Browsing results for Language families

(2006) German, Polish – Cultural scripts

Deka, Sebastian (2006). O metodzie wyodrębniania skryptów kulturowych i kilku skryptach niemieckich i polskich [About the method of extracting cultural scripts, with several German and Polish scripts]. Oblicza Komunikacji, 1, 164–179.

More information:

Written in Polish.

(2006) Historical English – NSM primes

Martín Arista, Javier, & Martín de la Rosa, María Victoria (2006). Old English semantic primes: Substantives, determiners and quantifiers. Atlantis, 28(2), 9-28.

The aim of this journal article is to apply the methodology of semantic primes to Old English. In this preliminary analysis the semantic primes grouped as Substantives, Determiners and Quantifiers are discussed: I, YOU, SOMEONE, PEOPLE, SOMETHING/THING, BODY, THIS, THE SAME, OTHER, ONE, TWO, SOME, ALL and MUCH/MANY. After an analysis of several instances of portmanteaus, allolexy and non-compositional polysemy, the conclusion is reached that even though the nature of the linguistic evidence that is available does not allow for native speaker judgements, semantic primes represent a powerful theoretical and methodological tool for the lexical and syntactic study of Old English.


Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner

(2006) Indonesian – Introduction to NSM

Mulyadi & Siregar, Rumnasari K. (2006). Aplikasi teori Metabahasa Makna Alami dalam kajian makna [Application of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach to the study of meaning]. Logat: Jurnal Ilmiah Bahasa dan Sastra 2(2), 69-75. PDF (open access)

This article describes the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach and provides illustrations involving Indonesian verbs, nouns, and adjectives. The aim is to explain some of the basic concepts of the theory and some of its research procedures. Semantic properties of a word are explored by means of syntactic and semantic evidence. The illustrations show that the approach can unpack the complex meanings of words that are related semantically to understand their similarities and differences.

(2006) Italian – SFOGARSI

Maher, Brigid (2006). Sfogarsi: A semantic analysis of an Italian speech routine and its underlying cultural values. In Bert Peeters (Ed.), Semantic primes and universal grammar: Empirical evidence from the Romance languages (pp. 207-233). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.81.15mah

This paper offers clear and precise paraphrases for the different meanings of the Italian key word sfogarsi which, in its most common use (roughly, ‘to vent one’s negative feelings’), refers to a way of releasing emotions that might otherwise build up inside a person in a dangerous way. It proposes two so-called “cultural scripts” aimed at describing some of the Italian folk theories (cultural norms and
values) relevant to the expression of emotions. The use of the simple, universal concepts of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage allows for both the paraphrases and the scripts to be tested against the intuitions of native speakers, and will help people from other language backgrounds gain a better understanding of selected aspects of Italian culture.

(2006) Japanese – Attitudes towards emotions

Hasada, Rie (2006). Cultural scripts: Glimpses into the Japanese emotion world. In Cliff Goddard (Ed.), Ethnopragmatics: Understanding discourse in cultural context (pp. 171-198). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110911114.171

This work aims to articulate aspects of Japanese people’s attitudes towards emotions in the form of cultural scripts, utilising the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) method developed by Anna Wierzbicka, Cliff Goddard and colleagues. It is the intention of this work to explicate some of the thinking patterns or sociocultural norms relating to typical patterns of Japanese behaviour associated with the expression of emotions. The approach taken for this purpose is the cultural scripts framework based on the universal Natural Semantic Metalanguage. We establish how cultural norms encourage or discourage certain kinds of emotion behaviour in Japan. Although Japanese people can be said to be quite “emotional”, and to put more value on emotion than reason, they often try to suppress not only negative emotions, but also positive emotions. This is because they are very sensitive to the eyes of seken, or to how other people will view and think of their actions. In Japan, keeping harmony with other people often takes precedence over other concerns. Individual emotions are allowed to be expressed when their cultural norms are met. Communicating with Japanese people without knowing these cultural scripts might lead to some misunderstanding for non-Japanese. Therefore, more comprehensive and systematic examination of how Japanese cultural norms of emotions are similar to and different from those in other cultures is indispensable for ensuring successful intercultural communication.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2006) Korean – NSM primes, NSM syntax

Yoon, Kyung-Joo (2006). Constructing a Korean Natural Semantic Metalanguage. Seoul: Hankook.

Abstract:

This study has two main goals. First, it seeks to test the hypotheses of the NSM theory against Korean in terms of both lexicalization and syntax. Second, it explores the possibility of using the NSM method as a tool of semantic analysis for selected Korean concepts.

More information:

Published version of the author’s 2003 PhD thesis, Australian National University, Canberra.

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Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2006) Korean – Verbs (KKAY-DA, CCOGAY-DA, NANUU-DA)

이정애 [Lee, Jeong-Ae] (2006). *한국어의 메타언어적 의미분석을 위한 소론 [A Natural Semantic Metalanguage study of Korean – focused on the Korean verbs kkay-da, ccogay-da and nanuu-da] [In Korean]. 담화와 인지 [Discourse and Cognition], 13(1), 221-242.

(2006) Madurese – Curse words

Indrawati, Dianita (2006). Makian dalam Bahasa Madura: Kajian Metabahasa Semantik Alami [Cursing in Madurese: A Natural Semantic Metalanguage study]. Linguistik Indonesia, 24(2), 145-155.

Open access

Abstract:

While the concept of cursing is found in all languages, its verbal expression is unique to each. The verbal expressions of cursing used by a community grow and develop based on the culture of that community. This paper describes the literal meaning and the semantic structure of a number of curse words in Madurese.

More information:

Written in Indonesian.

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Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner

(2006) NSM and cross-cultural understanding

Haser, Verena (2006). Wierzbicka’s Natural Semantic Metalanguage and cross-cultural understanding. LAUD Working Papers, Series A, General and Theoretical Papers, 659. PDF (open access)

Wierzbicka’s work on semantic primitives (henceforth abbreviated as NSM) presents one of the most intriguing and significant theories in linguistic semantics. Many definitions proposed within this framework are unrivalled for the way they illuminate the meaning of words and allow us to tease apart closely related concepts. NSM theory is not limited to linguistic concerns; accepting Wierzbicka’s general line of thought has important implications for philosophical semantics. Furthermore, her theory is surely of central concern to scholars interested in linguistic psychology.

In this essay I attempt to raise some questions that are prompted by i) a comparison between Wierzbicka’s approach and certain ideas familiar from modern philosophy of language (especially philosophy by Wittgenstein and some major exponents of his work) and ii) a case study that puts to the test Wierzbicka’s definition of game (as proposed in her Semantics: Primes and Universals, 1996). The ultimate goal of this article is to invite some response by adherents of NSM which might provide a detailed answer to some of the issues and objections raised in this article. Being fascinated by some aspects of the NSM project while harbouring some doubts concerning its application and the arguments motivating the approach, I hope that my observations might indirectly offer a modest contribution to the framework.


Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner

(2006) NSM and LFG

Andrews, Avery D. (2006). Semantic composition for NSM, using LFG + Glue. In Keith Allan (Ed.), Selected papers from the 2005 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society. http://www.als.asn.au. PDF (open access)

The NSM program has a lot to say about the meanings of individual words, but virtually no work has been done on the problem of how to assemble these meanings to produce meanings for utterances, which is the problem of semantic composition that is the major focus of formal semantics. In this paper I begin to fill this gap by making some definite proposals for doing semantic composition in NSM using the ‘glue logic’ that has been proposed as a method of semantic assembly for the syntactic theory of LFG.

Although many different generative syntactic theories could provide a basis for semantic composition in NSM, LFG is a reasonable choice, because it combines to a relatively high degree the properties of being formally explicit, easy to learn, and applicable to a typologically diverse range of languages, and the architecture of LFG + Glue provides a clean separation between issues of semantic composition on the one hand, and syntactic realization on the other.

I will examine some issues that arise in composing explications for some of the valence options of the verbs warn and go, showing that naive substitution is insufficient, but that the typed lambda calculus can deal with the problems adduced. We will also see that the problem of composing explications should not be deferred indefinitely, since attempting to compose explications can expose deficiencies which aren’t evident when the explications are viewed in isolation. I will conclude with a brief discussion of some of the problems afforded by phenomena of quantifier scope.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2006) NSM semantics and Cognitive Linguistics

Goddard, Cliff (2006). Verbal explication and the place of NSM semantics in Cognitive Linguistics. In June Luchjenbroers (Ed.), Cognitive Linguistics investigations: Across languages, fields and philosophical boundaries (pp. 189-218). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/hcp.15.14god

This paper argues that verbal explication has an indispensable role to play in semantic/conceptual representation. The diagrams used within Cognitive Linguistics are not semiotically self-contained and cannot be interpreted without overt or covert verbal support. Many also depend on culture-specific iconography. When verbal representation is employed in mainstream Cognitive Linguistics, as in work on prototypes, cultural models and conceptual metaphor, this is typically done in an under-theorized fashion without adequate attention to the complexity and culture-specificity of the representation. Abstract culture-laden vocabulary also demands a rich propositional style of representation, as shown with contrastive examples from Malay, Japanese and English. As the only stream of Cognitive Linguistics with a well-theorized and empirically grounded approach to verbal explication, the NSM (Natural Semantic Metalanguage) framework has much to offer cognitive linguistics at large.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2006) Portuguese (Brazil) – Emotions of absence and longing

Farrell, Patrick (2006). Portuguese saudade and other emotions of absence and longing. In Bert Peeters (Ed.), Semantic primes and universal grammar: Empirical evidence from the Romance languages (pp. 235-258). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.81.16far

Relying on semantic primes and universal syntax, this study underscores the culture-specificity and explicates the meaning of the Portuguese emotion word saudade. It makes comparisons with related concepts in Portuguese and, to some extent, English. Among the kinds of evidence included are claims encountered in previous studies, native-speaker intuitions about the acceptability of constructed expressions employing the word in different ways, actual use in literary works and internet sources, aspects of the word’s grammar and its distributional properties, and contrasts with respect to these matters between saudade and other emotions. The approach differs from that of earlier work not only in its use of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage but also in its heavy reliance on distributional evidence and colloquial corpora.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2006) Romance languages – NSM primes, NSM syntax

Peeters, Bert (2006). Scope and contents of this volume. In Bert Peeters (Ed.), Semantic primes and universal grammar: Empirical evidence from the Romance languages (pp. 7-12). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

(2006) Russian – Praise: MOLODEC, UMNICA

Gladkova, Anna (2006). Russian praise words molodec and umnica: A semantic and cultural analysis. In Keith Allan (Ed.), Selected papers from the 2005 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society (18 pp.). http://www.als.asn.au/proceedings/als2005.html. PDF (open access)

This paper investigates the semantics of two very commonly used Russian language-specific praise words, molodec and umnica. The meanings of these nouns combine the evaluation of an action of another person with the evaluation of the person him- or herself. For this reason, they can be regarded as words with a culture-specific meaning. The study applies the methodology of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage. The meanings of molodec and umnica are related to several important cultural themes of Russian culture.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2006) Spanish (Colombia) – Discourse particles: BUENO

Travis, Catherine E. (2006). The Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach to discourse markers. In Kerstin Fischer (Ed.), Approaches to discourse particles (pp. 219-241). Oxford: Elsevier.

This paper presents an analysis of discourse markers based within the framework of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (Wierzbicka, 1996; and references therein). It argues that discourse markers can only be fully understood if the meaning(s) they carry when used in different contexts are exhaustively defined. Within this framework, discourse markers are treated as polysemous, having a range of different meanings all of which share some element in common. The shared element of meaning can be considered a partial semantic invariant, and it is this that ties the uses of the marker together, while other components of meaning that differ account for the variation across the range of use. Such an analysis makes a clear distinction between what is encoded in the semantics of the marker and what is encoded in its pragmatics of use. I will illustrate how this can be done through an analysis of the Spanish discourse marker bueno (‘well’, ‘good’, ‘right’), based on a corpus of conversational Colombian Spanish.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2006) Spanish (Colombia) – Terms of endearment, CONFIANZA, CALOR HUMANO

Travis, Catherine E. (2006). The communicative realisation of confianza and calor humano in Colombian Spanish. In Cliff Goddard (Ed.), Ethnopragmatics: Understanding discourse in cultural context (pp. 199-229). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110911114.199

Interactional norms and practices are indicative of ways of thinking and of underlying cultural ideals. In this study, I focus on the widespread use of terms of endearment in Colombian Spanish and consider this linguistic practice in terms of the cultural model for relationships in Colombia. The use of terms of endearment such as mi amor ‘my love’, gordo ‘fatty’, fictive mamita ‘mummy’ and papito ‘daddy’ and so on reflects the high value Colombian culture places on displaying affection for others, and on verbally affirming the ties that exist in relationships. Similar ideals are evident in the extensive use of the diminutive, manipulation of the second-person singular pronoun system, complex greeting and leave-taking routines, and so on, some of which are briefly dealt with.

The cultural model is also represented in certain cultural key words, in particular in the terms confianza ‘trust’, calor humano ‘human warmth’ and vínculos ‘bonds’. Through a semantic analysis of these key words, and through a discourse-based analysis of the use of terms of endearment, I propose a set of cultural scripts that outline some of the ideals for interaction in Colombian society, in accordance with a cultural model for how to maintain good relations with others.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2006) Spanish (Latin-America) – Cultural key words

DuBartell, Deborah (2006). The development of a key word: The deictic field of Spanish crisis. In Bert Peeters (Ed.), Semantic primes and universal grammar: Empirical evidence from the Romance languages (pp. 259-287). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

DOI: 10.1075/slcs.81.17dub

Abstract:

This study represents a preliminary investigation into the application of the principles of the NSM approach in historical linguistics. It offers synchronic evidence of cultural keyword status for Spanish crisis, both in Peninsular and in Latin American varieties, and, using semantic primes and universal syntax, demonstrates how the word itself developed over time. It uses the process of formulating semantic explications as the foundation of a methodology by which to assess change of meaning. The detailed comparison of the explications employs a “configuration method” aimed at offering insight into the semantic components of key word development. The method combines Bühler’s field theory with functional sentence perspective and emphasizes the dynamism of metalinguistic elements in order to track diachronic change.

Rating:


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2006) Spanish (Spain) – Sincerity

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

(2006) Spanish (Spain) – Sincerity

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