Browsing results for Language families
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Ye, Zhengdao (2013). Understanding the conceptual basis of the ‘old friend’ formula in Chinese social interaction and foreign diplomacy: A cultural script approach. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 33, 365-385. DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2013.846459
This study attempts to make sense of a Chinese diplomatic formula – calling or labelling one’s counterpart 中国人民的老朋友 zhōngguó rénmín de lăopéngyŏu (‘an old friend of the Chinese people’) – by unravelling its conceptual basis. It shows that this formula has deep roots in Chinese social practices, and that its use is governed by a web of intrinsically linked cultural scripts. The paper articulates these scripts in terms of the culture-independent Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), unveiling the cultural logic underlying the use of the expression and revealing the culturally distinctive Chinese way of categorizing and conceptualizing ‘friend’, which is different from the Anglophone way. On the one hand, the paper shows the crucial role that language plays in managing interpersonal relationships by Chinese speakers; on the other, it contributes to a deeper understanding of the conceptual foundations of Chinese diplomatic style, illustrating how formulaic language in diplomacy highlights aspects of social cognition that are fundamental to the speakers of a community, and therefore deserving more attention than has hitherto been the case.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) péngyŏu 朋友, (E) zìjĭrén 自己人, (S) insiders and outsiders, (S) labelling someone as a 同 tóng 'fellow' X, (S) labelling someone as a 老 lăo 'old/long-standing' X, (S) speaking differently to different categories of people, (S) 由疏至亲 yóushūzhìqīn ‘from being distant to being close’
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 13, 2018.
Levisen, Carsten (2013). On pigs and people: The porcine semantics of Danish interaction and cognition. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 33(3), 344-364. DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2013.846455
There are footprints of pigs all over the Danish language. Pig-based verbs, nouns and adjectives abound, and the pragmatics of Danish, including its repertoire of abusives, is heavily reliant on porcine phraseology. Despite the highly urbanized nature of the contemporary Danish speech community, semantic structures from Denmark’s peasant-farmer past appear to have survived and taken on a new significance in today’s society. Unlike everyday English, which mainly distinguishes pig from pork, everyday Danish embodies an important semantic distinction between grise, which roughly speaking translates as ‘nice pigs’, vis-à-vis svin, which, very roughly, translates as ‘nasty pigs’.
Focusing on the pragmatics of svin-based language, this paper demonstrates how this concept is used in Danish interaction and social cognition. The paper explores systematically the culture-specific porcine themes in Danish evaluational expressions, speech acts and interpersonal relations. The paper demonstrates that ‘pigs in language’ is far from a trivial topic and argues that cultural elaboration of “pig words” and the culture-specific meaning of pigs in Danish not only sheds light on the diverse linguistic construals of “animal concepts” in the world’s languages: it also calls for a cultural-semantic approach to the study of social cognition.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) grise, (E) griseri, (E) svin, (E) svineri, (E) tilsviner, (E) tryne, (E) tryner
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2013). Comparatives without scales: An NSM analysis of English comparative constructions. In John Henderson, Marie-Eve Ritz, & Celeste Rodríguez Louro (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2012 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society. https://sites.google.com/site/als2012uwa/proceedings. PDF (open access)
This study outlines an analysis of the English comparative construction, framed in the NSM approach to semantics (Wierzbicka 1996; Goddard and Wierzbicka eds. 2002; Goddard ed. 2008). The analysis differs markedly from conventional accounts in that it does not rely on notions of scales, degrees, or standards of comparison. As required, the analysis successfully models the way in which adjectives with equipollent antonyms behave differently from others with respect to their compatibility with comparative statements (Sapir 1944), e.g. why one can say about two cold items ‘This one is colder than that one’, but not ‘This one is hotter than that one’. Likewise, it can explain asymmetries with respect to evaluative comparisons of “inherently bad” referents (Cruse 1986), e.g. why ‘This year’s famine is worse than last year’s’ is acceptable but ‘Last year’s famine was better than this year’s’ is odd. A similar account appears viable for the English superlative construction. The analysis can be termed an “external” one, in the sense that it takes the meaning of the positive term for granted and embeds it into a configuration of semantic primes that explicates the comparative aspect of the meaning.
Tags: (E) (comparatives), (E) (superlatives)
Published on July 29, 2018. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Barrios Rodríguez, María Auxiliadora (2013). Functional macrocategory and semiautomatic inheritance of semantic features: A methodology for defining nouns. In Valentina Apresjan, Boris Iomdin, & Ekaterina Ageeva (Eds.), Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on
Meaning-Text Theory (pp. 11-20). Prague: Charles University.
The aim of this paper is to discuss a possible new methodology when defining concrete nouns such as earring, ring or scarf by their automatic inheritance of semantic features from their macro-categories, in this case accessories. The semantic analysis of the meaning by primes, molecules and lexical functions allows us to arrive at a set of definitions that are more coherent for one lexical field. This methodology could be helpful when building ontologies.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) accessories, (E) bracelet, (E) briefcase, (E) diary, (E) earring, (E) handbag, (E) hat, (E) necklace, (E) ring, (E) scarf, (E) sunglasses, (E) wallet, (E) watch
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Rakić, Jelena. (2013). Emotions in English: Cultural scripts as mediators between language and culture. Facta Universitatis, Series Linguistics & Literature, 11(1), 75-89. PDF (open access)
Among studies on the English language, there is a notable absence of works on the relationship between English and its cultural underpinnings. Also, various research studies on language, emotion and culture lack descriptions of the situation in English, fostering the conclusion that English is culturally neutral. Anna Wierzbicka proposes the term Anglo-culture to cover the culture(s) behind the language, formulating cultural scripts that serve as a basis for modelling interaction, and which are founded on the
linguistic behaviour. We present those scripts relevant for understanding the domain of emotions in Anglo-culture, connecting them to the stereotypes about English reserve and politeness to show that the domain of emotions is a building block in the totality of Angloculture. The lexical items investigated show strong cultural markedness in line with the more general cultural scripts, which serves to prove that they are a useful tool for investigating the relationship between languages and cultures.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Swan, Karen Esther (2013). Borrowing the essentials: A diachronic study of the semantic primes of Modern English. MA thesis, Brigham Young University. PDF (open access)
In order for communication to take place, there must be a set of core concepts that are universal to all speakers. Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) has proposed an inventory of these concepts, called semantic primes, and uses them as universal concepts in the explication and exploration of cultural values. The English semantic primes, while the majority are Anglo‐Saxon, contain words that have been borrowed from Latin, Old Norse, and French. Borrowing lexical items into core vocabulary has many implications. First, the primes are not entirely stable or immune to foreign influence, even the Anglo‐Saxon primes have been susceptible to the processes of language change. Second, the primes do not reflect the trends of borrowing in English as a whole. And finally, because the primes are core vocabulary, this study opens up a new aspect of English as a mixed language.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 17, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2013). On the river, on an island, on the street: The semantics of English on-constructions involving “laterality”. International Journal of Cognitive Linguistics [China], 3(2), 153-167.
This study analyses a set of highly English-specific on-constructions of the form [on + NP-PLACE], such as: on the bank of the river, (a house) on the beach, on an island, on the plains, on the street, on a farm. The analysis is conducted in the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework originated by Anna Wierzbicka. Six semantically discrete construction types are identified and each is assigned a semantic schema framed in the metalanguage of semantic primes. All of them, it is argued, include a semantic component involving “laterality” (semantic prime SIDE), often in combination with a component involving visibility (SEE). These constructions, along with others, constitute a complex network of grammatical polysemy in English.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 9, 2020.
Wakefield, John C. (2013). When cultural scripts collide: Conflicting child-rearing values in a mixed-culture home. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 42(4), 376-392.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17475759.2013.838984
Abstract:
This paper discusses some key differences between the child-rearing values of American-English culture and Hong Kong-Cantonese culture. Evidence is drawn from contrasts in the child-rearing-related speech behaviour of people from the two cultures, including the American English-speaking author and his Hong Kong Cantonese-speaking partner. Speaker-oriented cultural scripts written in NSM are developed in an attempt to articulate and explain these differences in verbal behaviour. It is proposed that a major contrast between the two cultures is whether or not parents believe children can or should determine for themselves what is appropriate to say and do.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) giu3, (S) child-rearing behaviour, (S) children require instruction, (S) example setting for children, (S) parental love withdrawal, (S) wh-imperatives
Published on September 30, 2018. Last updated on August 15, 2021.
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
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (2013). La langue de bois: un pèlerinage ethnolexicologique [La langue de bois: An ethnolexicological pilgrimage]. In Pierre Marillaud & Robert Gauthier (Eds.), La mauvaise parole: 33e Colloque d’Albi Langages et Signification (pp. 196-210). Albi/Toulouse: CALS/CPST.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (2013). Râler, râleur, râlite: discours, langue et valeurs culturelles [Râler, râleur, râlite: Discourse, language and cultural values]. In C. Claudel, P. von Münchow, M. Pordeus, F. Pugnière-Saavedra & G. Tréguer-Felten (ed.), Cultures, discours, langues: nouveaux abordages (pp. 117-141). Limoges: Lambert-Lucas.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (2013). Ah méfiance, quand tu tiens la France… Cahiers de praxématique, 60. DOI: 10.4000/praxematique.3872
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 27, 2018.
Mateo Mendaza, Raquel (2013). The Old English exponent for the semantic prime TOUCH: Descriptive and methodological questions. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 33(4), 449-466. DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2013.857574
The aim of the article is to identify the exponent for the semantic prime TOUCH in Old English. Therefore, this research contributes to the frame of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage Research Programme (NSMRP) by applying it to the study of a historical language. Throughout such an application several descriptive and methodological questions arise. On the descriptive side, it is necessary to propose a cluster of semantic, morphological, textual and syntactic criteria that allow for the identification of the prime at stake, given that the nature of the object of study is not compatible with the translation into the native language generally adopted by the NSMRP. The analysis focuses on the category actions, events, movement and contact, and relies on data retrieved from the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, the Dictionary of Old English Corpus and the lexical database of Old English Nerthus. Although the cluster of criteria evinces a clear candidate for semantic prime it also raises the methodological issue of the distinction between the semantic prime and the hyperonym because some of the criteria used in the search for the former also play a role in the process of identification of the latter. The conclusion is reached that the verb hrīnan is the main exponent for the semantic prime TOUCH in Old English because it satisfies the criteria of meaning, word-formation, textual frequency and syntactic complementation.
Published on August 9, 2018. Last updated on September 8, 2018.
Metom, Lilly (2013). Emotion concepts of the Ibans in Sarawak. Singapore: Trafford.
This book explains the emotion concepts of the Ibans, one of the indigenous peoples of Sarawak, Malaysia. It is an outcome of a research study that aims to analyse the Iban emotion concepts using Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM). NSM enables emotion terminologies in Iban to be explicated and further defined along the concrete/abstract cultural continuum framework. The respondents of this study were the village community of Sbangki Panjai, a longhouse located in Lubok Antu, Sarawak. The findings reveal the core cultural values that underlie the people’s behaviours in the ways they express their emotions. The complex rules of logic called adat and the rules of speaking in this speech community that explain the Ibans’ communicative behaviours are discussed in detail in this book. The semantic analysis of the emotion words is exhaustive and comprehensive, which is necessary to reveal the complete meaning of the emotions being examined without creating ethnocentric bias. Thus, this book essentially describes how the Ibans relate themselves to others in their interaction.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on May 23, 2019.
Asano-Cavanagh, Yuko (2013). Understanding Japanese culture through a semantic analysis of kawaii ‘cute’, itai ‘pitiful’ and ita-kawaii ‘pitifully trying to be cute’. In John Henderson, Marie-Ève Ritz, & Celeste Rodríguez Louro (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2012 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society. https://sites.google.com/site/als2012uwa/proceedings.
Open access
Abstract:
This paper examines the three Japanese words kawaii ‘cute’, itai ‘pitiful’ and ita‐kawaii ‘pitifully trying to be cute’. Japanese women frequently say kawaii to show positive feelings towards objects or people. However, too much kawaii is considered undesirable. A compound word, ita‐kawaii, is used to describe women who dress or wear make‐up in an overly kawaii way. Especially when older women try to look kawaii, they are criticized as itai, or ita‐kawaii.
From a linguistic perspective, kawaii, itai, and ita‐kawaii are not lexicalized in other languages. Although the kawaii phenomenon has been thoroughly discussed by many scholars, there has been no rigorous semantic analysis of these three words. In this study, NSM is used to explicate the exact meaning of kawaii, itai, and ita‐kawaii. The analysis indicates that the meaning of itai and ita‐kawaii is related to the social norm that criticizes someone for being conceited. The kawaii and ita‐kawaii syndrome reveals a Japanese cultural characteristic enforcing people not to be out of place in society.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) ita-kawaii いた かわいい, (E) itai 痛い, (E) kawaii かわいい, (T) Japanese
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 23, 2019.
Hirakawa, Kimiko (2013). Semantic explications for the sentence-final particles bai and tai of the Japanese Hakata dialect. Osaka Literary Review, 52, 1-15.
Open access
Abstract:
This paper describes and outlines the functions of two sentence-final particles of the Japanese Hakata dialect, bai and tai. The particles in question are especially known for characterizing the Hakata dialect, which is one of the linguistic variations in Fukuoka Prefecture. Taking into account similarities as well as differences, the paper proposes descriptions for the two particles and posits explications using NSM.
Rating:
Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) bai, (E) tai
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 20, 2019.
Svetanant, Chavalin (2013). Exploring personhood constructs through language: Contrastive semantic of “heart” in Japanese and Thai. International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Communication, 7(3), 23-32.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18848/2324-7320/cgp/v07i03/53576
Abstract:
This paper aims to explore personhood constructs of the Thai community and compare them to those of the Japanese community, with special reference to heart-related terms. It carries out a linguistic inquiry into the historical side of the lexicon and compares the conceptualization of ‘heart’ in Thai and Japanese to clarify the cognitive and conceptual similarities and differences in the underlying semantic structures. The framework for semantic analysis employed in this paper is the NSM approach.
A large number of heart/mind-related words in Thai and Japanese show features that are shared across the two communities, as well as subtle cognitive and conceptual differences; for example, ใจ chai (Thai) and 気 ki (Japanese) are relatively more dynamic and sensitive to mental/psychological changes when compared to 心 kokoro (Japanese). Linguistically speaking, they keep moving around, changing shape, size, colour, and temperature. However, while the entities of ใจ chai and 心 kokoro are cognitively more substantial as emotional containers of human beings, 気 ki is treated more like the intangible energy wrapping around 心 kokoro and contains no intellectual element.
The evidence from this study suggests that a semantic explication of personhood lexicalizations is a practical approach to clarify the obscure entities and contribute to the understanding of the conceptuality of personhood constructs across languages and cultures.
Rating:
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) chai ใจ, (E) ki 気, (E) kokoro 心
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 23, 2018.
Murtisari, Elisabet Titik (2013). Some traditional Javanese values in NSM: From God to social interaction. International Journal of Indonesian Studies, 1, 110-125. PDF (open access)
This paper examines a number of central traditional Javanese values in social interaction and explicates some of them into cultural scripts using the Natural Semantics Metalanguage (NSM). It is shown how intricate Javanese notions, such as narimo ‘accepting’ and ethok-ethok ‘dissimulation’, may be effectively described using simple vocabulary without lacking in rigour, which can be very helpful for outsiders to understand more about Javanese culture.
Note: Murtisari’s explication of ethok-ethok is offered as an improvement on an explication of the same term by Wierzbicka, who spells it as éṭok-éṭok.
Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) alus, (E) eling, (E) ethok-ethok, (E) lila, (E) narima, (E) rila, (E) trima, (E) ukum pinesthi, (E) waspada
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2013). Kinship and social cognition in Australian languages: Kayardild and Pitjantjatjara. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 33(3), 302-321. DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2013.846458
While many anthropologists these days dismiss the study of kinship terminologies as something that belongs – or should belong – to the past, from an Australian perspective kin terms must still be seen as an essential guide to the ways in which speakers of many languages understand their social world. This being so, establishing what these terms really mean – from an insider’s, rather than an anthropologist’s or linguist’s point of view – remains an essential task. This paper argues that while this task cannot be accomplished with traditional methods of linguistic anthropology, it can be with the techniques of NSM semantics. The paper shows how this can be done by re-analysing
some basic kin terms in Kayardild and in Pitjantjatjara.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) brother, (E) duujinda, (E) kularrinda, (E) kuta, (E) malanypa, (E) thabuju, (E) wakatha, (E) yakukathu, (S) kinship
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 3, 2019.
Priestley, Carol (2013). Social categories, shared experience, reciprocity and endangered meanings: Examples from Koromu (PNG). Australian Journal of Linguistics, 33(3), 257-281. DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2013.846457
Speakers of many Trans New Guinea or Papuan languages use a number of reciprocal person-referring expressions. Various examples are found in the Papuan language of Koromu, spoken in Madang Province, Papua New Guinea. This paper examines the meanings of Koromu reciprocal expressions that recall shared past experiences, in particular, social category terms connected with coming of age events and spontaneous nicknames created at the time events occur in the course of everyday life. The meanings are explicated in clear simple terms using Natural Semantic Metalanguage primes. The
explications point to important aspects of social cognition, including identification with significant others based on shared experience and relational concepts of personhood. Although this study points to the possibility of some language endangerment for some meanings, it also indicates the ongoing cultural importance of shared experiences, including commensality, in both rites of passage and everyday life.
