Browsing results for Broad topics
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 9, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2002). Directive speech acts in Malay (Bahasa Melayu): An ethnopragmatic perspective. Cahiers de praxématique, 38, 113-143.
The focus of the present study is the semantics and ethnopragmatics of a set of Malay speech act verbs. I hope to demonstrate that the lexical-semantic and cultural-pragmatic aspects of the analysis are mutually reinforcing and mutually informative. On the basis of cultural-pragmatic facts, I will discount polysemy for ajak ‘encourage, urge’ and pujuk ‘coax, comfort’, while lexical-semantic analysis of suruh ‘tell to do’ and minta ‘ask for’ will highlight the Malay cultural constraints against explicitly expressing the message ‘I want you to do this’. The conceptual structure and presuppositions of nasihat ‘advice, counsel’ will be shown to be strongly congruent with its characteristic forms of expression. In these and other ways, I hope to show not only that lexical semantics and cultural pragmatics are tightly intertwined in Malay, but also to illustrate the value of an ethnopragmatic approach to speech acts in general.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) ajak, (E) ask, (E) minta, (E) nasihat, (E) order, (E) pesan, (E) pujuk, (E) suggest, (E) suruh, (S) inhibiting people from expressing explicit directive messages, (T) English + Malay
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 27, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2002). The semantics of metaphor and parable: Looking for meaning in the Gospels. Theoria et Historia Scientiarum, 6(1), 85-106.
Open access
Abstract:
Human communication relies largely on metaphors. This applies to literature, to politics, to everyday interaction, to religion and to ethics. In some areas of life – e.g. in ethics and religion – there are certain key metaphors whose meaning has been debated for centuries and no doubt will continue to be debated into the third millennium; and yet there is no widely accepted methodology with the aid of which such debates can be resolved and possible meanings clearly formulated.
This paper tries to show how the NSM approach can provide such a methodology. The focus is on three extended metaphors, all from the “Sermon on the Mount”: the metaphor of the left hand, the metaphor of a speck in one’s brother’s eye and the metaphor of building on the rock.
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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) [religious metaphors], (E) being judgmental
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on May 27, 2019.
Baumgartner, Joanne M. (2002). Key cultural concepts in Australian Aboriginal languages as used in biblical translation. In Nga kete o te matauranga / Global pressures, local impacts: Challenges for the Pacific Rim. Association of Pacific Rim Universities 2nd Doctoral Students Conference, 1-4 February 2001, University of Auckland. Los Angeles: University of Southern California [CD Rom]. 11 pp.
In Aboriginal Bible translation today, it is necessary to separate pagan beliefs and their associated word usage from Christian beliefs and its totally different concepts, and, having done this, to describe the work being translated in traditional Aboriginal terms. It is possible to do this using NSM, which employs universal terms to identify concepts that are common to all languages, thus preserving the cultural identity already in existence in Aboriginal language use. This avoids the confusion that occurs when academic English is applied to languages that require different cultural concepts, such as Aboriginal languages. This new way of translating can then be used by theologians when applying current translation techniques.
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Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) angel, (E) big boss, (E) God, (E) Holy Spirit, (E) Katutja, (E) king, (E) kurrunpa, (E) mayutju pulka, (E) nganka ngurrara, (E) spirit, (E) synagogue, (E) tjuwuku tjaatji
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 16, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2002). Russian cultural scripts: The theory of cultural scripts and its applications. Ethos, 30(4), 401-432.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.2002.30.4.401
Abstract:
Cultural scripts reflect shared cultural understandings. They are representations of cultural norms that are widely held in a given society and that are reflected in language (in culture-specific key words, phrases, conversational routines, and so on). A key methodological principle in the theory underlying this article (a study in ethnopragmatics avant la lettre) is that the proposed cultural scripts must be formulated in NSM. The author argues that cultural scripts formulated in universal human concepts allow us to understand cultural norms and attitudes from within, that is, from the perspective of cultural insiders, while at the same time making them intelligible to outsiders as well.
In this article, the theory of cultural scripts is applied to Russian culture and, in particular, the Russian cultural scripts concerning speech, truth, and interpersonal communication (“obščenie”).
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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) govorit' nepravdu, (E) iskrenno, (E) istina, (E) sincerely, (E) truth, (S) bodily contact, (S) commands, (S) depth of feeling, (S) disagreement, (S) emphasis on verbal interaction, (S) freedom of expression, (S) physical closeness, (S) praise, (S) questions, (S) sincerity, (S) truth and untruth
Published on June 16, 2019. Last updated on June 25, 2019.
Вежбицкая, Анна [Wierzbicka, Anna] (2002). Русские культурные скрипты и их отражение в языке [Russian cultural scripts and their reflection in the language]. Русский язык в научном освещении, 2(4), 6-34.
More information:
Reissued as:
Вежбицкая, Анна (2005). Русские культурные скрипты и их отражение в языке. In Анна А. Зализняк, И.Б. Левонтина, А.Д. Шмелев (Eds.), ключевые идеи русской языковой картины мира [Key ideas of the Russian linguistic worldview] (pp. 467-499). Москва (Moscow): Языки славянских культур [Languages of Slavic Culture].
Chapter 11 (pp. …-…) 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
Tags: (T) Russian
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2002). Un intento de aplicación del metalenguaje semántico natural a las fórmulas de tratamiento españolas [An attempt at applying Natural Semantic Metalanguage to Spanish address forms]. Estudios hispánicos, 10, 61-68.
Written in Spanish.
A lot has been written on address forms from a pragmatic, psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic perspective. This short study is an attempt at providing a semantic analysis of some of the factors that impact on the use of nominal address forms in Spanish. Semantic components, expressed in a Spanish-based NSM, are provided, but focus on what is conveyed by the address forms – cordiality, spontaneity, emotionality, irony, machismo, etc. – as opposed to what specific address forms stand for.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (T) Spanish
Published on May 22, 2018. Last updated on August 20, 2018.
van Baalen, Christine (2003). Neerlandistiek zonder grenzen: Over het nut van crossculturele taalanalyses [Dutch studies without borders: On the usefulness of cross-cultural language analyses]. Colloquium Neerlandicum, 15, 13-22. PDF (open access)
To gain intercultural competence, one must learn to look beyond the confines of one’s own language by studying it in contrast with other languages. This contribution aims to illustrate this idea. First, I delve into the concept of ‘intercultural competence’. Next, I show how intercultural competence in language teaching can be promoted by means of cross-cultural language analyses. The usefulness of such analyses is demonstrated by means of a cultural key word, on one hand, and a buzz word, on the other.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) gezellig
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 18, 2019.
Junker, Marie-Odile (2003). A Native American view of the “mind” as seen in the lexicon of cognition in East Cree. Cognitive Linguistics, 14(2-3), 167-194.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/cogl.2003.007
Abstract:
East Cree, an Algonquian language spoken in Northern Quebec, Canada, has a classifier eyi that indicates mental activity. This morpheme is found in a very large number of cognition words including all verbs for thinking, most for knowing, all for wanting, and several for feeling. A morphosyntactic analysis of over 500 words shows that metaphor plays a large role in Cree and that many common metaphors for thinking are found in the etymology of thinking words, as well as culture-specific ones. There are interesting correlations between thinking and feeling and between rational and supernatural processes. The data support the existence of semantic universals for mental predicates by providing evidence that East Cree has exponents for the semantic primes THINK, WANT, and KNOW. Interviews with elders confirm that the Cree ‘theory of mind’ has both universal and culture-specific aspects, like the ideas of wholeness, a connection with the greater ‘mind’ of creation (the Great Spirit), and respect for others, which is a central value of Cree culture.
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Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) maamituneyihchikan, (E) mind, (E) mituneyihchikan
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2003). Emotion and culture: Arguing with Martha Nussbaum. Ethos, 31(4), 577-600. DOI: 10.1525/eth.2003.31.4.577
Martha Nussbaum’s account of human emotions, given in her influential 2001 book Upheavals of thought: The intelligence of emotions is, in many ways, a balanced and insightful one. Her discussion steers prudently and carefully between, on the one hand, the excesses of cultural relativism and social
constructivism, and on the other, the crude universalism of biological and cognitivist accounts of emotion. And yet I do not find Nussbaum’s overall account fully adequate, and, in particular, I do not think she accords sufficient weight to the role of language in emotional experience or its interpretation. She acknowledges that language differences probably shape emotional life in some ways, but she goes on to say that the role of language has often been “overestimated” – without noting that it has also often been greatly underestimated.
In this article, I argue that despite her desire to strike a balance between extreme positions on emotion and culture, Nussbaum’s account of human emotions errs on the side of universalism. I focus on “grief,” which is her key example of a universal human emotion, and contrast the Anglo cultural perspective (some aspects of which Nussbaum assumes to be universal) with those reflected in other languages such as Russian, French, Chinese, and the Central Australian language Pintupi.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Nicholls, Sophie (2003). The semantics of pain and suffering. BA(Hons) thesis, University of New England.
What exactly do we mean when we say ‘it hurts’, complain of ‘aches and pains’, or speak of ‘suffering’ and ‘agony’? Despite their importance to physiology and to philosophy, surprisingly little lexical semantic analysis has been done on the English “lexicon of pain”. Common problems in defining these terms include: the negotiation of any division between ‘emotional’ and ‘physical’ pain, and also the creation of a hermeneutical cycle by defining ‘pain’ concepts in terms of each other. It is also clear that “pain-like” concepts differ significantly across languages, but to study cross-linguistic variation with precision, we first need clear and precise definitions of the English terms.
My aim is to present and justify explications for English word pain and a set of fourteen related words , ache, sore, hurt, suffering, agony, sharp pain, shooting pain, burning pain, stinging pain, twinge of pain, headache, toothache, stomachache, and earache. I will do this working within the Natural Semantic Metalanguage framework developed by Anna Wierzbicka and colleagues. For each of these terms I will examine current definitions and etymology, and I will present examples of usage and discussion of each proposed explication. The discussion will be used to compare semantic components of the explications, and to clearly expound the meanings and functions of these words.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on January 26, 2020.
Goddard, Cliff (2003). Yes or no? The complex semantics of a simple question. In Peter Collins, & Mengistu Amberber (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2002 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society. Online.
PDF (open access)
Abstract:
This short paper investigates the semantics of yes/no questions, using the reductive paraphrase methodology of the NSM approach. It is shown that the apparent simplicity of yes/no questions is illusory, and that yes/no questions can be decomposed – both semantically and syntactically – into simpler structures.
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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) don't know if, (E) yes-no questions
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on January 10, 2022.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2003). ‘Reasonable man’ and ‘reasonable doubt’: The English language, Anglo culture, and Anglo-American law. Forensic Linguistics, 10(1), 1-22.
Abstract:
This paper investigates, in a historical and cultural perspective, the meaning of the word reasonable, and in particular, of the phrases reasonable man and reasonable doubt, which play an important role in Anglo-American law. Drawing on studies of the British Enlightenment such as Porter (2000), it traces the modern English concept of ‘reasonableness’ back to the intellectual revolution brought about by the writings of John Locke, who (as Porter says) ‘replaced rationalism with reasonableness, in a manner which became programmatic for the Enlightenment in Britain’. The paper also argues that the meaning of the word reasonable has changed over the last two centuries and that as a result, the meaning of the phrases reasonable man and beyond reasonable doubt has also changed; but since these phrases were continually used for over two centuries and became entrenched in Anglo-American law as well as in ordinary language, and since the older meaning of reasonable is no longer known to most speakers, the change has, generally speaking, gone unnoticed. On a theoretical level, the paper argues that meaning cannot be investigated in a precise and illuminating manner without a coherent semantic framework; and that a suitable framework is provided by the ‘NSM’ semantic theory.
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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) a reasonable doubt, (E) a reasonable man
Published on August 7, 2017. Last updated on September 9, 2018.
Olivieri, Kate (2003). A semantic analysis of teasing-related speech act verbs in Australian English. BA (Hons) thesis, University of New England.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 15, 2018.
Besemeres, Mary & Wierzbicka, Anna (2003). Pragmatics and cognition: The meaning of the particle lah in Singapore English. Pragmatics & Cognition, 11(1), 3-38. DOI: 10.1075/pc.11.1.03bes
This paper tries to crack one of the hardest and most intriguing chestnuts in the field of cross-cultural pragmatics and to identify the meaning of the celebrated Singaporean particle lah, the hallmark of Singapore English. In pursuing this goal, the authors investigate the use of lah and seek to identify its meaning by trying to find a paraphrase in ordinary language that would be substitutable for lah in any context. In doing so, they try to enter the speakers’ minds, and as John Locke urged in his pioneering work on particles, published in 1691, “observe nicely” the speakers’ “postures of the mind in discoursing”. At the same time, they offer a general model for the investigation of discourse markers and show how the methodology based on the NSM semantic theory allows the analyst to link pragmatics, via semantics, with the study of cognition.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) Ah, (E) lah, (E) you know
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on November 11, 2018.
Koselak, Arkadiusz (2003). Approche sémantique du concept de honte [A semantic approach of the concept of shame]. Pratiques, 117-118, 51-76. DOI: 10.3406/prati.2003.1995. PDF (free access)
Written in French.
The twofold aim of this paper is to characterize honte ‘shame’ as an emotion and to describe how it surfaces in some common French phrases. The approach is in part linguistic, in part non-linguistic. In the linguistic and more specifically semantic analysis of honte, the author takes his cue from different theoretical frameworks, including the NSM approach.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) coupable, (E) faire honte, (E) fier, (E) gêné, (E) honte, (E) shame
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Van Hecke, Tine (2003). Cultural scripts for French and Romanian thanking behaviour. In Katarzyna M. Jaszczolt, & Ken Turner (Eds.), Meaning through language contrast: Vol. 2 (pp. 237-250). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/pbns.100.15van
In her semantic dictionary of English speech act verbs, Wierzbicka (1987:214–215) proposes an all-round definition for the verb to thank that applies as well to the French and Romanian speech act verbs remercier and a mulţumi. However, in order to account for some differences between French and Romanian thanking behaviour, I propose to reduce it in some cases, and to further develop it in others.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 29, 2018.
Hasada, Rie (2003). “Cultural script” on Japanese attitude towards emotion. Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Bulletin of Japanese Language Center for International Students, 29, 27-67. PDF (open access)
This paper aims to explicate and define the tacit cultural norms/rules associated with Japanese people’s attitudes towards emotions and the expression of emotion in Japanese culture. It represents these norms/rules in the form of “cultural scripts”, using Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) as a descriptive tool.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (S) attitude towards other people's feelings, (S) crying, (S) restrictions on whom to share one's emotions with, (S) talk about emotions, (S) value of emotions over reason
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 22, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2003). Thinking across languages and cultures: Six dimensions of variation. Cognitive Linguistics, 14(2-3), 109-140.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/cogl.2003.005
Abstract:
This article is an exercise in typological semantics. It adopts the principles of the NSM approach to survey cross-linguistic variation in ways of talking about ‘thinking’. It begins by summarizing research indicating that there is a universal semantic prime THINK that can provide a stable reference point for cross-linguistic comparison. Six different dimensions of variability are then canvassed: different patterns of lexical polysemy, different degrees and modes of lexical elaboration, different ethno-theories of the person, different ways in which think-related meanings can be encoded morphosyntactically, different cultural scripts that may encourage or discourage particular ways of thinking, and differing patterns of usage in discourse.
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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) believe that, (E) duša душа, (E) feel (+ adjective), (E) feel that, (E) hati, (E) hope, (E) love, (E) mind, (E) ná, (E) pleased, (E) się, (E) ter-, (E) think (+ clause), (E) think to (+ verb), (E) to (purposive), (E) tro, (E) worry, (S) freedom of speech, (S) I think vs I know, (S) inhibiting expression of opinions, (S) Philosophy of the Middle Way, (S) thinking
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 27, 2018.
Durst, Uwe (2003). The Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach to linguistic meaning. Theoretical Linguistics, 29(3), 157-200. DOI: 10.1515/thli.29.3.157
After thirty years of language-internal, as well as cross-linguistic research, the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) model developed by Anna Wierzbicka and her colleagues has turned out to be a most useful theoretical and methodological framework for semantic analysis in various linguistic, and even non-linguistic, domains. This paper argues that the NSM approach to semantics constitutes a new paradigm in linguistic research that is free from various shortcomings of other semantic frameworks. The first section provides a brief survey of the historical development of NSM theory from the early seventies up to the present stage [2003]. Its theoretical and methodological principles are outlined in sections 2 and 3, which also illustrate how, in some cases (e.g. HAPPEN), words that used to be explicated have been discovered to be primes. Section 4 illustrates its applications in various domains by means of examples from a number of languages. These include a range of ‘anger’-related words that are compared to one another.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (T) English, (T) English (synopsis)
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 2, 2019.
Ye, Zhengdao (2004). Chinese categorization of interpersonal relationships and the cultural logic of Chinese social interaction: An indigenous perspective. Intercultural Pragmatics, 1(2), 211-230.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/iprg.2004.1.2.211
Abstract:
This paper explores the conceptual basis of Chinese social organization, and examines how the fundamental Chinese categories of interpersonal relationships affect Chinese ways of speaking and social interaction. Firstly, the paper will analyse the full meanings and interrelationship of two of the most distinctive (complementary) dyads of Chinese social categories, namely, 生人 shēngrén (lit. “uncooked person”, “stranger”) vs. shúrén (lit. “cooked person”, “an old acquaintance”), and zìjĭrén (lit. “oneself person”, “insider”) vs. wàirén (lit. “outer/outsider person”, “outsider”). It will then put forward two master scripts – general principles underlying norms of social interaction – in Chinese culture that are governed by the demarcations of these fundamental categories: nèiwàiyŏubié (“difference between the insider and outsider”) and yóushūzhìqīn (“from far to close”), and illustrate aspects of Chinese language use that are guided by these principles. They include dă zhāohu (“greetings”), the use of tóng X (“fellow X”) and lăo X (“old X”), and a brief discussion of the value of not being polite in Chinese culture.
On the one hand, this paper demonstrates the need for treating interpersonal relationships as a theoretical variable in the study of human interaction and shows the importance of an indigenous perspective; on the other, it relates theoretical discussion of human interaction to practical needs of understanding Chinese interactional style for the purpose of language teaching and political and commercial negotiations. Both goals can be attained by the use of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage and “cultural scripts” theory.
More information:
A more recent chapter that builds on this one is:
Chapter 2 (pp. 40-66) of Ye, Zhengdao (2006), Ways of meaning, ways of life: A semantic approach to Chinese ethnopsychology. PhD thesis, Australian National University.
Rating:
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) shēngrén 生人, (E) shúrén 熟人, (E) wàirén 外人, (E) zìjĭrén 自己人, (S) greeting, (S) insider vs. outsider, (S) reducing social distance between interactants, (S) referring to someone as a fellow X, (S) referring to someone as an old (long-standing) X, (S) working towards a closer relationship
