Browsing results for English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on October 27, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2010). Experience, evidence, and sense: The hidden cultural legacy of English. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195368000.001.0001
This book is based on two ideas: first, that any language – English no less than any other – represents a universe of meaning, shaped by the history and experience of the men and women who have created it; and second, that in any language certain culture-specific words act as linchpins for whole networks of meanings, and that penetrating the meanings of those key words can therefore open our eyes to an entire cultural universe. This book demonstrates that three uniquely English words – evidence, experience, and sense – are exactly such linchpins. Using a rigorous plain language approach to meaning analysis, the book unpackages the dense cultural meanings of these key words, disentangles their multiple meanings, and traces their origins back to the tradition of British empiricism. In so doing the book reveals much about cultural attitudes embedded not only in British and American English, but other global varieties of English.
Table of contents:
1. Making the familiar look foreign
Part II Experience and evidence
2. Experience: An English keyword and a key cultural theme
3. Evidence: Words, ideas, and cultural practices
Part III Sense
4. The discourse of sense and the legacy of “British empiricism”
5. A sense of humour, a sense of self, and similar expressions
6. A strong sense, a deep sense, and similar expressions
7. Moral sense
8. Common sense
9. From having sense to making sense
Part IV Phraseology, semantics, and corpus linguistics
10. Investigating English phraseology with two tools: NSM and Google
Chapter 2 builds on: “Experience” in John Searle’s account of the mind: Brain, mind and Anglo culture (2006)
Chapter 7 builds on: Moral sense (2007)
Chapter 10 builds on: Exploring English phraseology with two tools: NSM semantic methodology and Google (2009)
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) evidence, (E) experience, (E) sense
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 4, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (2010). La métalangue sémantique naturelle: acquis et défis [Natural Semantic Metalanguage: achievements and challenges]. In Jacques François (Ed.), Grandes voies et chemins de traverse de la sémantique cognitive (pp. 75-101). Leuven: Peeters.
Written in French.
For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach, and of those who, on the basis of superficial readings, may have reached the hasty conclusion that the Wierzbickian approach had nothing to offer them, this article provides an overview that is as systematic as possible: it leaves out nothing that is essential, either with respect to what has already been achieved (the «achievements»), or with respect to what remains to be done (the «challenges»). In reality, the NSM approach provides all those who do not remain indifferent to the desire to be understood, as much by scholars as by untrained readers, with a way to overcome the «crossing the creek» syndrome referred to by Georges Kleiber (2001: 3): «This syndrome, noted for the first time in the Middle Ages among the Oelenberg monks (in Reiningue, near Mulhouse) is well-known: sufferers keep hopping from one rock onto another, without ever falling into the water, but they forget they need to cross the river!» The Natural Semantic Metalanguage is shown to be at once unique and multi-faceted, with the English and French versions being used to briefly present its lexicon and grammar. Before moving on to the challenges, the notions of «cultural script» and «culture» are briefly dealt with. We particularly insist on some of the most recent tasks NSM practitioners have embarked on. These include the formulation of a typology of pathways enabling one to deal more effectively with the issue of language and cultural values, the compilation of the list of semantic molecules to be used to increase the readability of semantic explications, and the elaboration of «semantic templates» for the explication of words belonging to specific semantic categories such as emotions, physical contact verbs, speech act verbs etc.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) boire, (E) drink, (E) eat, (E) mains, (E) manger, (E) sfogarsi, (S) commitment, (T) French
Published on June 25, 2017. Last updated on September 24, 2018.
Karimnia, Amin, & Afghari, Akbar (2010). On the applicability of cultural scripts in teaching L2 compliments. English Language Teaching, 3(3). DOI: 10.5539/elt.v3n3p71. PDF (open access)
In this study, Natural Semantic Metalanguage (henceforth NSM) was used to carry out a comparative analysis. The compliment response behaviour of native Persian speakers was compared to that of Native American English speakers to see if it can provide evidence for the applicability of the NSM model. The descriptive technique was the cultural scripts approach, using conceptual primes proposed in the NSM theory. The cultural scripts were presented in both English and Persian metalanguages. The data were taken from a corpus of 50 hours of recorded live interviews from Persian and English TV channels. The results show the applicability of the NSM model for cross-cultural comparisons. The paper concludes with the pedagogical implications of the development of the theory of cultural scripts for teaching L2 socio-pragmatics in general and compliments in particular.
Crude application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) (making a compliment), (E) (responding to a compliment)
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wong, Jock (2010). The “triple articulation” of language. Journal of Pragmatics, 42(11), 2932-2944. DOI:10.1016/j.pragma.2010.06.013.
In this paper, I argue that a language has three ‘‘faces’’ – form, meaning, and culture – and hence pragmemes are best analysed with respect to a cultural context. Using examples of culturally embedded pragmemes from Singapore English, I demonstrate how their use is intimately associated with culture-specific ways of thinking, which in many instances go against widely accepted paradigms like Grice’s maxims and Brown & Levinson’s politeness principles. My data suggest that Singapore English routinely blurs the distinction between opinion and fact and that opinions are often presented as if they are facts, which goes against the maxim of quality, which requires people not to say that for which they lack evidence. I additionally show how some of these culture-specific ways of thinking may be articulated in ways that reflect an insider perspective. Finally, I propose that we go one step further to talk about the ‘‘triple articulation’’ of language, which views language as a three-tiered entity, comprising form, meaning, and culture. This idea of what language is about goes beyond lexicon and grammar to include non-formal features like conversational routines, frequency of use of certain expressions, the avoidance of certain ways of speaking, pragmemes, etc., which can only be satisfactorily explained with reference to culture. A person who is supposed to have learned a language without understanding its culture has at best mastered its lexicon and grammar. They have not mastered the ‘‘essence’’ of the language.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 31, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2011). Polskie słowa-wartości w perspektywie porównawczej. Część I. Dobroć. Etnolingwistyka, 23, 45-66.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2012). Polskie słowa-wartości w perspektywie porównawczej. Część II. Prawość i odwaga. Etnolingwistyka, 24, 19-46.
Written in Polish.
Part I deals with the Polish word dobroć in comparative perspective. An assumption is made that an especially precious source of insight into the values of a given society are the key words used in that society. One of such words in Polish society is dobroć. By analysing the word’s semantics, the author shows the differences between that word and its closest equivalents in a few European languages: the English goodness, the French bonté or the Russian dobrotá. In the Polish hierarchy of values, dobroć ranks high as a positive human feature, manifested in people’s feelings, will and actions. The English goodness (derived from the adjective good) differs from the Polish dobroć in that it does not imply good feelings towards other people. The French bonté, in turn, although used in reference to people who want to do and actually do good things for others, does not, in contrast to dobroć, imply emotional overtones. On the other hand, the Russian dobrotá differs from dobroć in that it is primarily used in reference to someone’s emotional attitude towards others (expressed in one’s facial appearance or the tone of voice) but not actions. The author hypothesizes that bonté does not contain the emotional component (present in dobroć), and that dobrotá does not contain the element of action (present in dobroć and bonté). Neither does dobrotá occupy a central position among Russian values: that place is reserved for žalost’, an axiological category without a Polish equivalent. Similarly, in contemporary English-speaking cultures, greater importance is attached to kindness than to goodness.
Having discussed the semantics of dobroć, the author inquires into the historical and cultural origin of the associated concept and attempts to explain its uniqueness. A hypothesis is put forward that in Polish culture the attitude of the heart and will, reflected in the concept of ‘goodness’, finds its prototype in the figure of the Virgin Mary.
In Part II, the author analyses the concepts prawość ‘righteousness’ and odwaga ‘courage’.
Prawość is a specifically Polish concept, very much present in the Polish linguistic and cultural contemporary sphere. It is connected with the history of the country and the qualities attributed to major historical figures. Being prawy means being sensitive to others and following high ethical standards, which perhaps derives from the knightly ethos. English pseudo-equivalents of the Polish prawy/prawość are the words upright, righteous/righteousness and integrity. However, the word upright is now perceived by native speakers of English as dated and inadequate in the contemporary world; righteous and righteousness have clear biblical connotations and have entered the English language through Puritan morality – hence their range is limited. The closest equivalent is integrity, although the word is more readily connected with one’s social activity than with morality.
Odwaga is also connected with moral choices (cf. odwaga cywilna ‘moral courage’) but is not the same as courage: if someone is odważny, the deed may have negative consequences for the doer, which courage does not presuppose. The same semantic field contains words like śmiałość, dzielność and męstwo ‘boldness, bravery, valour’, but these also differ in their semantics from the English courage. Bravery is only an approximate to śmiałość, as is the Russian mužestvo, which merely resembles męstwo.
The cognitive scripts of the Polish value terms show clearly that speakers of Polish in each case operate with elements of awareness (“being aware of the moral obligation to act as one should”).
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) bonté, (E) bravery, (E) courage, (E) człowiek prawy, (E) dobroć, (E) dobrotá, (E) dzielność, (E) integrity, (E) kindness, (E) męstwo, (E) mužestvo, (E) odwaga, (E) prawość, (E) righteousness, (E) śmiałość, (E) upright, (E) žalost’, (T) Polish
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 15, 2018.
Rieschild, Verna (2011). Arabic yaᶜni: Issues of semantic, pragmatic, and indexical translation equivalence. Intercultural Pragmatics, 8(3), 315-346. DOI 10.1515/IPRG.2011.016
This paper explores the idea that some discourse particles are so culturally embedded that they defy translation. Natural Semantic Metalanguage and Conversation Analysis are used to examine the meanings and functions of (a) the polysemous Arabic discourse particle yaᶜni (derived from yaᶜni ‘it means’), translatable as ‘well’, ‘I mean’, ‘that is’, ‘you see’, ‘like’, and ‘so’, and (b) sorta and I mean, the main English translation candidates for yaᶜni. The findings show that yaᶜni’s focus on marking relevance is useful in elaborating, correcting, creating narrative suspense, holding a turn, or, as sole constituent of a turn, hedging a response. Similar English functions are achieved using discourse particles that focus approximation. The analysis also shows that semantic or pragmatic similarity in discourse particles from different languages can predict translation potential. In the same way, similarity in the meaning of a discourse particle and of a speech act predicts translatability. However, despite semantic and pragmatic equivalence (of a sort), culture-specific indices may mean that a word is not a suitable translation candidate. The results augment our understanding of cultural semantics and ethnopragmatics, and have applications to the study of translation and intercultural communication.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) I mean, (E) ṣallaḥ, (E) sorta, (E) that means, (E) to correct, (E) yacni
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
McCaul, Kim (2011). Understanding courtroom communication through cultural scripts. In Le Cheng, & Anne Wagner (Eds.), Exploring courtroom discourse: The language of power and control (pp. 11-28). Farnham: Ashgate.
In this chapter I explore courtroom communication and its origin in legal culture, explicitly avoiding the kind of value judgments that some linguists arrive at when analyzing the seemingly asocial use that barristers often make of language. Instead, I intend to show how such language usage arises naturally from the culture of the law, and highlight a number of usually unstated premises that underpin courtroom communication. In particular, I will explore how the relationship between barrister and witness is determined by the culture of advocacy.
I will use a tool from cross-cultural linguistics called the “cultural script,” which not only helps to develop succinct synopses of those premises, but could also provide a method by which they can be explained to lay people entering the courtroom, including L2 speakers of English and non-English speakers.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 11, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2011). Whatʼs wrong with “happiness studies”? The cultural semantics of happiness, bonheur, Glück, and sčas’te. In Igor Boguslavsky, Leonid Iomdin, & Leonid Krysin (Eds.), Slovo i jazyk: Sbornik statej k vos’midesjatiletiju akademika Ju. D. Apresjana (pp. 155-171). Moscow: Jazyki slavjanskoj kultury. PDF (open access)
A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 5 (pp. 102-126) of:
Goddard, Cliff, & Wierzbicka, Anna (2014). Words and meanings: Lexical semantics across domains, languages, and cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
There is a huge industry of so-called “happiness studies” that relies on cross-national statistical comparisons, which challengers see as based on false and ethnocentric assumptions. ‘Happiness’ has become a big issue in politics and in economics, but here, too, a lack of attention to the meaning of words leads to unwarranted conclusions and causes confusion and miscommunication. The misunderstandings surrounding happiness, bonheur, and Glück illustrate the need for uncovering, and explaining, the differences between significant words that are wrongly assumed to be readily cross-translatable. In view of the place of ‘happiness’ at the forefront of current debates across a range of disciplines, a comparison of happiness and счастье sčast’e seems especially topical.
The assumption that all languages have a word like happiness, and that there can be a reliable “index of happiness” based on self-reports (given in different languages) is naïve and untenable. Progress in emotion research in general depends to a considerable extent on increased recognition that language goes deeper in us than many students of emotion (especially psychologists) are willing to admit. Genuine progress requires a greater linguistic and cross-cultural sophistication than that evident in much of the existing writings on the subject.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) bonheur, (E) happiness, (E) sčast’e счастье, (T) English, (T) Russian
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 24, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2011). The lexical semantics of language (with special reference to words). Language Sciences, 33(1), 40-57.
DOI: 10.1016/j.langsci.2010.03.003
Abstract:
Language can be regarded as one of the cultural key words of English, as well as the foundational term of the discourse of linguistics. It is well to remember, however, that the concept of a language lacks precise semantic equivalents in many languages. This study presents a semantic-lexicographic analysis of several meanings of the word language in contemporary English, using the NSM method of semantic description. The study is similar in scope and approach to an earlier study of the word culture, which resembles language in several important respects. One distinctive aspect of the explications for language is their reliance on the proposed semantic prime WORDS, which is discussed at some length. Though primarily focused on English, the study makes reference to Yankunytjatjara, Chinese, and Russian, among other languages.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on August 28, 2018. Last updated on August 28, 2018.
Roberts, Michael (2011). Doctors, Australians and friends: A semantic analysis of social categories. Master’s 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 12, 2017. Last updated on July 25, 2020.
Habib, Sandy (2011). Ghosts, fairies, elves, and nymphs: Towards a semantic template for non-human being concepts. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 31(4), 411-443.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2012.625599
Abstract:
The aim of this study was to devise a semantic template for non-human being terms. To achieve this objective, four non-human being concepts were analysed, and an explication for each concept was built. Comparing the explications yielded a nine-part semantic template. The usefulness of this semantic template is threefold. First, it eases the task of explicating non-human being concepts because the parts of the template can serve as guidelines to be followed while constructing the explications. Second, it eases the comparison between related non-human being concepts from different languages. Third, it reveals the devices that are embodied in the structure of non-human being concepts and that enable people to use these complex concepts without difficulty.
Rating:
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) elf, (E) fairy, (E) ghost, (E) nymph
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 15, 2021.
Bromhead, Helen (2011). The bush in Australian English. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 31(4), 445-471. DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2011.625600
Individual landscape terms in various languages do not always have exact equivalents in other languages, or even in different varieties of the same language. One example is the term the bush in Australian English. The bush denotes an Australian landscape zone, but the word has developed additional senses related to culture and human geography. This study delineates the semantics of the bush in Australian English in relation to Australian culture. These meanings of the bush are described using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach to linguistic analysis.
The study finds that the bush is a key word in Australian culture. The author shows that in Australian English and other settler Englishes the meanings of national landscape terms can shed light on the relationship between settlers’ cultures, and their new environments and ways of life.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) bush, (E) the bush
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Mullan, Kerry (2011). Expressing opinions in French and Australian English discourse: A semantic and interactional analysis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/pbns.200
Based on the analysis of conversations between French and Australian English speakers discussing various topics, including their experiences as non-native speakers in France or Australia, this book combines subjective personal testimonies with an objective linguistic analysis of the expression of opinion in discourse.
It offers a new perspective on French and Australian English interactional style by examining the discourse markers I think, je pense, je crois and je trouve. It is shown that the prosody, intonation unit position, and the surrounding context of these markers are all fundamental to their function and meaning in interaction. In addition, this book offers the first detailed comparative semantic study of the three comparative French expressions in interaction.
The book will appeal to all those interested in linguistics, French and Australian English interactional style, cross-cultural communication, and discourse analysis. Students and teachers of French will be interested in the semantic analysis of the French expressions, the authentic interactional data and the personal testimonies of the participants.
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 15, 2021.
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
Tags: (E) apu, (E) creek, (E) hill, (E) karu, (E) mountain, (E) puli, (E) river, (E) stream
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 16, 2020.
Stock, Kristin, & Cialone, Claudia (2011). Universality, language-variability and individuality: Defining linguistic building blocks for spatial relations. In Max Egenhofer, Nicholas Giudice, Reinhard Moratz, & Michael Worboys (Eds.), Spatial information theory. 10th international conference (COSIT 2011) (pp. 391-412). Berlin: Springer.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23196-4_21
Abstract:
Most approaches to the description of spatial relations for use in spatial querying attempt to describe a set of spatial relations that are universally understood by users. While this method has proved successful for expert users of geographic information, it is less useful for non-experts. Furthermore, while some work has implied the universal nature of spatial relations, a large amount of linguistic evidence shows that many spatial relations vary fundamentally across languages. The NSM approach is a methodology that has helped identify the few specific spatial relations that are universal across languages. We show how these spatial relations can be used to describe a range of more complex spatial relations, including some from non-Indo-European languages that cannot readily be described with the usual spatial operators. Thus we propose that NSM is a tool that may be useful for the development of the next generation of spatial querying tools, supporting multilingual environments with widely differing ways of talking about space.
Rating:
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) across, (E) alongside, (E) cross, (E) inside, (E) pereekhat’, (E) pereezdit’, (E) pereidti, (E) perekhodit’, (E) surround, (E) vicino a
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on June 16, 2020.
Can, Hümeyra (2011). A cross-cultural study of the speech act of congratulation in British English and Turkish using a corpus approach. MA thesis, Middle East Technical University, Ankara.
PDF: Open access
Abstract:
This study aims to find out the culturally different conceptualizations of congratulation in British culture and tebrik and kutlama in Turkish culture using a corpus approach and to formulate cultural scripts for these three performative verbs using the NSM approach. More specifically, the study aims to reveal the contexts where the target speech act is used and to uncover the kinds of strategies/components employed in these situations.
To be able to collect the targeted data, the study begins with the monolingual and bilingual dictionary definitions of the performative verbs (i.e., congratulate, tebrik etmek and kutlamak) and then follows a corpus approach whereby the performative verbs and their various lexical forms are searched for in various corpora (i.e., BYU-BNC, MTC, Google). In total, 47 dictionaries are looked up and 442 contexts of congratulation, 339 contexts of tebrik and 348 contexts of kutlama are collected from the newspaper and blog genres in the three corpora. The analyses of the data aim to uncover the qualitative and quantitative features of congratulation, tebrik and kutlama in British and Turkish cultures.
The results of the study show that there are some cultural differences as well as similarities in the conceptualization of the speech act of congratulation in terms of its contexts of use and strategies. The findings also demonstrate the usefulness of the corpus approach in studying speech acts and their conceptualization.
Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) congratulate, (E) kutlama, (E) tebrik
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
Tags: (E) cross, (E) God, (E) Máwú, (T) Russian
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 17, 2021.
Bullock, David (2011). NSM + LDOCE: A non-circular dictionary of English. International Journal of Lexicography, 24(2), 226-240.
DOI: 10.1093/ijl/ecq035
Abstract:
This paper describes an approach used to test the expressive power of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) and its tiny set of semantic primes. A small dictionary was created, using NSM to paraphrase definitions for each word in the controlled defining vocabulary of the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE). Student participants performed several headword-identification tasks to evaluate the quality of these definitions. The resulting 2000-word dictionary is non-circular, and by extension provides non-circular definitions for all the words in the LDOCE.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) cup
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on January 15, 2022.
Waters, Sophia (2012). “It’s rude to VP”: The cultural semantics of rudeness. Journal of Pragmatics, 44, 1051-1062. DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2012.02.002
Over recent years, linguists have given an increasing amount of attention to impoliteness studies. Oddly, however, little attention has yet been paid to the semantics of the English word rude. Lacking precise translation equivalents in many languages, rude is a key word revealing much about socially accepted ways of behaving in Anglo society. In Australian English, as in English generally, it is the primary ethno-descriptor in the domain of “impoliteness”. This paper provides a detailed lexical semantic analysis of rude in the productive formula It’s rude to VP, and also in the fixed expression rude word. The semantic explications are framed in the simple universal primes of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM). The argumentation is supported by data on Australian English collected from Google searches.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) rude, (E) rude word
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2012). The history of English seen as the history of ideas: Cultural change reflected in different translations of the New Testament. In Terttu Nevalainen, & Elizabeth Closs Traugott (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of the history of English (pp. 434-445). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199922765.013.0037
Research on the history of English has often been undertaken in a somewhat atomistic spirit, with an emphasis on particular areas of phonology, morphology, syntax, and (to a far lesser degree) lexicon, or on aspects of what Ferdinand de Saussure termed “external history.” However, there is no attempt to take a broader view of the overall direction in which the English language was going. This article argues that the history of English is closely linked with the history of ideas and spiritual culture. It looks at some aspects of the hidden cultural legacy of English by analysing selected examples from the Revised Standard Version of the New Testament and its successor, the New Revised Standard Version, and comparing them with the King James Version. It also examines some close links between semantic change, cultural history, and the history of ideas, and shows that these links can be investigated in a rigorous and illuminating manner with the aid of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage.
Tags: (E) beseech, (E) urge