Browsing results for Language families
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
François, Jacques (2015). Trois questionnements sémantiques encore largement méconnus en France [Three semantic approaches that remain largely unknown in France]. In Alain Rabatel, Alice Ferrara-Léturgie, & Arnaud Léturgie (Eds.), La sémantique et ses interfaces: Actes du colloque 2013 de l’Association des Sciences du Langage (pp. 23-46). Limoges: Lambert-Lucas.
Written in French. No abstract available.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) happy, (E) heureux, (E) joyeux
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 18, 2019.
Levisen, Carsten & Jogie, Melissa Reshma (2015). The Trinidadian ‘theory of mind’: Personhood and postcolonial semantics. International Journal of Language and Culture, 2(2), 169-193.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.2.2.02lev
Abstract:
Taking a postcolonial approach to the semantics of personhood, this paper critically engages with Anglo-international discourses of the mind, exposing the conceptual stranglehold of the colonial language (i.e., English) and its distorting semantic grip on global discourse. It is argued that creole categories of values and personhood provide a new venue for critical mind studies as well as for new studies in creole semantics and cultural diversity.
The paper investigates the cultural semantics of a personhood construct in one particular creole. It analyses the lexical semantics of the word mind/mine in Trini (the English-based creole of Trinidad) and explores the wider cultural meanings of the concept in contrastive comparison with the Anglo concept. The analysis demonstrates that the Anglo concept is a cognitively oriented construct with a semantic configuration based on ‘thinking’ and ‘knowing’, whereas the Trinidadian mind is a moral concept configured around perceptions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’. The paper explores the Trinidadian moral discourse of bad mind and good mind, and goes on to articulate a cultural script for the cultural values linked with personhood in the Trinidadian context.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) mind, (E) mine, (S) forgiveness, (S) judgment of others, (S) tolerance, (T) Trinidadian Creole
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 16, 2021.
Bondéelle, Olivier (2015). Polysémie et structuration du lexique: Le cas du wolof [Polysemy and the structure of the lexicon: The case of wolof]. Utrecht: LOT. PDF (open access)
This work deals with the role of polysemy in structuring the lexicon. The thesis proposes a qualitative evaluation of polysemy, comparing it with the other relationships that structure the lexicon. This undertaking makes it possible to verify that polysemy links should not be modeled independently of derivation or conversion links. The results of the evaluation show that the boundary between polysemy and conversion is porous.
The language of study is Wolof, a coastal language of West Africa. This language provides adequate material for the research. A wide range of morphological processes structure the lexicon (derivation by suffixation, derivation by consonantal alternation, conversion by change of the nominal class morpheme).
The descriptive contribution of this work lies in the exploration of the areas of artefacts and emotions of the Wolof, areas never described previously for an African language from the point of view of structuring the lexicon. The methodology consists in describing the meanings of the lexical units and the semantic links connecting them by a single metalanguage, that of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), introduced here for the Wolof language.
Published on August 5, 2018. Last updated on September 15, 2018.
Fitrisia, Dohra, & Mulyadi (2016). Verb eu ‘see’ in the Acehnese language. Proceedings of English Education International Conference, 1(2), 232-238. PDF (open access)
This study uses NSM to describe the meaning and semantic structure of verbs involving the semantic prime SEE in Acehnese. The Acehnese exponent of the prime is eu. The data were collected by interviewing native speakers. All verbs described appear to be built around combinations of the prime SEE with each of the primes FEEL, THINK, KNOW, and SAY, resulting in four partly overlapping groups of verbs.
Crude application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) blie, (E) ceungeuk, (E) glieb, (E) kalon, (E) keureuleng, (E) kunjông, (E) luem, (E) meupandang, (E) ngieng, (E) saweue, (E) tilèk
Published on April 4, 2018. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Ketut Alit Suputra, Gusti; Budirasa, Made; Dhanawaty Ni Made; & Putu Putra, A. A. (2016). The meanings of the Balinese ‘to eat’: A study of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM). e-Journal of Linguistics, 10(2), 153–167. PDF (open access)
This study discusses the meaning of a number of verbs referring to the act of eating in Balinese, showing each has its own distinctive features. The verbs are ngrayunang, ngajeng, daar, nunas, nede, ngamah, nidik, nyaplok, caklok, ngleklek, and nyanggol. The study relies on oral (primary) and written (secondary) data. The method used in data collection was observation and conversation. Results of the data analysis are presented by using formal and informal methods.
Crude application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tags: (E) caklok, (E) daar, (E) nede, (E) ngajeng, (E) ngamah, (E) ngleklek, (E) ngrayunang, (E) nidik, (E) nunas, (E) nyanggol, (E) nyaplok
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 5, 2019.
Levisen, Carsten (2016). Postcolonial lexicography: Defining creole emotion words with the Natural Semantic Metalanguage. Cahiers de lexicologie, 109, 35-60.
DOI: 10.15122/isbn.978-2-406-06861-7.p.0035
Abstract:
The lexicographical study of postcolonial language varieties is severely undertheorized and underdeveloped. Postcolonial Lexicography is a new framework that seeks to go some way towards filling the gap. It aims at providing a new praxis of word definition for the study of creoles, world Englishes, and other languages spoken in postcolonial contexts. NSM is used as an interpretative technique for the definition of meaning. The NSM approach allows for a fine-grained lexical-semantic analysis, and at the same time helps circumvent ‘conceptual colonialism’ and the related vices of Anglocentrism and Eurocentrism, all of which hamper advances in lexicographical studies in a postcolonial context.
More specifically, drawing on advances in lexical semantics, linguistic ethnography and postcolonial language studies, the paper offers an original analysis of emotion words in Urban Bislama, a creole language spoken in Port Vila, Vanuatu. The author develops a sketch of the Bislama lexicon of emotion and provides new definitions of kros, roughly ‘angry’, les, roughly ‘annoyed’ and sem, roughly ‘ashamed’. A table of Bislama exponents of NSM primes is included, as well as some discussion on the exponents for FEEL, GOOD, and BAD.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) kros, (E) les, (E) sem, (T) Bislama
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 1, 2019.
Levisen, Carsten (2016). The ethnopragmatics of speech acts in postcolonial discourse: “Truth” and “trickery” in a transculturated South Pacific tale. In Christoph Schubert & Laurenz Volkmann (Eds.), Pragmatic perspectives on postcolonial discourse: Linguistics and literature (pp. 41-64). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Abstract:
Providing a high-resolution explication of the Bislama (Vanuatu, South Pacific) speech act word giaman, from colonial English gammon (“to humbug”), the paper develops an ethnopragmatic profile of the speech act category “truth/lies/deception” and discusses the interpretative potential for a giaman-based interpretation of one of Hans Christian Andersen’s most cherished fairy tales, The Emperor’s New Clothes, which has now also been translated into Bislama. Demonstrating how giaman differs from European-type speech acts, and in particular from English and Danish semi-counterparts of the word (respectively lie and bedrage), the paper launches into a postcolonial critique of Anglo-international pragmatics and its so-called universal maxims and speech acts, showing a new way and a new synthesis called postcolonial ethnopragmatics.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) bedrage, (E) giaman, (E) lie, (T) Bislama
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Tien, Adrian (2016). What does it mean to “commemorate”? Linguistic and cultural evidence from Chinese. The Irish Journal of Asian Studies, 2, 1-11.
What does it mean to “commemorate”? Is commemorate or its derivations in English understood and accordingly practiced in other languages and cultures? This article demonstrates, through the case of Chinese language and culture, that people do not all share the same understanding about “commemoration” or practice it as it is in the Anglo context. Even though commemorate is translated into Chinese as jì niàn and these words show certain linguistic similarities, jì niàn is not an exact translational equivalent of the English word. Furthermore, evidence is presented to show that jì niàn is likely a recent word in Chinese, based on contemporary Chinese notions of something like to “commemorate” that reflect possible influences from the West. In drawing evidence from conventional Chinese linguistic and cultural practices, this article illustrates how Chinese “commemorate” in ways that are indigenous to them. As part of this, semantic analyses using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) are performed on the Chinese words jì niàn and zhuī yuǎn, lit. ‘to recollect the distant past’. These are then compared with the semantic analysis for commemorate in English, for an in-depth appreciation of what makes Chinese understanding of something like “commemorate” unique.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) commemorate, (E) jì niàn, (E) zhuī yuǎn, (T) English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Tien, Adrian (2016). Not so fast: Speed-related concepts in Chinese music and beyond. Global Chinese, 2(2), 189-211. DOI: 10.1515/glochi-2016-0008
While speed as a sonic and musical experience may be a universal phenomenon, concepts referring to kinds of speed are language-specific and culture-dependent. This paper focuses on the notion of speed in Chinese and concepts associated with speed in Chinese, especially in relation to music. Five speed-related concepts in Chinese are subjected to scrutiny: kuai, ji, su, man and huan. These concepts are scrutinized in traditional musical, contemporary musical and general contemporary contexts. The musical genres in which these concepts present themselves are the music of guqin (a seven-stringed zither) and Peking Opera. Semantic analyses adopting the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach are utilized in order to explicate these concepts. Preliminary findings demonstrate that, unlike in some other musical traditions in which one might expect the capacity to play at markedly contrastive speeds in a musical performance to be aesthetically desirable or even essential, as the meanings of the speed-related concepts in Chinese reveal, the ability to play fast is not necessarily aesthetically praiseworthy in at least traditional Chinese music, nor is speed necessarily a major consideration as one executes speed in a Chinese musical interpretation.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) huan 緩, (E) ji 急, (E) kuai 快, (E) man 慢, (E) su 速, (S) making pleasurable and entertaining music, (S) moderation of speed in Chinese music
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Tien, Adrian (2016). Compositionality of Chinese idioms: The issues, the semantic approach and a case study. Applied Linguistics Review, 7(2), 149-180. DOI: 10.1515/applirev-2016-0007
Idioms – or something like idioms – occupy a special place as a speech genre in languages. It is compelling that the issue of what idioms are (or are not) and how they distinguish themselves from other related, though different, linguistic and phraseological categories, are of concern to all. This paper first examines various linguistic issues concerning the idiom genre before going into a detailed discussion about the chengyu in Chinese, which is an approximate yet by no means identical counterpart of the idiom as it is understood in English. It is argued that, as phrasal structures, Chinese chengyus are not all lexically fixed, neither are they all semantically non-compositional. By virtue of the example of the sememe zhong, lit. ‘(bronze) bell’, and its incorporation into certain chengyus, it is demonstrated that the sememic constituents of a chengyu can be only not compositionally significant semantically speaking but also, they may well hold the key to the reason why the literal meaning of a chengyu should be closely integrated into its intended, idiomatic (figurative) meaning. Chengyus that incorporate the sememe zhong comprise an idiomatic analogy and, in fact, zhong as a lexical item is represented in the content of this analogy as a cognitively real element. This paper adopts the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework as the basis for semantic analyses of such chengyus.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) zhong 重, (T) English
Published on December 13, 2017. Last updated on August 16, 2021.
Leung, Helen Hue Lam (2016). The semantics of utterance particles in informal Hong Kong Cantonese (Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach). PhD thesis, Griffith University, Brisbane. PDF (open access)
This study identifies the semantic invariants of some commonly-used Cantonese utterance particles in Hong Kong Cantonese. The particles are a distinctive and ubiquitous feature of informal, everyday Cantonese, occurring every 1.5 seconds on average. The particles are necessary for expressing speakers’ transitory attitudes, assumptions, or feelings connected with an utterance. Although they are not grammatically obligatory, conversation sounds unnatural when they are omitted. There are approximately 30 ‘basic’ particles, which can combine with each other to form ‘clusters’, resulting in roughly 100 variations. This number easily surpasses that of comparable particles in Mandarin, and is matched by very few, if any, other languages. Semantic analysis of Cantonese utterance particles is challenging because their meanings are extremely elusive, even to native speakers. The range of use of each particle is so varied and wide-ranging that some Cantonese speakers and scholars have concluded that the particles have no stable semantic content. Prior research on the particles has produced contradictory, vague, obscure or inaccurate descriptions.
This study demonstrates that particles have meaning, by using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach to identify the semantic invariants, or ‘core’ meanings, of a selection of commonly-used utterance particles, namely laa1, wo3, gaa3, laa3, and zaa3. NSM expresses the meanings of words and concepts in reductive paraphrases called explications, where the language used is limited to a set of semantic primes. Using this method, each particle’s meaning is identified and stated in versatile explications which are clear, accurate, translatable, and testable. The explications reliably explain each particle’s range of use in the Hong Kong Cantonese Corpus, which comprises 180 000 words of naturally-occurring Cantonese. One of the most significant findings is that explications for Cantonese utterance particles are typically short and simple. The results prove that the particles have stable and identifiable meanings.
In addition, the explications reveal the role of semantics in determining why particles can or cannot combine in particular ways. The particles selected for analysis occur in many common clusters, e.g. gaa3-laa1, gaa3-zaa3-wo3, while other clusters are unacceptable, e.g. *laa1-wo3. The meanings of particle clusters are widely claimed to be the combined meanings of the particles of which they are made up, but there have been no serious attempts to verify this. To do so would first require accurate definitions of the individual particles. The explications proposed in this study shed light on this neglected area. It is found that where particle clusters are acceptable in speech, the combined explications reveal the meanings of the clusters. A semantic critique of sub-morphemic analyses of monosyllabic particles is also presented.
This study also considers the complexities of using NSM for Hong Kong Cantonese. If basic NSM assumptions are correct, any explication should be able to be expressed in simple and natural Cantonese, giving the same meaning as in any other language. This thesis identifies and evaluates Cantonese exponents of all the 65 proposed semantic primes, and explores some Cantonese-specific issues. Each particle explication is presented in English and Cantonese.
Published on August 2, 2018. Last updated on August 31, 2018.
Xue, Wendi (2016). The semantics of ‘uncle’-type kinship terms in Cantonese (Guangzhou) and Teochew (Jieyang). Master’s thesis, Australian National University.
Kinship stands as the foundation of all human societies, and kinship terms have been an important area of research in cultural anthropology and linguistics. Although scholars have accumulated much information on kinship terminology across many languages, there is still a gap to be bridged regarding the Sinitic languages, especially the non-Mandarin varieties of Chinese; moreover, many previous studies require semantic reanalysis so that the native speaker’s point of view can be revealed. This thesis examines the under-surveyed groups of kinship terms which are semantically related to the English category of ‘uncle’ (henceforth ‘uncle’-type) in Cantonese and Teochew, and uses the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) for their semantic analysis. It offers full NSM explications for the 32 ‘uncle-type’ terms in the two languages under three major categories: father’s side, mother’s side and in-laws; it also explains how these explications are arrived at and discusses the similarities and differences in the semantic patterns between these two non-Mandarin Chinese varieties. An innovative aspect of the thesis is that it proposes four culture-specific semantic molecules in explications. As well as shedding light on the under-explored area of ‘uncle’-type kinship terminology in Sinitic languages, this work highlights the diversity within Han Chinese culture, which has often been misunderstood as a homogeneous system based on the prevailing Mandarin-centric conventions.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) a-baak, (E) a-che, (E) a-chek, (E) a-hiaⁿ, (E) a-kǔ, (E) a-muě, (E) a-peh, (E) a-sūk, (E) a-tǐ, (E) a-tiǒⁿ, (E) agō, (E) baakfuh, (E) baakyē, (E) bíubaak, (E) daaihbaak, (E) daaihbaakfuh, (E) daaihgūjéung, (E) daaihkauhfú, (E) daaihyìhjéung, (E) gūjéung, (E) jèhjē, (E) kauhfú, (E) kauhfújái, (E) lāaisūk, (E) mùihmúi, (E) pió-peh, (E) saigūjéung, (E) saikauhfú, (E) sailóu, (E) saisūk, (E) saiyìhjéung, (E) soi-chek, (E) sòi-kǔ, (E) sòi-tiǒⁿ, (E) sūksūk, (E) thâng-a-peh, (E) tòhngbaak, (E) tuā-kǔ, (E) tuā-peh, (E) tuā-peh-thâu, (E) tuā-tiǒⁿ, (E) yìhjéung
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 9, 2018.
Wong, Jock (2016). The pragmatics of kéyĭ (“can”) in Singapore Mandarin. In Alessandro Capone & Jacob L. Mey (Eds.), Interdisciplinary studies in pragmatics, culture and society (pp. 857-876). Cham: Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-12616-6_33
This chapter deals with the pragmatics of kéyĭ, the non-Standard Singapore Mandarin equivalent of English can. It describes some of the speech acts it is associated with and represents some of the associated speech norms in the form of cultural scripts formulated in Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM). It is hoped that the cultural scripts will facilitate a better understanding of the cultural values underlying the use of this word.
The chapter also contrasts some of the speech norms described in it with their English counterparts to highlight their culture-specificity. It further examines examples from standard Mandarin to explain their cultural significance. It is shown that speech acts are often culture-specific, and speech acts specific to one language (in this case, English) cannot adequately describe speech acts specific to another (in this case, Singapore Mandarin). The proposed solution is NSM, which can clearly explain Singapore Mandarin speech acts associated with the word kéyĭ and, in doing so, clarify the language-specific use of the Singapore Mandarin semantic equivalent of the English can.
A number of authentic examples are studied. They suggest that the relationship between Singapore Mandarin speakers is often marked by social obligations (among other things). These obligations have to do with priority given to what one is able to do over what one wants to do. Speakers tend to de-emphasize what one (either the speaker or someone else) wants to do and, in doing so, go against some of Grice’s maxims and Brown and Levinson’s politeness principles. Singapore Mandarin culture, which has a strong presence in Singaporean society, may thus be considered “collectivist”, which means that personal autonomy is not a high-ranking value and may not be something that people, at least among the older generations, are generally familiar with.
It is also noted that some of the Singapore Mandarin ways of speaking associated with kéyĭ have found their way into Singapore English, used also by non-Mandarin speakers, including native English speakers who have lived in Singapore for a substantial period of time. This observation seems to suggest that the speech norms in question are a Singaporean feature rather than merely a feature of Singapore Mandarin.
Explications are proposed for Singapore Mandarin phrases that can be loosely translated as ‘sorrowful’ (lit. ‘can sorrow’; kébēi), ‘lovely’ (lit. ‘can love’; kéài), ‘pitiful’ (lit. ‘can pity’; kélián), ‘suspicious’ (lit. ‘can suspect’; kéyí).
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) kéài, (E) kebei, (E) kélián, (E) kéyí, (S) “suggestion” or “advice”, (S) doing something for someone, (S) evaluation, (S) getting someone to do something, (S) interpretation of “you can do this”, (S) making an “offer”
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wong, Jock (2016). The academic practice of citation. In Alessandro Capone, Ferenc Kiefer, & Franco Lo Piparo (Eds.), Indirect reports and pragmatics: Interdisciplinary studies (pp. 189-209). Cham: Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-21395-8_10
It is proposed in this paper that citation is primarily about (i) the use of evidence and data to support one’s ideas, and (ii) the sharing of resources and building up of knowledge. It is further hypothesized that how a citation is worded can reflect its strength of claim. Learners of academic English, who need to learn how to use the citation style applicable to their discipline, should ideally also learn what the invariant meaning of citation is about and how to use it to express the strength of claim of what they want to say.
In the discussion of the meaning of citation, this paper showcases a methodology, NSM, which allows us to state meaning with maximal clarity and precision. The NSM methodology has been used extensively to explicate lexical, grammatical and pragmatic meanings. As this paper shows, it can in fact be used to describe anything that has meaning, even if the ‘expression’ cannot fall neatly into any of these linguistic categories.
Tags: (E) academic citation, (E) use of surname in academic citation
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 20, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff, Taboada, Maite, & Trnavac, Radoslava (2016). Semantic descriptions of 24 evaluational adjectives, for application in sentiment analysis (Technical report SFU-CMPT TR 2016-42-1). Vancouver: Simon Fraser University, School of Computing Science. PDF (open access)
This technical report applies the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach to the lexical-semantic analysis of English evaluational adjectives and compares the results with the picture developed in Martin & White’s Appraisal Framework. The analysis is corpus-assisted, with examples mainly drawn from film and book reviews, and supported by collocational and statistical information from WordBanks Online. NSM explications are proposed for 24 evaluational adjectives, and it is argued that they fall into five groups, each of which corresponds to a distinct semantic template. The groups can be sketched as follows: “First-person thought-plus-affect”, e.g. wonderful; “Experiential”, e.g. entertaining; “Experiential with bodily reaction”, e.g. gripping; “Lasting impact”, e.g. memorable; “Cognitive evaluation”, e.g. complex, excellent. These groupings and semantic templates are compared with the classifications in the Appraisal Framework’s system of Appreciation. The report concludes with discussion of the relevance of the two frameworks for sentiment analysis and other language technology applications.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) awesome, (E) awful, (E) boring, (E) clever, (E) compelling, (E) depressing, (E) disappointing, (E) disgusting, (E) dismal, (E) disturbing, (E) dreadful, (E) fabulous, (E) fascinating, (E) haunting, (E) inspiring, (E) interesting, (E) original, (E) predictable, (E) sickening, (E) stunning, (E) suspenseful, (E) tense, (E) terrible, (E) touching, (E) woeful
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 15, 2021.
Gladkova, Anna; Vanhatalo, Ulla; & Goddard, Cliff (2016). The semantics of interjections: An experimental study with Natural Semantic Metalanguage. Applied Psycholinguistics, 37(4), 841-865.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716415000260
Abstract:
This paper reports the results of a pilot experimental study aimed at evaluating NSM explications of English interjections. It proposes a novel online survey technique to test NSM explications with language speakers. The survey tested recently developed semantic explications of selected English interjections used to mark either ‘surprise’ (wow, gosh, gee, yikes) or ‘disgust’ (yuck, ugh). The results provide overall support for the proposed explications and indicate directions for their further development. It is interesting that respondents’ preexisting knowledge of NSM and other background variables (age, gender, being a native speaker, or studying linguistics) were shown to have little influence on the test results.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) Gee!, (E) Gosh!, (E) Ugh!, (E) Wow!, (E) Yikes!, (E) Yuck!, (T) English
Published on July 1, 2017. Last updated on May 3, 2019.
Ye, Zhengdao (2016). Stranger and acquaintance in English: Meaning and cultural scripts. In Agnieszka Uberman, & Teodor Hrehovčík (Eds.), Text – sentence – word: Studies in English linguistics: Vol. 2 (pp. 119-130). Rzeszów: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Rzeszowskiego.
In English, stranger, acquaintance and friend are perhaps the most common and salient terms for describing social relations that are not place or kinship based. What makes these social categories so special and distinctive in English? The question becomes even more intriguing if we consider that in many languages and cultures, human relations in the social sphere revolve around different social categories.
It is the purpose of this paper to seek an answer to the above question. It aims to shed light on the role and function of the English social category words in question from the standpoint of meaning and culture. Given that Anna Wierzbicka has discussed the meaning of the English term friend at great length, this paper will focus on the less analysed stranger and acquaintance. It seeks to articulate the meanings of both, and spell out some of the assumptions underlying the associated interactional values and norms widely shared by Anglophone speakers.
The two social category words analysed in this paper can be considered as co-occurring concepts of politeness in English. This paper shows how the study of the semantics of words of this nature contributes to a better understanding of the “politeness phenomenon” characteristic of Anglophone society.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) (acquaintance), (E) (stranger), (S) interacting with an acquaintance, (S) interaction with strangers, (T) English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 5, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff, & Wierzbicka, Anna (2016). Explicating the English lexicon of ‘doing and happening’. Functions of Language, 23(2), 214-256. DOI: 10.1075/fol.23.2.03god
This study proposes NSM semantic explications for a cross-section of the English verbal lexicon of ‘doing and happening’. The twenty-five verbs are drawn from about a dozen verb classes, including verbs for non-typical locomotion (crawl, swim, fly), other intransitive activities (play, sing), manipulation (hold), activities that affect material integrity (cut, grind, dig), creation/production (make, build, carve), actions that affect people or things (hit, kick, kill) or cause a change of location (pick up, put, throw, push), bodily reactions to feelings (laugh, cry), displacement (fall, sink) and weather phenomena (rain, snow).
Though the verbs explicated are specifically English verbs, they have been chosen with an eye to their relevance to lexical typology and cross-linguistic semantics (many are drawn from the Verb Meanings List of the Leipzig Valency Patterns project) and it is hoped that the analytical strategy and methodology exemplified in this study can be a useful model for research into other languages. The study demonstrates the application of the NSM concept of semantic templates, which provide a clear “skeletal” structure for explications of considerable internal complexity and which help account for shared semantic and grammatical properties of verbs of a given subclass.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) build, (E) carve, (E) crawl, (E) cry, (E) cut, (E) dig, (E) fall, (E) fly, (E) grind, (E) hit, (E) hold, (E) kick, (E) kill, (E) laugh, (E) make, (E) pick up, (E) play, (E) push, (E) put, (E) rain, (E) sing, (E) sink, (E) snow, (E) swim, (E) throw, (T) English, (T) semantic molecules
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 11, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff & Cramer, Rahel (2016). “Laid back” and “irreverent”: An ethnopragmatic analysis of two cultural themes in Australian English communication. In Donal Carbaugh (Ed.), The handbook of communication in cross-cultural perspective (pp. 89-103). New York: Routledge.
Abstract:
What cultural logic is at play whereby Australians can be friendly and humorous, and yet at the same time derisive, disdainful, and scornful? One of the goals of this study is to explain this paradox by providing a detailed insider perspectives on certain canonical Anglo-Australian (“Aussie”) cultural values and orientations to communication, both at the interpersonal level and in the public sphere. Words and expressions are treated as entry points through which to access cultural meaning.
The focus is on two clusters of words. In the first cluster are the words laid back and easy going, which are high-frequency descriptors of the preferred Australian interactional style and an indisputable part of the national self-stereotype. The second cluster consists of the twin expressions not taking yourself/anything too seriously and the word irreverence. These expressions, it is argued, are Australian cultural key words and, consequently, deeply implicated in canonical Anglo-Australian conceptions of personhood, social interaction, and humour.
Though the paper includes occasional contrastive remarks about other cultural orientations, its focus is not on cross-cultural communication but on Australian cultural conceptualizations of communication and how these play out in communicational practices.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) easy going, (E) irreverence, (E) laid back, (E) take [...] too seriously, (S) jocular abuse, (S) other people's admiration, (S) social equality, (S) social similarity
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Goddard, Cliff, Wierzbicka, Anna, & Wong, Jock (2016). “Walking” and “running” in English and German: The conceptual semantics of verbs of human locomotion. Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 14(2), 303–336. DOI: 10.1075/rcl.14.2.03god
This study examines the conceptual semantics of human locomotion verbs in two languages – English and German – using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach. Based on linguistic evidence, it proposes semantic explications for English walk and run, and their nearest counterparts in German, i.e. laufen (in two senses, roughly, ‘run’ and ‘go by walking’), rennen (roughly, ‘run quickly’), gehen (roughly, ‘go/walk’), and the expression zu Fuß gehen (roughly, ‘go on foot’). Somewhat surprisingly for such closely related languages, the conceptual semantics turns out to be significantly different in the two languages, particularly in relation to manner-of-motion. On the other hand, it is shown that the same four-part semantic template (with sections Lexicosyntactic Frame, Prototypical Scenario, Manner, and Potential Outcome) applies in both languages. We consider the implications for systematic contrastive semantics and for lexical typology.
contrastive semantics; conceptual semantics; lexical polysemy; manner; verbs of motion; semantic template; Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM)
