Browsing results for Australian

(2000) Arrernte – Classifiers

Wilkins, David P. (2000). Ants, ancestors and medicine: A semantic and pragmatic account of classifier constructions in Arrernte (Central Australia). In Gunter Senft (Ed.), Systems of nominal classification (pp. 147-216). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

This study employs a descriptive method “in the mould of Natural Semantic Metalanguage as advocated by Wierzbicka and her colleagues” (p. 163).

(2001) Arrernte – Emotions

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

(2005) Visual semantics

Wierzbicka, Anna (2005). There are no “color universals” but there are universals of visual semantics. Anthropological Linguistics, 47(2), 217-244. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25132327

The search for the “universals of colour” that was initiated by Berlin and Kay’s classic book is based on the assumption that there can be, and indeed that there are, some conceptual universals of colour. This article brings new evidence, new analyses, and new arguments against the Berlin and Kay paradigm, and offers a radically different alternative to it. The new data on which the argument is based come, in particular, from Australian languages, as well as from Polish and Russian. The article deconstructs the concept of “colour,” and shows how indigenous visual descriptors can be analysed without reference to colour, on the basis of identifiable visual prototypes and the universal concept of seeing. It also offers a model for analysing semantic change and variation from “the native’s point of view”.

(2006) Colours and vision

Wierzbicka, Anna (2006). The semantics of colour: A new paradigm. In Carole P. Biggam, & Christian J. Kay (Eds.), Progress in colour studies: Vol. 1. Language and culture (pp. 1-24). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/z.pics1.05wie

Abstract:

To be able to establish the true universals of visual semantics we must first of all reject the ones that are false. Above all, we must reject the widespread view that there are some ‘colour universals’, whether absolute or implicational. There are no ‘colour universals’ because ‘colour’ itself is not a universal concept. What is universal is the concept of SEEing. SEEing, not colour, must be the starting point, and the cornerstone, of our investigations.

It appears that in all languages there are visual descriptors referring to some features of the natural environment. Apart from such universal or widespread environmental features, all languages appear to have visual descriptors referring to some features of the local environment, in particular to visually salient local minerals and other pigments, especially those that can be used for painting, decoration, or dyeing. It also appears that in all languages there are some visual descriptors linked to the human (and sometimes animal) body. In addition to such commonalities in the visual descriptors, there is also a wide variety of more restricted and even idiosyncratic types.

To understand the human conceptualization of the visual world in both its diversity and its commonalities, we need to recognize the role of environmental and bodily prototypes recurring in human experience (such as fire, sun, blood, sky and grass), and to base our analysis on the bedrock of universal human concepts; and it is only on this basis that we can hope to arrive at a tenable and enduring synthesis.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2007) Dalabon – Ethnopsychology and personhood

Evans, Nicholas (2007). Standing up your mind: Remembering in Dalabon. In Mengistu Amberber (Ed.), The language of memory in a crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 67-95). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.21.06eva

Abstract:

This paper explores the vocabulary of mental states, knowing, thinking and remembering in Dalabon, an Australian Aboriginal language. Though Dalabon has a rich vocabulary for the overall semantic domain of attention, thought, memory and forgetting, there are no expressions specifically dedicated to remembering. Rather, the ontology of cognitive states and processes is categorized into short-term versus long-term mental states and events. Aspectual choices are used to express transitions into mental states and events (‘remembering’ is ‘coming to have in mind’, and ‘forgetting’ is ‘coming to not have in mind’), without the entailments found in English, which distinguishes previously experienced mental states (remember, remind) or mental states experienced for the first time (get the idea that, realize).

The only section of the paper to include NSM-inspired explications is the appendix. One of the explications relates to two bound morphemes of Dalabon that refer to something akin to the English ‘mind’, viz. beng and kanûm. The latter also denotes the ear. Other NSM-inspired explications relate to the verbs bengdi ‘have in mind’ and bengkan ‘keep in mind’.

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Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner

(2007) Shape and colour

Wierzbicka, Anna (2007). Shape and colour in language and thought. In Andrea C. Schalley, & Drew Khlentzos (Eds.), Mental states: Vol. 2. Language and cognitive structure (pp. 37-60). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.93.05wie

“Colour” and “shape” are concepts important to the speakers of English and of many other languages. They are not, however, universal: there are many languages which have no words corresponding to the English words colour and shape, and in which questions like “what colour is it?” or “what shape is it?” cannot be asked at all. Clearly, speakers of such languages do not think about the world in terms of “colour” and “shape”. How do they think about it, then?

This study shows that by using an empirically discovered set of universal semantic primes which includes see and touch we can effectively explore ways of construal of the visual and tangible world different from those embedded in, and encouraged by, English.

(2008) Bunuba – Hyperpolysemy

Knight, Emily (2008). Hyperpolysemy in Bunuba, a polysynthetic language of the Kimberley, Western Australia. In Cliff Goddard (Ed.), Cross-linguistic semantics (pp. 205-223). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.102.13kni

Like a number of other Kimberley languages, Bunuba has very few morphologically simple verbs. Most verbs (including exponents of some semantic primes, such as WANT, SEE, and THERE IS) consist of an inflected auxiliary combined with an invariable coverb. After a brief review of how other predicate primes are expressed in Bunuba, the main body of the chapter considers semantic primes SAY, DO, THINK, HAPPEN, and FEEL, which, it is argued, are all expressed by a single, morphologically simple Bunuba verb MA. Detailed language-internal evidence is adduced to support the existence of this striking five-way polysemy. It is shown that each of the five identifiable lexical units has a distinctive syntactic/semantic profile. These facts are incompatible with alternative analyses which posit a single general abstract meaning.

(2008) English, Warlpiri – Visual semantics

Wierzbicka, Anna (2008). Why there are no ‘colour universals’ in language and thought. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, (N.S.) 14, 407-425. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9655.2008.00509.x

A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 4 (pp. 80-101) of:

Goddard, Cliff, & Wierzbicka, Anna (2014). Words and meanings: Lexical semantics across domains, languages, and cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Do all people live in a world full of colours? Perceptually, yes (unless they are visually impaired), but conceptually, no: there are many languages which have no word for ‘colour’ and in which the question What colour is it? cannot be asked and presumably does not arise. Yet the powerful and still immensely influential theory of Berlin and Kay assumes otherwise. While building on the author’s earlier work on colour semantics, this article brings new evidence against the Berlin and Kay paradigm, and presents a fundamentally different approach. The new data on which the argument is based come from Australian languages. In particular, the article presents a detailed study of the visual world reflected in the Australian language Warlpiri and in Warlpiri ways of speaking, showing that while Warlpiri people have no “colour talk” (and no “colour practices”), they have a rich visual discourse of other kinds, linked with their own cultural practices. It also offers a methodology for identifying indigenous meanings without the grid of the English concept ‘colour’, and for revealing “the native’s point of view”.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2011) English, Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara – Ethnogeographical categories

Bromhead, Helen (2011). Ethnogeographical categories in English and Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara. Language Sciences, 33, 58-75. DOI: 10.1016/j.langsci.2010.07.004

This study examines the contrastive lexical semantics of a selection of landscape terms in English and the Australian Aboriginal language, Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara. It argues that languages and cultures categorize the geographical environment in diverse ways. Common elements of classification are found across the languages, but it is argued that different priorities are given to these factors. Moreover, the study finds that there are language-specific aspects of the landscape terms, often motivated by culture and land use. Notably, this study presents ethnogeographical concepts as being anchored in an anthropocentric perspective, based on human vision and experience in space. The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) technique of semantic analysis is used throughout, and it is argued that this methodology provides an effective tool in the exploration of ethnogeographical categories.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2011) Semantic analysis: A practical introduction [BOOK]

Goddard, Cliff (2011). Semantic analysis: A practical introduction. Second edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Revised and expanded version of:

Goddard, Cliff (1998). Semantic analysis: A practical introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

The summary below reflects the contents of the second edition.

This lively textbook introduces students and scholars to practical and precise methods for articulating the meanings of words and sentences, and for revealing connections between language and culture. Topics range over emotions (Chapter 4), speech acts (Chapter 5), discourse particles and interjections (Chapter 6), words for animals and artefacts (Chapter 7), motion verbs (Chapter 8), physical activity verbs (Chapter 9), causatives (Chapter 10), and nonverbal communication. Alongside English, it features a wide range of other languages, including Malay, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Spanish, and Australian Aboriginal languages. Undergraduates, graduate students and professional linguists alike will benefit from Goddard’s wide-ranging summaries, clear explanations and analytical depth. Meaning is fundamental to language and linguistics. This book shows that the study of meaning can be rigorous, insightful and exciting.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2012) English, Pitjantjatjara – Emotions: pain

Wierzbicka, Anna (2012). Is pain a human universal? A cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective on pain. Emotion Review, 4(3), 307-317. DOI: 10.1177/1754073912439761

A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 6 (pp. 127-155) of:

Goddard, Cliff & Wierzbicka, Anna (2014). Words and meanings: Lexical semantics across domains, languages, and cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pain is a global problem whose social, economic and psychological costs are immeasurable. It is now seen as the most common reason why people seek medical (including psychiatric) care. But what is pain? This article shows that the discourse of pain tends to suffer from the same problems of ethnocentrism and obscurity as the discourse of emotions in general. Noting that, in the case of pain, the costs of miscommunication are particularly high, this article offers a new paradigm for communicating about pain. It shows how the use of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) techniques can help in this area, as in other areas concerned with human subjectivity, and can lead to a greater understanding between psychologists, psychiatrists, medical practitioners, social workers, and ordinary suffering mortals.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2013) Arrernte – Logical relations

Broad, Neil (2013). A semantic structural analysis of logical relations in Eastern Arrernte. Alice Springs: Australian Society for Indigenous Languages. PDF (open access)

Facsimile edition of the author’s (Master’s?) thesis, University of New England (submitted around the year 2000).

This study is an analysis of the semantic structure of logical relations in Eastern Arrernte, focussing in particular on the level of inter-propositional relations and to a lesser degree on how logical relations are expressed at higher levels in the semantic hierarchy.

Chapter 1, as well as introducing the topic in general terms, provides an introduction to the salient features of Eastern Arrernte phonology and grammar. Chapter 2 introduces the Semantic Structural Analysis (SSA) theory upon which the initial task of analysing logical relations, as they are expressed in Arrernte, was based, and discusses the inherent problems with this approach. The solution to the difficulties raised here effectively anchors the typology associated with logical relations in lexicogrammatical universals, that is, in effect, semantic primes allied with Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) theory.

Chapter 3 begins by examining inter-propositional logical relations using SSA theory. The discussion turns to show how each of these types can be analysed and expressed as a reductive paraphrase, and how the seven differentiated types can be grouped into two core semantic structural categories, representing BECAUSE-types and IF-types. The discussion in Chapter 4 is an examination of the specific way in which the two core categories of logical relations are marked in Arrernte sentences. In so doing, recurrent patterns of marking logical relations and the key structural features are identified.

Chapter 5 introduces logical relations expressed at higher-than-sentence levels in the semantic hierarchy. Two specific texts, one a Dreaming narrative, the other a recount narrative, are examined, and some general observations made regarding the semantic structure of logical relations in Arrernte discourse. In addition, some preliminary observations are expressed regarding the type of reasoning process that can be identified in Arrernte discourse. Chapter 6 brings together the significant conclusions from this study.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2013) Australian Aboriginal languages – Kinship obligations

Wierzbicka, Anna (2013). Translatability and the scripting of other peoples’ souls. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 24(1), 1-22. DOI: 10.1111/taja.12018

If anthropology aims at understanding ‘others’, then obviously anthropologists must be interested in the meaning of what those ‘others’ say. But to understand what speakers of a language other than our own say, we need to know what exactly the words and grammatical categories of that other language mean. This article argues that translating indigenous categories into academic English does not allow us to capture indigenous perspectives and leads to what Geertz calls “scripting other people’s souls”. Focusing on cognitive and cultural categories from Australian Aboriginal languages usually linked with English labels such as ‘kinship obligations’ and ‘odd-numbered generations’, the article shows how the ways of thinking encoded in these languages can be explicated from the insider’s point of view, in simple words and simple sentences directly cross-translatable into the indigenous languages themselves.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2013) Ethnogeographical categories

Bromhead, Helen (2013). Mountains, rivers, billabongs: Ethnogeographical categorization in cross-linguistic perspective. PhD thesis, Australian National University.

A more recent publication building on this one is:

Bromhead, Helen (2018). Landscape and culture – Cross-linguistic perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

This thesis examines the topic of ethnogeographical categorization by looking at the contrastive lexical semantics of a selection of landscape terms in a number of languages. The main languages in focus are English, including the Australian variety of English, French, Spanish, and the Australian Aboriginal language Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara.

The thesis argues that languages and cultures categorize the geographical environment in diverse ways. Common elements of classification are found across the selected languages, but it is argued that different priorities are given to these factors. Moreover, the thesis finds that there are language-specific aspects of the landscape terms, often motivated by culture and land use. Notably, this thesis presents ethnogeographical concepts as being anchored in an anthropocentric perspective, based on human vision and experience in space.

The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) technique of semantic analysis is used throughout. The use of the universal concepts and language of NSM allows the author to clearly state the cross-cultural and cross-linguistic similarities and differences in the semantics of the landscape terms examined. It is argued that this methodology provides an effective tool in the exploration of ethnogeographical categories.

Areas of landscape vocabulary covered in this thesis include words for ‘long flowing-water places’, such as river, in chapter 3; words for ‘standing-water places’, such as lake, in chapter 4; words for ‘elevated places’, such as mountain, in chapter 5; seascape terms, such as coast, in chapter 6; and words for larger areas of the land, such as desert and the bush, in chapters 7 and 8. The thesis also offers suggestions for new directions for research.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2013) Kayardild, Pitjantjatjara – Kinship terms

Wierzbicka, Anna (2013). Kinship and social cognition in Australian languages: Kayardild and Pitjantjatjara. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 33(3), 302-321. DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2013.846458

While many anthropologists these days dismiss the study of kinship terminologies as something that belongs – or should belong – to the past, from an Australian perspective kin terms must still be seen as an essential guide to the ways in which speakers of many languages understand their social world. This being so, establishing what these terms really mean – from an insider’s, rather than an anthropologist’s or linguist’s point of view – remains an essential task. This paper argues that while this task cannot be accomplished with traditional methods of linguistic anthropology, it can be with the techniques of NSM semantics. The paper shows how this can be done by re-analysing
some basic kin terms in Kayardild and in Pitjantjatjara.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2014) Various languages – Semantic fieldwork

Goddard, Cliff, & Wierzbicka, Anna (2014). Semantic fieldwork and lexical universals. Studies in Language, 38(1), 80-126. DOI: 10.1075/sl.38.1.03god

The main goal of paper is to show how NSM findings about lexical universals (semantic primes) can be applied to semantic analysis in little-described languages. It is argued that using lexical universals as a vocabulary for semantic analysis allows one to formulate meaning descriptions that are rigorous, cognitively authentic, maximally translatable, and free from Anglocentrism.

A second goal is to shed light on methodological issues in semantic fieldwork by interrogating some controversial claims about the Dalabon and Pirahã languages. We argue that reductive paraphrase into lexical universals provides a practical procedure for arriving at coherent interpretations of unfamiliar lexical meanings. Other indigenous/endangered languages discussed include East Cree, Arrernte, Kayardild, Karuk, and Maori.

We urge field linguists to take the NSM metalanguage, based on lexical universals, into the field with them, both as an aid to lexicogrammatical documentation and analysis and as a way to improve semantic communication with consultants.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2014) Words and meanings [BOOK]

Goddard, Cliff & Wierzbicka, Anna (2014). Words and meanings: Lexical semantics across domains, languages, and cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199668434.001.0001

Abstract:

This book presents a series of systematic, empirically based studies of word meanings. Each chapter investigates key expressions drawn from different domains of the lexicon – concrete, abstract, physical, sensory, emotional, and social. The examples chosen are complex and culturally important; the languages represented include English, Russian, Polish, French, Warlpiri, and Malay. The authors ground their discussions in real examples and draw on work ranging from Leibniz, Locke, and Bentham, to popular works such as autobiographies and memoirs, and the Dalai Lama’s writings on happiness.

The book opens with a review of the neglected status of lexical semantics in linguistics and a discussion of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage methodology, which is used in all chapters. The discussion includes a wide range of methodological and analytical issues including lexical polysemy, semantic change, the relationship between lexical and grammatical semantics, and the concepts of semantic molecules and templates.

Table of contents:

  1. Words, meaning, and methodology
  2. Men, women, and children: The semantics of basic social categories
  3. Sweet, hot, hard, heavy, rough, sharp: Physical quality words in cross-linguistic perspective
  4. From “colour words” to visual semantics: English, Russian, Warlpiri
  5. Happiness and human values in cross-cultural and historical perspective
  6. Pain: Is it a human universal? The perspective from cross-linguistic semantics
  7. Suggesting, apologising, complimenting: English speech act verbs
  8. A stitch in time and the way of the rice plant: The semantics of proverbs in English and Malay
  9. The meaning of abstract nouns: Locke, Bentham and contemporary semantics
  10. Broader perspectives: Beyond lexical semantics

More information:

Chapter 3 builds on: NSM analyses of the semantics of physical qualities: sweet, hot, hard, heavy, rough, sharp in cross-linguistic perspective (2007)
Chapter 4 builds on: Why there are no “colour universals” in language and thought (2008)
Chapter 5 builds on: “Happiness” in cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective (2004); The “history of emotions” and the future of emotion research (2010); What’s wrong with “happiness studies”? The cultural semantics of happiness, bonheur, Glück and sčas’te (2011)
Chapter 6 builds on: Is pain a human universal? A cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective on pain (2012)
Chapter 8 builds on an unpublished English original translated in Russian as: Следуй путем рисового поля”: семантика пословиц в английском и малайском языках [“Sleduy putem risovogo polya”: semantika poslovits v angliyskom i malayskom yazykakh / “Follow the way of the rice plant”: The semantics of proverbs in English and Malay (Bahasa Melayu)] (2009)

The proverbs explicated in Chapter 8 include: (English) A stitch in time saves nine, Make hay while the sun shines, Out of the frying pan into the fire, Practice makes perfect, All that glitters is not gold, Too many cooks spoil the broth, You can’t teach an old dog new tricks; Where there’s smoke there’s fire; (Malay) Ikut resmi padi ‘Follow the way of the rice plant’, Seperti ketam mangajar anak berjalan betul ‘Like a crab teaching its young to walk straight’, Binasa badan kerana mulut ‘The body suffers because of the mouth’, ‘Ada gula, ada semut ‘Where there’s sugar, there’s ants’, Seperti katak di bawah tempurung ‘Like a frog under a coconut shell’, Keluar mulut harimau masuk mulut buaya ‘Out from the tiger’s mouth into the crocodile’s mouth’, Bila gajah dan gajah berlawan kancil juga yang mati tersepit ‘When elephant fights elephant it’s the mousedeer that’s squashed to death’.

Tags listed below are in addition to those listed at the end of the entries for the earlier work on which this book builds.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2015) Australian Aboriginal languages – ‘Dreamtime’, ‘the Dreaming’

Goddard, Cliff & Wierzbicka, Anna (2015). What does Jukurrpa (‘Dreamtime’, ‘the Dreaming’) mean? A semantic and conceptual journey of discovery. Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2015(1), 43-65.

This study proposes a detailed explication for the Australian Aboriginal Jukurrpa concept, phrased exclusively in simple cross-translatable words. The various components of the explication are justified. The authors do not claim to have necessarily arrived at a full, perfect or correct lexical-semantic analysis, although in principle this is the goal of semantic analysis. Rather, their purpose is to share a hermeneutic process and its results. The guiding framework for the process is the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach to meaning analysis.

Jukurrpa is the word used in Warlpiri for what is referred to in English as the Aboriginal ‘Dreamtime’, or ‘the Dreaming’. The same concept is referred to in Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara as tjukurpa, in Arrernte as altyerre, etc. After a short introduction, the paper is organized around successive stages in the evolution of the current explication, which is partitioned into multiple sections and depicts a highly ramified and multi-faceted concept, albeit one with great internal coherence. The authors present and discuss four semantic explications, each built on – and, hopefully, improving upon – its predecessor.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2015) Semantic molecules – Kinship

Wierzbicka, Anna (2015). 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.

Given a measure of mental discipline, effort and experience, unfamiliar concepts embodied in kinship terminologies can be explained to outsiders through ordinary language. To grasp them, one does not require a tutorial in kinship studies or in arcane formalisms of any kind. One does need, however, an explanation. If this explanation is free of any technical terminology, if it is couched in words that one can understand, and if one is prepared to make an effort to get out of one’s accustomed ways of thinking, then with the help of such an explanation, authentic understanding can be reached.

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

(2016) Ethnopsychology and personhood

Wierzbicka, Anna (2016). Two levels of verbal communication, universal and culture-specific. In Andrea Rocci, & Louis de Saussure (Eds.), Verbal communication (pp. 447-482). Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110255478-024

Abstract:

Models of the human person embedded in everyday language differ a great deal across languages, cultures and epochs,  and often lead us to the heart of the shared cultural values of the speech communities where they are found. Even within European languages, there is considerable diversity. Remarkably, though, all human cultures appear to agree that human beings have a body, which is visible, and ‘something else’, which is not. Models of the human person differ with respect to the construal of that ‘something else’. For speakers of modern English, it is usually interpreted as the ‘mind’; and in the era of global English, the model of a human being as composed of a body and a mind is often taken for granted by Anglophone humanities and social sciences (and even by cognitive and evolutionary science).

Yet the ‘mind’ is a conceptual artefact of modern English – an ethno-construct no more grounded in reality than the French esprit, the Danish sind, the Russian душа duša, the Latin anima, or the Yolngu birrimbirr. The reification of the English ‘mind’ and its elevation to the status of a ‘scientific’ prism through which all other languages, cultures, indigenous psychologies, and even stages in the evolution of primates can be legitimately interpreted is a striking illustration of the blind spot in contemporary social science that results from the ‘invisibility’ of English as a more and more globalized way of speaking and thinking.

This paper demonstrates that the meanings hidden in such language-specific cultural constructs can be revealed and compared, in a precise and illuminating way, through the use of NSM. It also shows how the understanding of such culturally central concepts can lead to better communication across languages and cultures.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners