Browsing results for Uralic Languages

(1987) Various languages – Value-judgment terms

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 15, 2021.

Hill, Deborah (1987). A cross-linguistic study of value-judgement terms. MA thesis, Australian National University.

The purpose of this thesis is to try to establish the extent to which the words good, bad, true and right can be considered lexical universals. These words have been chosen because they are value-judgment terms that, individually, have been discussed at length by philosophers. It seems to be assumed by philosophers and semanticists that these words reflect concepts shared by speakers of all languages. By testing whether these words are candidates for lexical universals we can then see the extent to which this assumption is true.

On the basis of information from native speakers from 15 diverse languages, we can say that good and bad reflect language independent concepts (GOOD and BAD). However, in many languages, including English, the range of meaning of bad is narrower than the range of meaning of good. By looking at five of these fifteen languages we can see that the words right and true reflect concepts that are not language
independent. Thus, by taking a cross-linguistic approach, we can shed some light on the work done by language philosophers in the area of value-judgment terms.

The following languages are examined in this thesis: Arabic, Arrernte, Chinese (Mandarin), English, Ewe, Fijian, Finnish, Indonesian, Kannada, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish.


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

(2005) Finnish – Emotions

Published on August 1, 2018. Last updated on May 1, 2019.

Tuovila, Seija (2005). Kun on tunteet: Suomen kielen tunnesanojen semantiikkaa [Such emotions: The semantics of emotion words in the Finnish language]. Oulu: Oulu University Press.

Open access

Abstract:

This study focuses on the semantics of Finnish emotion words (i.e. words comparable to English terms such as joy and anger). Male and female conceptual frameworks for emotions are compared, as well as those of different age groups. Both a qualitative and a quantitative analysis are carried out; the data consist of the written responses of a hundred Finns to a questionnaire item that asked them to name various emotions.

The cognitively most important emotion words for Finns are found to be: viha, ilo, rakkaus, suru, pelko, onnellisuus, kateus, ahdistus, väsymys, masennus, tuska, ihastus, tyytyväisyys, inho, jännitys, pettymys, kaipaus, rauhallisuus, ikävä, and toivo. According to the study, the emotions with the highest frequency of expression in the Finnish language are hatred, joy, love and sorrow. Women are found to have more words for emotions than men. The emotion vocabulary includes more negative words than positive ones. The findings suggest that the Finns think more often good of other people than bad, and more often bad of themselves than good.

The explications given for the 51 most commonly used emotion words are based on principles developed within the NSM approach. The main semantic categories for emotion words are as follows: “Something good happened or will happen”, “Something bad happened or will happen”, “I want”, “I don’t want”, “I think something about myself”, “I think something about others”, “I know / don’t know”. The precise semantic contents of emotion words is explained in terms of prototypical scenarios.

More information:

Written in Finnish.

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

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(2006) Colours and vision

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 17, 2019.

Wierzbicka, Anna (2006). The semantics of colour: A new paradigm. In Carole P. Biggam, & Christian J. Kay (Eds.), Progress in colour studies: Vol. 1. Language and culture (pp. 1-24). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/z.pics1.05wie

Abstract:

To be able to establish the true universals of visual semantics we must first of all reject the ones that are false. Above all, we must reject the widespread view that there are some ‘colour universals’, whether absolute or implicational. There are no ‘colour universals’ because ‘colour’ itself is not a universal concept. What is universal is the concept of SEEing. SEEing, not colour, must be the starting point, and the cornerstone, of our investigations.

It appears that in all languages there are visual descriptors referring to some features of the natural environment. Apart from such universal or widespread environmental features, all languages appear to have visual descriptors referring to some features of the local environment, in particular to visually salient local minerals and other pigments, especially those that can be used for painting, decoration, or dyeing. It also appears that in all languages there are some visual descriptors linked to the human (and sometimes animal) body. In addition to such commonalities in the visual descriptors, there is also a wide variety of more restricted and even idiosyncratic types.

To understand the human conceptualization of the visual world in both its diversity and its commonalities, we need to recognize the role of environmental and bodily prototypes recurring in human experience (such as fire, sun, blood, sky and grass), and to base our analysis on the bedrock of universal human concepts; and it is only on this basis that we can hope to arrive at a tenable and enduring synthesis.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2014) Finnish – NSM primes

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 15, 2021.

Vanhatalo, Ulla; Tissari, Heli; Idström, Anna (2014). Revisiting the universality of Natural Semantic Metalanguage: A view through Finnish. SKY Journal of Linguistics, 27, 67-94. PDF (open access)

The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) provides a method of semantic analysis that can be used for various tasks mainly in the field of linguistic research. A crucial part of the theory is the set of primes, minimal lexical units that are used to explicate words, cultural scripts and other concepts. Identifying the primes in a new language is an opportunity to reinforce and/or revisit the theory. The remarks presented in this paper result from the identification process of the Finnish exponents of the NSM primes. The goal of this paper is to direct attention to some fundamental aspects in the Natural Semantic Metalanguage theory, especially to the relation between the universal language-independent NSM concepts and the English-based NSM. A number of remarks are made on the general system of the primes, as the paper points out issues related to e.g. the number, selection and mutual hierarchy of the primes. The economy and logic of certain prime constructions and the argumentation behind allolexy are discussed as well.


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

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(2017) Minimal Finnish

Published on August 15, 2018. Last updated on August 15, 2021.

Vanhatalo, Ulla (2017). 65:lla alkusanalla kohti ymmärtämistä. In Sirpa Tarvainen, Soile Loukusa, Terhi Hautala, & Satu Saalasti (Eds.), Yhteinen ymmärrys – havainnoinnista tulkintaan: puheen ja kielen tutkimuksen päivät Helsingissä 30.-31.3.2017 (pp. …-…). Helsinki: Puheen ja kielen tutkimuksen yhdistys [Association of Speech and Language Research).

Written in Finnish.


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

(2017) NSM

Published on January 10, 2022. Last updated on January 10, 2022.

Vanhatalo, Ulla, & Tissari, Heli. (2017). Esittelyssä alkusanakieli [Presenting Natural Semantic Metalanguage]. Virittäjä, 121(2), 244–263.

(in Finnish)

(2018) Finnish – NSM in L2 literature

Published on September 5, 2018. Last updated on September 7, 2018.

Hoffrén, Tuomas (2018). Minä haluan tehdä näin. Minä ajattelen: tämä on hyvä – Natural Semantic Metalanguage suomenkielisessä S2 – kirjallisuudessa [I want to do this. I think: this is good – Natural Semantic Metalanguage in Finnish L2 literature]. Unpublished MA thesis, University of Tampere, Finland. PDF (open access)

Written in Finnish.

How present are NSM primes in Finnish L2-literature? The relevance of NSM for foreign language teaching – be it of Finnish as a second or a foreign language (S2) or of another language (L2) – is based on the assumption that the semantic primes are: 1) easy to learn, 2) common in language per se, and 3) efficient in situations in which the learner has no knowledge of a word or a concept they want to use in the target language. The research question addressed in the thesis is therefore whether these words are taught to learners already in the early stages of their learning.

The research material consists of one widely used S2-textbook: Hyvin menee! (‘It is going well!’) 1. The material is deemed sufficient in determining certain general rules or principles in the area, but the need for further research involving textbooks as well as other materials used in teaching is acknowledged.

The theoretical framework is provided by the NSM approach, on the one hand, and by Second Language Acquisition research (SLA), on the other. Two major areas of research, linguistics and pedagogy, are thus combined. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are used. Aspects that need to be acknowledged when using and studying NSM are presented qualitatively. A precise statistical (and therefore quantitative) analysis is based on these aspects.

The analysis shows that the observed 76 primes (an increased number due to differences between Finnish and English) are somewhat unevenly divided in the book. Some primes are very common, others are not present at all. The earlier chapters have fewer primes in them, but the number of primes, along with their distribution, increases notably as the book proceeds. Texts is where the highest number of primes is displayed, but primes are also largely present in the exercises.

The research sets the scene for the elaboration of a possible method of teaching that relies on semantic primes. It outlines a picture of the present situation, on which new research can be built.

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(2019) Finnish – Emotions

Published on August 15, 2021. Last updated on August 15, 2021.

Vanhatalo, Ulla; Tissari, Heli; Lilja, Taru; Vehkalahti, Kimmo; & Siiroinen, Mari. (2019). “Something bad can now happen to me here”: Meaning components of emotion words. SKY Journal of Linguistics 32 (2019), 145–179

 

Abstract:

This paper reports on how people connect explications of emotion words to the terms they are meant to explicate. We focused on the Finnish counterparts to the following words: anger, disgust, fear, joy, love, sadness, and surprise. Our primary findings show that our participants, who were native speakers of Finnish, made the expected matches between Natural Semantic Metalanguage-based explications and the corresponding emotion words. However, there were significant differences between the emotion words, with the match rate ranging from 93% for ‘love’ to 51% for ‘sadness’. This research also contributes to our understanding of the meaning components of emotion concepts, and it may help people to talk about emotions in depth without using the conventional vocabulary for emotions.

 


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

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(2019) Finnish — Emotions

Published on January 10, 2022. Last updated on January 10, 2022.

Tissari, Heli, Vanhatalo, Ulla. & Siiroinen, Mari. (2019). From corpus-assisted to corpus-driven NSM explications: The case of Finnish viha (anger, hate). In Lege artis. Language yesterday, today, tomorrow. The Journal of University of SS Cyril and Methodius in Trnava. Trnava: University of SS Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, 2019, IV (1), June 2019, p. 290-334. ISSN 2453-8035

 

Abstract:

NSM researchers have not used corpus data very systematically thus far. One could talk about corpus-assisted rather than corpus-based or corpus-driven research. This article suggests a way to not only base research on corpus data, but also to let it guide us in defining words in terms of NSM. It presents a new method, which we have developed. Our data come from the Suomi24 Sentences Corpus and concerns the Finnish emotion words viha (‘anger, hate’), vihata (‘to hate’) and vihainen (‘angry’).


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2021) Minimal Finnish

Published on August 15, 2021. Last updated on August 15, 2021.

Leskelä, Leealaura, & Vanhatalo, Ulla (2021). The Hunt for the Simplest Possible Vocabulary: Minimal Finnish Meets Easy Finnish. In Goddard, Cliff (ed.). Minimal Languages in Action. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan pp 53-82

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-64077-4_3

 


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

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