Browsing results for Language families

(2010) Persian, English (USA) – Compliments

Published on June 25, 2017. Last updated on September 24, 2018.

Karimnia, Amin, & Afghari, Akbar (2010).  On the applicability of cultural scripts in teaching L2 compliments. English Language Teaching, 3(3). DOI: 10.5539/elt.v3n3p71. PDF (open access)

In this study, Natural Semantic Metalanguage (henceforth NSM) was used to carry out a comparative analysis. The compliment response behaviour of native Persian speakers was compared to that of Native American English speakers to see if it can provide evidence for the applicability of the NSM model. The descriptive technique was the cultural scripts approach, using conceptual primes proposed in the NSM theory. The cultural scripts were presented in both English and Persian metalanguages. The data were taken from a corpus of 50 hours of recorded live interviews from Persian and English TV channels. The results show the applicability of the NSM model for cross-cultural comparisons. The paper concludes with the pedagogical implications of the development of the theory of cultural scripts for teaching L2 socio-pragmatics in general and compliments in particular.


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

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(2010) Portuguese – Emotions

Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.

Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2010). Przydatnosc eksplikacji metajezykowych w tworzeniu definicji leksykograficznych (na przykladzie definicji nazw uczuc w jezyku portugalskim) [On the usefulness of metalanguage explications for the creation of lexicographical definitions (exemplified through the definition of nouns of emotions in Portuguese)]. In Wojciech Chlebda (Ed.), Etnolingwistyka a leksykografia: Tom poswiecony Profesorowi Jerzemu Bartminskiemu (pp. 93-102). Opole: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Opolskiego.

Written in Polish.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2010) Russian cultural semantics [BOOK]

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 17, 2018.

Гладкова, А. Н. [Gladkova, Anna] (2010). Русская культурная семантика: эмоции ценности, жизненные установк [Russian cultural semantics: Emotions, values, attitudes]. Москва [Moscow]: Языки славянской культуры [Languages of Slavonic Cultures].

Written in Russian.

This book is devoted to the study of the relationship between the Russian language and Russian culture with the help of a detailed semantic analysis of a number of terms of emotions, values ​​and attitudes. The main idea that unites this research is that the meanings of some words and expressions reflect cultural-significant representations, that is, the meanings of these words contain ways of thinking that are shared by the native speakers. The cultural significance of the words and expressions being examined is demonstrated by the discovery of a semantic connection between their meanings and the meanings of a number of key words and ideas of the Russian language. The linguistic and cultural specificity of the words being studied is established by comparing their values ​​with the meanings of their translated and culturally significant equivalents in English.

The book offers semantic interpretations of the researched words and expressions using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM). It reports on first-time research aimed at determining the exponents of NSM semantic primes and their syntactic properties in Russian.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2010) Spanish, Polish – Exclamations

Published on August 9, 2018. Last updated on September 10, 2018.

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.

(2010) Swedish – Thanking and related concepts

Published on August 9, 2018. Last updated on September 3, 2018.

Pedersen, Jan (2010). The different Swedish tack: An ethnopragmatic investigation of Swedish thanking and related concepts. Journal of Pragmatics, 42, 1258-1265. DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2009.09.026

In Sweden, people thank each other a lot. The reasons for this are partly linguistic, as the Swedish tack is different from e.g. English thanks. It encompasses both the meaning of ‘thanks’, and that of ‘please’. More interestingly, there are cultural reasons for this. For ethnic Swedes, there are some higher-order cultural scripts, such as equality, self-sufficiency, consensus seeking and conflict avoidance, which make people say tack a lot to show that they agree, and not to be indebted to other people. For ethnic Swedes, it is culturally important to pay your way, to return favours (tjänster och gentjänster) to retain the equilibrium between individuals. If this practise is not observed, the equilibrium is disturbed, and you end up in a debt of gratitude (tacksamhetsskuld), which can be very unpleasant for an ethnic Swede. This means that s/he thinks that s/he loses her independence and the equilibrium between him/her and the other person. This may result in ethnic Swedes seeming inhospitable, as they are reluctant to make other people feel tacksamhetsskuld.

This study of the cultural key word tack and its related notions shows that there are peculiarities in the Swedish language that can be accessible to outsiders through the Natural Semantic Metalanguage.


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

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(2010) Thai – Apologies

Published on July 18, 2017. Last updated on September 8, 2018.

เมฆถาวรวัฒนา, ทัศนีย์ [Mekthawornwathana, Thasanee] (2010). บทวัฒนธรรมของการขอโทษในภาษาไทย [The cultural script of apologizing in Thai]. มนุษยศาสตร์สังคมศาสตร์ (มหาวิทยาลัยขอนแก่น) [Humanities and social sciences (Khon Kaen University)], 27(2), 28-50. PDF (open access)

Written in Thai.

This paper develops a Thai version of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage and proposes a cultural script for apologies in Thai using NSM and the Cultural Script model.

It was found that Thai people “apologize” in 8 situations: after doing bad things to others, when bothering someone, asking for permission, giving an idea, satirizing, blaming, refusing and ordering. It was also found that the closest Thai equivalent to the English word apologize was more associated with ‘face’ and ‘politeness’ than ‘causing offense’. This leads Thai people to apologize in various situations even though there is no offense. This use of apologizing reflects the fact that Thai society cares for participants’ ‘face’ and feelings more than Japanese and Western cultures.

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(2010) Thai – Cultural key words: MAIPENRAI, KRENGCHAI, KHOTOT

Published on July 18, 2017. Last updated on September 13, 2018.

เมฆถาวรวัฒนา, ทัศนีย์ [Mekthawornwathana, Thasanee] (2010). การวิเคราะห์ความหมายแบบครอบคลุมของคำสำคัญทางวัฒนธรรม “ไม่เป็นไร” “เกรงใจ” และ “ขอโทษ” ในภาษาไทยตามแนวทฤษฎีอภิภาษาเชิงอรรถศาสตร์ธรรมชาติ  [A Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach to the study of the comprehensive meanings of the cultural key words maipenrai, krengchai, and khotot in Thai]. PhD thesis, Chulalongkorn University.

Written in Thai.

This study aims to investigate the denotative, pragmatic, and social meanings of three key words in Thai: ไม่เป็นไร maipenrai, เกรงใจ krengchai andขอโทษ khotot; to formulate these meanings in terms of cultural scripts, to compare and contrast the cultural scripts of the three key words, and to show the characteristics of Thai culture reflected in the cultural scripts.

The results reveal that ไม่เป็นไร maipenrai has three denotative meanings, viz. ‘not affected’, ‘acceptable’ and ‘do not worry’. It has four pragmatic meanings, ‘consoling’, ‘refusing’, ‘forgiving’ and ‘responding to thank you’. It has two social meanings, ‘varying according to the relationship between speakers and participants’ and ‘varying according to the formality of the situation’. The results show that speakers use ไม่เป็นไร maipenrai more when talking to participants who are close to them than when talking to participants whom they are not familiar with, and when talking in informal rather than formal situations.

เกรงใจ krengchai has three denotative meanings, ‘respect’, ‘afraid that other people would feel unsatisfied’ and ‘afraid that what happened might bother others’. The word เกรงใจ krengchai has three pragmatic meanings, ‘accepting’, ‘refusing’ and ‘thanking’. It has two social meanings, ‘varying according to the relationship between speakers and participants’ and ‘varying according to the formality of the situation’. The results show that speakers use เกรงใจ krengchai more when talking to participants whom they are not familiar with than when talking to participants who are close to them, and when talking in formal rather than informal situations.

ขอโทษ khotot has two denotative meanings, ‘I’m sorry for what I have done’ and ‘excuse me’. It has four pragmatic meanings, ‘apologizing, ‘introductory device’, ‘attention-getter’, and ‘leave-taking device’. It has two social meanings, ‘varying according to the relationship between speakers and participants’ and ‘varying according to the formality of the situation’. The results show that speakers use ขอโทษ khotot when talking to participants whom they are not familiar with or who are close to them, and when talking in formal and informal situations, but with different variants.

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(2010) Triple articulation of language

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.

Wong, Jock (2010). The “triple articulation” of language. Journal of Pragmatics, 42(11), 2932-2944. DOI:10.1016/j.pragma.2010.06.013.

In this paper, I argue that a language has three ‘‘faces’’ – form, meaning, and culture – and hence pragmemes are best analysed with respect to a cultural context. Using examples of culturally embedded pragmemes from Singapore English, I demonstrate how their use is intimately associated with culture-specific ways of thinking, which in many instances go against widely accepted paradigms like Grice’s maxims and Brown & Levinson’s politeness principles. My data suggest that Singapore English routinely blurs the distinction between opinion and fact and that opinions are often presented as if they are facts, which goes against the maxim of quality, which requires people not to say that for which they lack evidence. I additionally show how some of these culture-specific ways of thinking may be articulated in ways that reflect an insider perspective. Finally, I propose that we go one step further to talk about the ‘‘triple articulation’’ of language, which views language as a three-tiered entity, comprising form, meaning, and culture. This idea of what language is about goes beyond lexicon and grammar to include non-formal features like conversational routines, frequency of use of certain expressions, the avoidance of certain ways of speaking, pragmemes, etc., which can only be satisfactorily explained with reference to culture. A person who is supposed to have learned a language without understanding its culture has at best mastered its lexicon and grammar. They have not mastered the ‘‘essence’’ of the language.

(2010) Tuareg – Proverbs

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.

Savage, André (2010). Un proverbe touareg, plusieurs variantes, un seul sens. In Harry Stroomer, Maarten Kossmann, Dymitr Ibriszimow, & Rainer Voßen (Eds.), Études berbères V – Essais sur des variations dialectales et autres articles (pp. 165-176). Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.

(2011, 2012) Polish – DOBROC, PRAWOSC, ODWAGA

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 31, 2018.

Wierzbicka, Anna (2011). Polskie słowa-wartości w perspektywie porównawczej. Część I. Dobroć. Etnolingwistyka, 23, 45-66.

Wierzbicka, Anna (2012). Polskie słowa-wartości w perspektywie porównawczej. Część II. Prawość i odwaga. Etnolingwistyka, 24, 19-46.

Written in Polish.

Part I deals with the Polish word dobroć in comparative perspective. An assumption is made that an especially precious source of insight into the values of a given society are the key words used in that society. One of such words in Polish society is dobroć. By analysing the word’s semantics, the author shows the differences between that word and its closest equivalents in a few European languages: the English goodness, the French bonté or the Russian dobrotá. In the Polish hierarchy of values, dobroć ranks high as a positive human feature, manifested in people’s feelings, will and actions. The English goodness (derived from the adjective good) differs from the Polish dobroć in that it does not imply good feelings towards other people. The French bonté, in turn, although used in reference to people who want to do and actually do good things for others, does not, in contrast to dobroć, imply emotional overtones. On the other hand, the Russian dobrotá differs from dobroć in that it is primarily used in reference to someone’s emotional attitude towards others (expressed in one’s facial appearance or the tone of voice) but not actions. The author hypothesizes that bonté does not contain the emotional component (present in dobroć), and that dobrotá does not contain the element of action (present in dobroć and bonté). Neither does dobrotá occupy a central position among Russian values: that place is reserved for žalost’, an axiological category without a Polish equivalent. Similarly, in contemporary English-speaking cultures, greater importance is attached to kindness than to goodness.

Having discussed the semantics of dobroć, the author inquires into the historical and cultural origin of the associated concept and attempts to explain its uniqueness. A hypothesis is put forward that in Polish culture the attitude of the heart and will, reflected in the concept of ‘goodness’, finds its prototype in the figure of the Virgin Mary.

In Part II, the author analyses the concepts prawość ‘righteousness’ and odwaga ‘courage’.

Prawość is a specifically Polish concept, very much present in the Polish linguistic and cultural contemporary sphere. It is connected with the history of the country and the qualities attributed to major historical figures. Being prawy means being sensitive to others and following high ethical standards, which perhaps derives from the knightly ethos. English pseudo-equivalents of the Polish prawy/prawość are the words upright, righteous/righteousness and integrity. However, the word upright is now perceived by native speakers of English as dated and inadequate in the contemporary world; righteous and righteousness have clear biblical connotations and have entered the English language through Puritan morality – hence their range is limited. The closest equivalent is integrity, although the word is more readily connected with one’s social activity than with morality.

Odwaga is also connected with moral choices (cf. odwaga cywilna ‘moral courage’) but is not the same as courage: if someone is odważny, the deed may have negative consequences for the doer, which courage does not presuppose. The same semantic field contains words like śmiałość, dzielność and męstwo ‘boldness, bravery, valour’, but these also differ in their semantics from the English courage. Bravery is only an approximate to śmiałość, as is the Russian mužestvo, which merely resembles męstwo.

The cognitive scripts of the Polish value terms show clearly that speakers of Polish in each case operate with elements of awareness (“being aware of the moral obligation to act as one should”).


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2011) Arabic – Discourse particles: YAᶜNI

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 15, 2018.

Rieschild, Verna (2011). Arabic yaᶜni: Issues of semantic, pragmatic, and indexical translation equivalence. Intercultural Pragmatics, 8(3), 315-346. DOI 10.1515/IPRG.2011.016

This paper explores the idea that some discourse particles are so culturally embedded that they defy translation. Natural Semantic Metalanguage and Conversation Analysis are used to examine the meanings and functions of (a) the polysemous Arabic discourse particle yaᶜni (derived from yaᶜni ‘it means’), translatable as ‘well’, ‘I mean’, ‘that is’, ‘you see’, ‘like’, and ‘so’, and (b) sorta and I mean, the main English translation candidates for yaᶜni. The findings show that yaᶜni’s focus on marking relevance is useful in elaborating, correcting, creating narrative suspense, holding a turn, or, as sole constituent of a turn, hedging a response. Similar English functions are achieved using discourse particles that focus approximation. The analysis also shows that semantic or pragmatic similarity in discourse particles from different languages can predict translation potential. In the same way, similarity in the meaning of a discourse particle and of a speech act predicts translatability. However, despite semantic and pragmatic equivalence (of a sort), culture-specific indices may mean that a word is not a suitable translation candidate. The results augment our understanding of cultural semantics and ethnopragmatics, and have applications to the study of translation and intercultural communication.


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

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(2011) Chinese (Cantonese) – Discourse particles

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 9, 2020.

Wakefield, John C. (2011). Disentangling the meanings of two Cantonese evidential particles. Chinese Language & Discourse, 2(2), 250-293.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/cld.2.2.05wak

Abstract:

Some linguists have argued that sentence-final particles (SFPs) are only meaningful in relation to discourse content. Adopting as a working hypothesis the idea that SFPs have core meanings independent of the discourse context, this paper proposes definitions for two evidential SFPs in Cantonese with related meanings: 咯 lo1 and 吖吗 aa1maa3.

Corpus-based examples and constructed minimal-pair dialogues are used to demonstrate that the definitions succeed at accounting for all the contexts that allow one, the other, both, or neither of the SFPs to be used based on acceptability judgments from native speakers of Cantonese. In addition to furthering our understanding of the two SFPs under discussion, this paper provides empirical evidence in support of the idea that discourse particles have context-independent meanings.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2011) Courtroom communication

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.

McCaul, Kim (2011). Understanding courtroom communication through cultural scripts. In Le Cheng, & Anne Wagner (Eds.), Exploring courtroom discourse: The language of power and control (pp. 11-28). Farnham: Ashgate.

In this chapter I explore courtroom communication and its origin in legal culture, explicitly avoiding the kind of value judgments that some linguists arrive at when analyzing the seemingly asocial use that barristers often make of language. Instead, I intend to show how such language usage arises naturally from the culture of the law, and highlight a number of usually unstated premises that underpin courtroom communication. In particular, I will explore how the relationship between barrister and witness is determined by the culture of advocacy.

I will use a tool from cross-cultural linguistics called the “cultural script,” which not only helps to develop succinct synopses of those premises, but could also provide a method by which they can be explained to lay people entering the courtroom, including L2 speakers of English and non-English speakers.

(2011) Emotions: happiness

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 11, 2018.

Wierzbicka, Anna (2011). Whatʼs wrong with “happiness studies”? The cultural semantics of happiness, bonheur, Glück, and sčas’te. In Igor Boguslavsky, Leonid Iomdin, & Leonid Krysin (Eds.), Slovo i jazyk: Sbornik statej k vos’midesjatiletiju akademika Ju. D. Apresjana (pp. 155-171). Moscow: Jazyki slavjanskoj kultury. PDF (open access)

A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 5 (pp. 102-126) of:

Goddard, Cliff, & Wierzbicka, Anna (2014). Words and meanings: Lexical semantics across domains, languages, and cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

There is a huge industry of so-called “happiness studies” that relies on cross-national statistical comparisons, which challengers see as based on false and ethnocentric assumptions. ‘Happiness’ has become a big issue in politics and in economics, but here, too, a lack of attention to the meaning of words leads to unwarranted conclusions and causes confusion and miscommunication. The misunderstandings surrounding happiness, bonheur, and Glück illustrate the need for uncovering, and explaining, the differences between significant words that are wrongly assumed to be readily cross-translatable. In view of the place of ‘happiness’ at the forefront of current debates across a range of disciplines, a comparison of happiness and счастье sčast’e seems especially topical.

The assumption that all languages have a word like happiness, and that there can be a reliable “index of happiness” based on self-reports (given in different languages) is naïve and untenable. Progress in emotion research in general depends to a considerable extent on increased recognition that language goes deeper in us than many students of emotion (especially psychologists) are willing to admit. Genuine progress requires a greater linguistic and cross-cultural sophistication than that evident in much of the existing writings on the subject.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2011) English – Cultural key words

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 24, 2019.

Goddard, Cliff (2011). The lexical semantics of language (with special reference to words). Language Sciences, 33(1), 40-57.

DOI: 10.1016/j.langsci.2010.03.003

Abstract:

Language can be regarded as one of the cultural key words of English, as well as the foundational term of the discourse of linguistics. It is well to remember, however, that the concept of a language lacks precise semantic equivalents in many languages. This study presents a semantic-lexicographic analysis of several meanings of the word language in contemporary English, using the NSM method of semantic description. The study is similar in scope and approach to an earlier study of the word culture, which resembles language in several important respects. One distinctive aspect of the explications for language is their reliance on the proposed semantic prime WORDS, which is discussed at some length. Though primarily focused on English, the study makes reference to Yankunytjatjara, Chinese, and Russian, among other languages.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2011) English – Social categories

Published on August 28, 2018. Last updated on August 28, 2018.

Roberts, Michael (2011). Doctors, Australians and friends: A semantic analysis of social categories. Master’s thesis, University of New England.


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

(2011) English – Supernatural beings

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on July 25, 2020.

Habib, Sandy (2011). Ghosts, fairies, elves, and nymphs: Towards a semantic template for non-human being concepts. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 31(4), 411-443.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2012.625599

Abstract:

The aim of this study was to devise a semantic template for non-human being terms. To achieve this objective, four non-human being concepts were analysed, and an explication for each concept was built. Comparing the explications yielded a nine-part semantic template. The usefulness of this semantic template is threefold. First, it eases the task of explicating non-human being concepts because the parts of the template can serve as guidelines to be followed while constructing the explications. Second, it eases the comparison between related non-human being concepts from different languages. Third, it reveals the devices that are embodied in the structure of non-human being concepts and that enable people to use these complex concepts without difficulty.

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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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(2011) English (Australia) – Cultural key words: THE BUSH

Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 15, 2021.

Bromhead, Helen (2011). The bush in Australian English. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 31(4), 445-471. DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2011.625600

Individual landscape terms in various languages do not always have exact equivalents in other languages, or even in different varieties of the same language. One example is the term the bush in Australian English. The bush denotes an Australian landscape zone, but the word has developed additional senses related to culture and human geography. This study delineates the semantics of the bush in Australian English in relation to Australian culture. These meanings of the bush are described using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach to linguistic analysis.

The study finds that the bush is a key word in Australian culture. The author shows that in Australian English and other settler Englishes the meanings of national landscape terms can shed light on the relationship between settlers’ cultures, and their new environments and ways of life.


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

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(2011) English (Australia), French – Opinions

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.

Mullan, Kerry (2011). Expressing opinions in French and Australian English discourse: A semantic and interactional analysis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/pbns.200

Based on the analysis of conversations between French and Australian English speakers discussing various topics, including their experiences as non-native speakers in France or Australia, this book combines subjective personal testimonies with an objective linguistic analysis of the expression of opinion in discourse.

It offers a new perspective on French and Australian English interactional style by examining the discourse markers I think, je pense, je crois and je trouve. It is shown that the prosody, intonation unit position, and the surrounding context of these markers are all fundamental to their function and meaning in interaction. In addition, this book offers the first detailed comparative semantic study of the three comparative French expressions in interaction.

The book will appeal to all those interested in linguistics, French and Australian English interactional style, cross-cultural communication, and discourse analysis. Students and teachers of French will be interested in the semantic analysis of the French expressions, the authentic interactional data and the personal testimonies of the participants.