Browsing results for Gladkova Anna
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 25, 2019.
Gladkova, Anna (2013). “Is he one of ours?” The cultural semantics and ethnopragmatics of social categories in Russian. Journal of Pragmatics, 55, 180-194.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2013.06.010
Abstract:
This study illuminates the meanings of the Russian social category terms свой svoj ‘one’s own’, чужой čužoj ‘alien/stranger/foreigner’, наш naš ‘ours’ and не наш ne naš ‘not ours’ using written and spoken data of the Russian National Corpus. The paper contributes to our understanding of Russian relationships and social cognition and establishes connections between the meanings of these terms and selected Russian communicative styles. NSM is used to formulate semantic explications of the terms and cultural scripts.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) čužoj чужой, (E) naš наш, (E) ne naš не наш, (E) svoi ljudi свои люди, (E) svoj свой, (S) interaction, (S) relationships
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 25, 2019.
Gladkova, Anna (2014). HERE, NEAR, FAR: Spatial conceptualisation and cognition in a cross-linguistic perspective (English vs. Russian). In Luna Filipović, & Martin Pütz (Eds.), Multilingual cognition and language use: Processing and typological perspectives (pp. 121-150). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.44.05gla
Abstract:
This chapter explores variation and similarities in the conceptualization of space in Russian and English on the basis of selected terms of ‘location’ and ‘proximity/distance’. It adopts the NSM approach, which identifies eight semantic universals of space, three of which, HERE, NEAR, FAR, were tested for their realization in both languages. A semantic analysis of terms denoting ‘here’, ‘near’, ‘not far’, and ‘far’ confirms the presence of the three universal primes in English and Russian, though they differ in how they conceptually carve up the notion of space.
The study has implications for research into bilingualism and language acquisition and demonstrates that the NSM formulae can be used experimentally to test spatial conceptualization and cognition cross-linguistically.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) afar, (E) close by, (E) close to, (E) ne daleko не далеко, (E) nearby, (E) nedaleko недалеко, (E) nepodaleku неподалеку, (E) nevdaleke невдалеке, (E) next to, (E) otsjuda отсюда, (E) poblizosti поблизости, (E) rjadom рядом, (E) sjuda сюда, (E) vblizi вблизи, (E) vdaleke вдалеке, (E) vdali вдали, (T) Russian
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 25, 2019.
Gladkova, Anna, & Romero-Trillo, Jesús (2014). Ain’t it beautiful? The conceptualization of beauty from an ethnopragmatic perspective. Journal of Pragmatics, 60, 140-159.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2013.11.005
Abstract:
This study addresses the question of the ethnopragmatic conceptualization of ‘beautiful’ in three European languages – English, Russian and Spanish. Specifically, it investigates the polysemy and the spheres of application of English beautiful, Russian красивый krasivyj, and Spanish bonito/a. Through corpus analysis methodology, the authors investigate the most common collocations and the pragmatic and contextual uses of these terms. On the basis of the analysis, the study then adopts NSM to propose semantic explications of the three words in universal human concepts. In particular, it investigates the presence of the perception universals SEE, HEAR, and FEEL, which in the data are central to the analysis of the aesthetics vocabulary, along with the primes GOOD, SOMEONE, SOMETHING and THINK.
The data for the study comes from three online corpora: the Russian National Corpus (Russian), Cobuild’s Wordbanks Online (English) and the Corpus de referencia del español actual (Spanish).
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) beautiful, (E) bonito, (E) krasivyj красивый, (E) sympathy, (T) Russian, (T) Spanish
Published on April 28, 2018. Last updated on June 25, 2019.
Gladkova, Anna (2015). Grammatical structures in cross-cultural comparisons. Russian Journal of Linguistics, 19(4), 57-68.
Open access
Abstract:
This paper discusses how cultural information is embedded at the level of grammar. It treats grammar as inseparable from semantics and pragmatics. The study is done within the approach known as ethnosyntax. The article provides examples of cultural meaning embedded at the level of syntax relying on examples from Russian and English. In particular, it demonstrates variation in impersonal constructions in Russian (linked up with the cultural themes of ‘irrationality’ and ‘unpredictability’) and causative constructions in English (linked up with the cultural ideas of ‘personal autonomy’ and ‘non-imposition’). It then discusses variation in the use of grammatical structures due to the influence of cultural factors on the basis of ways of wording requests in English and Russian.
The linguistic examples in the discussion are sourced from the Russian National Corpus for Russian and Collins Wordbanks Online for English. The article argues for the importance of culture-sensitive linguistic studies in language teaching.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) rabotaet'sja работаеться, (E) spit'sja спиться, (E) verit'sja вериться, (E) xočet'sja хочеться, (E) živet'sja живеться, (S) non-imposition
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 25, 2019.
Gladkova, Anna (2015). Ethnosyntax. In Farzad Sharifian (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of language and culture (pp. 33-50). New York: Routledge.
Abstract:
The author provides an account of research on ethnosyntax, the study of how syntax, including morphology, encodes culture. Maintaining that the theoretical foundations of ethnosyntax were laid by Sapir and Whorf, she makes a distinction between a narrow and a broad sense of ethnosyntax. Ethnosyntax in the narrow sense explores cultural meanings of particular grammatical structures, whereas ethnosyntax in the broad sense examines how pragmatic and cultural norms influence the choice of grammatical structures. Several examples are provided for each approach. As an example of morpho-syntax encoding cultural meaning, the author presents the case of Russian, where address forms often reveal attitudes of endearment and intimacy encoded by a diminutive. As an example of the second broader sense, she compares request speech acts in Russian and English, and examines how these languages employ different grammatical structures to perform the same speech act and how this usage is compatible with broader cultural norms.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) (diminutives), (E) rabotaet'sja работаеться, (E) spit'sja спиться, (E) verit'sja вериться, (E) xočet'sja хочеться, (S) emotions, (S) non-imposition
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 May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 25, 2019.
Gladkova, Anna (2016). Propositional attitudes and cultural scripts. In Alessandro Capone, & Jacob L. Mey (Eds.), Interdisciplinary studies in pragmatics, culture and society (pp. 329-352). Berlin: Springer.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12616-6_12
Abstract:
In linguistic literature inspired by work in philosophy, the key concepts for the analysis of ‘propositional attitudes’ include mental states such as ‘belief’, ‘hope’, ‘doubt’ and ‘know’, among others. This literature, and the work on which it is based, ignores cultural and linguistic variation in the conceptualization of mental states that can be labelled as ‘propositional attitudes’. It also overlooks the fact that categorization of mental states, in general, and ‘propositional attitudes’, in particular, is aligned with cultural attitudes and understandings.
This chapter proposes a comparative analysis of selected words reflecting propositional attitudes in English and Russian. The focus is on to believe vs. считать sčitat’ and on belief vs. мнение mnenie, and the analysis is undertaken in terms of universal meanings, using NSM. It is demonstrated that the supremacy of logical concepts in current scientific thinking is not reflected in the architecture of the mental lexicon as it is revealed in universal human concepts. Instead, it is argued that NSM semantic universals can be regarded as more appropriate elements in the analysis of propositional attitudes.
The concepts central to the analysis are KNOW and THINK, which have been shown to have exact semantic equivalents in Russian and English as well as other languages. The chapter shows that the analysed concepts differ in meaning and can be related to culture-specific cognitive styles that can be formulated as cultural scripts.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) belief, (E) believe, (E) mnenie мнение, (E) sčitat’ считать, (S) categoricalness, (S) non-imposition, (S) opinions, (S) refusal to compromise, (S) sincerity, (S) truth and untruth, (T) Russian
Published on September 25, 2018. Last updated on June 25, 2019.
Gladkova, Anna & Larina, Tatiana (2018). Anna Wierzbicka, words and the world. Russian Journal of Linguistics, 22(3), 499-520.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22363/2312-9182-2018-22-3-499-520 / Open access
Abstract:
This introduction to a special issue of the Russian Journal of Linguistics summarizes Anna Wierzbicka’s contribution to the linguistic study of meaning. It presents the foundations of the NSM approach, discussing the current state of the approach with reference to the 65 semantic primes, universal grammar and the principle of reductive paraphrase in semantic explications. The article also traces the origin of Wierzbicka’s ideas to Leibniz. The NSM framework has been tested on about thirty languages of diverse origin. The applications of the approach are broad and encompass lexical areas of emotions, social categories, speech act verbs, mental states, artifacts and animals, verbs of motion, kinship terms (among others), as well as grammatical constructions.
More information:
Simultaneously published in English and Russian. The Russian version follows the English one.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) happy, (T) Russian
Published on May 19, 2019. Last updated on June 25, 2019.
Gladkova, Anna, & Larina, Tatiana (2018). Anna Wierzbicka, language, culture and communication. Russian Journal of Linguistics, 22(4), 717-748.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22363/2312-9182-2018-22-4-717-748 / Open access
Abstract:
This introduction to the second part of a special issue of the Russian Journal of Linguistics marking Anna Wierzbicka’s 80th birthday focuses on her research in the area of language and culture. It surveys some of the fundamental concepts of Wierzbicka’s research program in cultural semantics and ethnopragmatics, in particular cultural key words and cultural scripts, both of which she unpacks using the universal human concepts of NSM. The article also discusses the concept of Minimal Language as a recent development in the NSM program and presents associated research in a variety of fields.
More information:
Simultaneously published in English and Russian. The Russian version follows the English one.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) sud'ba судьба, (S) imposition, (S) non-imposition, (S) personal autonomy, (S) sincerity
Published on June 19, 2020. Last updated on November 22, 2020.
Gladkova, Anna (2020). When value words cross cultural borders: English tolerant versus Russian tolerantnyj. In Lauren Sadow, Bert Peeters, & Kerry Mullan (Eds.), Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication: Vol. 3. Minimal English (and beyond) (pp. 73-93). Singapore: Springer.
DOI:
Abstract:
This chapter investigates the situation of language change in contemporary Russian with a particular focus on value words. Using data from the Russian National Corpus, it analyses the meaning of the word толерантный tolerantnyj, which has been borrowed from English. It compares its meaning with the English tolerant as a source of borrowing and the traditional Russian term tерпимый terpimyj. The chapter demonstrates a shift in meaning in the borrowed term, which allows it to accommodate to the Russian value system. The meanings of the terms in question are formulated using universal meanings employed in Minimal English, which makes the comparison transparent and explicit.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) terpimyj tерпимый, (E) terpit терпеть, (E) tolerant, (E) tolerantnyj толерантный, (T) Russian
Published on August 14, 2021. Last updated on August 15, 2021.
Gladkova, Anna (2020). The semantics of verbs of visual aesthetic appreciation in Russian. In Bromhead, Helen and Zhengdao Ye (eds.) Meaning, Life and Culture. pp 155-171. Canberra: ANU Press.
DOI: http://doi.org/10.22459/MLC.2020.08 (Open Access)
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) ljubovat’sja / admire, (E) nagljadet’sja / looking at
Published on August 15, 2021. Last updated on August 15, 2021.
Gladkova, Anna, & Romero-Trillo, Jesús (eds.). (2021). The Conceptualization of ‘Beautiful’ and ‘Ugly’ across Languages and Cultures. Special issue of the International Journal of Language and Culture 8:1
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.8.1
Contents (NSM articles only):
Published on August 15, 2021. Last updated on August 15, 2021.
Gladkova, Anna, and Romero-Trillo, Jesús. (2021). The linguistic conceptualization in folk aesthetics: Past, present and future. International Journal of Language and Culture 8(1): 1–13
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.00032.int
Abstract:
This Special Issue is dedicated to the analysis of the linguistic conceptualization of “beautiful” and “ugly” as the key concepts that are basic to aesthetic appreciation across languages and cultures within the framework of folk aesthetics. For this purpose, we present a collection of original research articles analyzing concepts related to folk aesthetics in seven languages: English, Spanish, Japanese, Russian, Danish, Persian, and Mandarin Chinese. All studies in this Special Issue focus on words and concepts as representations of culture-specific ways of aesthetic appreciation. Most of the studies are corpus-based, therefore they draw their conclusions on significant linguistic data.
Published on August 15, 2021. Last updated on August 15, 2021.
Gladkova, Anna, & Romero-Trillo, Jesús. (2021). Is ugliness in the mind of the beholder? The conceptualization of ‘ugly’ in English. International Journal of Language and Culture 8(1): 106–127
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.00037.gla
Abstract:
The paper explores the meaning and use of ugly in English. The study is based on corpus data from Cobuild Wordbanks Online and investigates the polysemy and the spheres of application of the concept. Through corpus analysis methodology, we investigate the most common collocations and the pragmatic and contextual uses of the term. Based on this analysis, our study proposes semantic explications of ugly in universal human concepts within the theoretical framework of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM). We also analyze the most common collocations with the word ugly and clas- sify them into several meaning-based categories. A comparison between beautiful and ugly reveals that they are not identical in their distribution, which suggests different cognitive salience of the concepts. We also note the special role of ‘people’ and ‘nature’ in conceptualization and use of beautiful and that of ‘human actions’ in ugly.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) ugly, (T) English
Published on August 15, 2021. Last updated on August 15, 2021.
Gladkova, Anna. (2021). “What is beauty?”: Cultural semantics of the Russian folk aesthetics. International Journal of Language and Culture 8(1): 84–105
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.00036.gla
Abstract:
The paper studies the semantics of four Russian key terms of aesthetic evaluation: krasivyj ‘beautiful’, prekrasnyj ‘beautiful/fine’, nekrasivyj ’ugly/ plain’ and bezobraznyj ‘ugly/frightful’. It demonstrates different patterns of polysemy of the words and the nuances of meaning. Following the framework of folk aesthetics and cultural semantics, the meanings of the terms in question are represented using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) and are shown to relate to Russian cultural themes. The analysis demonstrates cultural significance of aesthetic value in Russian and its intrinsic link with ethics, morality and politeness.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) bezobraznyj, (E) krasivyj красивый, (E) nekrasivyj, (E) prekrasnyj
