Browsing results for English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 6, 2018.
Wong, Jock (2003). The reduplication of Chinese names in Singapore English. RASK, 19, 47-85. PDF (open access)
A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 3 (pp. 57-93) of:
Wong, Jock O. (2014). The Culture of Singapore English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139519519
In Singapore English, a range of culture-specific address forms are found that do not exist in any other culturally Anglo variety of English. These forms of address are loaded with meanings and can tell us a lot about the evolving Singapore culture and the cultural grounding of Singapore English. Such knowledge benefits a cultural outsider because it facilitates a better understanding of and integration in the Singapore English speech community.
This study looks into one such form of address used in Singapore English: the reduplication of Chinese names. It shows that this grammatical construction is meaningful and captures its meaning in the form of a reductive paraphrase using Natural Semantic Metalanguage. The use of this address form can be shown to be motivated by a Chinese cultural attitude, which speakers are now able to express in Singapore English.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (S) reduplication
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Gladkova, Anna (2003). The semantics of nicknames of the American presidents. In Peter Collins, & Mengistu Amberber (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2002 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society. http://www.als.asn.au/proceedings/als2002.html. PDF (open access)
This study is focused on the recorded public nicknames of the American presidents, which were collected from onomastic dictionaries, reference literature on American presidents, and the internet. The data consisted of approximately 430 nicknames for 43 presidents. It is shown that the semantic structure of nicknames can be explicated with lexical universals to make their meaning transparent and avoid a culture-biased analysis and that the semantic analysis of nicknames can give clues to cultural values and assumptions determining their coining.
The semantic structure of nicknames contains both referential and expressive components. The referential components of nicknames can be evaluative. The expressive components are complex and can include emotive components, as well as components of status and familiarity. Nicknames differ in their expressive value, and their variety depends on the forms of personal names used in nicknames. It is possible to divide the nicknames examined here into several groups according to the cultural assumptions underlying their coining.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) expressive value of nicknames, (E) Father of the country, (E) Ike, (E) politician influenced by or compared to others, (E) self-made man, (E) undeserved leader
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 16, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2003). Whorf meets Wierzbicka: Variation and universals in language and thinking. Language Sciences, 25(4), 393-432. DOI: 10.1016/S0388-0001(03)00002-0
Probably no contemporary linguist has published as profusely on the connections between semantics, culture, and cognition as Anna Wierzbicka. This paper explores the similarities and differences between her ‘‘Natural Semantic Metalanguage’’ (NSM) approach and the linguistic theory of Benjamin Lee Whorf. It shows that while some work by Wierzbicka and colleagues can be seen as ‘‘neo-Whorfian’’, other aspects of the NSM program are ‘‘counter-Whorfian’’. Issues considered include the meaning of linguistic relativity, the nature of conceptual universals and the consequences for semantic methodology, the importance of polysemy, and the scale and locus of semantic variation between languages, particularly in relation to the domain of time. Examples are drawn primarily from English, Russian, and Hopi.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Ye, Zhengdao (2004). When ’empty words’ are not empty: Examples from the semantic analysis of some ’emotional adverbs’ in Mandarin Chinese. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 24(2), 139-161. DOI: 10.1080/0726860042000271807
This paper is about ‘emotional adverbs’, a characteristic category in the Chinese language that has received little attention in Western linguistic discussion. In the Chinese linguistic tradition, ‘emotional adverbs’ belong to the general category of xūcí (‘empty words’), whose meanings are often thought to be too elusive to pin down. By carrying out systematic and in-depth semantic analyses of a selected set – yòu, bìng, piān, and jìng – the paper illustrates that so-called ‘empty words’ are rich in semantic content, and their meanings can be explicated fully using Natural Semantic Metalanguage, thus making this category and its semantic content accessible to both linguists and learners of Chinese (Mandarin). The analysis also shows that it is important to take into consideration grammatical constructions in establishing polysemy and obtaining a comprehensive understanding of the full range of meanings of the words under discussion.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) bìng, (E) jìng, (E) piān, (E) piānpiān, (E) unfortunately, (E) yòu
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 31, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2004). The ethnopragmatics and semantics of ‘active metaphors’. Journal of Pragmatics, 36(7). 1211-1230. DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2003.10.011
“Active” metaphors are a kind of metaphor that can be categorically distinguished from other metaphorical phenomena due to its reliance on “metalexical awareness”, detectable by linguistic tests as well as by intuition. Far from being a natural function of the human mind or a universal of rational communication, active metaphorizing is a culture-specific speech practice that demands explication within an ethnopragmatic perspective. The paper proposes an ethnopragmatic script (a kind of specialized cultural script) for active metaphorizing in English, and dramatizes its culture-specificity by ethnopragmatic case studies of Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara (central Australia) and Malay. Finally, in relation to English active metaphors, an attempt is made to demonstrate that expository metaphors have determinable meanings that can be stated as extended reductive paraphrases. The analytical framework is the Natural Semantic Metalanguage theory and the associated theory of cultural scripts.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) food for thought, (E) graceful, (E) language is a mirror of the mind, (E) soft, (E) the past is a foreign country, (E) unemployment is a contagious disease, (S) sensitive words, (S) use of 'active' metaphors, (T) English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 11, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2004). ‘Happiness’ in cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective. Daedalus, 133(2), 34-43. DOI: 10.1162/001152604323049370
Also published as:
Wierzbicka, Anna (2007). “Happiness” in cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective. Slovo a Smysl – Word and Sense, 8. HTML (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. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199668434.001.0001
Progress in cross-cultural investigations of happiness and subjective well-being requires a greater linguistic and cross-cultural sophistication than that evident in much of the existing literature on the subject. To compare meanings across languages, we need a well-founded semantic metalanguage; and to be able to interpret self-reports across cultures, we need a methodology for exploring cultural norms that may guide the interviewees in their responses. It is the author’s firm belief that the Natural Semantic Metalanguage can solve the first problem and that the methodology of cultural scripts can solve the second. Together, they bring significant advances to the intriguing and controversial field of happiness studies.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) happiness, (E) happy
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2004). The English expressions good boy and good girl and cultural models of child rearing. Culture & Psychology, 10(3), 251-278. DOI: 10.1177/1354067X04042888
The expressions good boy and good girl are widely used in Anglo parental speech directed at children to praise them for their actions. Used in this way, these expressions have no equivalents in other European languages. In tracing the history of these expressions, and their negative counterparts bad boy and bad
girl, this paper seeks to show that they reflect a unique cultural model of child rearing, which links evaluation of a child’s behaviour with evaluation of the child him- or herself. It is argued that this model, which might seem natural and universal, but which is in fact culture-specific, has its roots in England’s and America’s Puritan past. Using the NSM semantic methodology, the paper explores the changes and continuities in this cultural model against the backdrop of broad linguistic usage.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (2004). Tall poppy stuff. In B. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk & A. Kwiatkowska (Eds.), Imagery in language: Festschrift in honour of Professor Ronald W. Langacker (pp. 613-623). Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (2004). “Thou shalt not be a tall poppy”: describing an Australian communicative (and behavioral) norm. Intercultural pragmatics, 1, 71-92.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (2004). Tall poppies and egalitarianism in Australian discourse: From key word to cultural value. English world wide, 25, 1-25.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 31, 2018.
Stollznow, Karenina (2004). Whinger! Wowser! Wanker! Aussie English: Deprecatory language and the Australian ethos. In Christo Moskovsky (Ed.), Proceedings of the 2003 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society. http://www.als.asn.au/proceedings/als2003.html. PDF (open access)
Abusive epithets form a significant part of the vocabulary of many people and have become a colourful and expressive part of the Australian lexicon, surfacing with great frequency within Australian television, radio, literature, magazines, newspapers and in domestic, social and work domains. Australian terms of abuse are unique compared to those found in other varieties of English. The aim of this study is to examine the meaning, usage and cultural significance of the popular abusive epithets whinger, wowser and wanker as they are used in contemporary Australian English. The words selected for this study are culturally significant and representative of social values in that they express characteristics deemed undesirable in Australian society. Abusive epithets are labels that admonish deviant social behaviour and can be considered to be keys to understanding synchronic cultural values. Thus, the socially leveling term wanker ridicules a person who is pretentious and arrogant, thereby suggesting that humility, solidarity and being down-to-earth are highly valued qualities in Australian society. Wowser derides prudishness and intolerance, indicative of a laissez-faire society, valuing tolerance and open-mindedness. Whinger conveys disapproval for a person who complains excessively and without validity, expressing that stoicism and fortitude are valued.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) wanker, (E) whinger, (E) wowser
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wong, Jock (2004). The particles of Singapore English: A semantic and cultural interpretation. Journal of Pragmatics, 36(9), 739-793. DOI: 10.1016/S0378-2166(03)00070-5
A more recent publication building on parts of this one is chapter 7 (pp. 230-259) of:
Wong, Jock O. (2014). The culture of Singapore English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139519519
Particles constitute one of the most distinctive features of the cultural dialect known as Singapore English. They are highly interactive and play a major role in the integrity and cohesiveness of the Singapore English speech community, offering invaluable insights into Singapore culture. Their semantic study could therefore pave the way for a better understanding of this culture.
The present study investigates the meanings of several particles in Singapore English: three particles la which come in different lexical tones (but are otherwise homophones), the particle wut (commonly spelt as what), and the particle meh. The meaning of each of these particles is stated in the form of a reductive paraphrase couched in simple and universal human concepts so that it can be readily understood by both insiders and cultural outsiders.
The study shows that Singapore English particles are loaded with interactional or pragmatic meanings. It also suggests that the high frequency of use of some particles, including wut and the particles la, is motivated by a cultural norm of interaction.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) la (particle), (E) meh, (E) wut (particle)
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wong, Jock (2004). Reduplication of nominal modifiers in Singapore English: A semantic and cultural interpretation. World Englishes, 23(3), 339-354. DOI: 10.1111/j.0883-2919.2004.00362.x
A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 6 (pp. 180-229) of:
Wong, Jock O. (2014). The culture of Singapore English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139519519
While the formal properties of reduplication in many languages have aroused the interest of many linguists and much appears to have been done in this area, the same cannot be said about its semantics. It seems that our understanding of the kinds of meaning associated with reduplication processes remains rather limited. This is regrettable, given that language meaning can shed a lot of light on a speech community’s ways of thinking and norms of interaction. In this paper, the object of study is a widely used reduplication process in Singapore English – the reduplication of nominal modifiers. I will endeavour to identify its meaning and articulate it in the form of a reductive paraphrase. I will also try to show that its use may be linked, via meaning, with a culture-specific norm of interaction that seems to be characteristic of Singapore English speakers.
Tags: (E) reduplication of nominal modifiers
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 22, 2018.
Wong, Jock Onn (2004). Cultural scripts, ways of speaking and perceptions of personal autonomy: Anglo English vs. Singapore English. Intercultural Pragmatics, 1(2), 231-248. DOI: 10.1515/iprg.2004.1.2.231
A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 5 (pp. 139-179) of:
Wong, Jock O. (2014). The culture of Singapore English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139519519
Every language variety embodies a set of culture-specific ways of thinking that can be articulated with maximal clarity and minimal ethnocentrism in the form of ‘cultural scripts’ using Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM). In this study, perceptions of ‘personal autonomy’ in Anglo culture and in Singapore culture are explored on the basis of linguistic evidence using NSM. These Anglo and Singaporean attitudes to personal autonomy are articulated in the form of cultural scripts, and are thus compared and contrasted. The proposed cultural scripts show that even though Anglo English speakers and Singapore English speakers can both be said to speak the same ‘language’, the cultural values reflected by the two varieties can be radically different from and even at odds with each other.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (S) doing things willingly, (S) helpfulness, (S) independent thinking, (S) influencing other people’s way of thinking, (S) requests, (S) wanting someone to do something
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2018.
Bardzokas, Chrisovalandis (2004). Contrastive semantics of English “anger” and Modern Greek “θymos”. LAUD Working Papers, Series A, General and Theoretical Papers, 582. PDF (open access)
The emotion concept of ‘anger’ appears to acquire such enormous proportions in human emotionality that it has sparked off heated debate in relation to its purported universality or its language- and culture-specificity. To portray possible differences between anger-related concepts across languages and cultures, a nuanced and illuminating method of contrasting concepts is needed. The use of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (henceforth NSM) is proposed to this end. The research also carries out the laborious task of testing the applicability of the NSM framework in the investigation of the language of emotions generally. Similar tests involving other emotions have already been conducted by several other scholars; for the purpose of this paper, the implementation of NSM will be attempted in the domain of anger in comparison and contrast to that of Modern Greek θυμός thymos. Both domains are conceptualized in terms of several emotion words. Explications are proposed for the predicative use of the English words angry, mad, furious, and irate, and for the Greek verbs θυμωνομαι thymonomai, νευριάζομαι nevriazomai, εκνευρίζομαι eknevrizomai, and οργιζομαι orgizomai.
This paper builds on Chapter 2 of the author’s MA thesis:
Bardzokas, Chrisovalandis (1999). The language of anger. MA thesis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) angry, (E) eknevrizomai εκνευρίζομαι, (E) furious, (E) irate, (E) mad, (E) nevriazomai νευριάζομαι, (E) orgizomai οργιζομαι, (E) thymonomai θυμωνομαι
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 17, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff, & Karlsson, Susanna (2004). Re-thinking THINK: Contrastive semantics of Swedish and English. In Christo Moskovsky (Ed.), Proceedings of the 2003 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society. PDF (open access)
A more recent publication building on this one is:
Goddard, Cliff, & Karlsson, Susanna (2008). Re-thinking THINK in contrastive perspective: Swedish vs. English. In Cliff Goddard (Ed.), Cross-linguistic semantics (pp. 225-240). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.102.14god
The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework originated by Anna Wierzbicka has long postulated THINK as a semantic prime, and a large body of cross-linguistic research demonstrates that lexical exponents of THINK can be identified in a diversity of languages. This result is challenged, however, by the apparent existence in Swedish and other Scandinavian languages of several basic-level “verbs of thinking”. In this study it is argued that the primary senses of Swedish tänka and English think are in fact semantically identical, and correspond to the semantic prime THINK as proposed in NSM theory. Semantic explications are proposed and justified for Swedish tro and tycka, and for the use of I think in English as an epistemic formula. In the process previous NSM assumptions about the semantic prime THINK are shown to have been incorrectly influenced by language-specific properties of English think. Likewise, the widely held Vendlerian view of the relation between thinking about and thinking that is challenged.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) [illocutionary assumption], (E) I think, (E) tro, (E) tycka
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 24, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2005). The lexical semantics of culture. Language Sciences, 27(1), 51-73.
DOI: 10.1016/j.langsci.2004.05.001
Abstract:
Culture is one of the… cultural key words of the English language, in popular as well as scholarly discourse. It is flourishing in popular usage, with a proliferation of extended uses (police culture, Barbie culture, argument culture, culture of complaint, etc.), while being endlessly debated in intellectual circles. Though it is sometimes observed that the meaning of the English word culture is highly language-specific, its precise lexical semantics has received surprisingly little attention. The main task undertaken in this paper is to develop and justify semantic explications for the common ordinary meanings of this polysemous word. The analytical framework is the NSM approach, within which a set of semantic explications will be proposed that is framed in terms of empirically established universal semantic primes such as PEOPLE, THINK, DO, LIVE, NOT, LIKE, THE SAME, and OTHER.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) culture
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wong, Jock (2005). Singapore English: A semantic and cultural interpretation. PhD thesis, Australian National University.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wong, Jock (2005). “Why you so Singlish one?” A semantic and cultural interpretation of the Singapore English particle one. Language in Society, 34, 239-275. DOI: 10.1017/S0047404505050104
A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 6 (pp. 180-229) of:
Wong, Jock O. (2014). The culture of Singapore English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139519519
The particle one of Singapore English is widely used in Singapore culture, but it is little mentioned and its invariant meaning has not been described, so that not much is known about its meaning and the cultural norms it reflects. This article provides a detailed semantic analysis of this particle, articulates its meaning in the form of a reductive paraphrase using Natural Semantic Metalanguage, and argues that its use reflects Singapore English speakers’ tendency to speak definitively and exaggeratedly. The discussion of Singaporean speech norms reflected by this particle includes reference to relevant Anglo English speech norms for comparison and contrast.
Tags: (E) one (particle)
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 17, 2018.
Гладкова, А. Н. [Gladkova, Anna] (2005). Чем русское сопереживание отличается от английского empathy? Опыт применения естественного семантического метаязыка в контрастивной семантике. In what ways the Russian sopereživanie is different from the English empathy? The Natural Semantic Metalanguage in contrastive semantics (pp. 102-108). In И. М. Кобозева, А. С. Нариньяни & В. П. Селегей (ред.) [I. Kobozeva, A. Narin’jani & V. Selegej (Eds.)], Компьютерная лингвистика и интеллектуальные технологии: Труды международной конференции «Диалог 2005» [Computational linguistics and intellectual technologies: Proceedings of the International Conference “Dialogue 2005”]. Москва [Moscow]: Nauka. PDF (open access)
Written in Russian. No English abstract available.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
The (E) tags listed below are added on the basis of information in the title of this paper, which also proposes other explications.
Tags: (E) empathy, (E) sopereživanie сопереживание, (T) Russian
