Browsing results for Indo-European
Published on August 10, 2018. Last updated on September 1, 2018.
Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2012). Portugalski DOM – uma casa portuguesa [Portuguese HOME]. In Maciej Abramowicz, Jerzy Bartmiński, & Iwona Bielińska-Gardziel (Eds.), Wartości w językowo-kulturowym obrazie świata Słowian i ich sąsiadów: Volume 1 (pp. 123-135). Lublin: UMCS.
Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2014). Portugalski DOM – badanie korpusowe [Portuguese HOME – corpus examination]. In Jerzy Bartmiński, Iwona Bielińska-Gardziel, & Stanisława Niebrzegowska-Bartmińska (Eds.), Wartości w językowo-kulturowym obrazie świata Słowian i ich sąsiadów: Volume 2. Wokół europejskiej aksjosfery (41-52). Lublin: UMCS.
Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2014). Jaki obraz DOMU mają młodzi Portugalczycy? Badanie ankietowe [How do young Portuguese picture their ‘home’? A survey]. In Iwona Bielińska-Gardziel, Stanisława Niebrzegowska-Bartmińska, & Joanna Szadura (Eds.), Wartości w językowo-kulturowym obrazie świata Słowian i ich sąsiadów: Volume 3. Problemy eksplikowania i profilowania pojęć (pp. 309-322). Lublin: UMCS.
Written in Polish. The first of the three papers is a virtual translation into Polish of a Portuguese original (2012), which has its own entry.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 18, 2019.
Levisen, Carsten (2012). Cultural semantics and social cognition: A case study on the Danish universe of meaning. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110294651
Abstract:
This book contributes to the emerging discipline of cultural semantics, and to the ongoing debates of linguistic diversity, metalanguage, and the use of linguistic evidence in studies of culture and social cognition. Presenting original, detailed studies of key words of Danish, it breaks new ground for the study of language and cultural values, offering new tools for comparative research into the diversity of semantic and cultural systems in contemporary Europe.
Based on evidence from the semantic categories of everyday language, such as the Danish concept of hygge (roughly ‘pleasant togetherness’), the book provides an integrative socio-cognitive framework for studying and understanding language-particular universes. The author uses NSM to account for the meanings of highly culture-specific and untranslatable linguistic concepts. It is argued that the worlds we live in are not linguistically and conceptually neutral, but rather that speakers who live by Danish concepts are likely to pay attention to their world in ways suggested by central Danish key words and lexical grids.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) co-cognition, (E) glad, (E) hygge, (E) hygger, (E) hygger sig, (E) janteloven, (E) lykkelig, (E) mener, (E) overskue, (E) security, (E) sind, (E) skråsikker, (E) stemning, (E) synes, (E) tilfreds, (E) tryg, (E) trygge rammer, (E) tryghed, (E) varm, (S) apprehension, (S) assertivity, (S) autonomous thinking, (S) categoricalness, (S) children, (S) cognitive relativism, (S) expectations, (S) humanism, (S) hygge, (S) imposing one's opinion, (S) living in the moment, (S) personal uniqueness, (S) self-worth, (S) strong group identity, (S) togetherness, (S) un-independence, (S) unreasonableness, (T) Danish
Published on August 20, 2018. Last updated on August 27, 2018.
Simonović, Marko (2012). “Ik ben toch niet gek!“ – Othering en normativiteit in het Nederlandse en het Servische vertoog [“I’m not crazy! – Othering and normativity in Dutch and Serbian discourse]. In Jelica Novaković-Lopušina, Tamara Britka, Bojana Budimir, Mirko Cvetković, & Lada Vukomanović (Eds.), Lage landen, hoge heuvels: Handelingen Regionaal Colloquium Neerlandicum (pp. 43-59). Belgrado: ARIUS/Filološki fakultet u Beogradu. PDF (pre-publication version on the author’s Academia page)
The goal of this contribution is twofold. On the one hand, it looks at the “normality” continuum in Serbian and Dutch (comparable to crazy > awkward/weird > strange > peculiar > normal > common in English), in an attempt to identify the main similarities and differences using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage. On the other hand, it proposes to move away from the comparison paradigm. Instead, it develops an account approaching languages diffractively (à la Karen Barad), as an ongoing intra-action. Under such an approach, the role of the practices of the (broadly defined) bilingual speaker changes radically: the speaker is invited to live the difference productively and to overcome the ideology of sameness and representationalism. The bilingual speaker is always consigned to being more-than-normal and accountable for how she speaks the constitutive boundary.
But there is more. The goal of this contribution is to spoil othering/normativity/universality for the reader, strategically using the insight that not only are different things “crazy” in different discourses, but also the very scale of measuring “crazy” is discourse/language-specific and ever-becoming. In this sense, there is no transcendental norm(ality) to measure against, only what we make of what has been entrusted to us.
Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) gek, (E) lud, (E) normaal, (E) normalan
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
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2012). The semantics of “sex” in a cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective. In Jurij Apresjan, Igor Boguslavsky, Marie-Claude L’Homme, Leonid Iomdin, Jasmina Milicevic, Alain Polguère, & Leo Wanner (Eds.), Meaning, text, and other exciting things: A festschrift to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Professor Igor Alexandrovič Mel’čuk (pp. 641-649). Moscow: Jazyki slavjanskoj kultury. PDF (open access)
This paper explores the meanings of the English word sex in a cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective, and argues that – unlike the universal and indefinable concept ‘die’ – the concept encoded in the present-day English word sex is culture-bound and is, in fact, a relatively recent conceptual artefact of Anglo culture. The paper seeks to show that the meanings of this word can be elucidated through the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) based on simple and universal concepts.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) sex
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 17, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2012). Cultural scripts and communication style differences in three Anglo Englishes (English English, American English and Australian English). In Barbara Kryk-Kastovsky (Ed.), Intercultural miscommunication past and present (pp. 101-120). Frankfurt: Peter Lang. DOI: 10.3726/978-3-653-01353-5
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 29, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2012). ‘Early interactions’ in Australian English, American English, and English English: Cultural differences and cultural scripts. Journal of Pragmatics, 44, 1038-1050.
DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2012.04.010
Abstract:
Different communicative styles pertaining to initial self-presentation have implications for mutual misperception, negative evaluation and stereotyping. This study applies the techniques of contrastive ethnopragmatics to communicative style in initial conversational interactions in three varieties of Anglo English: Australian English, American English, and English English. It proposes for each variety a distinctive suite of cultural scripts concerning matters such as presumed stance in relation to sameness and difference, degree of attention to accent and speech style, expected degree of interest in personal information about the interlocutor, expressions of accomplishments and ambitions, and ‘phatic complimenting’. Evidence is drawn from personal testimonies about cultural cross-talk, sociological and cultural studies, and contrastive corpus data.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on August 7, 2017. Last updated on September 9, 2018.
Rowen, Roslyn (2012). “Shit bloke! You’re always geeing me up like that”: A lexical semantic analysis of negative personal descriptors and “jocular” speech-act verbs in informal Australian English. BA (Hons) thesis, Griffith University.
This thesis explores the meaning and social functions of eight negative personal descriptors (asshole, crumb, shit bloke, wanker, wuss, nark, shit-stirrer, bogan) and four “jocular” speech act verbs (joke, tease, stir (up), gee up) in the colloquial Australian English spoken in Brisbane and surrounding areas. Data on usage comes from a corpus of recordings of informal interaction in natural settings. The method of semantic analysis is reductive paraphrase, using the semantic primes of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach.
There has been little lexical-semantic research on colloquial “social” terms in contemporary Australian English and this study contributes to filling this gap. In addition, there is a cultural angle. It is widely held that culture fosters new schools of thought and as such that language can be seen as a vessel for conveying the social realities and beliefs of a particular culture, including the mainstream “Anglo Australian” culture. Not all linguists agree, however, arguing, for example, that Australian English does not have a unique or distinct culture. Examining specifically Australian English words, especially colloquial ones, and how they are used in social interaction, can shed light on this issue. The thesis argues that the meanings and uses of these words correlate with cultural values and attitudes that are specific to Australian English.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) asshole, (E) bogan, (E) crumb, (E) gee up, (E) joke, (E) nark, (E) shit bloke, (E) shit stirrer, (E) stir, (E) stir up, (E) tease, (E) wanker, (E) wuss
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 11, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2012). Is pain a human universal? Conceptualisation of pain in English, French and Polish. Colloquia Communia, 92, 29-53.
A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 6 (pp. 127-155) of:
Goddard, Cliff & Wierzbicka, Anna (2014). Words and meanings: Lexical semantics across domains, languages, and cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Note (11 September 2018): Tags will be added as soon as possible.
Published on October 13, 2018. Last updated on October 13, 2018.
Dewi, Putu Dian Aryswari Octania (2012). The translation of emotions in Eat, Pray, Love into Makan, Doa, Cinta: A Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach. Thesis, Udayana University, Denpasar.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 11, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2012). Is pain a human universal? A cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective on pain. Emotion Review, 4(3), 307-317. DOI: 10.1177/1754073912439761
A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 6 (pp. 127-155) of:
Goddard, Cliff & Wierzbicka, Anna (2014). Words and meanings: Lexical semantics across domains, languages, and cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pain is a global problem whose social, economic and psychological costs are immeasurable. It is now seen as the most common reason why people seek medical (including psychiatric) care. But what is pain? This article shows that the discourse of pain tends to suffer from the same problems of ethnocentrism and obscurity as the discourse of emotions in general. Noting that, in the case of pain, the costs of miscommunication are particularly high, this article offers a new paradigm for communicating about pain. It shows how the use of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) techniques can help in this area, as in other areas concerned with human subjectivity, and can lead to a greater understanding between psychologists, psychiatrists, medical practitioners, social workers, and ordinary suffering mortals.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) hurt, (E) hurting, (E) pain, (E) pika, (E) pleasure, (E) sore, (T) English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 3, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2012). ‘Advice’ in English and in Russian: A contrastive and cross-cultural perspective. In Holger Limberg, & Miriam A. Locher (Eds.), Advice in discourse (pp. 309-332). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/pbns.221.19wie
This paper argues that the English word advice encodes a language-specific perspective on the universe of discourse and that to analyse discourse in other languages and cultures in terms of this culture-specific English word would involve imposing on them an Anglocentric perspective. The paper introduces a different approach – the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach – based on 60 or so simple and universal human concepts. Using the NSM framework, the paper presents a comparative analysis of Russian and Anglo communicative norms and values associated with the English words advice and advise and their closest Russian counterparts, and demonstrates how the differences in the meanings of these words go hand-in-hand with differences in cultural practices, norms, and values. he paper concludes by proposing contrastive “cultural scripts” for English and Russian, which can be of practical use in language teaching, intercultural communication and education.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 20, 2018.
Trbojević-Milošević, Ivana (2012). Modal hedges in para-pharmaceutical product instructions: Some examples from English and Serbian. Revista de lenguas para fines específicos, 18, 71-92. PDF (open access)
The paper investigates how modal hedges, understood as expressions of procedural meaning, i.e. expressions containing instructions for the addressee/reader on how to process the propositional content of an utterance/statement are used in product descriptions, advertisements and consumer instructions leaflets for a number of products belonging to the Consumer Health Care category for the purposes of complying with consumer protection laws on the one hand and serving as an implicit disclaimer of manufacturer’s responsibility on the other. The analysis is carried out contrastively for two languages, English and Serbian. The results obtained are discussed and viewed as a matter of cultural variety and difference, especially taking into consideration the fact that consumer protection laws seem to be equally strict in US, UK and Commonwealth, Europe and Serbia.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (S) directness
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (2012). Les petites idées d’un petit Belge, ou quand petit ne renvoie pas à la taille [Les petites idées d’un petit Belge, or when petit doesn’t refer to size]. In F. Neveu, V. Muni Toke, P. Blumenthal, T. Klingler, P. Ligas, S. Prévost & S. Teston-Bonnard (ed.), CMLF 2012 – 3e Congrès mondial de linguistique française (pp. 1893-1907). Paris: EDP Sciences. DOI: 10.1051/shsconf/20120100071
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 16, 2021.
Baider, Fabienne (2012). Saillance scalaire et métalangue sémantique naturelle: Le sentiment haine en contexte linguistique et cognitif [Scalar salience and Natural Semantic Metalanguage: Hate in a linguistic and cognitive context]. Études romanes de Brno, 33(2), 171-188. PDF (open access)
This study attempts to provide a Franco-French definition of the emotion called hate / hatred in the NSM language. This is carried out on the basis of oral (questionnaires and interviews) and written (lexicographical definitions, electronic database and newspaper discourse) data in reference to this emotion. We combine the principles elaborated in the Dynamic Model of Meaning Framework (Kecskes 2008) and the concept of saliency (Giora 2003) to suggest the NSM definition and work our data. On the theoretical level, the collected data allow identification of the salient collective and individual features (Kecskes 2008) related to the lexical unit hate within the community under
investigation.
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2018.
Baider, Fabienne (2012). Haine et colère: Approche socio-cognitive et explicitation en métalangue sémantique naturelle [Hate and anger: A socio-cognitive approach and an explication in Natural Semantic Metalanguage]. In Franck Neveu, Valelia Muni Toke, Peter Blumenthal, Thomas Klingler, Pierluigi Ligas, Sophie Prévost, & Sandra Teston-Bonnard (Eds.), CMLF 2012 – 3e Congrès mondial de linguistique française (pp. 1701-1717). Paris: EDP Sciences. DOI: 10.1051/shsconf/20120100185. PDF (open access)
Written in French.
This study explores the semantic proximity between the two notions of haine ‘hate’ and colère ‘anger’ in European French culture and society. A quick overview of the NSM approach is followed by a presentation of the morphosyntactic differences between the two nouns, in an attempt to identify the first indications of semantic difference. The next step is entirely semantic in nature: a study of the two emotions is undertaken on the basis of oral and written discourse, with reference to the theoretical and methodological principles of the socio-cognitive approach put forward by Rachel Giora and István Kecskes. This finally leads to explications formulated in NSM.
Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) colère, (E) haine, (E) triste
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 24, 2018.
Zamanian, Mostafa, & Hashimi, Seyede Zahra (2012). Analysis of cultural scripts of suggestions and rejection of suggestions in Persian and English within Natural Semantic Metalanguage framework. Journal of Studies in Learning and Teaching English, 1(2), 19-39. PDF (open access)
In this study a number of social functions in Persian are analysed using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework. The results are then compared and contrasted to those obtained for English. The functions in focus are suggestions, and rejection of suggestions.
The results of this study indicate that: (1) the NSM is applicable to the communicative interaction routines in Persian, (2) cultural scripts can be used to develop an awareness of cultural differences in the learners, and finally (3) the model in question is suitable for cross-cultural contrastive analysis.
Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) (making a suggestion), (E) (rejecting a suggestion)
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 24, 2018.
Karimnia, Amin (2012). A cross-cultural approach to contrasting offers in English and Persian. World Applied Sciences Journal, 16(2), 280-289. DOI: 10.1.1.389.5350. PDF (open access)
This study is an attempt to carry out a comparative analysis using Natural Semantic Metalanguage (henceforth NSM). The offering routine patterns of native Persian speakers was compared with 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 20 hours of recorded live interviews from Persian and English TV channels. The results show the applicability of 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 sociopragmatics in general and offers in particular.
Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) (accepting an offer), (E) (making an offer), (E) (refusing an offer)
Published on May 10, 2012. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2012). O conceito de ‘casa’ em português europeu [The concept of ‘home’ in European Portuguese]. In Petar Petrov, Pedro Quintion de Sousa, Roberto López-Iglésias Samartim, & Elias J.Torres Feijó (Eds.), Avanços em ciências da linguagem (pp. 343-357). Faro: Através.
Written in Portuguese.
This introductory analysis of the lexico-cultural meaning of the word casa in European Portuguese shows in the main that ‘casa’ is an essential value in Portugal. Casa is an important reference point, a place where one stays for a short time or a long time, but always a place to go back to. Casa is linked to family, thought of not just as a group of people who live together, but rather as a network of multi-generational relations and obligations. Casa is more than just a place in physical space, it is also a metaphorical place in the heart, a place that inspires beautiful emotions, necessary for humans to live well.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) casa, (T) Portuguese
