Browsing results for GODDARD CLIFF
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 22, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2003). Thinking across languages and cultures: Six dimensions of variation. Cognitive Linguistics, 14(2-3), 109-140.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/cogl.2003.005
Abstract:
This article is an exercise in typological semantics. It adopts the principles of the NSM approach to survey cross-linguistic variation in ways of talking about ‘thinking’. It begins by summarizing research indicating that there is a universal semantic prime THINK that can provide a stable reference point for cross-linguistic comparison. Six different dimensions of variability are then canvassed: different patterns of lexical polysemy, different degrees and modes of lexical elaboration, different ethno-theories of the person, different ways in which think-related meanings can be encoded morphosyntactically, different cultural scripts that may encourage or discourage particular ways of thinking, and differing patterns of usage in discourse.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) believe that, (E) duša душа, (E) feel (+ adjective), (E) feel that, (E) hati, (E) hope, (E) love, (E) mind, (E) ná, (E) pleased, (E) się, (E) ter-, (E) think (+ clause), (E) think to (+ verb), (E) to (purposive), (E) tro, (E) worry, (S) freedom of speech, (S) I think vs I know, (S) inhibiting expression of opinions, (S) Philosophy of the Middle Way, (S) thinking
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2003). Natural Semantic Metalanguage: Latest perspectives. Theoretical Linguistics, 29(3), 227-236. DOI: 10.1515/thli.29.3.227
Uwe Durst has given a valuable and accurate synopsis of the NSM approach to linguistic meaning in this special issue of Theoretical Linguistics. I attempt in turn to augment and clarify certain points, under the following headings:
- The syntax of semantic metalanguage
- NSM in comparison with (other) formal systems
- Semantic complexity, semantic molecules, and substitutability
- Using indigenous NSMs in fieldwork and in grammatical description
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2003). Semantic primes within and across languages. In Dominique Willems, Bart Defrancq, Timothy Colleman, & Dirk Noël (Eds.), Contrastive analysis in language: Identifying linguistic units of comparison (pp. 13-43). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: 10.1057/9780230524637_2
This chapter adopts the standpoint of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) theory, originated by Anna Wierzbicka. The NSM theory of semantic primes is no ‘new kid on the block’. It is the result of a long and incremental programme of research. There is a substantial crosslinguistic literature dealing with the identification of semantic primes across languages, and some of the problems and solutions discussed in this literature are illustrated here. The chapter shows how semantic primes have been identified within and across languages, over several decades of empirical research, and how they can be used as a tool in lexical and grammatical typology and contrastive linguistics.
Published on June 28, 2017. Last updated on August 16, 2021.
Goddard, Cliff (2004). The atoms of meaning. IIAS Newsletter, 33, 17. PDF (open access)
Most linguists do not regard semantics (the systematic study of meaning) as a central part of their discipline. This is both strange and sad, because meaning is the link between language and communication, between language and culture, and between language and cognition. Lately, however, meaning-based approaches have been making a comeback within the broad movements known as cognitive linguistics and functional linguistics. This article concentrates on the leading meaning-based theory of language, the Natural Semantic Metalanguage or NSM theory originated by Anna Wierzbicka.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 3, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff, & Wierzbicka, Anna (2004). Cultural scripts: What are they and what are they good for? Intercultural Pragmatics, 1(2), 153-166. DOI: 10.1515/iprg.2004.1.2.153
The term cultural scripts refers to a powerful new technique for articulating cultural norms, values, and practices in terms which are clear, precise, and accessible to cultural insiders and to cultural outsiders alike. This result is only possible because cultural scripts are formulated in a tightly constrained, yet expressively flexible, metalanguage, known as NSM, consisting of simple words (semantic primes) and grammatical patterns that have equivalents in all languages.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (S) directives, (S) personal autonomy, (S) suggestions, (T) English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 21, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff, & Wierzbicka, Anna (Eds.) (2004). Cultural scripts. Intercultural Pragmatics, 1(2) (Special issue).
Table of contents:
Cultural scripts: What are they and what are they good for? (Cliff Goddard & Anna Wierzbicka)
Areal cultural scripts for social interaction in West African communities (Felix K. Ameka & Anneke Breedveld)
Not just words: Korean social models and the use of honorifics (Kyung-Joo Yoon)
Chinese categorization of interpersonal relationships and the cultural logic of Chinese social interaction: An indigenous perspective (Zhengdao Ye)
Cultural scripts, ways of speaking and perceptions of personal autonomy: Anglo English vs. Singapore English (Jock Onn Wong)
The ethnopragmatics of the diminutive in conversational Colombian Spanish (Catherine E. Travis)
Each paper has its own entry, where additional information is provided.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 31, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2004). The ethnopragmatics and semantics of ‘active metaphors’. Journal of Pragmatics, 36(7). 1211-1230. DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2003.10.011
“Active” metaphors are a kind of metaphor that can be categorically distinguished from other metaphorical phenomena due to its reliance on “metalexical awareness”, detectable by linguistic tests as well as by intuition. Far from being a natural function of the human mind or a universal of rational communication, active metaphorizing is a culture-specific speech practice that demands explication within an ethnopragmatic perspective. The paper proposes an ethnopragmatic script (a kind of specialized cultural script) for active metaphorizing in English, and dramatizes its culture-specificity by ethnopragmatic case studies of Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara (central Australia) and Malay. Finally, in relation to English active metaphors, an attempt is made to demonstrate that expository metaphors have determinable meanings that can be stated as extended reductive paraphrases. The analytical framework is the Natural Semantic Metalanguage theory and the associated theory of cultural scripts.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) food for thought, (E) graceful, (E) language is a mirror of the mind, (E) soft, (E) the past is a foreign country, (E) unemployment is a contagious disease, (S) sensitive words, (S) use of 'active' metaphors, (T) English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 29, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2004). “Cultural scripts”: A new medium for ethnopragmatic instruction. In Michel Achard & Susanne Niemeier (Eds.), Cognitive Linguistics, second language acquisition, and foreign language teaching (pp. 143-163). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
DOI: 10.1515/9783110199857.143
Abstract:
The cultural scripts approach is a descriptive technique for capturing ethnopragmatic knowledge that has grown out of the cross-linguistic semantic work of Anna Wierzbicka and colleagues. This work has established a metalanguage of simple cross-translatable terms that can be used not only for lexical semantics, but also for describing communicative norms. The paper illustrates and explains the cultural scripts approach, and makes some suggestions about its pedagogical advantages and applications in the teaching of ethnopragmatics. These include greater precision and intelligibility, a reduced risk of ethnocentrism, and enhanced opportunity to demonstrate links between discourse practices and cultural values, as embodied in cultural key words, proverbs, etc.
Examples are drawn from studies of the cultural pragmatics of English and of Malay (Bahasa Melayu, the national language of Malaysia).
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) free, (E) freedom, (E) menghormati, (E) sabar, (S) apologies, (S) freedom of action, (S) opinions, (S) personal autonomy, (S) respect for older people, (S) think first, (S) whimperatives, (T) English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 17, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff, & Karlsson, Susanna (2004). Re-thinking THINK: Contrastive semantics of Swedish and English. In Christo Moskovsky (Ed.), Proceedings of the 2003 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society. PDF (open access)
A more recent publication building on this one is:
Goddard, Cliff, & Karlsson, Susanna (2008). Re-thinking THINK in contrastive perspective: Swedish vs. English. In Cliff Goddard (Ed.), Cross-linguistic semantics (pp. 225-240). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.102.14god
The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework originated by Anna Wierzbicka has long postulated THINK as a semantic prime, and a large body of cross-linguistic research demonstrates that lexical exponents of THINK can be identified in a diversity of languages. This result is challenged, however, by the apparent existence in Swedish and other Scandinavian languages of several basic-level “verbs of thinking”. In this study it is argued that the primary senses of Swedish tänka and English think are in fact semantically identical, and correspond to the semantic prime THINK as proposed in NSM theory. Semantic explications are proposed and justified for Swedish tro and tycka, and for the use of I think in English as an epistemic formula. In the process previous NSM assumptions about the semantic prime THINK are shown to have been incorrectly influenced by language-specific properties of English think. Likewise, the widely held Vendlerian view of the relation between thinking about and thinking that is challenged.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) [illocutionary assumption], (E) I think, (E) tro, (E) tycka
Published on June 28, 2017. Last updated on February 17, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2004). Speech-acts, values and cultural scripts: A study in Malay ethnopragmatics. In Robert Cribb (Ed.), Asia examined: Proceedings of the 15th biennial conference of the ASAA. PDF (open access)
The speech act lexicon of any language provides its speakers with a readymade “catalogue” of culture-specific categories of verbal interaction: a catalogue that makes sense within, and is attuned to, a particular portfolio of cultural values, assumptions, and attitudes. So it is that a microscopic examination of the semantics of speech act verbs can shed a great deal of light on broader cultural themes, but equally the significance of any particular speech act category can only be fully understood in broader cultural context.
This study illustrates these contentions with the Malay speech act verb pujuk, which can variously translated as ‘coax’, ‘flatter’, ‘persuade’, or ‘comfort’, but which really has no precise equivalent in English. Naturally occurring examples are given from Bahasa Melayu, the national language of Malaysia. The methods employed are the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach, and its companion, the theory of cultural scripts. I propose a single semantic explication for pujuk which accounts for its diverse range with much greater precision than any normal dictionary definition; but the explication must be read against the background of several Malay cultural scripts reflecting the important role of feelings and “feelings management” in the Malay tradition, as reflected in expressions like timbang rasa ‘lit. weigh feelings’, jaga hati orang ‘minding people’s feelings/hearts’, ambil hati ‘lit. get heart, be charming’, among others.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) pujuk, (S) resistance to another person’s wishes if one is feeling something bad, (S) sensitivity to one’s interlocutor’s feelings and wants, (T) Malay
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 24, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2005). The lexical semantics of culture. Language Sciences, 27(1), 51-73.
DOI: 10.1016/j.langsci.2004.05.001
Abstract:
Culture is one of the… cultural key words of the English language, in popular as well as scholarly discourse. It is flourishing in popular usage, with a proliferation of extended uses (police culture, Barbie culture, argument culture, culture of complaint, etc.), while being endlessly debated in intellectual circles. Though it is sometimes observed that the meaning of the English word culture is highly language-specific, its precise lexical semantics has received surprisingly little attention. The main task undertaken in this paper is to develop and justify semantic explications for the common ordinary meanings of this polysemous word. The analytical framework is the NSM approach, within which a set of semantic explications will be proposed that is framed in terms of empirically established universal semantic primes such as PEOPLE, THINK, DO, LIVE, NOT, LIKE, THE SAME, and OTHER.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) culture
Published on February 16, 2019. Last updated on February 17, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2005). The quest for meaning… Communication, culture and cognition. Armidale: University of New England (inaugural public lecture).
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 15, 2021.
Goddard, Cliff (2005). *The languages of East and Southeast Asia: An introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
This book introduces readers to the remarkable linguistic diversity of East and Southeast Asia. It combines serious but accessible treatments of diverse areas not usually found in a single volume: for example, word origins, cultural key words, tones and sounds, language families and typology, key syntactic structures, writing systems, communicative style. Written with great clarity and an eye for interesting examples, the book is a textbook for students of linguistics, Asian languages, and Asian studies.
Table of contents:
1: A First Look
1.1: Introductory Remarks
1.2: Lack of Inflection
1.3: Word Order (constituent order)
1.4: Sounds and Writing of East Asian Languages
1.5: Lexical Tone
1.6: Classifier Constructions
1.7: Serial Verb Constructions
1.8: Multiple Pronouns and Other Systems of Address
1.9: Honorific Forms
1.10: Other Common Features
2: Language Families, Linguistics Areas, and Language Situations
2.1: What is a Language Family?
2.2: The Major Language Families of East Asia
2.3: Mainland Southeast Asia as a Linguistic Area
2.4: Language Situations in the Countries of East Asia
3: Words: Origins, Structures, Meanings
3.1: Loans as Indicators of Cultural History
3.2: Word Structure: Derivational Morphology
3.3: Meaning Differences Between Languages
3.4: Cultural Key Words
4: Grammatical Topics
4.1: Classifier Constructions Revisited
4.2: Aspect
4.3: Serial Verb Constructions
4.4: Subject and Topic
4.5: Sentence-final (illocutionary) Particles
5: The East Asian Soundscape
5.1: Phoneme Systems
5.2: Word Shapes: Phonatactics
5.3: Tones and Allotones
5.4: Shifting Sounds: Morphophonemics
5.5: Pitch-Accent in Japanese
6: Writing Systems of East Asia
6.1: Types of Writing System
6.2: Alphabetic Systems
6.3: A Logographic System: Chinese
6.4: Japanese: A Multi-scriptal System
6.5: A Note on Calligraphy
7: The Art of Speaking
7.1: Word Skills in East Asian Languages
7.2: Speech Styles
7.3: The Japanese Honorific System
7.4: Communicative Styles
Exercises
Solutions
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 17, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2006). “Lift your game Martina!”: Deadpan jocular irony and the ethnopragmatics of Australian English. In Cliff Goddard (Ed.), Ethnopragmatics: Understanding discourse in cultural context (pp. 65-97). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110911114.65
Translated into Russian as:
Годдард, Клифф (2007). «Играй лучше, Мартина!» (ирония «с каменным лицом» и этнопрагматика австралийского варианта английского языка). Жанры речи [Speech genres], 5, 159-183.
The aim of this study is to describe, contextualize and interpret the Australian speech practice the author refers to as ‘deadpan jocular irony’, using cultural scripts and other techniques of ethnopragmatic analysis. One theoretical concern will be to distinguish different formats for cultural scripts of different types. In particular, a distinction will be made between two kinds: those which capture certain social attitudes and values and thus have implications for language use, and those of a more specialized nature which directly concern ways of speaking and word usage. In this latter category fall scripts for different species of sarcasm and irony, as well as for a range of other rhetorical phenomena such as hyperbole, euphemism, and many others.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2006). Ethnopragmatics: A new paradigm. In Cliff Goddard (Ed.), Ethnopragmatics: Understanding discourse in cultural context (pp. 1-30). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110911114.1
In this introductory chapter, it is argued that, for many years, the dominant paradigm in linguistic pragmatics was strongly universalist: human communication was seen as largely governed by a rich and substantive inventory of universal principles. Fortunately, concern with culture-internal accounts of speech practices and with the profound “cultural shaping” of speech practices has refused to go away over the long period of universalist dominance. In recent years, there have been signs that the tide is turning, as the weaknesses of the universalist paradigm, especially its ethnocentrism, terminological slipperiness and descriptive inadequacy, have attracted mounting criticism. Nevertheless, the field of pragmatics as a whole still suffers from a remarkable degree of “culture blindness”.
In sharp contrast, the studies in this volume start from the premise that speech practices are best understood from a culture-internal perspective. Focusing on examples from many different cultural locations, the contributing authors ask not only: “What is distinctive about these particular ways of speaking?”, but also: “Why – from their own point of view – do the people concerned speak in these particular ways? What sense does it make to them?” In addition to this common objective, the contributors share a common methodology based on two decades work in cross-linguistic semantics, and a common concern for grounding in linguistic evidence. Together, this three-fold combination – objective, methodology, and evidence base – constitutes a venture which is distinctive enough to warrant a new term: “ethnopragmatics”.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on December 8, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (Ed.) (2006). Ethnopragmatics: Understanding discourse in cultural context. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110911114
The studies in this volume show how speech practices can be understood from a culture-internal perspective, in terms of values, norms and beliefs of the speech communities concerned. The ethnopragmatic approach stands in opposition to the culture-external universalist pragmatics represented by neo-Gricean pragmatics and politeness theory. Using cultural scripts and semantic explications, the authors examine a wide range of phenomena, demonstrating both the profound “cultural shaping” of speech practices and the power and subtlety of new methods and techniques of a semantically grounded ethnopragmatics. Focusing on examples from many different cultural locations, the contributors ask not only: ‘What is distinctive about these particular ways of speaking?’, but also: ‘Why – from their own point of view – do the people concerned speak in these particular ways? What sense does it make to them?’.
Table of contents:
- Ethnopragmatics: a new paradigm (Cliff Goddard)
- Anglo scripts against “putting pressure” on other people and their linguistic manifestations (Anna Wierzbicka)
- “Lift your game Martina!”: deadpan jocular irony and the ethnopragmatics of Australian English (Cliff Goddard)
- Social hierarchy in the “speech culture” of Singapore (Jock Onn Wong)
- Why the “inscrutable” Chinese face? Emotionality and facial expression in Chinese (Zhengdao Ye)
- Cultural scripts: glimpses into the Japanese emotion world (Rie Hasada)
- The communicative realisation of confianza and calor humano in Colombian Spanish (Catherine E. Travis)
- “When I die, don’t cry”: the ethnopragmatics of “gratitude” in West African languages (Felix K. Ameka)
Each chapter has its own entry, where additional information is provided.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 4, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2006). Natural Semantic Metalanguage. In Keith Brown (Ed.), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics. Second edition: Vol. 8 (pp. 544-551). Oxford: Elsevier.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 17, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2006). Verbal explication and the place of NSM semantics in Cognitive Linguistics. In June Luchjenbroers (Ed.), Cognitive Linguistics investigations: Across languages, fields and philosophical boundaries (pp. 189-218). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/hcp.15.14god
This paper argues that verbal explication has an indispensable role to play in semantic/conceptual representation. The diagrams used within Cognitive Linguistics are not semiotically self-contained and cannot be interpreted without overt or covert verbal support. Many also depend on culture-specific iconography. When verbal representation is employed in mainstream Cognitive Linguistics, as in work on prototypes, cultural models and conceptual metaphor, this is typically done in an under-theorized fashion without adequate attention to the complexity and culture-specificity of the representation. Abstract culture-laden vocabulary also demands a rich propositional style of representation, as shown with contrastive examples from Malay, Japanese and English. As the only stream of Cognitive Linguistics with a well-theorized and empirically grounded approach to verbal explication, the NSM (Natural Semantic Metalanguage) framework has much to offer cognitive linguistics at large.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) empathy, (E) ikhlas, (E) omoiyari 思いやり, (E) sincerely, (T) English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 17, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff, & Peeters, Bert (2006). The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach: An overview with reference to the most important Romance languages. In Bert Peeters (Ed.), Semantic primes and universal grammar: Empirical evidence from the Romance languages (pp. 13-38). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.81.07god
Section 1.2 of this paper maps the growth of the NSM lexicon over the years. Sections 1.3 and 1.4 provide an account of the main analytical concepts (allolexy, portmanteaus and [non-compositional] polysemy) that, over the years, have emerged from the NSM enterprise, and notably from the pursuit of universality. Sections 1.5 and 1.6 report on developments in NSM syntax, including the idea that primes may have a number of “valency options”.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on January 26, 2020.
Goddard, Cliff (2007). A “lexicographic portrait” of forgetting. In Mengistu Amberber (Ed.), The language of memory in a crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 119-137). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.21.08god
Abstract:
This study aims to provide a detailed NSM analysis of the English verb forget. It examines its three main clausal complement types (to-complement, e.g. I forgot to lock the door; that-complement, e.g. I forgot that the door was locked; and wh-complement, e.g. I forgot where I put the key), NP-complements, and several more specialized constructions.
The picture that emerges is of a set of interrelated lexicogrammatical constructions, each with a specific meaning, forming a polysemic lexical “family”. Although the study concentrates on English alone, the semantic differences between the various constructions it has identified make it rather clear that one cannot expect a similar range of meanings to map across to apparently similar lexemes in other languages.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) forget
