Browsing results for Sino-Tibetan
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Tien, Adrian (2015). The semantics of Chinese music: Analysing selected Chinese musical concepts. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/clscc.5
Music is a widely enjoyed human experience. It is, therefore, natural that we have wanted to describe, document, analyse and, somehow, grasp it in language. This book surveys a representative selection of musical concepts in Chinese language, i.e. words that describe, or refer to, aspects of Chinese music. Important as these musical concepts are in the language, they have been in wide circulation since ancient times without being subjected to any serious semantic analysis. The current study is the first known attempt at analysing these Chinese musical concepts linguistically, adopting the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach to formulate semantically and cognitively rigorous explications. Readers will be able to better understand not only these musical concepts but also significant aspects of the Chinese culture that many of these musical concepts represent. This volume contributes to the fields of cognitive linguistics, semantics, music, musicology and Chinese studies, offering readers a fresh account of Chinese ways of thinking, not least Chinese ways of viewing or appreciating music. Ultimately, this study represents trailblazing research on the relationship between language, culture and cognition.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) cai 采, (E) chi 遲, (E) dan 澹 / 淡, (E) daqi 大氣, (E) gu 古, (E) hanxu 含蓄, (E) hé 和, (E) hong 宏, (E) ji 寂, (E) jian 健, (E) jiān 堅, (E) jie 潔, (E) jing 靜, (E) li 麗, (E) liang 亮, (E) liu 溜, (E) mo 默, (E) nong 濃, (E) qing 清, (E) qing 輕, (E) qu 曲, (E) run 潤, (E) sheng 聲, (E) shi 實, (E) shici 實詞, (E) shiyin 實音, (E) su 速, (E) tian 恬, (E) wanyue 婉約, (E) wanzhuan 婉轉, (E) weiwan 委婉, (E) xi 喜, (E) xi 細, (E) xiu 休, (E) xu 虛, (E) xuci 虛詞, (E) xuyin 虛音, (E) ya 雅, (E) yi 逸, (E) yin yue 音樂, (E) yin 音, (E) yiyang duncuo 抑揚頓挫, (E) yuan 圓, (E) yuan 遠, (E) yun 韵, (E) zhong 重, (S) “sound” versus “non-sound” in music, (T) English, (T) semantic molecules
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Tien, Adrian (2015). Offensive language and sociocultural homogeneity in Singapore: An ethnolinguistic perspective. International Journal of Language and Culture, 2(2), 142-168. DOI: 10.1075/ijolc.2.2.01tie
Offensive language use in Singapore’s languacultures appears to be underpinned by cultural norms and values embraced by most if not all Singaporeans. Interviews with local informants and perusal of Singapore’s linguistic and cultural resources led to the identification of eight offensive words and phrases deemed representative of Singaporean coarseness. This set was narrowed down to a smaller set of common words and phrases, all Chinese Hokkien, all culturally laden. The finding that, although originally Hokkien, all of them are accessible not only to the Chinese-speaking population but also to speakers of Singapore Malay, Singapore Tamil, and Singapore English is compelling. The words and phrases studied in this paper are full-fledged members of the lexicon of these local non-Chinese languages, without loss or distortion of meaning. They are accepted as part of the local linguistic scene and of local cultural knowledge. At least in certain situations, people of different ethnic backgrounds who live and work together can rely on them as a testament of common identity which, in a curious way, gives voice to the sociocultural homogeneity this society unrelentingly pursues.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) cheebye, (E) Don’t kaopeh kaobu!, (E) lampah, (E) lanjiao, (S) tabooing the word cheebye, (S) tabooing the word lampah, (S) tabooing the word lanjiao, (S) unwarranted emotional outbursts, (T) English
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 August 1, 2018. Last updated on September 13, 2018.
Kornacki, Paweł (2017). What does it mean to have a good time the Chinese way? An ethnopragmatic exploration of a Chinese cultural keyword. In Anna Duszak, Arkadiusz Jabłoński & Agnieszka Leńko-Szymańska (Eds.), East-Asian and Central-European Encounters in Discourse Analysis and Translation (pp. 57-82). Warsaw: Institute of Applied Linguistics. PDF (open access)
The paper examines the main uses and the symbolic significance of the Chinese cultural key word 热 闹 rènao. Often rendered in English with its literal gloss of ‘hot and noisy’, it has been viewed by both Chinese and Western scholars as primary in making sense of Chinese social behaviour, across a variety of contexts. The present study analyses two Chinese cultural texts – a report from a local temple festival and a debate over two different styles of feasting, which frequently rely on this salient cultural notion. While the formula crowds, events, noise in the psychological literature dealing with this Chinese social value is often confirmed by the described cultural data, it is argued that close attention to the meaning and form of the descriptive language used by the cultural actors yields valuable insights into indigenous viewpoints. In particular, the notion of 热 闹 rènao turns out to be closely intertwined with other prominent Chinese cultural concerns, such as the idea of 人情味 rén qíng wèi (‘flavour of human feelings’), Chinese cultural identity, Chinese language, and a particularly complex culinary culture as described in the anthropological literature.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) rènao 热 闹
Published on June 8, 2017. Last updated on January 15, 2022.
Tien, Adrian (2017). To be headed for the West, riding a crane: Chinese pragmemes in the wake of someone’s passing. In Vahid Parvaresh, & Alessandro Capone (Eds.), The pragmeme of accommodation: The case of interaction around the event of death (pp. 183-202). Berlin: Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-55759-5_11
Abstract
Jia he xi gui ‘to be headed for the West, riding a crane’ is among those words and phrases that Chinese employ in mentioning someone’s passing. Words and phrases such as this not only represent culturally and socially appropriate expressions featured in the wake of someone’s passing but, pragmatically speaking, they also form part of a tactful set of situation- and context-bound pragmatic acts that should be used around the event of death. This chapter presents an overview of the range of pragmatic acts that Chinese typically exploit to express the pragmeme in connection with the event of death. Important extralinguistic pragmatic acts besides speech that are integral to Chinese interactions surrounding this unfortunate event are also taken into consideration.
To articulate the pragmemes as represented by the pragmatic acts, this chapter adopts the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), as advanced by Anna Wierzbicka, as its theoretical framework. NSM is, essentially, a set of semantically basic and universally identifiable primitive concepts or primes that can be used to reduce culturally complex meanings – including meanings of pragmemes – into semantically simple elucidations. Preliminary findings indicate that Chinese socio-cultural conventions encourage an emotionally expressive yet indirect style of interactions in the wake of someone’s passing, in a way that is consistent with the hierarchical relationship between the deceased and the living.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (S) achieving nirvana, (S) avoid mentioning death, (S) becoming immortal, (S) living after death, (S) living after death because of qualities, (S) showing sadness at deaths
Published on October 15, 2017. Last updated on September 13, 2018.
Leung, Helen Hue Lam (2017). Cantonese ‘mong4’: A cultural keyword of ‘busy’ Hong Kong. In Carsten Levisen & Sophia Waters (Eds.), Cultural keywords in discourse (pp. 183-210). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/pbns.277.08leu
This chapter investigates the Hong Kong Cantonese cultural key word 忙 mong4. 忙 mong4 is usually translated into English as busy and into Mandarin as 忙 máng, but though their meanings overlap, many examples of busy and 忙 máng cannot be translated directly into Cantonese using 忙 mong4. This is because mong has a culturally significant meaning and usage, and is linked to a specific value system supported by Hong Kong discourse. This chapter examines some differences between 忙 mong4, busy and 忙 máng, explores Hong Kong discourses of work and life, and the meta-discourse surrounding mong in the speech community. A Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) explication for 忙 mong4 is proposed in English and Cantonese.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on July 13, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Shen, Rae (2017). Semantic primes and their universal syntax in Mandarin Chinese: An update. MA thesis, Australian National University.
Building on the ground-breaking work on Chinese Mandarin primes undertaken by Hilary Chappell, the current study aims to review and update the propositions on the semantic universals and their syntactic properties in Mandarin in the light of the development of the NSM framework during the past decade. It is hoped that the findings as well as the problems raised in this thesis will contribute to some newer and fuller understanding on the primes not only in the context of Mandarin but also for the NSM program.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 16, 2017. Last updated on September 2, 2019.
Ye, Zhengdao (2017). The semantics of social relation nouns in Chinese. In Zhengdao Ye (Ed.), The semantics of nouns (63-88). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198736721.003.0003
Abstract:
This study investigates the nature of Chinese social grouping by analysing the meaning and conceptual structure of a set of nouns that denote salient social relations in Chinese and that form two pairs of complementary opposites. It discusses in detail the commonalities and differences underlying the construals of semantic relation within and between both pairs and offers a semantic method to represent them. The study brings to attention the social categories and associated ways of conceptualizing social and meaning relations that are not often talked about in English, and illustrates that an in-depth analysis of social relation nouns enables researchers to access non-obvious aspects of human social cognition, therefore contributing to a deeper knowledge and understanding of the priorities at play in human social categorization.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) (acquaintance), (E) (insiders), (E) (outsiders), (E) (stranger), (E) shēngrén 生人, (E) shúrén 熟人, (E) wàirén 外人, (E) zìjĭrén 自己人, (S) complementary relation between stranger and familiar person, (S) dynamics between insiders/members of in-group and outsiders/members of out-group, (S) dynamics between stranger and familiar person
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 3, 2018.
Wong, Jock (2017). The culture of language. In Keith Allan, Alessandro Capone, & Istvan Kecskes (Eds.), Pragmemes and theories of language use (pp. 537-566). Berlin: Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-43491-9_28.
This paper examines several English forms and their interconnectedness in a cultural context. It describes the cultural values or ways of thinking they embody in the form of cultural scripts. The focus is on words, phrases and grammatical forms (especially the pragmeme usually but inaccurately referred to as a ‘request’) that express the Anglo respect for personal autonomy. It is argued that these English forms should not be taught separately to English learners, as is the norm, but collectively as a set of forms that express a certain value. Language users are cultural beings and the understanding of the culture underlying a language and the cultural interconnectedness of forms is crucial to anyone learning the language, especially the English language, given that it is the lingua franca of the world. The relationship between language and culture cannot be over-emphasized.
Tags: (E) lĭmào, (E) please, (E) rude, (E) thank you, (S) ‘asking’ people to do something, (S) a “suggestive” approach to influencing others, (S) An Anglo attitude linked to the interrogative-directive pragmeme, (S) autonomy, (S) avoiding pressuring the addressee, (S) certainty, (S) coach a child to do good things in a self-deterministic manner, (S) do not impose, (S) doing things for people, (S) egalitarianism, (S) free will, (S) how to say ‘no’ to an interrogative-directive, (S) illocutionary effect of the use of the imperative, (S) not taking people for granted, (S) personal autonomy, (S) routine use of the imperative, (S) rudeness, (S) uncertainty, (S) understanding “helpful suggestions”, (S) use of the hypothetical question form in the interrogative-directive pragmeme, (S) use of the interrogative-directive, (s) using language to express the value of egalitarianism, (S) what one wants
Published on March 30, 2018. Last updated on September 5, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2018). Ten lectures on Natural Semantic Metalanguage: Exploring language, thought and culture using simple, translatable words. Leiden: Brill. DOI: 10.1163/9789004357723
These lively lectures introduce the theory, practice, and application of a versatile, rigorous, and non-Anglocentic approach to cross-linguistic semantics.
Table of contents:
- Preliminary material
- From Leibniz to Wierzbicka: The history and philosophy of NSM
- Semantic primes and their grammar
- Explicating emotion concepts across languages and cultures
- Wonderful, terrific, fabulous: English evaluational adjectives
- Semantic molecules and semantic complexity
- Words as carriers of cultural meaning
- English verb semantics: Verbs of doing and saying
- English verb alternations and constructions
- Applications of NSM: Minimal English, cultural scripts and language teaching
- Retrospect: NSM compared with other approaches to semantic analysis
Chapter 3 discusses selected exponents of primes in Farsi (Persian). Chapter 4 provides an explication of a North-Spanish homesickness word (morriña). Chapter 7 provides an explication of Chinese 孝 xiào ‘filial piety’.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) Alles in Ordnung, (E) ask, (E) at night, (E) believe that, (E) blink, (E) brilliant, (E) build, (E) children, (E) complex, (E) contented, (E) crawl, (E) cut, (E) delighted, (E) delightful, (E) dig, (E) during the day, (E) eat, (E) entertaining, (E) excellent, (E) exciting, (E) great, (E) happy, (E) homesick, (E) impressive, (E) know someone, (E) know that, (E) lykke, (E) memorable, (E) men, (E) morriña, (E) mouth, (E) not fair, (E) order, (E) pleased, (E) pour, (E) powerful, (E) sčitat’ čto считать что, (E) sky, (E) stars, (E) stunning, (E) suggest, (E) sun, (E) swim, (E) tell, (E) terrific, (E) tęsknić, (E) water, (E) women, (E) wonderful, (E) xiào 孝, (E) xìngfú 幸福, (S) expressiveness, (S) feelings, (S) personal autonomy, (S) personal comments, (S) personal remarks, (S) requests, (S) sincerity, (T) Chinese, (T) English, (T) Finnish, (T) semantic molecules
Published on February 10, 2020. Last updated on February 10, 2020.
Ye, Zhengdao (2019). The emergence of expressible agency and irony in today’s China: A semantic explanation of the new bèi-construction. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 39(1), 57-78.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2019.1542933
Abstract:
This paper focuses on the new passive bèi-construction in Chinese, dating approximately from 2009. By 2012, this new usage had entered the most authoritative Chinese dictionary. While previous studies have mostly focused on the pragmatic effect of this structure, this study aims to trace the motivational forces behind this language innovation by examining the linguistic, cultural and social factors contributing to its emergence. In particular, it examines the specific features of the bèi-construction, using NSM to spell out its meaning and identify the semantic links between its variant forms, especially with respect to degrees of transitivity. It is then demonstrated that it is not accidental that the conventional bèi-construction has been ingeniously and humorously recruited and modified to express agency and disagreement with a higher authority, or even dissent in an authoritarian society, and that a deeper understanding of the bèi phenomenon not only affords insight into the cultural ethos developing in today’s China, but also offers an excellent example of (a) non-autonomous syntax and (b) mechanisms of language change in the age of internet and social media, when language innovation often takes place consciously
among internet users, transcends geographical barriers and is easier to trace than before.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) bèi 被
Published on February 20, 2019. Last updated on June 20, 2019.
Wong, Jock, & Liu, Congyi (2019). Two ways of saying ‘thank you’ in Hong Kong Cantonese: m-goi vs. do-ze. In Alessandro Capone, Marco Carapezza, & Franco Lo Piparo (Eds.), Further advances in pragmatics and philosophy: Vol. 2. Theories and applications (pp. 435-447). Cham: Springer.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00973-1_24
Abstract:
While in English there is only one main way of thanking someone, using the phrase thank you or one of its variants (e.g. thanks, ta), in Hong Kong Cantonese there are two phrases, 唔該 m4-goi1 and 多謝 do1-ze6, both of which could be translated in English as thank you. Whereas in some instances it is clear which one of the two Hong Kong Cantonese phrases one should use, in other situations both could be used. This suggests that the two Hong Kong Cantonese phrases have different meanings and that learners of Hong Kong Cantonese could be confused. However, the meanings of and differences in meaning between the two phrases have hitherto not been articulated with any degree of clarity, making it rather difficult for learners of Hong Kong Cantonese to understand precisely how they are used in native Hong Kong Cantonese culture. The objective of this paper is thus to articulate the meaning of each of these two phrases using a maximally clear and minimally ethnocentric metalanguage (NSM).
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) do1-ze6 多謝, (E) m4-goi1 唔該, (E) please, (E) thank you
Published on May 19, 2019. Last updated on February 9, 2020.
Wakefield, John C.; Lee, Hung Yuk (2019). The grammaticalization of indirect reports: The Cantonese discourse particle wo5. In Alessandro Capone, Manuel García-Carpintero, & Alessandra Falzone (Eds.), Indirect reports and pragmatics in the world languages (pp. 333-344). Cham: Springer.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78771-8_16
Abstract:
This paper proposes a definition for the Cantonese sentence-final discourse particle wo5, which marks the proposition contained within a clause as an indirect report that does not belong to the speaker. The methodology for defining wo5 is based on NSM theory and draws on a general model for the investigation of discourse markers, the goal of which is to come up with a formula that would make sense in all the contexts in which the discourse particle can occur, and that could also explain why in some contexts it cannot be used at all. The proposed definition we propose is discussed in light of what other authors have said about wo5, and is tested against a number of examples within which wo5 can and cannot appear.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) wo5
Published on July 28, 2020. Last updated on July 28, 2020.
Leung, Helen Hue Lam (2020). Combining NSM explications for clusters of Cantonese utterance particles: laa3-wo3 and zaa3-wo3. In Bert Peeters, Kerry Mullan, & Lauren Sadow (Eds.), Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication: Vol. 2. Meaning and culture (pp. 187-206). Singapore: Springer.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9975-7_10
Abstract:
Utterance particles expressing speakers’ attitudes, assumptions or feelings are indispensable in informal Hong Kong Cantonese. Everyday conversation would sound very unusual if they were omitted. There are approximately 30 ‘basic’ (monosyllabic) particles, which can be either used on their own or combined with each other in ‘clusters’, i.e. polysyllabic combinations where two or more particles occur one after the other in immediate succession. Clusters of particles have consistently been claimed to have the combined meaning of the separate particles of
which they are made up; however, in the absence of rigorous semantic analyses of the individual particles involved, evidence for this has been scant at best. Indeed, the range of use of each of the particles is broad and varied, and it is extremely difficult, even for native speakers, to satisfactorily explain their meanings and functions. Most prior studies provide semantic descriptions that are vague, contradictory, and sometimes untrue. The current chapter builds on some of the evidence-based, translatable and testable NSM explications of individual particles put forward in the author’s earlier work, which demonstrated that the particles have stable and identifiable meanings. It shows how, using NSM, the semantic content of clusters of Cantonese utterance particles can effectively be derived from the meaning of individual particles.
Two clusters are examined, laa3-wo3 and zaa3-wo3, which are formed from three ‘basic’ particles: laa3, zaa3 and wo3. The short explications of the individual particles are combined to create ‘joint’ explications, with the resulting cluster definitions tested by substitution into real examples taken from the Hong Kong Cantonese Corpus. It is found that the combined NSM explications adequately portray the meanings of the particle clusters.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) laa3, (E) laa3-wo3, (E) wo3, (E) zaa3, (E) zaa3-wo3
Published on February 10, 2020. Last updated on February 10, 2020.
Wakefield, John C.; Winnie Chor, Winnie; & Lai, Nikko (2020). Condolences in Cantonese and English: What people say and why. In Kerry Mullan, Bert Peeters, & Lauren Sadow (Eds.), Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication: Vol. 1. Ethnopragmatics and semantic analysis (pp. 35-58). Singapore: Springer.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9983-2_3
Abstract:
This study uses the ethnopragmatics approach to examine the cultural-based knowledge that guides Cantonese and Anglo-English speakers when offering death-related condolences, or what we refer to here as ‘condolence routines’. The data come from discourse completion tasks, the existence of cultural key phrases, and the authors’ native-speaker intuitions. The authors examine condolences that are offered to a good friend who has recently lost someone close to him or her. They present cultural scripts that are proposed to account for the linguistic contrasts in Cantonese versus English condolence routines. The Cantonese script is entirely new while the English script is revised from a previous study.
Based on our analysis, we conclude that the primary contrast is that Anglo-English condolences typically focus on expressing that the condoler feels sad because of the bereaved’s loss, while Cantonese condolences typically focus on telling the bereaved not to be sad and to take care of his- or herself. Knowledge of this contrast in sociopragmatics is not only a meaningful contribution to the study of pragmatics; it is also of practical help to people in regular contact with Cantonese and/or Anglo-English speakers. It can help one understand how to avoid saying something during a condolence routine that may sound inappropriate, or even insensitive, to speakers of these two languages.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) ai1jaa3! 哎啊!, (E) close person, (S) condolences, (S) life continues after death
