Browsing results for Creoles

(1997) Hawai`i Creole English – NSM syntax (mental predicates)

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.

Stanwood, Ryo E. (1997). The primitive syntax of mental predicates in Hawaii Creole English: A text-based study. Language Sciences, 19(3), 209-217. DOI: 10.1016/S0388-0001(96)00060-5

This study presents evidence collected from basilectal texts that the NSM mental predicates (THINK, KNOW, WANT, FEEL, SAY, SEE, and HEAR) have clear lexical exponents in Hawaii Creole English and that these HCE predicates occur, with minor qualification, in the syntactic configurations predicted as universal within the NSM approach.

(2006) Creoles (Iberoromance) – NSM primes

Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 30, 2018.

Bartens, Angela, & Sandström, Niclas (2006). Semantic primes in Atlantic Iberoromance-based creoles: Superstrate continuity or innovation? Estudios de sociolingüística, 7, 31-54. DOI: 10.1558/sols.v7i1.31

Much of the literature on Creole languages has focused on their genesis. In this study, we take the Natural Semantic Metalanguage framework as a starting point for yet another genesis-oriented comparative study of five Iberoromance-based Creoles, Kabuverdianu, São-Tomense, Angolar, Papiamentu and Palenquero. The proposal of the NSM framework is to establish a Natural Semantic Metalanguage consisting of a set of semantic primes common to and translatable into all languages. Whether these semantic primes consist of items retained from the lexifier language, or whether they have been taken from the sub- and/or adstrate can be argued to be of certain interest to the debate on the origin and nature of Creole languages. Our results confirm our initial hypothesis that the semantic primes of Creole languages are in their majority derived from the corresponding lexifier language. Differences in the exact amount of non-lexifier-derived primes roughly correspond to the amount of non-lexifier items in the Creole’s lexicon at large.


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

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(2011) Leibniz

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 31, 2018.

Wierzbicka, Anna (2011). Common language of all people: The innate language of thought. Problems of information transmission, 47(4), 378-397. DOI: 10.1134/S0032946011040065

English translation of a Russian text (2011) published in Problemy Peredachi Informatsii, 47(4), 84-103.

As is well known, Leibniz was interested in language throughout his life, and he saw in it a key to the understanding of the human mind. Many of his ideas about language were expressed in unpublished manuscripts, and what has come to us is not always clear. Nevertheless, some of his ideas — even if he did not always consistently adhere to them himself — seem to be both clear and extremely appealing.

I would summarize these ideas as follows:

1. All human thoughts can be decomposed into a relatively small number of elementary concepts;
2. All explanations depend on the existence of some concepts which are self-explanatory (otherwise, they would lead to an infinite regress);
3. The elementary concepts are common to all languages, and can be found by means of semantic analysis;
4. These concepts are the foundation of an innate language, “lingua naturae.” Just as mathematics is, as Galileo said, the language of the physical world, so the innate “lingua naturae” is the language of the inner world, the language of thoughts;
5. This language can be identified;
6. This language can serve as an auxiliary means of mutual understanding for speakers of different languages;
7. This language can help us to reach a greater clarity in our thinking;
8. This language can serve as a means for clarifying, elucidating, storing and comparing ideas.

These are also the main ideas which lie at the basis of the NSM program and from which this program has derived and continues to derive its inspiration.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2011) Roper Kriol – Referring expressions

Published on August 18, 2018. Last updated on August 18, 2018.

Nicholls, Sophie (2011). Referring expressions and referential practice in Roper Kriol (Northern Territory, Australia). PhD thesis, University of New England.

In this thesis I describe aspects of referring expressions and referential practice in an English-lexified creole language spoken in the Ngukurr
Aboriginal community, in the Northern Territory of Australia. Kriol has substrate influences from seven traditional Aboriginal languages. Dialects of Kriol are spoken in Aboriginal communities across the Top End of Australia; with estimates suggesting more than 20,000 people speak it as a first language. The language has a low status and in many contexts, such as health, medical and legal contexts, it frequently goes unrecognized as a legitimate language requiring interpreters. There is no comprehensive grammar of Kriol and as yet, there have been few in-depth studies into its structure and use.

I investigate referential expressions in Kriol from various perspectives, using tools from a range of theoretical frameworks and research traditions, including descriptive linguistics, discourse analysis, information structure, and ethnopragmatics. The thesis provides an integrated description of how referential expressions are structured and how they are used in spontaneous talk to meet communicative needs. A further goal of this thesis is to demonstrate that there is significant continuity of referring strategies from Kriol’s Aboriginal substrate languages. The data used in this study consists of a corpus of spontaneous discourse between two or more speakers, elicited material, and consultation with Elders on cultural issues relevant to language use.

Each chapter in the thesis contributes original description of the Kriol language. By combining a number of theoretical perspectives, the thesis offers an integrated description of the structure and function of referring expressions.


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

(2013) Roper Kriol – Social cognition and social interaction

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.

Nicholls, Sophie (2013). Cultural scripts, social cognition and social interaction in Roper Kriol. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 33(3), 282-301. DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2013.846456

Interactional style is an under-researched area in the study of Australian Aboriginal languages, yet it is profoundly important in negotiating access to everyday services, such as medical, legal and educational resources. This paper investigates speech routines relevant to person reference and information exchange in Roper Kriol, an Aboriginal creole language spoken in the Northern Territory of Australia. It includes evidence that at least some aspects of pragmatic style in this creole are the result of a continuity of discourse practices from the substrate languages. The data used in this research include recordings from conversations and public meetings, as well as consultation with community Elders. The conclusions are summarized in cultural script style. That is, they are written into stylized frames using simple, easily translatable words to maximize access to an insider perspective, and avoid the pitfalls of Anglocentric terms such as ‘kinship’, ‘information exchange’ and ‘person reference’.

 

(2014) Hawai`i Creole English

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.

Stanwood, Ryo E. (2014). On the adequacy of Hawai`i Creole English. Dallas: SIL International. PDF (open access)

Published version of a previously unpublished PhD thesis (1999).

Low prestige, non-standard speech varieties have been stigmatized by some psychologists and educators as a cognitive handicap responsible for the poor academic performance of minority children. This study investigates whether a particular non-standard variety, Hawai‛i Creole English (HCE), is equal to “real” languages (such as Standard English) in its expressive capacity. The Natural Semantic Metalanguage
(NSM) specification is the only explicit hypothesis about the expressive apparatus underlying all natural languages. It therefore offers us the only empirical means to carry out our investigation. This investigation argues in exhaustive detail that all the primitives and all the primitive combinations of the NSM specification are present in HCE.


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

(2015) Trinidadian Creole – Ethnopsychology and personhood

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 18, 2019.

Levisen, Carsten & Jogie, Melissa Reshma (2015). The Trinidadian ‘theory of mind’: Personhood and postcolonial semantics. International Journal of Language and Culture, 2(2), 169-193.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.2.2.02lev

Abstract:

Taking a postcolonial approach to the semantics of personhood, this paper critically engages with Anglo-international discourses of the mind, exposing the conceptual stranglehold of the colonial language (i.e., English) and its distorting semantic grip on global discourse. It is argued that creole categories of values and personhood provide a new venue for critical mind studies as well as for new studies in creole semantics and cultural diversity.

The paper investigates the cultural semantics of a personhood construct in one particular creole. It analyses the lexical semantics of the word mind/mine in Trini (the English-based creole of Trinidad) and explores the wider cultural meanings of the concept in contrastive comparison with the Anglo concept. The analysis demonstrates that the Anglo concept is a cognitively oriented construct with a semantic configuration based on ‘thinking’ and ‘knowing’, whereas the Trinidadian mind is a moral concept configured around perceptions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’. The paper explores the Trinidadian moral discourse of bad mind and good mind, and goes on to articulate a cultural script for the cultural values linked with personhood in the Trinidadian context.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2016) Bislama – Emotions

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 5, 2019.

Levisen, Carsten (2016). Postcolonial lexicography: Defining creole emotion words with the Natural Semantic Metalanguage. Cahiers de lexicologie, 109, 35-60.

DOI: 10.15122/isbn.978-2-406-06861-7.p.0035

Abstract:

The lexicographical study of postcolonial language varieties is severely undertheorized and underdeveloped. Postcolonial Lexicography is a new framework that seeks to go some way towards filling the gap. It aims at providing a new praxis of word definition for the study of creoles, world Englishes, and other languages spoken in postcolonial contexts. NSM is used as an interpretative technique for the definition of meaning. The NSM approach allows for a fine-grained lexical-semantic analysis, and at the same time helps circumvent ‘conceptual colonialism’ and the related vices of Anglocentrism and Eurocentrism, all of which hamper advances in lexicographical studies in a postcolonial context.

More specifically, drawing on advances in lexical semantics, linguistic ethnography and postcolonial language studies, the paper offers an original analysis of emotion words in Urban Bislama, a creole language spoken in Port Vila, Vanuatu. The author develops a sketch of the Bislama lexicon of emotion and provides new definitions of kros, roughly ‘angry’, les, roughly ‘annoyed’ and sem, roughly ‘ashamed’. A table of Bislama exponents of NSM primes is included, as well as some discussion on the exponents for FEEL, GOOD, and BAD.

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(2016) Bislama, English, Danish – Speech acts: lies

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 1, 2019.

Levisen, Carsten (2016). The ethnopragmatics of speech acts in postcolonial discourse: “Truth” and “trickery” in a transculturated South Pacific tale. In Christoph Schubert & Laurenz Volkmann (Eds.), Pragmatic perspectives on postcolonial discourse: Linguistics and literature (pp. 41-64). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Abstract:

Providing a high-resolution explication of the Bislama (Vanuatu, South Pacific) speech act word giaman, from colonial English gammon (“to humbug”), the paper develops an ethnopragmatic profile of the speech act category “truth/lies/deception” and discusses the interpretative potential for a giaman-based interpretation of one of Hans Christian Andersen’s most cherished fairy tales, The Emperor’s New Clothes, which has now also been translated into Bislama. Demonstrating how giaman differs from European-type speech acts, and in particular from English and Danish semi-counterparts of the word (respectively lie and bedrage), the paper launches into a postcolonial critique of Anglo-international pragmatics and its so-called universal maxims and speech acts, showing a new way and a new synthesis called postcolonial ethnopragmatics.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2017) Bislama – Cultural key words: REKE

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 13, 2018.

Levisen, Carsten (2017). The social and sonic semantics of reggae: Language ideology and emergent socialities in postcolonial Vanuatu. Language & Communication, 52, 102-116. DOI: 10.1016/j.langcom.2016.08.009

In Port Vila, Vanuatu, young Pacific Islanders with an ambivalent stance towards the value system represented by the jioj ‘church’ are forming new socialities and new ways of socializing on the fragments of kastom ‘traditional culture’. The reggae sociality stands out. As a cultural key word, reke ‘reggae’ offers a rich point for understanding local language-embedded ideologies, and also for understanding the status of Bislama, the national creole. This study breaks new ground into the emerging discipline of sonic semantics and the study of language ideologies in postcolonial contexts.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2017) Bislama, Tok Pisin – Cultural key words: KASTOM, TUMBUNA

Published on October 15, 2017. Last updated on September 13, 2018.

Levisen, Carsten & Priestley, Carol (2017). Social keywords in postcolonial Melanesian discourse: Kastom ‘traditional culture’ and tumbuna ‘ancestors’. In Carsten Levisen & Sophia Waters (Eds.), Cultural keywords in discourse (pp. 83-106). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/pbns.277.04lev

In postcolonial Melanesia, cultural discourses are increasingly organized around creole words, i.e. key words of Bislama (Vanuatu) and Tok Pisin (Papua New Guinea). These words constitute (or represent) important emerging ethnolinguistic world views, which are partly borne out of the colonial era, and partly out of postcolonial ethnorhetoric. This chapter explores the word kastom ‘traditional culture’ in Bislama and pasin bilong tumbuna ‘the ways of the ancestors’ in Tok Pisin. Specific attention is paid to the shift from “negative “ to “positive” semantics, following from the re-evaluation of ancestral practices in postcolonial discourse. Social key words in postcolonial discourse form a fertile ground for understanding how speakers in Melanesia conceptualize the past as a vital part of the present.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2017) Creoles – NSM primes

Published on June 13, 2017. Last updated on September 13, 2018.

Levisen, Carsten & Bøegh, Kristoffer Friis (2017). Cognitive creolistics and semantic primes: A phylogenetic network analysis. In Peter Bakker, Finn Borchsenius, Carsten Levisen & Eeva Sippola (Eds.), Creole studies – Phylogenetic approaches (pp. 293-313). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/z.211.13lev. PDF (open access)

This study presents a semantically driven lexical comparison of 20 creole languages and five European lexifier languages. Breaking new ground into understanding creole semantics, it uses insights from both cognitive semantics (in particular, the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach) and phylogenetic approaches to linguistics comparisons. The authors provide an extensive study of label-meaning correlations as a way to explore the relationship between word labels and word meanings across creoles and lexifiers. They conclude that creoles are not simply “versions” of their lexifier languages, and that it is misleading to say that creoles are “based” on European languages in their basic lexical-semantic configuration. At the same time, they find that creoles do relate more closely to their historical lexifiers than to other creoles, and that the lexical-semantic perspective adds a new dimension to the typology of creoles, nuancing the picture provided by grammar-based comparisons.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2017) Creoles – Semantic molecules, NSM primes: logical concepts

Published on June 13, 2017. Last updated on September 13, 2018.

Levisen, Carsten & Aragón, Karime (2017). Lexicalization patterns in core vocabulary: A cross-creole study of semantic molecules. In Peter Bakker, Finn Borchsenius, Carsten Levisen & Eeva Sippola (Eds.), Creole studies – Phylogenetic approaches (pp. 315-344). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/z.211.14lev. PDF (open access)

The study of semantic domains is important for creolistics, given the complex label-meaning configuration in creoles vis-à-vis the European lexifiers. Due to lexical semantic creativity in the creolization process as well as subsequent developments and contacts with lexifiers, substrates, and other contact varieties, each domain seems to have its own history, its own configuration.

Comparing creole words in four different semantic domains, the authors contrast the labels and lexicalizations of social concepts, body part terms, environmental concepts and logical concepts. They focus on the following meanings:

‘children’, ‘women’, ‘men’, ‘mother’, ‘father’, ‘wife’, ‘husband’ (social molecules)
‘head’, ‘eyes’, ‘ears’, ‘mouth’, ‘nose’, ‘hands’, ‘legs’ (body part molecules)
‘sun’, ‘sky’, ‘ground, ‘water’, ‘fire’, ‘day’, ‘night’ (environmental molecules)
‘not’, ‘maybe’, ‘can’, ‘because’, ‘if’, ‘very’ and ‘more’ (semantic primes: logical concepts)

Phylogenetic networks are used to compare and contrast lexicalization patterns between domains.

It is shown that the core semantic-conceptual constructs investigated in the study tend to cluster with their lexifiers, but that there are important differences across domains as well: the label-meaning configurations of the social domain stand out as the most diverse, and the environmental domain as the most homogenous.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2017) English, Creoles – NSM primes

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 13, 2018.

Levisen, Carsten; Priestley, Carol; Nicholls, Sophie; & Goldshtein, Yonatan (2017). The semantics of Englishes and Creoles: Pacific and Australian perspectives. In Peter Bakker, Finn Borchsenius, Carsten Levisen & Eeva Sippola (Eds.), Creole studies – Phylogenetic approaches (pp. 345-368). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/z.211.15lev. PDF (open access)

This paper provides a lexical-semantic comparison of a selection of Englishes and English-related creoles in the Australia-Pacific area. Faced with the conundrum of sociolinguistic classificatory practice and its contested categories (“language”, “creole”, “dialect”, “variety” and English(es)”), it attempts to circumvent the problematic of metavocabulary by taking a new, two-pronged approach. Firstly, it relies on semantic primes, comparing and contrasting their lexicalizations (especially those of the prime PEOPLE) across the sample of creoles. Secondly, it uses phylogenetic networks to visualize the results and to form new hypotheses.

The results provide counter-evidence to the claim that Melanesian and Australian creoles are “varieties of English”. The creole sample displays three basic types of relations: “shared-core” types (Australian English vs. New Zealand English); “closely related core” types (Hawai’i Creole vs. Anglo Englishes); and “distantly related core” types (Tok Pisin vs. Anglo English, Kriol vs. Anglo English, or Yumplatok vs. Anglo English). The results are measured against Scandinavian languages to explore the language-dialect question, and against Trinidadian (a Caribbean creole) to explore the extent of lexical-semantic areality. It is concluded that current sociolinguistic metavocabulary is inadequate for representing the complexity of the new ways of speaking in the Australia-Pacific region, and it is suggested a principled areal-semantic investigation of words based on semantic principles is the way to go.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2018) Danish – Cultural key words: VOLD

Published on August 18, 2018. Last updated on September 13, 2018.

Levisen, Carsten (2018). The grammar of violence: Insights from Danish ethnosyntax and the Wierzbicka-Pinker debate. Etnolingwistyka, 30, 145-167. DOI: 10.17951/et.2018.30.145. PDF (open access)

This paper explores the Danish key word vold ‘violence, abuse’ and scrutinizes its associated ethnosyntax, which is hidden in compound morphology. Focusing on the compounds hustruvold ‘wife vold’ and politivold ‘police vold’, it explores the conceptual syntax embedded in such coinages. Exploring more recent constructs, such as forældrevold ‘parent vold’, the author argues that Danish ethnosyntax embodies a view of the world in which traditional authority figures (men, police, parents) are coded as aggressors, whereas women, citizens and children are coded as victims.

In more general terms, the paper aims to open a new ethnolinguistic research agenda for the study of negative sociality constructs and the positive value system hidden in them. It does so by drawing attention to the differences and similarities of violence-related concepts in ethnolinguistic communities, and to the key role played by ethnosyntax in the elaboration of violence, vold, and similar concepts.

The paper also proposes an explication for the Bislama word faetem ‘punch, fight physically’.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2020) English, Australian Aboriginal English, Bislama – Shame

Published on November 22, 2020. Last updated on November 22, 2020.

Peeters, Bert (2020). Language Makes a Difference: Breaking the Barrier of Shame. Lublin Studies in Modern Language and Literature,  44(1), 27-37.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17951/lsmll.2020.44.1.27-37 (Open Access)

Abstract:
This paper argues against the reification of shame and the use of Anglocentric jargon to explain what it entails. It shows how the Natural Semantic Metalanguage can be used to define shame and set it apart from related concepts in Australian Aboriginal English and in Bislama, an English creole spoken in Vanuatu.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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