Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2002). Un intento de aplicación del metalenguaje semántico natural a las fórmulas de tratamiento españolas [An attempt at applying Natural Semantic Metalanguage to Spanish address forms]. Estudios hispánicos, 10, 61-68.
Written in Spanish.
A lot has been written on address forms from a pragmatic, psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic perspective. This short study is an attempt at providing a semantic analysis of some of the factors that impact on the use of nominal address forms in Spanish. Semantic components, expressed in a Spanish-based NSM, are provided, but focus on what is conveyed by the address forms – cordiality, spontaneity, emotionality, irony, machismo, etc. – as opposed to what specific address forms stand for.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Hughson, Jo-Anne (2004). The study of address pronouns in French and Spanish: A methodological review. Melbourne Papers in Linguistics & Applied Linguistics, 4(1), 23-33.
This article surveys various methodological approaches, both traditional and innovative, that have been employed in the field of address pronoun research, and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of each method. A new methodological approach is then presented, combining quantitative, qualitative and theoretical modes with the intention of eliminating limitations previously encountered in address pronoun research. A description of the theoretical approach, Wierzbicka’s cultural script theory, is then presented and the method applied to data collected in previous studies of address pronoun use in French
and Spanish.
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
González Ruiz, Ramón, & Aznárez Mauleón, Mónica (2005). Approximación desde el Metalenguaje Semántico Natural a la semántica y la pragmática de algunas expresiones de sinceridad del español actual [A Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach to the semantics and pragmatics of some expressions of sincerity in Modern Spanish]. In Manuel Casado Velarde, Ramón González Ruiz, & Óscar Loureda Lamas (Eds.), Estudios sobre lo metalingüistico (en español) (pp. 233-256). Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Written in Spanish.
This study, which deals with “sincerity” in Spanish, focuses on the use of clausal adverbs such as sinceramente ‘sincerely’, honestamente ‘honestly’, francamente ‘frankly’, and of phrases with the verbs hablar ‘speak’ and decir ‘say’ (e.g. hablar/decir con sinceridad, francamente, con el corazón en la mano ‘speak/say [something] with sincerity, frankly, with your heart in your hand’). In addition, the authors look at conditional structures in peripheral positions (e.g. si quieres que te diga la verdad ‘if you want me to tell you the truth’). The study involves an analysis, using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage, of semantic differences between the concepts of sinceridad ‘sincerity’, franqueza ‘frankness’ and honestidad ‘honesty’, and of the pragmatic and discursive functions of these expressions.
For a slightly shorter version of this chapter, see Aznárez Mauleón, Mónica, & González Ruiz, Ramón (2006). Semántica y pragmática de algunas expresiones de sinceridad en español actual.
For a slightly different English version of this chapter, see Aznárez Mauleón, Mónica, & González Ruiz, Ramón (2006), Francamente, el rojo te sienta fatal: Semantics and pragmatics of some expressions of sincerity in present-day Spanish.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on June 23, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Aznárez Mauleón, Mónica, & González Ruiz, Ramón (2006). Semántica y pragmática de algunas expresiones de sinceridad en español actual [Semantics and pragmatics of some expressions of sincerity in modern Spanish]. In Manuel Casado, Ramón González Ruiz, & M. Victoria Romero (Eds.), Análisis del discurso: lengua, cultura, valores [Discourse analysis: language, culture, values]: Vol. 1 (pp. 1211-1228). Madrid: Arco Libros.
Written in Spanish.
This study, which deals with “sincerity” in Spanish, focuses on the use of the clausal adverbs sinceramente ‘sincerely’ and francamente ‘frankly’, and of phrases with the verbs hablar ‘speak’ and decir ‘say’ (e.g. hablar/decir con sinceridad, francamente, con el corazón en la mano ‘speak/say [something] with sincerity, frankly, with your heart in your hand’). In addition, the authors look at conditional structures in peripheral positions (e.g. si quieres que te diga la verdad ‘if you want me to tell you the truth’). The study involves an analysis, using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage, of semantic differences between the concepts of sinceridad ‘sincerity’ and franqueza ‘frankness’, and of the pragmatic and discursive functions of these expressions.
For a more comprehensive version of this chapter, see González Ruiz, Ramón, & Aznárez Mauleón, Mónica (2005). Approximación desde el Metalenguaje Semántico Natural a la semántica y la pragmática de algunas expresiones de sinceridad del español actual.
For a more comprehensive English version of this chapter, see Aznárez Mauleón, Mónica, & González Ruiz, Ramón (2006). Francamente, el rojo te sienta fatal: Semantics and pragmatics of some expressions of sincerity in present-day Spanish.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Aznárez Mauleón, Mónica, & González Ruiz, Ramón (2006). Francamente, el rojo te sienta fatal: Semantics and pragmatics of some expressions of sincerity in present-day Spanish. In Bert Peeters (Ed.), Semantic primes and universal grammar: Empirical evidence from the Romance languages (pp. 307-330). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.81.19azn
This study, which deals with “sincerity” in Spanish, focuses on the use of clausal adverbs such as sinceramente ‘sincerely’, honestamente ‘honestly’, francamente ‘frankly’, and of phrases with the verbs hablar ‘speak’ and decir ‘say’ (e.g. hablar/decir con sinceridad, francamente, con el corazón en la mano ‘speak/say [something] with sincerity, frankly, with your heart in your hand’). In addition, the authors look at conditional structures in peripheral positions (e.g. si quieres que te diga la verdad ‘if you want me to tell you the truth’). The study involves an analysis, using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage, of semantic differences between the concepts of sinceridad ‘sincerity’, franqueza ‘frankness’ and honestidad ‘honesty’, and of the pragmatic and discursive functions of these expressions.
For a slightly different Spanish version of this chapter, see Aznárez Mauleón, Mónica, & González Ruiz, Ramón (2006). Semántica y pragmática de algunas expresiones de sinceridad en español actual.
For a less comprehensive Spanish version of this chapter, see González Ruiz, Ramón, & Aznárez Mauleón, Mónica (2005), Approximación desde el Metalenguaje Semántico Natural a la semántica y la pragmática de algunas expresiones de sinceridad del español actual.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 30, 2018.
Bartens, Angela, & Sandström, Niclas (2006). Towards a description of Spanish and Italian diminutives within the Natural Semantic Metalanguage framework. In Bert Peeters (Ed.), Semantic primes and universal grammar: Empirical evidence from the Romance languages (pp. 331-360). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.81.20bar
This paper uses the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach to describe Spanish and Italian diminutives, which are able to express a number of diverse emotional nuances ranging from the “affectionate” to the pejorative. Different dialects of Spanish are checked to gain a better insight into areal variation. The authors also investigate the status of the diminutive as a grammatical and/or lexical category, they attempt to establish whether diminutive formation instantiates derivation or composition, and they examine its relationship to reduplication and to the absolute superlative.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on April 21, 2018. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
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.
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
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
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
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
Published on March 30, 2018. Last updated on September 5, 2018.
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:
Preliminary material
From Leibniz to Wierzbicka: The history and philosophy of NSM
Semantic primes and their grammar
Explicating emotion concepts across languages and cultures
Wonderful, terrific, fabulous: English evaluational adjectives
Semantic molecules and semantic complexity
Words as carriers of cultural meaning
English verb semantics: Verbs of doing and saying
English verb alternations and constructions
Applications of NSM: Minimal English, cultural scripts and language teaching
Retrospect: NSM compared with other approaches to semantic analysis
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
Published on August 3, 2020. Last updated on August 3, 2020.
Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2019). Los vocativos de cariño en español peninsular: un enfoque desde la Metalengua Semántica Natural. Sociocultural Pragmatics, 7(3), 445-467.
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.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on August 14, 2021. Last updated on August 16, 2021.
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
Published on November 22, 2020. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
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.
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.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on August 14, 2021. Last updated on August 16, 2021.
Aznárez-Mauleón, Mónica (2020). The semantics of two loanwords in Navarrese Spanish. In Bromhead, Helen and Zhengdao Ye (eds.). Meaning, Life and Culture. Canberra: ANU Press pp 193-210.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
