Browsing results for English
Published on August 7, 2017. Last updated on November 9, 2019.
Farese, Gian Marco (2018). The cultural semantics of address practices: A contrastive study between English and Italian. Lanham: Lexington.
Abstract:
This book presents a contrastive analysis of various forms of address used in English and Italian from the perspective of cultural semantics, the branch of linguistics that investigates the relationship between meaning and culture in discourse. The objects of the analysis are the interactional meanings expressed by different forms of address in these two languages, which are compared adopting the methodology of the NSM approach. The forms analysed include greetings, titles and opening and closing salutations used in letters and e-mails in the two languages. Noticeably, the book presents the first complete categorization of Italian titles used as forms of address ever made on the basis of precise semantic criteria.
The analysis also investigates the different cultural values and assumptions underlying address practices in English and Italian, and emphasizes the risks of miscommunication caused by different address practices in intercultural interactions. Every chapter presents numerous examples taken from language corpora, contemporary English and Italian literature and personal e-mails and letters.
The book encourages a new, innovative approach to the analysis of forms of address: it proposes a new analytical method for the analysis of forms of address which can be applied to the study of other languages systematically. In addition, the book emphasizes the role of culture in address practices and takes meaning as the basis for understanding the differences in use across languages and the difficulties in translating forms of address of different languages. Combining semantics, ethnopragmatics, intercultural communication and translation theory, this book takes an interdisciplinary approach and brings together various fields in the social sciences: linguistics, anthropology, cross-cultural studies and sociology.
Table of contents:
- Analyzing address practices from a cultural semantic point of view
- “Sorry boss”: an unrecognized category of English address nouns
- “Prego, signore”: the semantics of Italian “titles” used to address people
- “Hi, how are you?”
- “Ciao!” or “ciao ciao”?
- “Dear customers, …”
- “Caro Mario,” “Gentile cliente,” “Egregio dottore”
- “Best wishes,” “kind regards,” “yours sincerely”
- “Distinti,” “cordiali,” “affettuosi saluti”
- Italian cultural scripts for address practices
- Australian cultural scripts for address practices
- Address practices in intercultural communication
- Concluding remarks
More information:
Revised version of the author’s PhD thesis, Australian National University (2017).
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) (titles of address), (E) a presto, (E) affettuosi saluti, (E) affettuoso, (E) all best, (E) all the best, (E) best, (E) best regards, (E) best wishes, (E) caro, (E) ciao, (E) ciao ciao, (E) cordiali saluti, (E) cordialmente, (E) dear, (E) distinti saluti, (E) egregio, (E) gentile, (E) hi, (E) kind, (E) kind regards, (E) regards, (E) saluti, (E) signora, (E) signore, (E) signori, (E) signorina, (E) simpatico, (E) sincerely, (E) un bacio, (E) un caro saluto, (E) un saluto, (E) vabbè, (E) vabbene, (E) warmest wishes, (E) yours, (E) yours sincerely, (S) address practices, (T) Italian
Published on December 10, 2019. Last updated on December 10, 2019.
Biegajło, Bartłomiej (2018). Totalitarian (in)experience in literary works and their translations: between East and West. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Abstract:
This book explores the different images of totalitarianism in 20th century literature and the capacity of NSM to be adopted in a comparative literary study in the analysis of four totalitarian literary works written in Polish and English, together with their translation into English and Polish respectively. The key question addressed here is the totalitarian experience, which, it is assumed, conditions the literary reflections of the regime provided by Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Czesław Miłosz and Tadeusz Konwicki. Brief biographical details are provided with regards to each of the writers and their private experiences are linked with the works they published. Additionally, key concepts are named for each of the works subject to discussion, and it is their cross-linguistic analysis carried out within the NSM framework that forms the core of the book.
Rating:
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Published on August 20, 2018. Last updated on June 17, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2018). How much longer can the Berlin and Kay paradigm dominate visual semantics? English, Russian and Warlpiri seen ‘from the native’s point of view’. In Diana Young (Ed.), Rematerializing colour: From concept to substance (pp. 67-90). Herefordshire: Sean Kingston Publishing.
Abstract:
How does the outsider linguist find out if speakers of another language have colour terms? Using the Australian Aboriginal language Warlpiri as a starting point, the author argues that interpretation of the patterns of names produced in response to stimuli (such as Munsell colour chips) is difficult, and one has to take care not to assign English terms to those patterns. That is, in trying to interpret what a word means, we cannot assume that kardirri means ‘white’, because speakers produced this word when looking at chips with colours that English speakers might call ‘white’. The focus here is on determining the senses (intensions) of words – that is, on finding language-specific categories. The Warlpiri lack a word approximating the English word ‘colour’. It is claimed that, if speakers do not have a word for a category such as colour, it is hard to say that in their minds they see the world in terms of a cognitive category ‘colour’ (which is not to deny that they have colour vision).
Examination of dictionary entries in the Warlpiri-English Dictionary establishes the importance of the properties ‘visual conspicuousness’ (the startling pink prunus trees), ‘things shining somewhere’ (sunlight gleaming on the white cockatoos), ‘visual contrasts within an object’ (the dappled pink and green of the japonica hedge), and creating colour reference by comparison with things in the world around (kunjuru ‘smoke’, kunjuru-kunjuru ‘like smoke’, a term conventionally applied to smoke-coloured things). However, even though the Dictionary is a good starting-place for raising such hypotheses, it cannot help us test them, since it is a collection of all words, with little comment on whether they are used frequently or not, and since the words come from several dialects.
The author argues against using the word ‘colour’ in the English definitions and translations in the dictionary, because this creates or reinforces a belief that the Warlpiri have a linguistic category of ‘colour’.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) kunjuru-kunjuru, (E) sky, (E) yukuri-yukuri, (T) English
Published on September 30, 2018. Last updated on August 15, 2021.
Bromhead, Helen (2018). Landscape and culture – Cross-linguistic perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/clscc.9
This book is based, in part, on the author’s PhD thesis:
Bromhead, Helen (2013). Mountains, rivers, billabongs: Ethnogeographical categorization in cross-linguistic perspective. PhD thesis, Australian National University.
The relationship between landscape and culture seen through language is an exciting and increasingly explored area. This ground-breaking book contributes to the linguistic examination of both cross-cultural variation and unifying elements in geographical categorization.
The study focuses on the contrastive lexical semantics of certain landscape words in a number of languages. It presents landscape concepts as anchored in a human-centred perspective, based on our cognition, vision, and experience in places. The aim is to show how geographical vocabulary sheds light on the culturally and historically shaped ways people see and think about the land around them. Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) is used throughout, because it allows an analysis of meaning which is both fine-grained and transparent, and culturally sensitive.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) bay, (E) beach, (E) billabong, (E) bush, (E) cliff, (E) coast, (E) cordillera, (E) cove, (E) creek, (E) dam, (E) desert, (E) field, (E) fleuve, (E) harbour, (E) hill, (E) hills, (E) inlet, (E) island, (E) karu, (E) meadow, (E) mountain, (E) mountain range, (E) mountains, (E) nyaru, (E) ocean, (E) paddock, (E) peninsula, (E) pila, (E) precipice, (E) puli, (E) puti, (E) river, (E) rivière, (E) sea, (E) seaside, (E) shore, (E) sierra, (E) stream, (E) tali, (E) the bush, (E) tjukitji
Published on April 2, 2018. Last updated on September 27, 2018.
Martín Arista, Javier (2018). The semantic poles of Old English: Toward the 3D representation of complex polysemy. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 33(1), 96-111. DOI: 10.1093/llc/fqx004
This article, which attempts to explain some aspects of verbal polysemy in Old English, develops its main claims with reference to NSM primes belonging to different categories (mental predicates, speech, actions/events/movement/contact, location/existence/possession/specification, life and death). It does not proceed to the identification of potential exponents, except in the case of the prime TRUE.
No rating is applied, since there is no engagement with NSM as a tool for semantic explication.
Published on November 19, 2017. Last updated on August 22, 2018.
Farrelly, Nicholas, & Wesley, Michael (2018). Internationalizing Minimal English: Perils and parallels. In Cliff Goddard (Ed.), Minimal English for a global world: Improved communication using fewer words (pp. 95-112). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-62512-6_5
This chapter links the development of Minimal English to the concerns of practitioners and analysts of international affairs. Using examples from the Asian region, the authors suggest that, in this new era of multipolar intercultural relations, the need for neutral languages for coordination is greater than ever. A case study of US–China relations shows that using English in ways that do not acknowledge its heavy cultural and power baggage can invite misunderstanding and resistance. The authors argue that Minimal English offers a chance to move from a mode of domination and socialization to a mode of coordination and renegotiation.
The rating below relates to the explications, which were developed by Anna Wierzbicka, Cliff Goddard, and Zhengdao Ye.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) big countries, (E) big countries need to "go further", (E) China, (E) international system, (E) promoting the national interest
Published on February 20, 2019. Last updated on June 20, 2019.
Wong, Jock (2019). Respecting other people’s boundaries: A quintessentially Anglo cultural value. In Alessandro Capone, Marco Carapezza, & Franco Lo Piparo (Eds.), Further advances in pragmatics and philosophy: Vol. 2. Theories and applications (pp. 449-467). Cham: Springer.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00973-1_25
Abstract:
A challenge that culturally non-Anglo speakers of English face is that of understanding what respecting boundaries, an Anglo cultural value, is about. This cultural value is unfamiliar to many cultures, especially so-called ‘group-orientation’ or ‘collectivist’ cultures. This means that even if culturally non-Anglo speakers of English have a good mastery of English grammar, they may not be able to connect with culturally Anglo people if they do not respect boundaries. Understanding what respecting people’s boundaries is about can also help cultural outsiders understand related Anglo values such as personal rights and personal autonomy.
This paper explores what respecting boundaries means to culturally Anglo speakers of English and what its cultural implications are. Meanings and cultural values are represented by semantic explications and cultural scripts. For the purposes of writing semantic explications and cultural scripts, Minimal English is used. The paper has implications for intercultural communication, cultural adaptation and language pedagogy.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) boundary, (E) trespass, (S) boundaries, (S) personal questions
Published on May 4, 2019. Last updated on June 20, 2019.
Peeters, Bert (2019). The English ethnopsychological personhood construct mind “deconstructed” in universally intelligible words. Critical studies in languages and literature, 1(1), 61-77.
Open access
Abstract:
The dominance of English as the international lingua franca has led to rampant Anglocentrism and the reification of concepts that are in fact culture-specific. One such concept, often thought to refer to a universal human ‘attribute’, is the ethnopsychological personhood construct mind. This paper argues that the best weapon to combat Anglocentrism is the English language itself — or rather, a metalanguage such as NSM based on what English shares with all other languages of the world. The paper shows how far NSM practitioners have come in their efforts to demonstrate that the word mind is a cultural construct that has nothing universal about it and that cannot be used to define the ethnopsychological personhood constructs of other languages. Instead, it is just as culture-specific as any other ethnopsychological personhood construct and does not deserve any special status.
More information:
This paper builds on:
Peeters, Bert (2019). Delving into heart- and soul-like constructs: Describing EPCs in NSM. In Bert Peeters (Ed.), Heart- and soul-like constructs across languages, cultures, and epochs (pp. 1-29). New York: Routledge.
The DOIs quoted on the journal’s web site and in the PDF are incorrect [20 June 2019].
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) mind
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on January 11, 2022.
Goddard, Cliff, Maite Taboada, & Radoslava Trnavac (In press). The semantics of evaluational adjectives: Perspectives from Natural Semantic Metalanguage and Appraisal. Functions of Language, 26(3), 308-342.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.00029.god
Abstract:
The authors apply the NSM approach to the lexical-semantic analysis of English evaluational adjectives and compare the results with the picture developed in the Appraisal Framework (Martin & White 2005). The analysis is corpus-assisted, with examples mainly drawn from film and book reviews, and supported by collocational and statistical information from WordBanks Online. We propose NSM explications for 15 evaluational adjectives, arguing that they fall into five groups, each of which corresponds to a distinct semantic template. The groups can be sketched as follows: “First-person thought-plus-affect”, e.g. wonderful; “Experiential”, e.g. entertaining; “Experiential with bodily reaction”, e.g. gripping; “Lasting impact”, e.g. memorable; “Cognitive evaluation”, e.g. complex, excellent. These groupings and semantic templates are compared with the classifications in the Appraisal Framework’s system of Appreciation. In addition, we are particularly interested in sentiment analysis, the automatic identification of evaluation and subjectivity in text. We discuss the relevance of the two frameworks for sentiment analysis and other language technology applications.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) brilliant, (E) complex, (E) delightful, (E) entertaining, (E) excellent, (E) exciting, (E) great, (E) gripping, (E) impressive, (E) memorable, (E) outstanding, (E) powerful, (E) terrific, (E) wonderful
Published on August 3, 2020. Last updated on August 3, 2020.
Biegajło, Bartłomiej (2019). Explaining IT programming concepts using NSM explications: the case of ‘variable’ and ‘constant’. Linguistics Beyond and Within, 5, 7-16.
Open access
Abstract:
The paper seeks to explore a practical application of Natural Semantic Metalanguage in defining two core concepts in computer programming, i.e. the concept of a variable and the concept of a constant. The investigation of both programming concepts is carried out with reference to Apple’s Swift programming language, which is now the dominant language in creating applications designed for Apple’s devices. The explications of a variable and a constant developed in this paper are tentative definitions of the most fundamental functionalities behind the two programming concepts. They are meant to ease the learning experience of programming enthusiasts who are at the early stages of their learning path.
Rating:
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) constant, (E) variable
Published on January 15, 2022. Last updated on January 15, 2022.
Wierzbicka, Anna. (2019). The biblical roots of English ‘love’: The concept of ‘love’ in a historical and cross-linguistic perspective. International Journal of Language and Culture 6(2) 225-254. https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.18006.wie
Abstract
Seen from a broad cross-linguistic perspective, the English verb (to) love is quite unusual because it has very broad scope: it can apply to a mother’s love, a husband’s love, a sister’s love, etc. without any restrictions whatsoever; and the same applies to its counterparts in many other European languages. Trying to locate the origins of this phenomenon, I have looked to the Bible. Within the Bible, I have found both continuity and innovation. In the Hebrew Bible, the verb ’āhēb, rendered in the Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint with the verb agapao, implies a “preferential love”, e.g. it is used for a favourite wife of a favourite son. In the New Testament, the concept of ‘love’ loses the “preferential” components and thus becomes applicable across the board: between anybody and anybody else.
The paper argues that the very broad meaning of verbs like love in English, aimer in French, lieben in German, etc. reflects a shared conceptual heritage of many European languages, with its roots in the New Testament; and it shows that by taking a semantic perspective on these historical developments, and exploring them through the rigorous framework of NSM and Minimal English, we can arrive at clear and verifiable hypotheses about a theme which is of great general interest, regardless of one’s own religious and philosophical views and commitments.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) love, (T) English
Published on July 28, 2020. Last updated on July 28, 2020.
Habib, Sandy (2019). Sin in English, Arabic, and Hebrew: a case of true translation equivalence. International Journal of Arabic Linguistics, 5(1), 20-44.
Open access
Abstract:
The aim of this paper is to investigate English sin and its Arabic and Hebrew counterparts. It is demonstrated that each of these three words is polysemous, having three meanings. Two of these meanings are religious, i.e. related to the word God, while the third is non-religious. It is also demonstrated that the three target words are true translation equivalents, as they are used in the same way in all contexts. This paper is a contribution to the study of nouns, a field that has not been given adequate attention by semanticists. It is also a contribution to the field of theosemantics, the interface between religion and the scientific study of meaning.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) ḫaṭīʾa خطيئة, (E) ḫet חטא, (E) sin
Published on February 16, 2019. Last updated on June 20, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff, & Anna Wierzbicka (2019). Direct and indirect speech revisited: Semantic universals and semantic diversity. In Alessandro Capone, Manuel García-Carpintero, & Alessandra Falzone (Eds.), Indirect reports and pragmatics in the world languages (pp. 173-199). Cham: Springer.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78771-8_9
Abstract:
The new interpretations of ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ speech presented in this chapter are framed using simple and cross-translatable words and phrases, i.e. using a language that is transparent both to linguists and to the speakers whose ways of speaking the analyst is trying to understand.
In relation to ‘direct speech’, the authors present linguistic generalizations about two forms of quoted speech, which, they claim, are very likely to be found in all languages of the world. The semantics of logophoric constructions in West African languages are examined next, with particular reference to Goemai, which has been claimed to have no direct speech. It is argued instead that logophoric constructions in Goemai are forms of direct speech on any reasonable, semantically-based definition and that, until proof of the contrary, direct speech is a language universal.
The final part of the paper is about ‘indirect speech’, focusing on the English say that… construction.
An overall theme of the paper is that specialized and hybrid forms of reported speech, including logophoric speech, reflect cultural concerns and practices.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) [direct speech], (E) dó, (E) ke
Published on November 13, 2019. Last updated on February 9, 2020.
Farese, Gian Marco; Asano-Cavanagh, Yuko (2018/19). Analysing nostalgia in cross-linguistic perspective. Philology, 4, 213-241.
DOI: https://doi.org/103726/PHIL042019.6
Abstract:
This paper presents a contrastive semantic analysis of the English nostalgia, the Italian nostalgia and the Japanese 懐かしい natsukashii adopting the methodology of the NSM approach. It is argued that: (i) emotion terms of different languages reflect different and culture-specific conceptualizations of human feelings; (ii) the Anglo conceptualization of feelings is not valid for all cultures; and (iii) linguistic analysis is central to the analysis of human feelings. The paper challenges the claim made by some psychologists that the English word nostalgia expresses a feeling that is pancultural and criticizes the use of English emotion terms as the basis for discussions on human feelings.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) natsukashii 懐かしい, (E) nostalgia
Published on November 22, 2020. Last updated on August 15, 2021.
Sadow, Lauren (2019). An NSM-based cultural dictionary of Australian English: From theory to practice. PhD Thesis, Australian National University
DOI: https://doi.org/10.25911/5d514809475cb (Open Access)
This thesis is a ‘thesis by creative project’ consisting of a cultural dictionary of Australian English and an exegesis which details the theoretical basis and decisions made throughout the creative process of this project. The project aims to produce a resource for ESL teachers on teaching the invisible culture of Australian English to migrants, using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) (e.g. Wierzbicka, 2006) as a theoretical and methodological basis. The resource takes the form of an encyclopaedic dictionary focussing on Australian values, attitudes, and interactional norms, in response to the need for education resources describing the cultural ethos embodied in Australian English (Sadow, 2014).
Best practice for teaching intercultural communicative competence and related skills is to use a method for teaching which encourages students to reflect on their experience and analyse it from an insider perspective (Tomlinson and Masuhara, 2013). This thesis takes the position and demonstrates that an NSM-based descriptive method can meet these practical requirements by providing a framework for describing both cultural semantics and cultural scripts. In response to teacher needs for a pedagogical tool, I created Standard Translatable English (STE)—a derivative of NSM specifically designed for language pedagogy.
The exegesis part of this project, therefore, reports on the development of STE and the process, rationale, and results of creating a cultural dictionary using STE as a descriptive method. I also discuss the theoretical grounding of teaching invisible culture, the best-practice requirements for creating teaching materials and dictionaries, my methods for conducting user needs research, and the results, and the ultimate design choices which have resulted in a finished product, including supplementary materials to ensure that teachers are well prepared to use an NSM-based approach in pedagogical contexts.
The main body of this project, however, is the cultural dictionary—The Australian Dictionary of Invisible Culture for Teachers—comprising approximately 300 entries which describe, in STE, essential aspects of the values, attitudes, interactional norms, cultural keywords, and culture-specific language of Anglo-Australian English. The cultural dictionary is formatted as an eBook to enhance accessibility and practicality for teachers in classroom contexts. Drawing on previous dictionaries and on lexicography, the entries include a range of lexicographical information such as examples, part-of-speech, and cross-referencing. This innovative cultural dictionary represents the first targeted work into the applications of NSM and NSM-derived frameworks. It is the first dictionary of invisible culture in Australian English in this framework, and the only current resource which is aimed at maximum translatability for the English language education context.
Rating:
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on January 15, 2022. Last updated on January 15, 2022.
Haugh, Michael, & Weinglass, Lara. (2020). “The Great Australian Pastime”: Pragmatic and Semantic Perspectives on Taking the Piss. In Kerry Mullan, Bert Peeters, & Lauren Sadow (Eds.), Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication: Vol. 1. Ethnopragmatics and semantic analysis (pp. 75-94). Singapore: Springer.
Abstract
The claim that Australians place considerable value on not taking oneself too seriously lies at the heart of discourses on Anglo-Australian identity. While laughter and playful talk are ubiquitous across languages and cultures, Australians are claimed to pride themselves on being able to joke and laugh at themselves (and others) in almost any context, no matter how dire or serious the circumstances appear to be. One of the key practices that has often been noted is that of ‘taking the piss’, where the pretensions of others are (gleefully) punctured through cutting, mocking remarks. Yet despite its apparent importance for Australians, there has been surprisingly little empirical study of actual instances of it. This lacuna is arguably a consequence of the complexity of studying a phenomenon that is simultaneously semantic and pragmatic in character. Ethnopragmatics is one of the few extant approaches that is specifically designed to directly tackle this problem. In this approach, ‘semantic explications’, which address what a word or phrase means, provide the basis for proposing ‘cultural scripts’, which address what members of a culture are held to (normatively) do in social interaction and the cultural value placed on doing things in that way. In this chapter, we analyse data drawn from spoken corpora to address the question of whether “taking the piss” might be best approached as a kind of ‘semantic explication’ or as a ‘cultural script’, and what the consequences of framing it as one or other might be for research on the role of ‘humour’ more generally in social interaction amongst Australian speakers of English.
Tags: (E) took the piss out of
Published on February 10, 2020. Last updated on February 10, 2020.
Wakefield, John C.; Winnie Chor, Winnie; & Lai, Nikko (2020). Condolences in Cantonese and English: What people say and why. In Kerry Mullan, Bert Peeters, & Lauren Sadow (Eds.), Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication: Vol. 1. Ethnopragmatics and semantic analysis (pp. 35-58). Singapore: Springer.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9983-2_3
Abstract:
This study uses the ethnopragmatics approach to examine the cultural-based knowledge that guides Cantonese and Anglo-English speakers when offering death-related condolences, or what we refer to here as ‘condolence routines’. The data come from discourse completion tasks, the existence of cultural key phrases, and the authors’ native-speaker intuitions. The authors examine condolences that are offered to a good friend who has recently lost someone close to him or her. They present cultural scripts that are proposed to account for the linguistic contrasts in Cantonese versus English condolence routines. The Cantonese script is entirely new while the English script is revised from a previous study.
Based on our analysis, we conclude that the primary contrast is that Anglo-English condolences typically focus on expressing that the condoler feels sad because of the bereaved’s loss, while Cantonese condolences typically focus on telling the bereaved not to be sad and to take care of his- or herself. Knowledge of this contrast in sociopragmatics is not only a meaningful contribution to the study of pragmatics; it is also of practical help to people in regular contact with Cantonese and/or Anglo-English speakers. It can help one understand how to avoid saying something during a condolence routine that may sound inappropriate, or even insensitive, to speakers of these two languages.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) ai1jaa3! 哎啊!, (E) close person, (S) condolences, (S) life continues after death
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 9, 2020.
Wakefield, John C. (2020). Intonational morphology. Singapore, Springer, 2020.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2265-9
Abstract:
This book discusses the morphological properties of intonation, building on past research to support the long-recognized relationship between the functions and meanings of discourse particles and the functions and meanings of intonation. The morphological status of intonation has been debated for decades, and this book provides evidence from the literature combined with new and compelling empirical evidence to show that specific intonational forms correspond to specific segmental discourse particles. It also describes how intonation is represented in speakers’ minds, which has important implications for first and second language acquisition as well as for theories and approaches to artificial speech recognition and production.
Chapter 6 of the book presents evidence that strongly indicates that six Cantonese sentence-final particles (SFPs) have English intonational equivalents. These six SFPs divide into three pairs of related particles: the evidential particles 咯 lo1 and 吖吗 aa1maa3; the question particles 咩 me1 and 呀 aa4; and the “only” particles zaa3 and ze1. Each SFP’s meaning is described and an NSM explication of it is presented before showing and discussing the data related to its English equivalent. The data comprise Cantonese-to-English oral translations and their accompanying F0 contours. The translators were ambilingual speakers of L1 Cantonese and L1 English. Based on the fact that each SFP translated into English as the same form of intonation by more than one ambilingual translator in more than one context, it is assumed that the definition given to each SFP also applies to its English intonational equivalent. It is further proposed that these English forms of intonation are tonal morphemes that reside in native-English speakers’ lexicons.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on February 16, 2019. Last updated on February 9, 2020.
Goddard, Cliff (2020). ‘Country’, ‘land’, ‘nation’: Key Anglo English words for talking and thinking about people in places. Journal of Postcolonial Linguistics, 1(2), 8-27.
Abstract:
This is a corpus-assisted, lexical-semantic study of the English words ‘country’, ‘land’ and ‘nation’, using the NSM technique of paraphrase in terms of simple, cross-translatable words. The importance of these words and their derivatives in Anglophone public and political discourses is obvious. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say that without the support of words like these, discourses of nationalism, patriotism, immigration, international affairs, land rights, and post/anti-colonialism would be literally impossible.
The study builds on Anna Wierzbicka’s (1997) seminal study of “homeland” and related concepts in European languages, as well as more recent NSM work that has explored ways in which discursively powerful words encapsulate historically and culturally contingent assumptions about relationships between people and places. The primary focus is on conceptual analysis, lexical polysemy, phraseology and discursive formation in mainstream Anglo English, but the study also touches on one specifically Australian phenomenon, which is the use of country in a distinctive sense which originated in Aboriginal English, e.g. in expressions like my grandfather’s country and looking after country. This highlights how Anglo English words can be semantically “re-purposed” in postcolonial and anti-colonial discourses.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) be called, (E) country, (E) creature, (E) earth, (E) ground, (E) grow, (E) land, (E) nation, (E) we
Published on June 19, 2020. Last updated on August 15, 2021.
Sadow, Lauren (2020). Principles and prototypes of a cultural dictionary of Australian English for learners. In Lauren Sadow, Bert Peeters, & Kerry Mullan (Eds.), Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication: Vol. 3. Minimal English (and beyond) (pp. 165-190). Singapore: Springer.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9979-5_9
Abstract:
This chapter discusses some of the issues that need to be considered when producing a user-friendly resource intended to familiarize ESL learners with the invisible culture of Australian English. It draws on specialized function lexicography and on the cultural scripts approach as proposed by Goddard. The resource takes the form of an encyclopedic dictionary focusing on Australian values, attitudes and interactional norms and aims to respond to an industry need for pedagogical materials that introduce migrants coming to Australia to the culture embodied in Australian English. Best practice for teaching cultural awareness and related skills is to use a method for teaching that encourages students to reflect on their experience and to analyse it from an insider or emic perspective. The cultural scripts approach, which deconstructs complex cultural elements into simpler and universally intelligible building blocks, provides an effective means to this end. The chapter contends that drawing connections between different cultural scripts and illustrating those connections in a way that promotes the acquisition of concepts for learners is one of the most important elements in cultural dictionary design.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) whinge, (S) doing something when somethig bad happens, (S) projecting presumed solidarity in interaction
