A resource base of publications using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach. 1,100+ detailed notices, and counting!
François, Jacques (2007). Book review of Bert Peeters (Ed.), Semantic primes and universal grammar: Empirical evidence from the Romance languages. Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris, 102(2), 116-125.
Written in French.
This book review includes French translations of some of the explications provided in the chapters by Patrick Farrell and by Mónica Aznárez Mauleón and Ramón González Ruiz.
Goddard, Cliff, & Anna Wierzbicka (2008). Universal human concepts as a basis for contrastive linguistic semantics. In María de los Ángeles Gómez González, J. Lachlan Mackenzie, & Elsa M. González Álvarez (Eds.), Current trends in contrastive linguistics: Functional and cognitive perspectives (pp. 205-226). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/sfsl.60.13god
This study sets out to demonstrate that the NSM metalanguage of semantic primes provides a stable language-neutral medium for fine-grained contrastive semantic analysis, in both the lexical and grammatical domains. The lexical examples are drawn from “yearning-missing” words in English, Polish, Russian and Spanish, while the grammatical examples contrast the Spanish diminutive with the hypocoristic “diminutive” of Australian English. We show that the technique of explication (reductive paraphrase) into semantic primes makes it possible to pin down subtle meaning differences which cannot be captured using normal translation or grammatical labels. Explications for the Polish, Russian and Spanish examples are presented both in English and in the language concerned, thus establishing that the metalanguage being used is transposable across languages.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Wesoła, Justyna (2010). Hiszpańskie wykrzykniki w polskiej praktyce przekładowej [Spanish exclamations in Polish translation practice]. Łask: Oficyna Wydawnicz LEKSEM.
The nature of exclamations is still not fully explained, which means that their definition remains an issue for debate. The increased interest in these units observed in recent years has resulted in relatively numerous studies on exclamations and has contributed to a significant development of knowledge about their phonetic, morphological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic properties. However, there are very few works devoted either to the functioning of exclamations in text, or to problems associated with their translation.
This dissertation is the first attempt to analyse Spanish exclamations in the context of Polish translation practice. Its aim is twofold:
1. to characterize Spanish interjections in terms of: a) their frequency of occurrence (in diachronic perspective), b) their possible meanings (explicated in NSM), c) their mode of functioning in three different literary genres (drama, epic and lyric); and
2. to determine what methods are used in the translation of exclamations, and why, and to assign appropriate Polish translation equivalents to individual instances of exclamation.
In addition, an attempt is made to observe the individual preferences of authors and translators and to formulate some general conclusions about exclamations as a category.
Bourdin, Gabriel Luis (2011). Partes del cuerpo e incorporación nominal en expresiones emocionales mayas [Body parts and nominal incorporation in Maya emotional expressions]. Dimensión antropológica, 51, 103-130. PDF (open access)
This paper relates to the expression of emotions in colonial Yucatec Maya. NSM is used on just one occasion, to explicate the Spanish word miedo ‘fear’.
Goddard, Cliff (2011). Semantic analysis: A practical introduction. Second edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Revised and expanded version of:
Goddard, Cliff (1998). Semantic analysis: A practical introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The summary below reflects the contents of the second edition.
This lively textbook introduces students and scholars to practical and precise methods for articulating the meanings of words and sentences, and for revealing connections between language and culture. Topics range over emotions (Chapter 4), speech acts (Chapter 5), discourse particles and interjections (Chapter 6), words for animals and artefacts (Chapter 7), motion verbs (Chapter 8), physical activity verbs (Chapter 9), causatives (Chapter 10), and nonverbal communication. Alongside English, it features a wide range of other languages, including Malay, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Spanish, and Australian Aboriginal languages. Undergraduates, graduate students and professional linguists alike will benefit from Goddard’s wide-ranging summaries, clear explanations and analytical depth. Meaning is fundamental to language and linguistics. This book shows that the study of meaning can be rigorous, insightful and exciting.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
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Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2011). El dolor y el tango [Pain and tango]. Estudios hispánicos, 19, 27-37. PDF (open access)
Written in Spanish.
The present paper is dedicated to the analysis of the Spanish word dolor (‘pain’) on the basis of a corpus consisting of 100 tango lyrics. I describe the linguistic picture of dolor in tangos, demonstrating its cultural specificity. To describe its lexical and cultural meaning without an ethnocentric bias I rely on the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
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
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
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
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).
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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2014). Some remarks on “pain” in Latin American Spanish. International Journal of Language and Culture, 1(2), 239-252.
DOI: 10.1075/ijolc.1.2.06bul
Abstract:
The aim of this paper is to examine the Spanish counterpart of pain, that is, the lexeme dolor. It seems that dolor, different from both English pain and French douleur, has two clearly distinguishable meanings, dolor1 referring to physical (and emotional) sensation of pain, and dolor2, a quite frequent emotion term belonging to the domain of “sadness”. To support the above hypothesis, this article examines different lexical occurrences of the word dolor, coming inter alia from tango lyrics.
More information:
Reissued as:
Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2016). Some remarks on “pain” in Latin American Spanish. In Cliff Goddard & Zhengdao Ye (Eds.), “Happiness” and “pain” across languages and cultures (pp. 109-122). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/bct.84.06bul
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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Aragón, Karime (2016). Mexican colors and meanings: An ethnolinguistic study of visual semantics in Oaxaca. In Geda Paulsen, Mari Uusküla, & Jonathan Brindle (Eds.), Color language and color categorization (pp. 302-332). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Abstract:
This study explores the meanings of Mexican Spanish colour words using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage. Visual meanings are associated with widespread natural and material prototypes identified in the speaker’s cultural and environmental contexts. The results of the ethnolinguistic fieldwork reveal the visual meanings embedded in Mexican Spanish colour terms and their prototypes, illustrating the way Oaxacans think and talk about colour and account for the specifics of their visual and cultural practices.
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Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Aragón, Karime (2017). Visuality, identity and emotion: Rosa mexicano as a Mexican Spanish keyword. In Carsten Levisen & Sophia Waters (Eds.), Cultural keywords in discourse (pp. 131-156). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.277.06ara
Abstract:
This chapter presents a semantic and ethnopragmatic analysis of the Mexican Spanish colour word rosa mexicano. This word functions as a symbol of Mexican identity and serves as a cultural key word for Mexican Spanish speakers. It appears in a variety of discourses, such as international and cross-cultural relations, the arts, education and discursive representations of national self-perception. After providing a semantic analysis of the meaning of the word, the chapter moves on to an ethnopragmatic examination, articulating cultural scripts for the visual, identificational and emotional meanings associated with rosa mexicano discourse.
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Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Bromhead, Helen (2018). Landscape and culture – Cross-linguistic perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/clscc.9
This book is based, in part, on the author’s PhD thesis:
Bromhead, Helen (2013). Mountains, rivers, billabongs: Ethnogeographical categorization in cross-linguistic perspective. PhD thesis, Australian National University.
The relationship between landscape and culture seen through language is an exciting and increasingly explored area. This ground-breaking book contributes to the linguistic examination of both cross-cultural variation and unifying elements in geographical categorization.
The study focuses on the contrastive lexical semantics of certain landscape words in a number of languages. It presents landscape concepts as anchored in a human-centred perspective, based on our cognition, vision, and experience in places. The aim is to show how geographical vocabulary sheds light on the culturally and historically shaped ways people see and think about the land around them. Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) is used throughout, because it allows an analysis of meaning which is both fine-grained and transparent, and culturally sensitive.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Goddard, Cliff (2018). Ten lectures on Natural Semantic Metalanguage: Exploring language, thought and culture using simple, translatable words. Leiden: Brill. DOI: 10.1163/9789004357723
These lively lectures introduce the theory, practice, and application of a versatile, rigorous, and non-Anglocentic approach to cross-linguistic semantics.
Table of contents:
Chapter 3 discusses selected exponents of primes in Farsi (Persian). Chapter 4 provides an explication of a North-Spanish homesickness word (morriña). Chapter 7 provides an explication of Chinese 孝 xiào ‘filial piety’.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Aznárez-Mauleón, Mónica (2019). La fórmula de rechazo ¡Vete a … ! en español peninsular: una propuesta de análisis desde la Metalengua Semántica Natural (NSM). Sociocultural Pragmatics, 7, 421-444.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/soprag-2019-0008 – Open access
Abstract:
This paper analyses 19 routine formulae from Peninsular Spanish that share the same syntactic pattern (Vete a + noun phrase or Vete a + verb phrase) and are described by dictionaries as expressions of rejection towards the interlocutor. On the basis of previous classifications, these expressions could be considered subjective, affective and attitudinal expressive formulae, because they are used to show the speaker’s attitudes and emotions. However, on the one hand, complex concepts such as affective expression, attitudinal or expression of rejection are not very enlightening when describing this kind of expression to speakers of other languages or to speakers of a different variety of Spanish. On the other hand, given that at least 19 expressions of this kind exist in Peninsular Spanish, it is reasonable to think that there may be some differences of meaning between them. The present study aims to meet these two challenges by applying NSM methodology to the semantic-pragmatic analysis of these units. This paper offers a first approach to this kind of expression through the elaboration of semantic-pragmatic explications of the different groups of formulae that, on the basis of the examples found, have been established in the study.
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Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2019). Los vocativos de cariño en español peninsular: un enfoque desde la Metalengua Semántica Natural. Sociocultural Pragmatics, 7(3), 445-467.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/soprag-2019-0013
Abstract:
This article adopts an ethnopragmatic approach to the interpretation of linguistic strategies through their relation with cultural aspects which underlie their usage. The focus is on the relation between Spanish cultural scripts and nominal forms of address (terms of endearment) used in Peninsular Spanish. Cultural scripts would appear to be the perfect tool for explicating the sociocultural premises behind the interpretations we make of the function that terms of endearment have in Spanish politeness. Of particular interest are typically
Spanish scripts of “expressiveness”, “complimenting others”, “treating others with affection” and “being friendly”, and terms of endearment such as alma, ‘soul’, vida, ‘life’, cielo, ‘heaven’ and cariño, ‘love’. The explication of the semantic content of the terms of endearment on the one hand and the underlying sociocultural values on the other, applies the method of semantic and pragmatic analysis known as NSM.
More information:
Written in Spanish.
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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Barrios Rodríguez, María Auxiliadora (2020). Minimal and inverse definitions: A semi-experimental proposal for compiling a Spanish dictionary with semantic primes and molecules. In Lauren Sadow, Bert Peeters, & Kerry Mullan (Eds.), Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication: Vol. 3. Minimal English (and beyond) (pp. 191-212). Singapore: Springer.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9979-5_10
Abstract:
This chapter reflects on the possibility of compiling a dictionary largely based on a metalanguage of semantic primes and molecules, using a type of definitions that I call ‘minimal and inverse’. It describes progress to date against the backdrop of two research projects I have been associated with in the last few years.
The first one is a collaborative project that has to date involved ninety student researchers working towards an NSM-based learning tool for students of Spanish as a second/foreign language. To find out whether NSM definitions could be put to good use in language learning materials, the student researchers have been subjecting different groups of informants to a number of test definitions over a period
of two academic years.
The second project, running in parallel with the first, is a pilot study, carried out by myself, towards a Spanish dictionary consisting of
minimal and inverse definitions. More than one hundred definitions have so far been constructed, essentially out of semantic primes and molecules. All have been tested on different groups of informants, but only sixty definitions have been found to be satisfactory.
The chapter includes an analysis of some of the data and a discussion of a range of methodological issues. Its main finding is that, on current
expectations, not only is it possible to build a small dictionary mainly based on primes and molecules using minimal and inverse definitions, but it can be extremely rewarding to engage in such a venture in the context of a collaborative project with student researchers.
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Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2020). TIME in Portuguese saudade and other words of longing. In Bromhead, Helen and Zhengdao Ye (eds.). Meaning, Life and Culture. Canberra: ANU Press pp 211-227
DOI: http://doi.org/10.22459/MLC.2020.11 (Open Access)
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Fernández, Susana S. & Cliff Goddard. (2020). Una aproximación al estilo comunicativo de cercanía interpersonal del español a partir de la teoría de la Metalengua Semántica Natural [An Approach to the Spanish Communicative Style of Interpersonal Closeness from the Theory of Natural Semantic Metalanguage]. Pragmática Sociocultural / Sociocultural Pragmatics, 7(3), 469-493.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/soprag-2019-0022 (Open Access)
Resumen:
El presente artículo discute un estilo comunicativo típico de muchos hispanohablantes, que a menudo ha sido caracterizado en la literatura sobre pragmática y comunicación intercultural como de cercanía interpersonal y de confianza. El punto de partida teórico y metodológico es la teoría de la Metalengua Semántica Natural (NSM, por sus siglas en inglés), que propone el uso de un minivocabulario de conceptos básicos para explicar otros más com- plejos. En este caso, presentamos descripciones (que en la teoría se denominan guiones culturales) de distintos aspectos de este estilo comunicativo de cercanía y de palabras claves culturales y rasgos gramaticales relacionados con este modo de comunicar al que, consciente o inconscientemente, adhieren muchos hispanohablantes. Nos basamos en trabajos ya realizados por otros autores dentro de la NSM y proponemos también nuevas descripciones.
Abstract:
This article discusses a communicative style typical of many Spanish speakers, which has often been characterized in the literature on pragmatics and intercultural communication as interpersonal closeness. The theoretical and methodological starting point for the present analysis is the theory of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), which proposes the use of a minivocabulary of basic concepts to explain complex ones. In this case, we present descriptions – called cultural scripts within the theory – of different aspects of this communicative style of closeness and analyze cultural keywords and grammatical features related to this way of communicating, which, consciously or unconsciously, many Spanish speakers adhere to. We rely on work already done by other authors within NSM and we also propose new descriptions.
More information:
Written in Spanish.
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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
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Crude application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner |
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Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner |
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Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner |
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Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners |
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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners |