Browsing results for Romance Languages
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 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
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on May 1, 2019.
Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2012). Saudade: A key Portuguese emotion. Emotion Review, 4(2). 203-211.
DOI: 10.1177/1754073911430727
Abstract:
This paper analyses the meaning of the Portuguese emotion word saudade, roughly translatable as ‘nostalgia’, in an attempt to show its cultural significance and contradict the view that nostalgia is a marginal feeling, deprived of any practical function. Saudade is not a marginal feeling in Portuguese culture, but an important and basic emotion term going hand in hand with amor ‘love’. Saudade may be viewed as a typically prototypical category, because it covers the whole scale of feelings, from sadness to happiness. The Portuguese claim it has no equivalents in any other language in the world and regard it as a fundamental and distinctive feature of their national identity. Its main characteristic lies in its ambivalence — saudade is both a memory and a feeling; it is both pleasure and pain.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) saudade
Published on July 1, 2017. Last updated on May 1, 2019.
Hărăbor, Alina (2012). An inquiry into Romanian anger-like and happiness-like emotions. Master’s thesis, Australian National University.
Open access
Abstract:
This thesis seeks to shed light on the inner lives of Romanian people via the language they use to communicate about their emotions. It is the first detailed study analysing these emotions by examining vocabulary, in particular the anger-related emotion words mânie and supărare and the happiness-related words fericire and veselie, as well as the syntactic constructions in which they occur. The thesis also highlights beliefs and cultural values that influence emotional experience.
By using NSM and drawing on instances of natural language (mainly extracted from the Romanian Corpus Linguistic), as well as proverbs, sayings, poems and songs, this study shows that Romanian emotions are very intense and that Romanians have a highly responsive behaviour: they feel and think socially rather than individually. For example, people’s ability to feel something good is intensified when they share a good feeling with someone else. Furthermore, the thesis shows that labels such as anger or happiness cannot be applied to Romanian because the emotional reality expressed in Romanian does not match the Anglo concepts described by these English labels.
Rating:
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) fericire, (E) mânie, (E) supărare, (E) veselie, (S) fericire, (S) mânie, (S) supărare, (S) veselie, (T) Romanian
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2012). Spanish pain, el dolor. In Zdzislaw Wasik, & Piotr P. Chruszczewski (Eds.), Languages in contact 2011 (pp. 61-71). Wroclaw: Wydawnictwo WSF.
The present paper is dedicated to the analysis of the Spanish word dolor ‘pain’; my aim is to demonstrate its cultural specificity and uniqueness. On the basis of lexical and textual data I explicate what the meaning of dolor is, and why I consider it very different from pain, its English counterpart. To free my considerations from an ethnocentric bias, I rely on NSM or Natural Semantic Metalanguage.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) dolor
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2013). Translatability and the scripting of other peoples’ souls. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 24(1), 1-22. DOI: 10.1111/taja.12018
If anthropology aims at understanding ‘others’, then obviously anthropologists must be interested in the meaning of what those ‘others’ say. But to understand what speakers of a language other than our own say, we need to know what exactly the words and grammatical categories of that other language mean. This article argues that translating indigenous categories into academic English does not allow us to capture indigenous perspectives and leads to what Geertz calls “scripting other people’s souls”. Focusing on cognitive and cultural categories from Australian Aboriginal languages usually linked with English labels such as ‘kinship obligations’ and ‘odd-numbered generations’, the article shows how the ways of thinking encoded in these languages can be explicated from the insider’s point of view, in simple words and simple sentences directly cross-translatable into the indigenous languages themselves.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) loyalty, (E) loyauté, (S) categorization of oneself in relation to other people, (S) categorization of other people in relation to oneself, (S) generational moieties, (S) mutual identification with others, (S) obligations towards extended family, (T) English
Published on September 30, 2018. Last updated on August 15, 2021.
Bromhead, Helen (2013). Mountains, rivers, billabongs: Ethnogeographical categorization in cross-linguistic perspective. PhD thesis, Australian National University.
A more recent publication building on this one is:
Bromhead, Helen (2018). Landscape and culture – Cross-linguistic perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
This thesis examines the topic of ethnogeographical categorization by looking at the contrastive lexical semantics of a selection of landscape terms in a number of languages. The main languages in focus are English, including the Australian variety of English, French, Spanish, and the Australian Aboriginal language Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara.
The thesis argues that languages and cultures categorize the geographical environment in diverse ways. Common elements of classification are found across the selected languages, but it is argued that different priorities are given to these factors. Moreover, the thesis finds that there are language-specific aspects of the landscape terms, often motivated by culture and land use. Notably, this thesis presents ethnogeographical concepts as being anchored in an anthropocentric perspective, based on human vision and experience in space.
The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) technique of semantic analysis is used throughout. The use of the universal concepts and language of NSM allows the author to clearly state the cross-cultural and cross-linguistic similarities and differences in the semantics of the landscape terms examined. It is argued that this methodology provides an effective tool in the exploration of ethnogeographical categories.
Areas of landscape vocabulary covered in this thesis include words for ‘long flowing-water places’, such as river, in chapter 3; words for ‘standing-water places’, such as lake, in chapter 4; words for ‘elevated places’, such as mountain, in chapter 5; seascape terms, such as coast, in chapter 6; and words for larger areas of the land, such as desert and the bush, in chapters 7 and 8. The thesis also offers suggestions for new directions for research.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (2013). La langue de bois: un pèlerinage ethnolexicologique [La langue de bois: An ethnolexicological pilgrimage]. In Pierre Marillaud & Robert Gauthier (Eds.), La mauvaise parole: 33e Colloque d’Albi Langages et Signification (pp. 196-210). Albi/Toulouse: CALS/CPST.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (2013). Râler, râleur, râlite: discours, langue et valeurs culturelles [Râler, râleur, râlite: Discourse, language and cultural values]. In C. Claudel, P. von Münchow, M. Pordeus, F. Pugnière-Saavedra & G. Tréguer-Felten (ed.), Cultures, discours, langues: nouveaux abordages (pp. 117-141). Limoges: Lambert-Lucas.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (2013). Ah méfiance, quand tu tiens la France… Cahiers de praxématique, 60. DOI: 10.4000/praxematique.3872
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 31, 2018.
Barrios Rodríguez, María Auxiliadora, & Goddard, Cliff (2013). ‘Degrad verbs’ in Spanish and English: Collocations, lexical functions and contrastive NSM semantic analysis. Functions of Language, 20(2), 219-249. DOI: 10.1075/fol.20.2.04bar
The Lexical Function Degrad is a device used in Meaning-Text Theory (MTT) to select the appropriate verb for expressing ‘to become permanently worse or bad’ in combination with different nouns. For example, in English one says that fruit rots, milk goes off, shoes wear out, flowers wilt, and iron rusts; thus, the verbs rot, go off, wear out, etc. can all be considered “values” of Degrad. Comparing these verbs with their translation equivalents in Spanish shows that verbs in the two languages have somewhat different collocational possibilities. Are such collocational differences arbitrary or do they result from subtle meaning differences between the translation equivalents? In this study we undertake a contrastive semantic analysis of a selection of words in the Degrad domain, using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) method of semantic explication. We conclude that collocational preferences are indeed semantically motivated, but at the same time we recognize that Degrad is a valuable lexicological tool for verb classification, as well as for coordinating translation equivalents across languages at an approximate level. The paper aims to encourage productive engagement between two well developed approaches to lexical semantics, while at the same time demonstrating the explanatory power of the detailed “micro-semantic” analysis enabled by the NSM methodology.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) agostarse, (E) desgastarse, (E) estropearse, (E) gastarse, (E) go off, (E) marchitarse, (E) pasarse, (E) pudrirse, (E) rot, (E) wear out, (E) wilt, (E) wither, (T) Spanish
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Vukoja, Vida (2014). Passion, a forgotten feeling. In Fabienne Baider, & Georgeta Cislaru (Eds.), Linguistic perspectives on emotions in discourse (pp. 39-69). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/pbns.241.04vuk
When contemporary sciences and humanities use the term emotion while discussing human mental-sentient dynamics, they usually don’t question its supposed status of a conceptual universal. Yet, despite its frequent usage, the term is surprisingly ambiguous, and its universality status is highly dubious. For
instance, it shows not to be particularly adequate for the analysis of the Croatian Church Slavonic lexis that expresses phenomena linked to the human mental-sentient dynamics. Instead, this lexis seems to be in concordance with the concepts pertaining to the medieval paradigm relying on the Latin terms passio (Eng. equivalent: passion) and affectus (Eng. equivalent affect). The paradigm is articulated in the most interesting way by Thomas Aquinas and unfortunately almost forgotten or unwarrantably confounded with the paradigm of emotions.
The third option in conceptualizing human mental-sentient dynamics (besides those that rely on emotions on one hand, and passions and affect on the other) argues that the concept FEEL is the most convincing universal candidate. Namely, the researchers of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage hypothesis present substantial theoretical evidence and ample amounts of corroborating data from typologically different languages of the world that back up such a proposal. This paper benefits from this finding, since the word FEEL, and NSM in general, proved to be an adequate tool for delineating similarities and differences between concepts of ‘emotion’, Lat. ‘passio’ and Lat. ‘affectus’.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 1, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2014). “Pain” and “suffering” in cross-linguistic perspective. International Journal of Language and Culture, 1(2), 149-173.
DOI: 10.1075/ijolc.1.2.02wie
Abstract:
This paper builds on findings of the author’s 1999 book Emotions Across Languages and Cultures: Diversity and Universals, which tentatively identified eleven universals pertaining to human emotions. The paper probes some of those “emotional universals” further, especially in relation to ‘laughing’, ‘crying’, and ‘pain’. At the same time, the author continues her campaign against pseudo-universals, focusing in particular on the anthropological and philosophical discourse of “suffering”. The paper argues for the Christian origins of the concept of “suffering” lexically embodied in European languages, and contrasts it with the Buddhist concept of ‘dukkha’, usually rendered in Anglophone discussions of Buddhism with the word suffering.
More information:
Reissued as:
Wierzbicka, Anna (2016). “Pain” and “suffering” in cross-linguistic perspective. In Cliff Goddard & Zhengdao Ye (Eds.), “Happiness” and “pain” across languages and cultures (pp. 19-43). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/bct.84.02wie
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) cry, (E) douleur, (E) dukkha, (E) feel pain, (E) laugh, (E) suffer, (E) suffering, (E) weinen, (E) xiào 笑
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 7, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2014). On “disgust”. In Fabienne Baider, & Georgeta Cislaru (Eds.), Linguistic approaches to emotions in context (pp. 73-97). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
DOI: 10.1075/pbns.241.06god
Abstract:
This study relies on the NSM approach to explore conceptualisations of “disgust” in English via semantic analysis of descriptive adjectives (disgusted and disgusting) and interjections (Ugh! and Yuck!). As well as drawing out some subtle meaning differences between these expressions, the exercise establishes that there is no one-to-one mapping between the meanings of descriptive emotion lexemes, on the one hand, and expressive interjections, on the other.
More broadly, the study seeks to advance the semantic study of “disgust-like” concepts in a cross-linguistic perspective, first, by highlighting aspects of meaning that differ between the English expressions and their near-equivalents in other languages, such as German, French and Polish, and second, by proposing a set of touchstone semantic components that can help facilitate cross-linguistic investigation.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) disgusted, (E) disgusting, (E) Fu!, (E) pleased, (E) sad, (E) Ugh!, (E) Yuck!
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on January 15, 2022.
Waters, Sophia Elizabeth (2014). The cultural semantics of “sociality” terms in Australian English, with contrastive reference to French. PhD thesis, University of New England.
This thesis investigates the lexical semantics of nice and a set of other superficially “simple” sociality concepts (rude, polite and manners) in Australian English. When appropriately analysed, these words reveal much about the socially accepted and approved ways of behaving in Australian society. As expected of heavily culture-laden words, nice and rude lack precise translation equivalents in many languages and can be regarded as cultural key words. The comparative reference to French (for example, nice vs. gentil lit. ‘kind’, rude vs. mal élevé lit. ‘badly brought up’) highlights differences in ways of behaving and construals of sociality.
The thesis engages with the (im)politeness literature, and addresses the problem of transparent definitions of sociality words as they are used by ordinary speakers. This thesis enriches the current literature on (im)politeness and sociality by providing clear and accessible lexical semantic analyses of these words in Australian English, in a range of contexts, collocations and constructional frames in 24 explications. The methodology for the semantic analysis is the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach. The lexical semantic analysis of the abstract noun manners pioneers the theoretical innovation of “manners scripts”, which are an extension of the cultural scripts approach.
A quasi-ethnographic approach was taken to compile the dataset of example sentences of Australian English and French sourced from the search engine Google. These form a purpose-built corpus of almost 3000 tokens.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) mal élevé, (E) manners, (E) nice, (E) polite, (E) rude, (E) table manners, (E) well-mannered, (S) expressiveness, (S) no elbows on the table, (S) no reaching, (S) not chewing with the mouth open, (S) not speaking with the mouth full, (S) saying excuse me, (S) saying hello, (S) saying please, (S) saying sorry, (S) saying thank you, (S) using cutlery, (T) French
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on May 7, 2019.
Baider, Fabienne (2014). Bad feelings in context. In Fabienne Baider, & Georgeta Cislaru (Eds.), Linguistic approaches to emotions in context (pp. 189-212). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
DOI: 10.1075/pbns.241.11bai
Abstract:
This study revisits some earlier explications for anger-like words in English and Russian, then calls for the NSM approach to be combined with the socio-cognitive approach advocated by Rachel Giora and Istvan Kecskes. Oral and written data are used to define the salient features of the main hatred- and anger-like words in two languages: French (as spoken in France) and Greek (as spoken on Cyprus). The analysis reveals some differences regarding the referential dimension of the selected words, highlighting the fact that revenge occurs by default with hatred, but not (unlike previously suggested) with anger. Cypriot Greek μισός misos is equated with English anger, and θυμός thymos with French colère, and explications are proposed for each.
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In spite of some good insights and an interesting proposal to bring Giora’s concept of salience to bear on NSM data gathering practices, the paper does not live up to expectation. It remains an open question whether μισός misos can indeed be equated with English anger, and θυμός thymos with French colère. The author’s explications of these terms are problematical in more ways than one. |
blablabla
Rating:
Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) anger, (E) colère, (E) misos μισός, (E) thymos θυμός
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 25, 2019.
Gladkova, Anna, & Romero-Trillo, Jesús (2014). Ain’t it beautiful? The conceptualization of beauty from an ethnopragmatic perspective. Journal of Pragmatics, 60, 140-159.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2013.11.005
Abstract:
This study addresses the question of the ethnopragmatic conceptualization of ‘beautiful’ in three European languages – English, Russian and Spanish. Specifically, it investigates the polysemy and the spheres of application of English beautiful, Russian красивый krasivyj, and Spanish bonito/a. Through corpus analysis methodology, the authors investigate the most common collocations and the pragmatic and contextual uses of these terms. On the basis of the analysis, the study then adopts NSM to propose semantic explications of the three words in universal human concepts. In particular, it investigates the presence of the perception universals SEE, HEAR, and FEEL, which in the data are central to the analysis of the aesthetics vocabulary, along with the primes GOOD, SOMEONE, SOMETHING and THINK.
The data for the study comes from three online corpora: the Russian National Corpus (Russian), Cobuild’s Wordbanks Online (English) and the Corpus de referencia del español actual (Spanish).
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) beautiful, (E) bonito, (E) krasivyj красивый, (E) sympathy, (T) Russian, (T) Spanish
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (2014). “C’est pas ma faute”: Analyse ethnophraséologique [“C’est pas ma faute”: An ethnophraseological analysis]. In Ana-Maria Cozma, Abdelhadi Bellachhab, & Marion Pescheux (Eds.), Du sens à la signification. De la signification aux sens: Mélanges offerts à Olga Galatanu (pp. 313-328). Bruxelles: Peter Lang.
Written in French. No abstract available.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) C'est pas ma faute
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 3, 2019.
Peeters, Bert (2014). On va s’arranger/On s’arrangera: étude ethnophraséologique de deux actes (généralement) rassurants [On va s’arranger/On s’arrangera: An ethnophraseological study of two (generally) reassuring speech acts]. Scolia, 28, 129-149.
