morales de la “tristeza” china: una ilustración del acercamiento del Metalenguaje Semántico Natural (MSN) al análisis de algunas emociones chinas “básicas” [Moral feelings of “sadness” in Chinese: An illustration of the NSM approach to the analysis of some “basic” Chinese emotions]. Isegoría, 25, 201-222.
Written in Spanish.
This study undertakes, within the framework of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach developed by Anna Wierzbicka and colleagues, a detailed contrastive and comparative semantic analysis of a couple of Chinese emotion concepts: 悲 bēi and 哀 ai (often glossed interchangeably as sadness, sorrow, and grief), which are considered to be basic emotions in traditional Chinese philosophical texts. It illustrates that (a) they are by no means interchangeable, nor are they equivalent of the Western idea of sadness, (b) they are artifacts of the Chinese culture, shaped by Chinese people’s social and moral experiences, and their view of life and the universe. Essentially, 悲 bēi encompasses a fatalistic view, and 哀 ai is a moral emotion.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) ai 哀, (E) bēi 悲, (T) Spanish
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on December 8, 2019.
Harkins, Jean, & Wierzbicka, Anna (Eds.) (2001). Emotions in crosslinguistic perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110880168
Abstract:
This volume aims to enrich the current interdisciplinary theoretical discussion of human emo-tions by presenting studies based on extensive linguistic data from a wide range of languages of the world. Each language-specific study gives detailed semantic descriptions of the meanings of culturally salient emotion words and expressions, offering fascinating insights into people’s emotional lives in diverse cultures including Amharic, Chinese, German, Japanese, Lao, Malay, Mbula, Polish and Russian.
The book is unique in its emphasis on empirical language data, analysed in a framework free of ethnocentrism and not dependent upon English emotion terms, but relying instead on independently established conceptual universals. Students of languages and cultures, psychology and cognition will find this volume a rich resource of description and analysis of emotional meanings in cultural context.
Table of contents:
Introduction (Anna Wierzbicka, Jean Harkins)
Testing emotional universals in Amharic (Mengistu Amberber)
Emotions and the nature of persons in Mbula (Robert D. Bugenhagen)
Why Germans don’t feel”anger” (Uwe Durst)
Linguistic evidence for a Lao perspective on facial expression of emotion (N. J. Enfield)
Hati: A key word in the Malay vocabulary of emotion (Cliff Goddard)
Talking about anger in Central Australia (Jean Harkins)
Meanings of Japanese sound-symbolic emotion words (Rie Hasada)
Concepts of anger in Chinese (Pawel Kornacki)
Human emotions viewed through the Russian language (Irina B. Levontina, Anna A. Zalizniak)
A culturally salient Polish emotion: Przykro (pron. pshickro) (Anna Wierzbicka)
An inquiry into “sadness” in Chinese (Zhengdao Ye)
Each chapter has its own entry, where additional information is provided.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on December 19, 2017. Last updated on August 16, 2021.
Wong, Jock Onn (2001). To speak or not to speak? The ‘a’ particles of Singlish. National University of Singapore Centre for Advanced Studies Research Papers Series, 37, 33 pp.
A more recent publication building on parts of this one is chapter 7 (pp. 230-259) of:
Wong, Jock O. (2014). The culture of Singapore English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139519519
Tags: (E) a (Singapore English)
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 27, 2019.
Трнавац, Радослава [Trnavac, Radoslava] (2001). Елементи концепта наде као хришћанске врлине [Elements of the concept of hope as a Christian virtue]. Српски језик [Serbian language], 6(1-2), 469-478.
No abstract available.
More information:
Written in Serbian.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on December 8, 2019.
Durst, Uwe (2001). Why Germans don’t feel “anger”. In Jean Harkins, & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.), Emotions in crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 119-152). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110880168.115
There is no German word that perfectly matches the English word anger, and none of the German words Ärger, Wut, and Zorn has a clear counterpart in English. Each of the German words has a meaning that is somewhat different, and there is no evidence for the “basicness” of one of these words. To grasp their meanings and to be able to compare them and to define them, we have to submit each word to a detailed semantic analysis.
In this paper, the lexical items Ärger, Wut, and Zorn, which constitute the most frequent and most common ‘anger’ words in German, are subjected to semantic and comparative investigation. The analysis is given within the theoretical framework of the NSM approach to semantics, which has turned out to be a most useful way to gain suitable results for this task.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) Ärger, (E) sich ärgern, (E) Wut, (E) Zorn
Published on December 12, 2018. Last updated on December 12, 2018.
Mulyadi (2001). Konsep emosi dalam Bahasa Melayu [Emotion concepts in Malay]. Dewan Bahasa, February 2001, 28-35.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on December 8, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna, & Harkins, Jean (2001). Introduction. In Jean Harkins, & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.) (2001), Emotions in crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 1-34). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110880168.1
Abstract:
The purpose of the crosslinguistic studies presented in this volume is to demonstrate how the tools of linguistic analysis can be applied to produce more accurate descriptions of the meanings of emotion words and, more generally, ways of speaking about emotions in different languages. Such analyses of linguistic meaning not only complement findings from other approaches to the study of emotions, but help to resolve methodological problems that arise when these other approaches have to deal with data from different languages. Before proceeding to the language-specific studies, we draw readers’ attention to the relevance of language in the study of human emotions, and give some background to the approaches to analysing language data that are used in these studies.
By presenting detailed semantic descriptions of culturally-situated meanings of culturally salient words used in the “emotion talk” in different cultures, we can offer glimpses into other people’s emotional lives – without
imposing on those lives a perspective derived from the vocabulary and other resources of our own native language. Since the descriptions presented here are phrased in universal, that is, shared, concepts, they can be
both faithful to the perspective of the speaker whose emotions we purport to be talking about, and intelligible to others. (These others include scholars, who often don’t seem to realise that they too are speakers of another
language, with their own spectacles, tinted by their own native language.) We can combine the insiders’ point of view with intelligibility to outsiders.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) delighted, (E) fear, (E) hope, (E) pleased, (T) English
