Browsing results for Indo-European
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 17, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (1997). Semantic primes and grammatical categories. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 17(1), 1-41. DOI: 10.1080/07268609708599543
This paper argues that all 55 of the semantic primes currently [1997] posited in the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) theory are frequently found as components of grammatically encoded meanings. Examples are taken from a wide variety of the world’s languages, including Ewe, Kashaya, Polish, Quechua, Tibetan, and Wintu. They include phenomena such as pronoun systems, indefinites, classifiers, evidentials, locational deixis, tense systems, diminutives and augmentatives, and modality. Explications are proposed for absolute superlatives (-issimo), reflexive constructions, and constructions referred to as the active emotion construction, the emotional causer construction, the emotional stimulus construction, the impersonal emotion construction, and the object experiencer construction.
The study seeks to contribute to the development of a more rigorous semantic basis for grammatical typology, by demonstrating that the proposed semantic metalanguage is able to encompass and explicate a wide variety of grammaticalized meanings. Such a finding cuts across the commonly held view that, for the most part, grammatical semantics and lexical semantics call for rather different descriptive toolkits.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) evidentials, (E) move away, (E) move towards, (E) we, (T) English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Mostovaja, Anna D. (1997). *Social roles as containers in Russian. International Journal of Slavic Linguistics and Poetics, 41, 119-141.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 20, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1997). Understanding cultures through their key words: English, Russian, Polish, German, Japanese. New York: Oxford University Press.
Abstract:
This book develops the dual themes that languages can differ widely in their vocabularies, and are sensitive indices to the cultures to which they belong. The author seeks to demonstrate that every language has key concepts, expressed in (cultural) key words, which reflect the core values of a given culture. She shows that cultures can be revealingly studied, compared, and explained to outsiders through their key concepts, and that NSM provides the analytical framework necessary for this purpose. The book demonstrates that cultural patterns can be studied in a verifiable, rigorous, and non-speculative way, on the basis of empirical evidence and in a coherent theoretical framework.
Table of contents:
- Introduction
- Lexicon as a key to ethno-sociology and cultural psychology: Patterns of “friendship” across cultures
- Lexicon as a key to ethno-philosophy, history, and politics: “Freedom” in Latin, English, Russian, and Polish
- Lexicon as a key to history, nation, and society: “Homeland” and “fatherland” in German, Polish, and Russian
- Australian key words and core cultural values
- Japanese key words and core cultural values
Translations:
Into Polish:
(Chapter 3 only) Wierzbicka, Anna (1999). Język – umysł – kultura [Language, mind, culture]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2007). Słowa klucze: Różne języki – różne kultury. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego.
Into Russian (Chapters 1, 2 and 3 only):
Chapters 7 (pp. 263-305), 8 (pp. 306-433) and 9 (pp. 434-484) of Вежбицкая, Анна (1999), Семантические универсалии и описание языков [Semantic universals and the description of languages]. Москва [Moscow]: Языки русской культуры [Languages of Russian Culture].
Вежбицкая, Анна (2001). Понимание культур через посредство ключевых слов. Москва [Moscow]: Языки славянской культуры [Languages of Slavic Culture].
Into Japanese:
アンナ・ヴィエルジュビツカ著 [Anna Wierzbicka] (2009). キーワードによる異文化理解: 英語・ロシア語・ポーランド語・ 日本語の場合 . 東京 [Tokyo]: 而立書房 [Jiritsu Shobō].
More information:
Chapter 4 builds on: Lexicon as a key to history, culture, and society: “Homeland” and “fatherland” in German, Polish and Russian (1995)
Chapter 5, section 2 builds on: Cross-cultural pragmatics: The semantics of human interaction (1991), chapter 5
Chapter 5, section 3 builds on: Australian b-words (bloody, bastard, bugger, bullshit): An expression of Australian culture and national character (1992)
Chapter 6 builds on: Japanese key words and core cultural values (1991)
Reviewed by:
Peeters, Bert (2000). Word, 51(3), 443-449. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00437956.2000.11432505 / Open access
This review includes several suggestions for improvements to the explications in the book, as well as a revised explication of the Russian word друг drug.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
The tags mentioned below are limited to those not listed in work on which this book is based.
Tags: (E) colleagues, (E) drug друг, (E) family, (E) freedom, (E) friend, (E) koledzy, (E) libertas, (E) liberty, (E) mate, (E) omoiyari 思いやり, (E) podruga подруга, (E) prijatel' приятель, (E) przyjaciel, (E) rodnye родные, (E) rodzina, (E) svoboda свобода, (E) tovarišč, (E) volja воля, (E) wolność, (E) znajomi, (T) English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1998). The semantics of English causative constructions in a universal-typological perspective. In Michael Tomasello (Ed.), The new psychology of language: Cognitive and functional approaches to language structure: Vol. 1 (pp. 113-153). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Reissued as:
Wierzbicka, Anna (2014). The semantics of English causative constructions in a universal-typological perspective. In Michael Tomasello (Ed.), The new psychology of language: Cognitive and functional approaches to language structure: Vol. 1 (pp. 105-142). London: Psychology Press.
Translated into Russian as:
Вежбицкая, А. [Wierzbicka, Anna] (1999). Семантика английских каузативных конструкций в универсально-типологической перспективе. 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. 171-223). Москва [Moscow]: Языки русской культуры [Languages of Russian Culture].
(Modified) excerpt:
This chapter seeks to elucidate the differences in meaning between different causative verbs like to cause, to force, to make, to get, to let, and so on and to analyse the complex interplay between different relevant factors (the category to which the causer belongs, the category to which the causee belongs, the category to which the predicate of the complement clause belongs, the causative verb chosen in a given sentence, and so on). To do so successfully, we do not need any formidable technical formalisms. Nor do we need to endlessly concern ourselves with the perennially contested issue of how (or even if) syntax can be combined with semantics. Rather, what we need is an analytical framework in which syntax and lexical semantics are integrated from the very beginning.
The overall picture produced by an analysis that pays attention to all the relevant factors is, admittedly, complex and intricate much more so than one that operates only with tree diagrams and other similar formalisms; but it is, I believe, the only kind of analysis that can achieve descriptive adequacy and explanatory power. It is language itself that is immensely complex. At the same time, if we allow that all languages may have a relatively simple irreducible core, we can use this irreducible core of all languages as a basis for an understanding of the immensely complex and diverse systems that all human languages are.
Syntactic typology that deliberately closes its eyes to the semantic dimensions of formal diversity of languages is, ultimately, sterile and unilluminating. Opening typology to semantics may involve difficulties, but rather than avoiding them, it is surely more fruitful to sharpen our analytical tools and to develop safeguards of various kinds. Above all, we need a semantic metalanguage for a cross-cultural comparison of meanings, whether they are encoded in the lexicon or in grammar. As, I hope, this chapter illustrates, the “Natural Semantic Metalanguage” based on empirically established universal concepts can meet this need.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 16, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1998). German ‘cultural scripts’: Public signs as a key to social attitudes and cultural values. Discourse & Society, 9(2), 241-282.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926598009002006
Abstract:
This paper is based on the following set of assumptions:
- ways of speaking characteristic of a given speech community constitute a manifestation of a tacit system of ‘cultural rules’ or ‘cultural scripts’;
- to understand a society’s ways of speaking, we have to identify and articulate its implicit cultural scripts;
- to be able to do this without ethnocentric bias we need a universal, language-independent perspective; and
- this can be attained if the ‘rules’ in question are stated in terms of lexical universals, that is, universal human concepts lexicalized in all languages of the world.
This paper applies the cultural script approach to German and compares German norms with Anglo norms (that is, norms prevailing in English-speaking societies). The author notes that, in recent decades, great changes have undoubtedly occurred in German ways of speaking and, it can be presumed, in underlying cultural values. For example, the dramatic spread of the use of the “familiar” form of address (du, as opposed to Sie), and the decline in the use of titles (e.g., Herr Müller instead of Prof. Müller) point to significant changes in interpersonal relations, in the direction of more egalitarian informality. At the same time, evidence of contemporary public signs, which are discussed here, suggests that some traditional German values, like the value of social discipline and of Ordnung (order) based on legitimate authority, are far from obsolete. It is shown that, in studying such values, we can rely on concepts more precise and more illuminating than ‘authoritarianism’ or ‘authoritarian personality’, often used in the past in analyses of German culture and society, and that the cultural scripts approach offers a rigorous and efficient tool for studying change and variation, as well as continuity, in social attitudes and cultural values.
Above all, rather than perpetuating stereotypes based on prejudice and lack of understanding, cultural scripts help outsiders grasp the ‘cultural logic’ underlying unfamiliar ways of speaking that may otherwise look like a strange collection of idiosyncracies — or worse.
Translations:
Into Russian:
Chapter 15 (pp. 682-729) of Вежбицкая, Анна (1999), Семантические универсалии и описание языков [Semantic universals and the description of languages]. Москва [Moscow]: Языки русской культуры [Languages of Russian Culture].
Chapter 4 (pp. 159-217) of Вежбицкая, Анна (2001), Сопоставление культур через посредство лексики и прагматики [Comparison of cultures through vocabulary and pragmatics]. Москва [Moscow]: Языки Славянской Культуры [Languages of Slavic Culture].
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) (imperative constructions), (E) (infinitive-as-imperative constructions), (E) Achtung!, (E) bitte, (E) dürfen, (E) important, (E) nicht gestattet, (E) no [verb]ing, (E) verboten, (S) personal authority
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Travis, Catherine (1998). Omoiyari as a core Japanese value: Japanese-style empathy? In Angeliki Athanasiadou, & Elzbieta Tabakowska (Eds.), Speaking of emotions: Conceptualisation and expression (pp. 83-103). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110806007.55
This paper presents a semantic analysis of the Japanese concept of omoiyari, a key word representing core Japanese values. Omoiyari is essential to successful communication and the maintaining of harmonious relations in Japan. A full understanding of this word is extremely insightful into Japanese culture, revealing a great deal about the Japanese “indirect” communicative style; the importance of being “in tune” with others’ unexpressed desires and feelings; the “interdependence” on which group relations are based in Japan; and, in the light of all these factors, the Japanese perception of individuality, or “selfhood”. Furthermore, an understanding of omoiyari provides analysts with a tool with which to examine and describe Japanese culture, allowing them to adopt a kind of Japanese perspective, and thus to gain greater comprehension of some of the values and attitudes on which the society operates.
Omoiyari essentially represents a kind of “intuitive” understanding of the unexpressed feelings, desires and thoughts of others, and doing something for them on the basis of this understanding. Previous analyses of this word have been carried out without establishing an explicit definition of omoiyari, and it has been defined in terms of apparently “close” English equivalents. Such an approach is inherently flawed, as there is no one word for omoiyari in English. It is possible to fully define omoiyari in a way that makes its meaning accessible to non-Japanese speakers, and that is by using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage as developed by Wierzbicka and colleagues. This paper will present such a definition, established through an analysis of usage examples. This will then be compared with the meaning of one of its “close” English equivalents, and probably the word most commonly used to translate omoiyari, which is empathy. It shall be shown that, although these two words are similar in some respects, their meanings have much less in common than may be perceived through a superficial analysis, and that these differences reflect real differences in the respective cultures to which these words belong.
Tags: (E) empathy, (E) omoiyari 思いやり
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1998). Anchoring linguistic typology in universal semantic primes. Linguistic Typology, 2(2), 141-194. DOI: 10.1515/lity.1998.2.2.141
In essence, “grammar is one and the same in all languages”, but to establish what this universal grammar really looks like we have to investigate and compare many diverse languages, and for this we need a powerful and universally applicable metalanguage based on empirically established lexico-grammatical universals. The rough and incomplete outline of universal grammar sketched in this paper constitutes both a summary of the results arrived at by theoretical and empirical work over more than three decades (in the so-called “NSM” framework) and a program for further investigations. The author tries to show that it is possible to base investigations of universal grammar and typology on a truly universal, non-technical, non-arbitrary and intuitively intelligible tertium comparationis, and thus give it a secure and reliable foundation.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) [grammatical] patient, (E) information questions, (E) kivat', (E) opustit', (E) polar questions, (E) that [relative pronoun], (E) when, (E) where, (T) English
Published on August 2, 2018. Last updated on August 31, 2018.
Bogusławski, Andrzej (1998). The semantic primitives ‘someone’, ‘something’ and the Russian contradistinction -nibud’ vs. -to. In Maciej Grochowski, & Gerd Hentschel (Eds.), Funktionsworter im Polnischen (pp. 33-35). Oldenburg: BIS.
Published on July 3, 2017. Last updated on February 17, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (1998). Universal semantic primes of space – A lost cause? LAUD Working Papers, Series A, General and Theoretical Papers, 434. PDF (open access)
Reissued in 2007 with divergent page numbering.
In recent years, a new wave of research on language and space has uncovered surprising variation in the linguistic coding of spatial relationships. It is now known that some languages, e.g. Tzeltal, exhibit remarkable lexico-grammatical elaboration of spatial relationships; that in many languages of Africa and Oceania apparently simple spatial relationships such as INSIDE and ABOVE are encoded by means of noun-like words, or by a combination of a preposition and a postposition, each of which may be independently meaningful. It has also been shown that children’s early acquisition of spatial terminology differs markedly between typologically different languages.
In almost all this recent work, the emphasis has been on cross-linguistic variation in spatial semantics. The question then arises whether there any semantic universals of space that are still viable in the light of the attested variation in formal realization and lexico-grammatical elaboration. In particular, what of the semantic primes of space proposed within the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework, namely: WHERE/PLACE, HERE, ABOVE, BELOW, INSIDE, ON (ONE) SIDE, NEAR, FAR?
After an introduction, the body of the paper has three sections. The first argues that three languages that exhibit markedly different spatial characteristics to English (Tzeltal, Longgu, Ewe) nevertheless still contain exponents of the NSM spatial primes. The second takes a fresh look at some of the new results on cross-linguistic variation in the acquisition of spatial semantics, with particular reference to Korean. The third surveys the grammaticalization of spatial meaning in a typological perspective, concluding that the items on the NSM inventory of spatial primes are all found as recurrent dimensions of grammaticalized meaning in a range of languages.
The overall conclusion is that NSM’s spatial primes are both viable and necessary for the description of spatial meanings within and across languages.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) move away, (E) move towards, (E) on
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 16, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1998). “Sadness” and “anger” in Russian: The non-universality of the so-called “basic human emotions”. In Angeliki Athanasiadou, & Elzbieta Tabakowska (Eds.), Speaking of emotions: Conceptualisation and expression (pp. 3-28). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110806007.3
Abstract:
The English words sad and angry (or sadness and anger) do not have exact equivalents in Russian, just as the Russian words грусть grust’, печаль pečal’, and сердиться serdit’sja do not have exact equivalents in English. How, then, are we to understand claims that ‘sadness’ or ‘anger’ are universal human emotions?
Emotions cannot be identified without words, and words always belong to particular cultures and carry with them a culture-specific perspective. The only words that are, in a sense, culture-independent are lexical universals, realized in English as good and bad, want, know, feel, think, and say, and so on. Any innate and universal cognitive scenarios that play a special role in human emotional lives all over the world would have to be identified via such lexical universals, not via culture-specific words such as sadness or anger. It may be true that ‘sadness’ and ‘anger’ are universally found in all cultures; but they are found there by native speakers of English. Observers looking at these cultures from a different cultural perspective will probably find something else.
Translations:
Into Russian:
Chapter 10 (pp. 503-525) of Вежбицкая, Анна (1999), Семантические универсалии и описание языков [Semantic universals and the description of languages]. Москва [Moscow]: Языки Русской Культуры [Languages of Russian Culture].
Chapter 1 (pp. 15-43) of Вежбицкая, Анна (2001), Сопоставление культур через посредство лексики и прагматики [Comparison of cultures through vocabulary and pragmatics]. Москва [Moscow]: Языки Славянской Культуры [Languages of Slavic Culture].
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) anger, (E) angry, (E) gnev гнев, (E) grust' грусть, (E) pečal' печаль, (E) sadness, (E) serdit'sja сердиться
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 3, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1998). Russian emotional expression. Ethos, 26(4), 456-483. DOI: 10.1525/eth.1998.26.4.456
Translated into Russian as:
Вежбицкая, А. [Wierzbicka, Anna] (1999). Выражение эмоций в русском языке: заметки по поводу «Русско-английского словаря коллокаций, относящихся к человеческому телу». 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. 526-546). Москва [Moscow]: Языки русской культуры [Languages of Russian Culture].
This article examines Russian “emotional ideology” as reflected in the Russian language, and especially in the Russian collocational system. Colloquial collocations involving the human body, seen as an organ of emotional expression, are the focusfor comparingfolk models of the body and emotion in Russian and Anglo cultures. A theory of “cultural scripts” forms the basis of generalizations from the linguistic evidence.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Mostovaja, Anna D. (1998). On emotions that one can “immerse into”, “fall into” and “come to”: The semantics of a few Russian prepositional constructions. In Angeliki Athanasiadou, & Elzbieta Tabakowska (Eds.), Speaking of emotions: Conceptualisation and expression (pp. 295-330). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110806007.295
This paper examines the projection of a few spatial relations such as ‘an object being immersed in a deep container’, ‘a person coming to a place’ and ‘an object located in a place’ into the domain of emotions. In this paper I will attempt to describe what kinds of words referring to emotions and inner states can be treated as containers for those experiencing them in four Russian constructions with the preposition
V ‘in/into’ and different verbs. We will see that although all of these constructions present an emotion experienced by a person as if it were a container or a place, semantic constraints on X are different for
each of the four constructions. Differences in semantic constraints associated with the constructions are caused by differences in meaning between verbs used in the constructions.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 26, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (1998). Bad arguments against semantic primitives. Theoretical Linguistics, 24(2/3), 129-156. DOI: 10.1515/thli.1998.24.2-3.129
Semantic primitives have fallen on hard times. Though their existence was once widely accepted in linguistics, a variety of counter-arguments have since engendered widespread scepticism. This paper examines a selection of anti-primitives arguments with the aim of showing that they fail to apply to the semantic primes of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach.
The most serious of the faulty arguments invalidly link semantic primitives with ‘objectivism’, or with abstractness and non-verifiability, or with implausible views about language acquisition or language processing. Others rely on misanalysed linguistic ‘facts’, or simply fail to come to grips with the most credible pro-primitives position. The anti-primitives arguments are drawn from a broad range of sources, including the philosophy of language, psycholinguistics, language acquisition studies, and cognitive linguistics.
The paper includes explications of the English words break, happy, lie and on.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) break, (E) happy, (E) lie, (E) on
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Travis, Catherine (1998). Bueno: A Spanish interactive discourse marker. In Benjamin K. Bergen, Madelaine C. Plauché, & Ashlee C. Bailey (Eds.), Proceedings of the twenty-fourth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General session and parasession on phonetics and phonological universals (pp. 268-279). Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society. DOI: 10.3765/bls.v24i1.1222. PDF (open access)
This paper presents a semantic analysis of the Spanish discourse marker bueno (something similar to ‘well’, ‘OK’, ‘alright’ in English). Four discourse functions of bueno are identified and discussed. On the basis of these functions, it is suggested that bueno is polysemous, and following the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach, two definitions to account for its range of use are proposed. It is argued that these definitions reflect the way in which the meaning of the discourse marker bueno is related to the adjective bueno, meaning ‘good’. Finally, we consider the role bueno may play in the communicative realization of the norms and values of the cultures in which it is used.
Tags: (E) bueno
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on May 1, 2019.
Bardzokas, Chrisovalandis & Dirven, René (1999). Conceptualizations in the domain of ‘happiness’ in English: The value of explications and cultural scripts. RASK (International Journal of Language and Communication), 9-10, 157-188.
Open access
Abstract:
In English, conceptualization within the domain of happiness involves a great many emotion words that may appear as nouns, adjectives or even verbs and that are often very close in meaning to one another. They can therefore be expected to be defined in highly circular ways in most current dictionaries. This paper investigates whether NSM can meet the requirement of describing each of the concepts in the domain of happiness in English in a non-circular and exhaustive way. One of the most remarkable results of the application of the NSM approach to the eleven happiness-related concepts selected is the very clear delimitation of and distinction between four groups of concepts: imminent states of happiness, “doing forms” of happiness, event-like forms of happiness, and transient states of happiness.
Rating:
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) bliss, (E) cheerful, (E) delighted, (E) exultant, (E) glad, (E) happy, (E) jubilant, (E) merry, (E) overjoyed, (E) pleased, (E) thrilled
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2018.
Bardzokas, Chrisovalandis (1999). The language of anger. MA thesis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
This dissertation offers an analysis of the hotly debated emotion concept of ‘anger’. For the purpose of this analysis, two influential models are put forward: the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (or NSM) as well as the cognitive processes of metaphor and metonymy introduced by Lakoff and Johnson. The results of the research are far from trivial. In terms of emotion analysis, the two models provide insight into the conceptualization of ‘anger’ and, specifically, comparative insight into the English concept of ‘anger’ and the Greek conceptual equivalent expressed in the word thymos. In terms of model evaluation, the two types of analysis yield results that can be readily contrasted and assessed on the basis of the kinds of insight they offer.
A revised version of Chapter 2 of this thesis – the one that specifically engages with the NSM model – has been published as:
Bardzokas, Chrisovalandis (2004). Contrastive semantics of English “anger” and Modern Greek “θymos”. LAUD Working Papers, Series A, General and Theoretical Papers, 582.
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 September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (1999). ‘Salut! Ça va? Vous avez passé un bon weekend?’ Journal of French Language Studies, 9, 239-257.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Enfield, Nick J. (1999). On the indispensability of semantics: Defining the ‘vacuous’. RASK (International Journal of Language and Communication), 9/10, 285-304.
This paper deals with the semantics of “vacuous expressions” in English and Lao.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Langford, Ian (2000). Forensic semantics: The meaning of murder, manslaughter and homicide. Forensic Linguistics, 7(1), 72-94. DOI: 10.1558/ijsll.v7i1.72
The purpose of this paper is to show how the meaning of an expression referring to a crime can be stated in simple words that anyone can understand. Judges need to explain to juries the meaning of the crime that the accused is charged with, the accused needs to understand it, interpreter and translator need to understand it, and of course, lawyers need to understand the charge when advising clients and when preparing for trial. This paper shows how the forensic linguist can help people involved in the criminal justice system to understand the meaning of expressions referring to crimes. This can be done by a method of analysis which represents meaning through about sixty basic English words and a simple syntax known to all speakers of English.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) homicide, (E) manslaughter, (E) murder
Published on August 10, 2018. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Fabiszak, Małgorzata (2000). An application of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage to diachronic semantics. In Irma Taavitsainen, Terttu Nevalainen, Päivi Pahta, & Matti Rissanen (Eds.), Placing Middle English in context (pp. 293-312). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110869514.293
This paper is a methodological exercise in which Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), developed as a method of objective description in cross-cultural research, is applied to diachronic data concerning four Middle English emotion terms from the semantic field of ‘joy’. Wierzbicka’s framework provides the means for describing the data neatly, improves their processing, and contributes to the efficiency of their presentation. The application of her formal methodology has made the usage patterns characteristic of the analysed emotion terms more transparent and easier to generalise over.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) bliss, (E) blithe, (E) delight, (E) joy
