Browsing results for Austronesian
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 18, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2008). Contrastive semantics and cultural psychology: English heart vs. Malay hati. In Farzad Sharifian, René Dirven, Ning Yu, & Susanne Niemeier (Eds.), Culture, body, and language: Conceptualizations of internal body organs across cultures and languages (pp. 75-102). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110199109.2.75
Abstract:
This is a contrastive NSM analysis of two ethnopsychological constructs (English heart, Malay hati). Rejecting the use of English-specific metaterminology, such as mind, cognition, affect, etc., as both ethnocentric and inaccurate, the study seeks to articulate the conceptual content of the words under investigation in terms of simple universal concepts such as FEEL, THINK, WANT, KNOW, PEOPLE, SOMEONE, PART, BODY, HAPPEN, GOOD and BAD.
For both words, the physical body-part meaning is first explicated, and then the ethnopsychological sense or senses (it is claimed that English heart has two distinct ethnopsychological senses). The chapter also reviews the phraseology associated with each word, and in the case of English heart, proposes explications for a number of prominent collocations: a broken heart, listening to your heart, losing heart and having your heart in it.
The concluding discussion makes some suggestions about experiential/semantic principles whereby body parts can come to be associated with cultural models of feeling, thinking, wanting and knowing. At a theoretical level, the study seeks to draw links between culturally informed cognitive semantics, on the one hand, and the field of cultural psychology, on the other.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) hati, (E) head, (E) heart, (E) mind, (T) Malay
Published on December 12, 2018. Last updated on December 12, 2018.
Mulyadi (2008). Simbolisme bunyi dalam Bahasa Indonesia [Sound symbolism in Indonesian]. Kajian Sastra, 32(3), 246-264.
Published on April 29, 2018. Last updated on September 26, 2018.
Arnawa, Nengah (2009). Bahasa Bali usia anak-anak: Kajian Metabahasa Semantik Alami [Children’s Balinese: A Natural Semantic Metalanguage study]. Linguistika, 16(30). PDF (open access)
This study seeks to test the hypothesis that children acquire the exponents of universal semantic primes sooner than they do other semantic material. The children observed were Balinese 4-6 year olds. The Balinese exponents of the NSM primes belong to the so-called neutral style or kepara, a vocabulary style that is unmarked and generic.
It was found that the 4-6 year olds are able to produce 58 out of the sixty exponents in their utterances. The exponents not produced by the Balinese children in our sample are AKLINYENGAN ‘MOMENT’ and MIRIB ‘MAYBE’. The absence of the semantic prime AKLINYENGAN is due to the uncertainty of the lexical reference; similarly, MIRIB ‘MAYBE’ is absent because of cognitive limitations: children are not able to use the knowledge they have to predict what is going to happen.
The exponents that have the widest distribution in Balinese are ICANG ‘I’ and BENA ‘YOU’. However, the children in our sample were not able to construct sentences using ICANG ‘I’ and BENA ‘YOU’ as psychological objects.
This paper is about language acquisition. It does not contain any explications or scripts. No rating is provided.
Tags: (T) Balinese
Published on November 19, 2018. Last updated on November 19, 2018.
Годдард, Клифф [Goddard, Cliff] (2009). “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)]. Жанры речи [Zhanry rechi / Speech genres], 6, 184-207.
Russian translation of a paper presented at the Wenner-Gren Foundation Symposium on Ritual Communication, Portugal, 17-23 March 2007. Updated and published in English as chapter 8 of:
Goddard, Cliff & Wierzbicka, Anna (2014). Words and meanings: Lexical semantics across domains, languages, and cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
No English abstract available. The proverbs explicated (in Russian) 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’.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (T) Russian
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2009). “Like a crab teaching its young to walk straight”: Proverbiality, semantics, and indexicality in English and Malay. In Gunter Senft, & Ellen B. Basso (Eds.), Ritual communication (pp. 103-125). New York: Berg.
My objective is to give a balanced, contrastive treatment of the textual semantics, cultural-historical positioning, and interdiscursivity of proverbs in two widely different speech cultures. In what follows, I look first at contemporary English, addressing the way proverbs, as instances of a language-specific category, can be identified on linguistic evidence. I propose a template in the NSM metalanguage to articulate the semantic framing inherent in the proverb genre (essentially, the semantic content of “proverbiality”) and demonstrate the utility of the approach with a full analysis of several English metaphorical proverbs (“A stitch in time saves nine”) and maxims (“Practice makes perfect”). I discuss aspects of the interdiscursivity of proverbs in English, with particular reference to the ethos of modernity. In the remainder of the chapter, I apply a parallel analysis and discussion to proverbs (peribahasa) in contemporary Malay, including the metaphorical Malay proverb Seperti ketam mengajar anak berjalan betul ‘like a crab teaching its young to walk straight’.
Published on December 12, 2018. Last updated on December 12, 2018.
Mulyadi (2009). Kategori dan peran semantis verba dalam Bahasa Indonesia [Semantic categories and roles of verbs in Indonesian]. Logat: Jurnal Ilmiah Bahasa dan Sastra, 5(1), 56-65.
Published on August 6, 2018. Last updated on September 15, 2018.
Mulyadi (2010). Verba emosi statif dalam Bahasa Melayu Asahan [Stative verbs of emotion in Asahan Malay]. Linguistika [Universitas Udayana], 17(33), 168-176. PDF (open access)
Written in Indonesian.
This research proposes a new perspective on the analysis of stative emotion verbs, moving from meaning to form. It relies on evidence from Asahan Malay. The data was collected by using questionnaire, observation, interview, and intuition methods. The analysis concerns the mapping of semantic components of stative emotion verbs, which is used to determine their subcategory. For the analysis, the semantic primes of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage theory are used.
The study shows that stative emotion verbs in Asahan Malay are characterized by the component ‘X felt something not because X wanted this’. In accordance with the types of events, stative emotion verbs are divided into four subcategories: (1) ‘something bad has happened’ (“sodih-like”), (2) ‘something bad can/will happen’ (“takut-like”), (3) ‘people can know something bad about me’ (“malu-like”), and (4) ‘I don’t think that things like this can/will happen’ (“heran-like”).
No attempt is made at explicating individual verbs.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (T) Indonesian
Published on September 15, 2018. Last updated on September 15, 2018.
Sumarni, Laurentia (2011). A semantic and cultural analysis of the colloquial Jakartan Indonesian discourse particles. LLT Journal, 14(1). PDF (open access)
Indonesia is a diglossic speech community, where two significantly different “high” and “low” varieties co-exist. The high variety (Bahasa Indonesia/BI) is the official language of government, education, and formal occasions, while the low variety consists of the non-standard languages commonly spoken in informal ordinary speech. Colloquial Jakartan Indonesian is the most prominent non-standard language, predominant in casual speech and associated with urban youth in the capital city, Jakarta, used by most Generations X and Y in informal communication, novels, TV shows, films, and web-based social networks.
This article discusses the semantic and cultural analysis of two colloquial Jakartan discourse particles (DPs), dong and sih. DPs mark the difference between H and L varieties and are salient features in colloquial speech. However, the usage and meaning of these particles are not considered important in the development of language in Indonesia. Their meanings are hard to pin down because a lot depends on the mood, intonation and tone of voice at the time of utterance. The pragmatic and paralinguistic aspects of the particles are not easily translatable into other languages. NSM is used as a tool for explication to arrive at the semantic core meaning of DPs dong and sih so that they are accessible across languages. Corpus data is taken from 5 novels published between 2004 and 2010.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) dong, (E) sih
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 17, 2019.
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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Published on August 7, 2018. Last updated on August 23, 2018.
Sudipa, I Nengah (2012). Makna “mengikat” Bahasa Bali: Pendekatan Metabahasa Semantik Alami [Meanings related to ‘tying up’ in Balinese: A Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach]. Jurnal Kajian Bali, 2(2), 49-68. PDF (open access)
Written in Indonesian. All NSM explications are formulated in the language of the paper.
The Balinese verb ngiket ‘to tie up’, quoted here in its agentive voice usage (base form: iket), is only one of a number of different verbs having similar meanings: the list includes ngiket/negul, nalinin, mesel, ngimpus, nyangkling, ngeju, nyamok, nyeet, medbed/maste, nyangcang, ngantus, ngancét, and nyepingin (all forms quoted in the agentive voice). Adopting the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach, the author reveals that the first three words are slightly different in meaning, even though they belong to the same semantic field; the remainder, however, display overt semantic differences. Ngiket/negul, nalinin and mesel seem to apply to similar objects and involve the same tool used to carry out the activity, that is tali ‘string, rope, thread, etc’. The other verbs apply to specific objects: ngimpus, for instance, relates to the legs of an animal or a human being to be tied up, while nyangkling relates to the hands.
Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) maste, (E) medbed, (E) mesel, (E) nalinin, (E) negul, (E) ngancét, (E) ngantus, (E) ngeju, (E) ngiket, (E) ngimpus, (E) nyamok, (E) nyangcang, (E) nyangkling, (E) nyeet, (E) nyepingin
Published on October 13, 2018. Last updated on October 13, 2018.
Dewi, Putu Dian Aryswari Octania (2012). The translation of emotions in Eat, Pray, Love into Makan, Doa, Cinta: A Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach. Thesis, Udayana University, Denpasar.
Published on December 12, 2018. Last updated on December 12, 2018.
Mulyadi; Beratha, Ni Luh Sutjiati; Oktavianus; & Sudipa, I. Nengah (2012). Emotion verbs in Bahasa Indonesia and Asahan Malay language: Cross-language semantics analysis. e-Journal of Linguistics, 6(1). PDF (open access)
Published on May 1, 2018. Last updated on October 13, 2018.
Gande, Vinsensius (2012). Verba ‘memotong’ dalam Bahasa Manggarai: Kajian Metabahasa Semantik Alami [The verb ‘cut’ in the language of the Manggarai: A Natural Semantic Metalanguage study]. Master’s thesis, Udayana University, Denpasar.
Written in Indonesian.
Verbs meaning “cut” in the language of the Manggarai (spoken in the western parts of the island of Flores, in East Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia) are described and subdivided according to whether they refer to cutting humans (human limbs), animals, trees, grass, fruit, leaves, ropes and cloth. The semantic template that is used consists of the following subsections: lexical-syntactic structure, prototypical motivation scenario, instruments, ways of using the instruments, desired outcomes.
Published on December 12, 2018. Last updated on December 12, 2018.
Mulyadi (2013). Verba “mirip takut” dalam Bahasa Melayu Asahan [Fear-like verbs in Asahan Malay]. International Seminar “Language Maintenance and Shift III”. 331-335.
Published on December 12, 2018. Last updated on December 12, 2018.
Sudipa, I Nengah (2013). Full-reduplication Balinese verbs: A semantic view. Lingual: Journal of Language and Culture, 1(2). DOI: 10.24843/LJLC.2013.v01.i02.p04. PDF (open access)
Balinese full-reduplication verbs are common in everyday life, and therefore can be found in any text written in Balinese. This article aims at describing the meaning of reduplicated forms such as kituk-kituk and lier-lier. The data was taken from Balinese newspapers and analyzed according to the principles of the NSM approach. The results show that reduplicated forms can signal (a) increased emphasis, e.g. anggut-anggut; (b) repetition, e.g. kauk-kauk; (c) a new meaning (when the root or single form does not exist in Balinese), e.g. sidap-sidap. NSM manages to coherently and systematically account for each of these.
Published on August 9, 2018. Last updated on September 8, 2018.
Metom, Lilly (2013). Emotion concepts of the Ibans in Sarawak. Singapore: Trafford.
This book explains the emotion concepts of the Ibans, one of the indigenous peoples of Sarawak, Malaysia. It is an outcome of a research study that aims to analyse the Iban emotion concepts using Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM). NSM enables emotion terminologies in Iban to be explicated and further defined along the concrete/abstract cultural continuum framework. The respondents of this study were the village community of Sbangki Panjai, a longhouse located in Lubok Antu, Sarawak. The findings reveal the core cultural values that underlie the people’s behaviours in the ways they express their emotions. The complex rules of logic called adat and the rules of speaking in this speech community that explain the Ibans’ communicative behaviours are discussed in detail in this book. The semantic analysis of the emotion words is exhaustive and comprehensive, which is necessary to reveal the complete meaning of the emotions being examined without creating ethnocentric bias. Thus, this book essentially describes how the Ibans relate themselves to others in their interaction.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 23, 2018.
Murtisari, Elisabet Titik (2013). Some traditional Javanese values in NSM: From God to social interaction. International Journal of Indonesian Studies, 1, 110-125. PDF (open access)
This paper examines a number of central traditional Javanese values in social interaction and explicates some of them into cultural scripts using the Natural Semantics Metalanguage (NSM). It is shown how intricate Javanese notions, such as narimo ‘accepting’ and ethok-ethok ‘dissimulation’, may be effectively described using simple vocabulary without lacking in rigour, which can be very helpful for outsiders to understand more about Javanese culture.
Note: Murtisari’s explication of ethok-ethok is offered as an improvement on an explication of the same term by Wierzbicka, who spells it as éṭok-éṭok.
Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) alus, (E) eling, (E) ethok-ethok, (E) lila, (E) narima, (E) rila, (E) trima, (E) ukum pinesthi, (E) waspada
Published on July 18, 2017. Last updated on May 1, 2019.
Petras, Jayson D. (2013). Ang Pagsasakatutubo mula sa Loob/Kultural na Pagpapatibay ng mga Salitang Pandamdaming Tumutukoy sa “Sayá”: Isang Semantikal na Elaborasyon ng Wikang Filipino sa Larangan ng Sikolohiya. Humanities Diliman, 10(2), 56-84.
Open access
Abstract:
The Philippines has often been recognized as one of the most emotional countries in the world. Despite this, there is a scarcity of research pertaining to emotions in the context of Filipinos’ own language and culture; instead, the convenient practice of explaining phenomena based on studies published abroad continues. This is the reason why even local scholarship remains ethnocentric, particularly Anglocentric, in nature.
The author answers the need to culturally revalidate or indigenize emotion studies through the examination of the semantic elaboration of the happiness domain in Tagalog. To analyse the scope and depth of Tagalog happiness-related words, as well as their similarities and differences, it calls upon NSM. Highlighting the uniqueness of the words alíw, galák, ligáya, lugód, luwalhatì, sayá, siyá, tuwâ, and wíli thus becomes a possibility.
The paper concludes with a call for ongoing examination of the language of emotions as a means toward gaining a better understanding of Filipino personality.
More information:
Written in Tagalog. A noteworthy feature is the inclusion of a very useful tabular comparison of prime lists over time. The key dates retained are 1972, 1980, 1989, 1994, 1996 and 2002.
Rating:
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) alíw, (E) galák, (E) ligáya, (E) lugód, (E) luwalhatì, (E) sayá, (E) siyá, (E) tuwâ, (E) wíli, (T) English (synopsis)
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 31, 2018.
Durie, Mark; Daud, Bukhari; & Hasan, Mawardi (1994). Acehnese. In Cliff Goddard, & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.), Semantic and lexical universals: Theory and empirical findings (pp. 171-202). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.25.11dur
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on August 4, 2018. Last updated on August 23, 2018.
Jayantini, I Gusti Agung Sri Rwa (2014). The medical concept of damage and its Indonesian equivalent cedera: A Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach. Lingual: Journal of Language and Culture, 3(2). DOI: 10.24843/LJLC.2014.v03.i02.p06. PDF (open access)
This paper investigates the meaning configuration of the English medical concept ‘damage’ and its Indonesian equivalent ‘cedera’ as one of the interesting phenomena faced in English-Indonesian medical terminology translation. The former is found in the medical textbook entitled General Ophtamology while the latter is its Indonesian translation identified in Oftamologi Umum. The two books are references for the study of eye disease and medication. Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) theory is utilized to explicate the meaning of the terms. Adding the specific features of meaning once the basic explication is drawn up allows for the distinctive characteristics of ‘damage’ and ‘cedera’ to be comprehensively presented.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) cedera, (E) damage
