Browsing results for Language families
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Stollznow, Karenina (2002). Terms of abuse in Australian English: A study of semantics and usage. BA(Hons) thesis, University of New England.
The purpose of this thesis is to present and justify semantic explications for seventeen abusive epithets commonly used in contemporary Australian English: wanker, smart arse, dickhead, fuckwit, drongo, yobbo, bludger, wowser, whinger, wuss, poofter, bimbo, bitch, slut, arsehole, prick and cunt. Although many of these words are often perceived as non-specific or vague terms, I aim to prove that each epithet has a distinct meaning and usage. These words have been chosen given their frequency in natural speech and within mediums such as newspapers, television, literature and the Internet. Furthermore, these terms are important in that they encode information about the Australian culture and people. Although prevalent in the lexicon of many Australian people, some of these terms are of a taboo nature and have been insufficiently treated academically.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) arsehole, (E) bimbo, (E) bitch, (E) bludger, (E) cunt, (E) dickhead, (E) drongo, (E) fuckwit, (E) poofter, (E) prick, (E) slut, (E) smart arse, (E) wanker, (E) whinger, (E) wowser, (E) wuss, (E) yobbo
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2018.
Hamid, Hazidi bin Haji Abdul (2002). Similar words, different meanings: A Natural Semantic Metalanguage exploration of cultural differences. GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies, 2(1). PDF (open access)
Anna Wierbicka and other Natural Semantic Metalanguage (henceforth NSM) practitioners often argue that anthropologists and psychologists, particularly Western, are wrong for applying concepts like mind, anger and depression to foreign cultures because these cultures do not have words with similar intention and extensions. Their critics on the other hand argue that the NSM critique is unjustified because, while other cultures do not necessarily have similar words, they must have corresponding concepts simply because people in these other cultures, like in Malaysia, experience feelings like these. This paper intends to show that the NSM critique is justified because these corresponding concepts can be similar to a certain extent but can also carry great semantic difference when broken down to their more basic elements of meaning. More importantly, this is done using analysis of the Malay language.
Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) amok, (T) Malay
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Ameka, Felix K. (2002). Cultural scripting of body parts for emotions: On ‘jealousy’ and related emotions in Ewe. Pragmatics & Cognition, 10(1), 27-55. DOI: 10.1075/pc.10.12.03ame
Different languages present a variety of ways of talking about emotional experience. Very commonly, feelings are described through the use of ‘body image constructions’ in which they are associated with processes in, or states of, specific body parts. The emotions and the body parts that are thought to be their locus and the kind of activity associated with these body parts vary cross-culturally. This study focuses on the meaning of three ‘body image constructions’ used to describe feelings similar to, but also different from, English ‘jealousy’, ‘envy’, and ‘covetousness’ in the West African language Ewe. It is demonstrated that a ‘moving body’, a psychologised eye, and red eyes are scripted for these feelings. It is argued that the expressions are not figurative and that their semantics provide good clues to understanding the cultural construction of both in terms of the parts of the body that are scripted and of what they mean.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (2002). Les constructions du type commencer un livre: état de la question et nouvelles perspectives [Constructions of the type commencer un livre: state of the art and new perspectives]. In Dominique Lagorgette, & Pierre Larrivée (Eds.), Représentations du sens linguistique (pp. 167-186). München: Lincom Europa.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 9, 2018.
Maher, Brigid (2002). Natural Semantic Metalanguage theory and some Italian speech act verbs. Studies in Pragmatics (Journal of the Pragmatics Society of Japan), 4, 33-48.
This paper examines some Italian speech act verbs, looking at how we can best express their meanings in an accurate way intelligible to people unfamiliar with Italian, but without falling into the trap of ethnocentrism. If we are to achieve a fruitful examination of speech act verbs, a framework for analysis is required, one that helps us to avoid the trap of ethnocentrism. The framework used in this paper is the Natural Semantic Metalanguage theory (or NSM). It is shown that even a relatively brief examination of some Italian speech act verbs can provide an insight into some semantic, pragmatic, and cultural aspects of the Italian language. Even two quite closely related languages, such as English and Italian, differ considerably in the kinds of speech acts they require, and it is important to understand the exact meanings of these speech acts. Looking at the semantic composition of speech act verbs piece by piece, avoiding any reliance on complex culture-specific concepts, we gain not only a clearer insight into their meanings, but also into how speech acts can reflect cultural practices.
The paper also includes a slightly revised explication of the Japanese word on.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) on 恩, (E) raccomandare, (E) raccomandarsi, (E) salutare, (T) Italian
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 20, 2019.
Hasada, Rie (2002). ‘Body part’ terms and emotion in Japanese. Pragmatics & Cognition, 10(1), 107-128.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.10.12.06has
Abstract:
This paper uses NSM to examine the use and meaning of the body-part terms or quasi-body-part terms associated with Japanese emotions. The terms analysed are 心 kokoro, 胸 mune, 腹 hara, 気 ki, and 虫 mushi. In Japanese, kokoro is regarded as the seat of emotions. 胸 mune (roughly, ‘chest’) is the place where Japanese believe 心 kokoro is located. 腹 hara (roughly, ‘belly’) can be used to refer to the seat of ‘thinking’, for example in the expression of anger-like feelings that entail a prior cognitive appraisal. The term 気 ki (roughly, ‘breath’) is also used for expressions dealing with emotions, temperament, and behaviour; among these, 気 ki is most frequently used for referring to mental activity. 虫 mushi – literally, a ‘worm’ that exists in the 腹 hara ‘belly’ – is also used for referring to specific emotion expressions.
The data used for analysis are from various sources: published literature both in Japanese and English, newspaper and magazine articles, film scripts, comic books, advertisements, dictionaries, and popular songs.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) hara 腹, (E) ki 気, (E) kokoro 心, (E) mune 胸, (E) mushi 虫
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 3, 2018.
Asano, Yuko (2002). How to be indirect in Japanese – A cultural script approach. RASK (International Journal of Language and Communication), 17. 23-51. PDF (open access)
Although Japanese and English have a large variety of indirect expressions, they often use them in different proportions, which leads to different communicative styles. This paper investigates certain indirectness phenomena observed in sentence-final forms in Japanese from the perspective of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) theory. It combines NSM theory with Kamio’s theory of territory of information. Akio Kamio used this theory to specify the relationship between utterance forms and the notion of territory of information. As he points out, there are cases where the principles of the theory can be violated; it seems that such violations are more or less culturally determined. This paper particularly focuses on such cases and provides a cross-cultural analysis of Japanese and English, making use of contrastive data from both languages.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (S) directness, (S) indirectness
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Priestley, Carol (2002). Insides and emotion in Koromu. Pragmatics & Cognition, 10(1/2), 243-270. DOI: 10.1075/pc.10.12.11pri
This paper describes several emotion expressions in Koromu, a language of Papua New Guinea. As in other languages, emotions can be expressed by reference to body events and processes. Bodily images are used for common and pertinent emotion expressions in Koromu; the alternative grammatical constructions in which some of these expressions occur enable speakers to express varying emotions while still indicating that there are shared semantic components between the expressions. In addition, as the emotion expressions are examined and their meanings explicated, a number of universal concepts and components of meaning can be observed. A study of these language-specific expressions therefore contributes to a cross-linguistic understanding of the relationship between emotion and the body.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) oru mei hekeni wera, (E) oru mere, (E) oru mere mae, (E) oru mereri, (E) oru meresera
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 31, 2018.
Enfield, N. J. (2002). Combinatoric properties of Natural Semantic Metalanguage expressions in Lao. In Cliff Goddard, & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.), Meaning and universal grammar: Theory and empirical findings. Vol. II (pp. 145-256). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.61.08enf
The current version of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) identifies about 60 semantically basic morpholexical items that are hypothesized to be found in every language of the world. It is argued that these universal semantic units have meanings that are both simple, and identical across languages. Further, it is hypothesized that all language-specific semantic structures are complex, and may be analysed (and translated across languages) by means of complex expressions involving just the 60 or so basic universal semantic units. No other descriptive metalanguage (formal or otherwise) insists on this level of cross-translatability, and so it is apparently the closest thing to a real standard of comparison available for cross-linguistic semantic description. To achieve this, not only must the units of the system be semantically basic and cross-linguistically identical, but their combinatoric properties must also be basic and cross-linguistically identical. The purpose of this study is to evaluate current hypotheses regarding universal combinatoric properties of the putative morpholexical/semantic universals, with reference to Lao.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (S) Good Samaritan, (S) Philosophy of the Middle Way, (T) Lao
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2002). Semantic primes and universal grammar in Malay (Bahasa Melayu). In Cliff Goddard, & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.), Meaning and universal grammar – Theory and empirical findings: Vol. 1 (pp. 87-172). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.60.10god
My primary goal is to test whether the currently proposed NSM semantic primes have lexical exponents in Malay and whether they can be combined according to the current hypotheses about NSM syntax. Generally speaking the results are positive though I will propose several revisions to our picture of NSM syntax on the basis of the Malay data, at appropriate points in the chapter. Throughout the chapter, I will also try to note alternative polysemic meanings of the various lexical exponents and, where appropriate, the existence of language-specific constructions conveying the kinds of meaning combinations we are interested in. In this way I want to convey a better sense of the individual character of Malay as a language.
Overall, however, the majority of the current NSM proposals do hold up well so far as Malay is concerned. It is now clear that the syntax of the NSM metalanguage has a very rich – and in some ways very complex – texture. It therefore seems particularly intriguing that this rich and detailed texture appears to be shared by languages which are otherwise so different in their structure.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 9, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2002). Directive speech acts in Malay (Bahasa Melayu): An ethnopragmatic perspective. Cahiers de praxématique, 38, 113-143.
The focus of the present study is the semantics and ethnopragmatics of a set of Malay speech act verbs. I hope to demonstrate that the lexical-semantic and cultural-pragmatic aspects of the analysis are mutually reinforcing and mutually informative. On the basis of cultural-pragmatic facts, I will discount polysemy for ajak ‘encourage, urge’ and pujuk ‘coax, comfort’, while lexical-semantic analysis of suruh ‘tell to do’ and minta ‘ask for’ will highlight the Malay cultural constraints against explicitly expressing the message ‘I want you to do this’. The conceptual structure and presuppositions of nasihat ‘advice, counsel’ will be shown to be strongly congruent with its characteristic forms of expression. In these and other ways, I hope to show not only that lexical semantics and cultural pragmatics are tightly intertwined in Malay, but also to illustrate the value of an ethnopragmatic approach to speech acts in general.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) ajak, (E) ask, (E) minta, (E) nasihat, (E) order, (E) pesan, (E) pujuk, (E) suggest, (E) suruh, (S) inhibiting people from expressing explicit directive messages, (T) English + Malay
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Bugenhagen, Robert D. (2002). The syntax of semantic primes in Mangaaba-Mbula. In Cliff Goddard, & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.), Meaning and universal grammar: Theory and empirical findings. Vol. II (pp. 1-64). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.61.06bug
The present chapter describes the syntax of the proposed NSM semantic primes in Mangaaba-Mbula, an Austronesian language spoken on Umboi Island in the Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea by around 3500 people.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2002). Semantic primes and universal grammar in Polish. In Cliff Goddard, & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.), Meaning and universal grammar: Theory and empirical findings: Vol. 2 (pp. 65-144). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 16, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2002). Russian cultural scripts: The theory of cultural scripts and its applications. Ethos, 30(4), 401-432.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.2002.30.4.401
Abstract:
Cultural scripts reflect shared cultural understandings. They are representations of cultural norms that are widely held in a given society and that are reflected in language (in culture-specific key words, phrases, conversational routines, and so on). A key methodological principle in the theory underlying this article (a study in ethnopragmatics avant la lettre) is that the proposed cultural scripts must be formulated in NSM. The author argues that cultural scripts formulated in universal human concepts allow us to understand cultural norms and attitudes from within, that is, from the perspective of cultural insiders, while at the same time making them intelligible to outsiders as well.
In this article, the theory of cultural scripts is applied to Russian culture and, in particular, the Russian cultural scripts concerning speech, truth, and interpersonal communication (“obščenie”).
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) govorit' nepravdu, (E) iskrenno, (E) istina, (E) sincerely, (E) truth, (S) bodily contact, (S) commands, (S) depth of feeling, (S) disagreement, (S) emphasis on verbal interaction, (S) freedom of expression, (S) physical closeness, (S) praise, (S) questions, (S) sincerity, (S) truth and untruth
Published on June 16, 2019. Last updated on June 25, 2019.
Вежбицкая, Анна [Wierzbicka, Anna] (2002). Русские культурные скрипты и их отражение в языке [Russian cultural scripts and their reflection in the language]. Русский язык в научном освещении, 2(4), 6-34.
More information:
Reissued as:
Вежбицкая, Анна (2005). Русские культурные скрипты и их отражение в языке. In Анна А. Зализняк, И.Б. Левонтина, А.Д. Шмелев (Eds.), ключевые идеи русской языковой картины мира [Key ideas of the Russian linguistic worldview] (pp. 467-499). Москва (Moscow): Языки славянских культур [Languages of Slavic Culture].
Chapter 11 (pp. …-…) of Вежбицкая, Анна (2011). Семантические универсалии и базисные концепты [Semantic universals and basic concepts]. Москва [Moscow]: Языки славянских культуры [Languages of Slavic Culture].
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (T) Russian
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 20, 2018.
Trnavac, Radoslava (2002). Koncept nade u srpskom jeziku u svetlu Prirodnog Semantickog Metajezika [The concept of hope in Serbian in the light of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage]. Zbornik Matice srpske za filologiju i lingvistiku, 45(1-2), 245-269.
Written in Serbian.
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
Tags: (T) Spanish
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Travis, Catherine (2002). La Metalengua Semántica Natural: The Natural Semantic Metalanguage of Spanish. In Cliff Goddard, & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.), Meaning and universal grammar: Theory and empirical findings, vol.1 (pp. 173-242). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.60.11tra
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (2003). The tall poppy syndrome: On the re-emergence in contemporary Australia of an Ancient Greek and Latin motive. Classicvm, 29(2), 22-26.
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on January 26, 2020.
Amberber, Mengistu (2003). The grammatical encoding of “thinking” in Amharic. Cognitive Linguistics, 14(2/3), 195-219.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/cogl.2003.00
Abstract:
The lexical exponents of the conceptual primitives THINK and KNOW in Amharic are assəbə and awwək’ə respectively. The article investigates issues of polysemy involving the two mental predicates and explores their lexical elaboration and morphosyntactic realization. The article also briefly examines constructions based on verbs equivalent to the English term understand.
Rating:
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) understand
