Wierzbicka, Anna (1990). *Emotivity in language structure. Semiotica, 80(1/2), 161-169.
Review of Bronislava Volek. Emotive signs in language and semantic functioning of derived nouns in Russian.
(1990) English – ‘Fear’
Wierzbicka, Anna (1990). The semantics of emotions: Fear and its relatives in English. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 10(2), 359-375. DOI: 10.1080/07268609008599447
This paper demonstrates that emotion concepts – including the so-called basic ones, such as anger, sadness or fear – can be defined in terms of universal semantic primitives such as ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘do’, ‘happen’, ‘know’ and ‘want’, in terms of which all areas of meaning, in all languages, can be rigorously and revealingly portrayed.
The definitions proposed here differ in various respects from so-called ‘classical definitions’; in particular, they do not adhere to the Aristotelian model based on a ‘genus proximum’ and ‘differentia specifica’. Rather, they take the form of certain prototypical scripts or scenarios, formulated in terms of thoughts, ‘wants’ and feelings. These scripts, however, can be seen as formulas providing rigorous specifications of necessary and sufficient conditions, and they do not support the idea that emotion concepts are ‘fuzzy’. On the contrary, the small set of universal semantic primitives employed here allows us to show that even apparent synonyms such as afraid and scared embody different – and fully specifiable – conceptual structures, and to reveal the remarkable precision with which boundaries between concepts are drawn – even between those concepts which at first sight appear to be identical or only “stylistically” different. Upon closer investigation, human conceptualization of emotions reveals itself as a system of unconscious distinctions of incredible delicacy, subtlety, and precision.
(1990) English – Emotions
Osmond, Meredith (1990). Unravelling the meaning of English emotion terms: Evidence from syntax. MA thesis, Australian National University. PDF (open access)
This thesis examines the meaning of various English terms of emotion , and attempts to show that aspects of their meaning can be related to their syntactic behaviour.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(1990) English (Aboriginal) – Emotions (shame, shyness)
Harkins, Jean (1990). Shame and shyness in the Aboriginal classroom: A case for “practical semantics”. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 10(2), 293-306. DOI: 10.1080/07268609008599445
Aboriginal students in many parts of Australia talk about their experiences of difficulty and discomfort in certain fairly common classroom situations, for example when the teacher calls on an individual student to answer a question, or when a student is singled out for either reprimand or praise. The name for this experience, in most varieties of Australian Aboriginal English, is SHAME. The word SHAME is used by Aboriginal speakers in circumstances where non-Aboriginal speakers would not speak of being ashamed. This paper seeks to demonstrate that proper semantic analysis can lead us to a much clearer understanding and statement of the concept underlying the Aboriginal use of this word, and how it differs from related concepts such as ‘being ashamed’, ‘shyness’, and ’embarrassment’. Such semantic information can be of immediate practical use in cross-cultural communication situations such as the classroom.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(1990) English, Danish – Emotions (shame, embarrassment)
Dineen, Anne (1990). Shame/embarrassment in English and Danish. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 10(2), 217-229. DOI: 10.1080/07268609008599442
The paper discusses one area of the emotion lexicon in Danish and English, namely a set of terms within the domain of ‘shame’/’embarrassment’. This set of terms constitutes a folk taxonomy, the internal relationships between these terms being a matter for empirical investigation. The paper relies on NSM to make semantic relationships explicit and easily comparable. English and Danish terms are discussed in turn, and comparisons are drawn between them.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(1990) Polish – Antitotalitarian language
Wierzbicka, Anna (1990). Antitotalitarian language in Poland: Some mechanisms of linguistic self-defense. Language in Society, 19, 1-59. DOI: 10.1017/S004740450001410X
This article explores the concept of political diglossia, a phenomenon arising in totalitarian or semitotalitarian countries, where the language of official propaganda gives rise to its opposite: the unofficial, underground language of antipropaganda. The author studies one semantic domain – the colloquial designations of the political police and security forces in contemporary Poland – and compares them with the official designations. The semantics of the relevant words and expressions is studied in great detail so that the social attitudes encoded in them can be revealed and rigorously compared. To achieve this, the author relies on the Natural Semantic Metalanguage that she has developed over the
last two decades, which has already been applied in the study of many other semantic domains, in many different languages. The social and political attitudes encoded in the Polish expressions referring to the security apparatus are discussed against the background of Poland’s history. The author shows that language is not only the best “mirror of mind” (Leibniz) and “mirror of culture” and “guide to social reality” (Sapir), but also a mirror of history and politics.
(1990) Russian – Cultural key words
Wierzbicka, Anna (1990). Duša (soul), toska (yearning), sud’ba (fate): Three key concepts in Russian language and Russian culture. In Zygmunt Saloni (Ed.), Metody formalne w opisie języków słowiańskich (pp. 13-32). Bialystok: Bialystok University Press.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(1992) Arrernte, English, Italian – Interjections
Wilkins, David P. (1992). Interjections as deictics. Journal of Pragmatics, 18(2/3), 119-158. DOI: 10.1016/0378-2166(92)90049-H
Reissued in an abridged format as:
Wilkins, David P. (1995). Expanding the traditional category of deictic elements: Interjections as deictics. In Judith F. Duchan, Gail A. Bruder, & Lynne E. Hewitt (Eds.), Deixis in narrative: A cognitive science perspective (pp. 359-386). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
The paper examines some of the semantic and pragmatic consequences of a form being both a lexeme (i.e. a simple sign) and a conventional utterance. The approach presented here has far-reaching consequences for the manner in which interjections are identified, analyzed, and subclassified. In particular it it suggested that interjections have all the features attributed to utterances, including the facts that they convey complete propositions and have an illocutionary purpose. Given that interjections are context-bound, it is possible to observe that the referential arguments in the propositions conveyed by interjections are provided by context. As lexemes, interjections have ‘real’ semantic (i.e. propositional/conceptual) content, and within the decomposition of all interjections are basic deictic elements. These ‘primitive’ deictic elements are not tied referentially to any entities until they are placed in context. In this sense both a pragmatic and a semantic approach are required to account for interjections. Interjections are, therefore, shifters (indexicals) by virtue of being built semantically out of basic deictic elements and so should be considered a reasonable topic within the study of deixis.
Definitions, using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach to lexical decomposition, are proposed for a varied range of interjections from English, Mparntwe Arrernte (Central Australia), American Sign Language, and Italian.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(1992) Categorization
Wierzbicka, Anna (1992). Furniture and birds: A reply to Dwight Bolinger. Cognitive Linguistics, 3(1), 119-123. DOI: 10.1515/cogl.1992.3.1.111
No full-fledged explications are proposed in this short reply to Dwight Bolinger’s reaction following the publication of Wierzbicka’s paper “Prototypes save: On the uses and abuses of the notion ‘prototype’ in linguistics and related fields” (1990). The reply suggests, against Bolinger (for whom furniture and bird are comparable categories), that the explication of collective categories such as furniture, cutlery, kitchenware, clothing, or bedlinen should start as follows:
things of different kinds
they are in the same place
(because people want them to be in the same place)
In the case of taxonomic concepts such as bird, tree, flower, or fish, the beginning of the explications will be different and refer instead to “a kind of thing”.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(1992) Emotions
Wierzbicka, Anna (1992). Talking about emotions: Semantics, culture, and cognition. Cognition and Emotion, 6(3/4), 285-319. DOI: 10.1080/02699939208411073
Translated into Polish as chapter 4 of:
Wierzbicka, Anna (1999). Język – umysł – kultura [Language, mind, culture]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
The author argues that the so-called “basic emotions”, such as happiness, fear or anger, are in fact cultural artifacts of the English language, just as the Ilongot concept of liger, or the Ifaluk concept of song, are the cultural artifacts of Ilongot and Ifaluk. It is therefore as inappropriate to talk about human emotions in general in terms of happiness, fear, or anger as it would be to talk about them in terms of liget or song. However, this does not mean that we cannot penetrate into the emotional world of speakers of languages other than our own. Nor does it mean that there cannot be any universal human emotions. Universality of emotions is an open issue which requires further investigation. For this further investigation to be fully productive, it has to be undertaken from a universal, language and culture-independent perspective; and it has to be carried out in a universalist framework that is language and culture-independent. The author proposes for this purpose the Natural Semantic Metalanguage based on universal (or near-universal) semantic primitives (or near-primitives), developed over two decades by herself and colleagues, and she argues that the use of this metalanguage facilitates such a perspective and offers such a framework.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(1992) English (Australia) – Cultural key words
Wierzbicka, Anna (1992). Australian b-words (bloody, bastard, bugger, bullshit): An expression of Australian culture and national character. In André Clas (Ed.), Le mot, les mots, les bons mots/Word, words, witty words (pp. 21-38). Montréal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal.
Abstract:
The claim made in this paper is not that the Australian ‘b-words’ (bastard, bloody, bugger, and bullshit) are not used outside Australia. They are. But in Australia, they are part of everyday language and play a role that is truly unique. Elsewhere, they are more or less marginal. In Australia, they are central — in everyday life and even in public discourse (especially on the political scene). They are felt to be an important means of self-expression, self-identification, and effective communication with others.
Although the frequency of b-words in Australian speech is undoubtedly unique, and although it has often been commented on by visitors from other parts of the English-speaking world, it is, above all, in the meaning of these words, as they are used in Australia, that the Australians have managed to express something of their own cultural identity. Strictly speaking, then, it is not the b-words themselves but the meanings encapsulated in them that are characteristically Australian.
More information:
A more recent publication building on this one is:
Chapter 5 (pp. 198-234) of Wierzbicka, Anna (1997), Understanding cultures through their key words: English, Russian, Polish, German, Japanese. New York: Oxford University Press.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(1992) Interjection
Wierzbicka, Anna (1992). The semantics of interjection. Journal of Pragmatics, 18(2/3), 159-192. DOI: 10.1016/0378-2166(92)90050-L
Translated into Russian as:
Вежбицкая, А. [Wierzbicka, Anna] (1999). Семантика междометия. In Вежбицкая, А. [Wierzbicka, Anna], Семантические универсалии и описание языков, под ред. Татьяна В. Булыгиной [Semantic universals and the description of languages, ed. Tatyana V. Bulygina] (pp. 611-649). Москва [Moscow]: Языки русской культуры [Languages of Russian Culture].
An expanded version of this paper was published earlier as chapter 8 (pp. 285-339) of:
Wierzbicka, Anna (1991, 2003). Cross-cultural pragmatics: The semantics of human interaction. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
This paper argues that interjections – like any other linguistic elements – have their meaning, and that this meaning can be identified and captured in the Natural Semantic Metalanguage developed by the author and her colleagues. A number of interjections from English, Polish, Russian, and Yiddish are discussed, and rigorous semantic formulae are proposed which can explain both the similarities and the differences in their range of use. For example, the English interjection yuk! is compared and contrasted with its nearest Polish and Russian counterparts fu!, fe!, rfu!. The author shows that while the meaning of interjections cannot be adequately captured in terms of emotion words such as disgust, it can be captured in terms of more fine-grained components, closer to the level of universal semantic primitives. The role of sound symbolism in the functioning of interjections is discussed, and the possibility of reflecting this symbolism in the semantic formulae is explored.
(1992) Interjections
Ameka, Felix (1992). Interjections: The universal yet neglected part of speech. Journal of Pragmatics, 18(2/3), 101-118. DOI: 10.1016/0378-2166(92)90048-G
It is perhaps true that apart from nouns and verbs, interjections – those little words, or ‘non-words’, which can constitute utterances by themselves – are a word class found in all languages. But it is also true that this class of items has eluded description and has, for the most part, been ignored in theoretical linguistics discourse. In this introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Pragmatics dedicated to interjections and similar items, I want to attempt to draw out and suggest solutions to the confusion that has beset these important items.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(1992) Polish — Jewish culture
Wierzbicka, Anna. (1992). Wschodnioeuropejska kultura żydowska w świetle żydowskiej „etnografii mowy” [Eastern European Jewish Culture in the Light of Jewish “Ethnography of Speaking”]. Teksty Drugie 5(17) pp 5–25.
In Polish
(1992) Various languages – Emotion concepts
Wierzbicka, Anna (1992). Defining emotion concepts. Cognitive Science, 16(4), 539-581. DOI: 10.1207/s15516709cog1604_4
This article demonstrates that emotion concepts – including the so-called basic ones, such as anger or sadness – can be defined in terms of universal semantic primitives such as GOOD, BAD, DO, HAPPEN, KNOW, and WANT, in terms of which all areas of meaning, in all languages, can be rigorously and revealingly portrayed.
The definitions proposed here take the form of certain prototypical scripts or scenarios, formulated in terms of thoughts, wants, and feelings. These scripts, however, can be seen as formulas providing rigorous specifications of necessary and sufficient conditions (not for emotions as such, but for emotion concepts), and they do not support the idea that boundaries between emotion concepts are “fuzzy”. On the contrary, the small set of universal semantic primitives employed here (which has emerged from two decades of empirical investigations by the author and colleagues) demonstrates that even apparent synonyms such as sad and unhappy embody different – and fully specifiable – conceptual structures.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(1993) English – Prepositions for marking time
Wierzbicka, Anna (1993). Why do we say IN April, ON Thursday, AT 10 o’clock? In search of an explanation. Studies in Language, 17(2), 437-454. DOI: 10.1075/sl.17.2.07wie
Why do we say ON Thursday but AT 10 o’clock? Or why do we say AT night but IN the morning? One common answer to such questions is to dismiss the problem: this is the way we speak because this is the way to speak; it is all arbitrary, conventional, idiosyncratic.
It is argued that such answers are unilluminating and unsatisfactory. Prepositions such as ON, AT, or IN have their meanings, and the choice between them is motivated by these meanings. There are also certain conventions of use based on cultural expectations; the meanings and the cultural expectations interact and their interaction produces results whose “logic” may be difficult to detect — especially if one looks in the wrong direction, that is, that of “truth conditions” regarding external situations. In fact,
however, the problem is not insoluble, and if it is approached with the understanding that meaning is all in the mind and that it is a matter of conceptualizations rather than “truth conditions”, the hidden “logic ” behind the choice of prepositions for temporal adverbials can be explained.
The paper argues, and tries to demonstrate, that the prepositions AT, IN, and ON mean different things, and that the patterns of their use in different types of temporal phrases are determined by their meanings.
(1993) English (Australia) – Intercultural communication
Wierzbicka, Anna (1993). *Intercultural communication in Australia. In G. Schulz (Ed.), The languages of Australia (pp. 83-103). Canberra: Australian Academy of the Humanities.
(1993) English (Australia) – Swear words
Kidman, Angus (1993). How to do things with four-letter words: A study of the semantics of swearing in Australia. BA(Hons) thesis, University of New England. HTML (open access)
This thesis presents and defends semantic explications for a number of swear words commonly used in Australian English. Its focus is on different constructions which can be conveyed using the three lexical forms shit, fuck and cunt. Contrary to the popular belief that swear words are “meaningless”, it is shown that each of these swear words can be used to convey a number of specific meanings. These meanings are sometimes related, but each needs to be defined independently if similarities and differences between terms are to be precisely captured. Aspects of meaning discussed include the contrast between the exclamations Shit! and Fuck!, the common adjectival form fucking, the relationship of the referential term cunt to other uses, the contrast between fucking and making love, and the meaning conveyed by
semi-metaphorical forms such as to kick the shit out of someone. The method of semantic representation adopted is the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach advocated by Anna Wierzbicka and others. The explications presented here have a number of implications. Relevant issues examined include the relationship between referential uses of swear words and the other meanings which they convey, the semantic importance of the consciousness of “phonetic form” in swearing, and the role of prototypes in the semantics of swear words. The semantic characterization of the concepts “swearing” and “swear word” is also discussed.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(1993) English (Australia), French – Conversational strategies
Béal, Christine (1993). Les stratégies conversationnelles en français et en anglais: Conventions ou reflet de divergences culturelles profondes? [Conversational strategies in French and English: Convention or reflection of profound cultural divergence?] Langue française, 98, 79-106. DOI: 10.3406/lfr.1993.5835. PDF (open access)
The inspiration for this paper was found in A. Wierzbicka’s Cross-cultural pragmatics (1991). The author describes contrastively some of the rules which underlie conversation in French and in Australian English. The transcription of authentic recordings shows how each system works in isolation and what kind of conflicts emerge when both systems meet (in the case of native speakers or French using their own conversational strategies when expressing themselves in English). It is claimed that the observed differences reflect divergent cultural norms. underlie conversation in French and in Australian English. The transcription of authentic recordings shows how each system works in isolation and what kind of conflicts emerge when both systems meet (in the case of native speakers or French using their own conversational strategies when expressing themselves in English). It is claimed that the observed differences reflect divergent cultural norms.
(1993) French – Negative markers
Ritz, Marie-Ève (1993). La sémantique de la négation en français. Langue française, 98, 67-78. DOI: 10.3406/lfr.1993.5834. PDF (open access)
This paper shows how the use of a metalanguage consisting of primitives allows one to clarify some of the problems raised by negation in French. The latter is envisaged not from a static point of view, but, within the psychomecanic tradition, as a cinetism moving from more to less, from plus to minus. The author deals first with fuzziness in negation as achieved by the use of hedges, then looks at the “redundant” ne wich occasionally occurs in the language.
