Browsing results for GODDARD CLIFF
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 5, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff & Wierzbicka, Anna (2016). ‘It’s mine!’ Re-thinking the conceptual semantics of “possession” through NSM. Language Sciences, 56, 93-104. DOI: 10.1016/j.langsci.2016.03.002
This study has two main parts. It begins with a conceptual and semantic analysis in the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework of what linguists term “true possession” or “ownership”. The requirements of the NSM framework force the analysis to be conducted using very simple expressions that are available not only in English, but (ideally) in all languages. The main proposal is that true possession is anchored in a semantic prime with an egocentric perspective that occurs in a predicative construction, i.e. (IS) MINE. It is argued that expressions like This is mine are semantically irreducible and (very likely) universally expressible across the diversity of the world’s languages.
In the second part of the study, three semantically and grammatically complex “possession verbs” are examined: steal, give, and own. Intricate (but coherent) explications for the English versions of these words are proposed, using (IS) MINE and a range of other semantic components. Though no claim is made that all languages possess precisely these meanings, this study hopes to help pave the way for a lexical semantic typology of “ownership-related” concepts in the languages of the world.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 29, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2016). Semantic molecules and their role in NSM lexical definitions. Cahiers de lexicologie, 109, 13-34. DOI: 10.15122/isbn.978-2-406-06861-7.p.0013
The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach is well known for its use of reductive paraphrase as a mode of lexical definition (conceptual analysis) and for its claim to have discovered an inventory of irreducible lexical meanings — semantic primes — that are apparently universal in the world’s languages. It is less well known that many NSM definitions rely crucially on semantic molecules, i.e. certain non-primitive meanings that function alongside semantic primes as building blocks in the composition of yet more complex lexical meanings.
This paper considers aspects of the NSM theory of semantic molecules, including: first, the notion of molecules within molecules (e.g. ‘mouth → ‘water’ → ‘drink’); second, the distribution of semantic molecules in the world’s languages: some are universal or near-universal, e.g. ‘hands,’ ‘children,’ ‘water’, others are widespread but not universal, e.g. ‘money’, and still others are specific to particular languages or linguistic/cultural areas; third, the emerging notions of “small molecules” and lexicosyntactic molecules. The paper includes explications for about twenty-five semantic molecules that are posited to be universal or near-universal.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) at night, (E) children, (E) creature, (E) during the day, (E) ears, (E) eyes, (E) face, (E) hands, (E) hard, (E) head, (E) heavy, (E) know that, (E) long, (E) men, (E) mouth, (E) on, (E) round, (E) sky, (E) sun, (E) thin, (E) water, (E) women, (T) English, (T) French, (T) semantic molecules
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2017). Furniture, vegetables, weapons: Functional collective superordinates in the English lexicon. In Zhengdao Ye (Ed.), The semantics of nouns (pp. 246-281). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198736721.003.0010
This chapter deals with the semantic structure of functional collective superordinates, concentrating on three formally distinguishable classes. These can be termed ‘singular only’ (mass), e.g. furniture, cutlery; ‘plural mostly’, e.g. vegetables, cosmetics; and ‘countable’, e.g. weapons, vehicles. The chapter begins with a semantic overview, then moves to a selective review of the psycholinguistic and other cognitive science literature on superordinates. It is argued that much of this literature is flawed by the ‘All Superordinates are Taxonomic’ Fallacy. The study then presents semantic templates and explications for a sample of words from the three different formal classes just mentioned, in the process differentiating a number of semantic subclasses. A novel proposal is that the semantic structure of functional collective superordinates includes one or more hyponymic exemplars. This proposal and other semantic issues are reprised and discussed before some concluding remarks are offered.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) aircraft, (E) clothing, (E) cosmetics, (E) crockery, (E) cutlery, (E) drugs, (E) furniture, (E) herbs, (E) insects, (E) jewellery, (E) jewelry, (E) musical instruments, (E) poultry, (E) reptiles, (E) textiles, (E) tools, (E) toys, (E) vegetables, (E) vehicles, (E) weapons
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 1, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2017). Ethnopragmatic perspectives on conversational humour, with special reference to Australian English. Language & Communication, 55, 55-68. DOI: 10.1016/j.langcom.2016.09.008
This paper argues that the ethnopragmatic approach allows humour researchers both to access the “insider perspectives” of native speakers and to ward off conceptual Anglocentrism. It begins with a semantic inquiry into the word laugh, a plausible lexical universal and an essential anchor point for humour studies. It then demonstrates how the two main modes of ethnopragmatic analysis, semantic explication and cultural scripts, can be applied to selected topics in conversational humour research. Semantic explications are proposed for three English specific “humour concepts”: funny, amusing, and humour. Cultural scripts are proposed for “jocular abuse”, “deadpan jocular irony” and “jocular deception” in Australian English. The semantic explications and cultural scripts are composed using simple, cross-translatable words.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) amusing, (E) funny, (E) humour, (E) laugh, (S) deadpan jocular irony, (S) jocular abuse, (S) jocular deception, (S) jocular provocation, (T) English
Published on December 17, 2017. Last updated on March 14, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2017). Natural Semantic Metalanguage and lexicography. In Patrick Hanks, & Gilles-Maurice de Schryver (Eds.), International handbook of modern lexis and lexicography (online). Berlin: Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-45369-4_14-1
Abstract:
This chapter gives perspectives on meaning description in lexicography from the standpoint of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach to linguistics, which among contemporary approaches to linguistics can claim the longest and most serious engagement with lexical semantics.
Note:
The Handbook is classified as a “Living Reference Work”, which means it is being continously updated. It was first published in 2017.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) birrimbirr, (E) mind, (T) English, (T) semantic molecules, (T) Spanish
Published on August 7, 2017. Last updated on February 16, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2018). “Joking, kidding, teasing”: Slippery categories for cross-cultural comparison but key words for understanding Anglo conversational humor. Intercultural Pragmatics, 15(4), 487-514. DOI: 10.1515/ip-2018-0017
Terms like to joke (and joking) and to tease (and teasing) have a curious double life in contrastive and interactional pragmatics and related fields. Occasionally they are studied as metapragmatic terms of ordinary English, along with related expressions such as kidding. More commonly they are used as scientific or technical categories, both for research into English and for cross-linguistic and cross-cultural comparison. Related English adjectives such as jocular and mock are also much used in a growing lexicon of compound terms, such as jocular abuse, mock abuse, jocular mockery, and the like.
Against this background, the present paper has three main aims.
In the first part, it is argued that the meanings of the verbs to joke and to tease (and related nouns) are much more English-specific than is commonly recognized. They are not precisely cross-translatable even into European languages such as French and German. Adopting such terms as baseline categories for cross-cultural comparison therefore risks introducing an Anglocentric bias into our theoretical vocabulary. Nor can the problem be easily solved by attributing technical meanings to the terms.
Detailed analysis of the everyday meanings of words like joking and teasing, on the other hand, can yield insights into the ethnopragmatics of Anglo conversational humour. This task is undertaken in the second part of the paper. The important English verb to kid and the common conversational formulas just kidding and only joking are also examined. The semantic methodology used is the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach.
Building on the NSM analyses, the third part of the paper considers whether it is possible to construct a typological framework for conversational humour based on cross-translatable terminology.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) amusing, (E) funny, (E) humour, (E) joke, (E) kid, (E) laugh, (E) tease, (T) English
Published on September 25, 2018. Last updated on September 25, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2018). A semantic menagerie: The conceptual semantics of ethnozoological categories. Russian Journal of Linguistics, 22(3), 539-559. DOI: 10.22363/2312-9182-2018-22-3-539-559. PDF (open access)
This paper proposes and discusses a set of semantic analyses of words from three different levels of the English ethnozoological taxonomic hierarchy: creature (unique beginner), bird, fish, snake, and animal (life-form level), dog and kangaroo (generic level). The analytical framework is the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach. Though ultimately resting on the foundational elements of the NSM system, i.e. 65 semantic primes and their inherent grammar of combination, the analysis relies on the analytical concepts of semantic molecules and semantic templates. These provide mechanisms for encapsulating semantic complexity and for modelling relations between successive layers of the hierarchy. Other issues considered include the extent to which cultural components feature in the semantics of ethnozoological categories, and the extent to which semantic knowledge may vary across different speech communities.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) animals, (E) birds, (E) creatures, (E) dogs, (E) eggs, (E) feathers, (E) fish, (E) kangaroos, (E) snakes, (E) wings, (T) English
Published on November 19, 2017. Last updated on September 5, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff, & Wierzbicka, Anna (2018). Minimal English and how it can add to Global English. In Cliff Goddard (Ed.), Minimal English for a global world: Improved communication using fewer words (pp. 5-27). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-62512-6_2
The concept of Minimal English was first proposed by Anna Wierzbicka in 2014 as a radically reduced ‘mini English’ that can provide a common auxiliary interlanguage for speakers of different languages, and as a global means for clarifying, elucidating, storing and comparing ideas. This idea is taken up by Cliff Goddard and Anna Wierzbicka in this chapter. Aside from arguing for the benefits of using cross-translatable words, they stress that Minimal English is intended not to replace or supplant ordinary English, but to add to its effectiveness as a global tool for communication and discourse. The chapter outlines the origins, purpose and composition of Minimal English and explains its value as a supplement to English in its role as a global lingua franca. It argues for the great importance of cross-translatability in many contexts and shows with examples that many taken-for-granted words and concepts of Anglo English are heavily culture-laden and hence untranslatable. The chapter also clarifies how Minimal English is different from Ogden’s ‘Basic English’ and from Plain English.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (T) English, (T) semantic molecules
Published on November 19, 2017. Last updated on September 5, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2018). Minimal English: The science behind it. In Cliff Goddard (Ed.), Minimal English for a global world: Improved communication using fewer words (pp. 29-70). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-62512-6_3
This chapter explains in an accessible way the linguistic research that underpins the specifics of Minimal English. The “science behind Minimal English” is the body of research, by linguists working in the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach, into which words and grammatical patterns match across the languages of the world. The chapter includes a review of all semantic primes, classified in twelve groups.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (T) English
Published on November 19, 2017. Last updated on May 1, 2019.
Christian, David (2018). Big History meets Minimal English. In Cliff Goddard (Ed.), Minimal English for a global world: Improved communication using fewer words (pp. 201-224). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-62512-6_9
Abstract:
“Big History” refers to the teaching of human history at very large scales, including evolutionary history and cosmology. If Minimal English attempts to find a common language for humanity, Big History attempts to find a common historical story, a modern origin story shared by all humans. To what extent, then, can a modern science-based origin story be expressed in Minimal English? In dialogue with Wierzbicka’s chapter on the universe, which immediately precedes this one (“Talking about the universe in Minimal English: Teaching science through words that children can understand”), this chapter asks what aspects of a modern origin story will prove most challenging to the Minimal English project.
The appendix to this paper is a “partial history of the world and the rise of humanity, told in Minimal English” (Anna Wierzbicka and Cliff Goddard, September 2016). The rating below refers to the appendix.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) Partial history of the world and the rise of humanity
Published on November 19, 2017. Last updated on May 1, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (Ed.) (2018). Minimal English for a global world: Improved communication using fewer words. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-62512-6
Abstract:
‘Minimal English’ is a new tool for improving communication and promoting clearer thinking in a world where the use of Global English can create numerous comprehension and communication issues. It is based on research findings from within cross-linguistic semantics, in particular the NSM approach. The essays and studies in this book are by leading experts who explore the value and application of Minimal English in various fields, including ethics, health, human rights discourse, education and international relations. Informed guidelines and practical advice on how to communicate in clear and cross-translatable ways using the new tool is also provided.
Table of contents:
- Introduction (Cliff Goddard)
- Minimal English and how it can add to Global English (Cliff Goddard and Anna Wierzbicka)
- Minimal English: The science behind it (Cliff Goddard)
- Minimal English and diplomacy (William Maley)
- Internationalizing Minimal English: Perils and parallels (Nicholas Farrelly and Michael Wesley)
- Charter of Global Ethic in Minimal English (Anna Wierzbicka)
- Torture laid bare: Global English and human rights (Annabelle Mooney)
- Talking about the universe in Minimal English: Teaching science through words that children can understand (Anna Wierzbicka)
- Big History meets Minimal English (David Christian)
- Introducing the concept of the ‘65 words’ to the public in Finland (Ulla Vanhatalo and Juhana Torkki)
- Narrative Medicine across languages and cultures: Using Minimal English for increased comparability of patients’ narratives (Bert Peeters and Maria Giulia Marini)
More information:
Each chapter has its own entry and its own rating, except for Chapter 4, which illustrates the pitfalls and complexities of diplomatic communication, particularly in crisis situations. Apart from an imperfect rendering of Wierzbicka’s 1997 explication of the English word freedom (in Understanding Cultures through their Key Words, p. 154), Chapter 4 does not contain any explications using either NSM or Minimal English.
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 December 20, 2017. Last updated on August 21, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna, & Goddard, Cliff (2018). Talking about our bodies and their parts in Warlpiri. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 38(1), 31-62. DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2018.1393862
Linguists generally assume that all languages have some words for parts of the human body such as ‘head’, ‘hands’, ‘mouth’, and ‘legs’, but it is not so widely agreed that speakers of all languages can speak – or even consciously think – of the designata of such words as ‘parts of the body’. NSM researchers have long maintained that PART(S) is a universal semantic prime, i.e., an indefinable meaning expressible by words or phrases in all human languages. However, it has been claimed that the Australian language Warlpiri, for instance, lacks any suitable lexical equivalent of ‘part(s)’. Using data from the Warlpiri English Encyclopedic Dictionary, this study contests this claim, arguing that the relevant sense of ‘part’ exists in Warlpiri as one sense of the polysemous closed-class item yangka (whose main meaning can be stated, roughly, as ‘that one, you know the one’). The study also considers broader issues to do with semantic theory, polysemy and translation.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on January 11, 2022.
Goddard, Cliff, Maite Taboada, & Radoslava Trnavac (In press). The semantics of evaluational adjectives: Perspectives from Natural Semantic Metalanguage and Appraisal. Functions of Language, 26(3), 308-342.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.00029.god
Abstract:
The authors apply the NSM approach to the lexical-semantic analysis of English evaluational adjectives and compare the results with the picture developed in the Appraisal Framework (Martin & White 2005). The analysis is corpus-assisted, with examples mainly drawn from film and book reviews, and supported by collocational and statistical information from WordBanks Online. We propose NSM explications for 15 evaluational adjectives, arguing that they fall into five groups, each of which corresponds to a distinct semantic template. The groups can be sketched as follows: “First-person thought-plus-affect”, e.g. wonderful; “Experiential”, e.g. entertaining; “Experiential with bodily reaction”, e.g. gripping; “Lasting impact”, e.g. memorable; “Cognitive evaluation”, e.g. complex, excellent. These groupings and semantic templates are compared with the classifications in the Appraisal Framework’s system of Appreciation. In addition, we are particularly interested in sentiment analysis, the automatic identification of evaluation and subjectivity in text. We discuss the relevance of the two frameworks for sentiment analysis and other language technology applications.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) brilliant, (E) complex, (E) delightful, (E) entertaining, (E) excellent, (E) exciting, (E) great, (E) gripping, (E) impressive, (E) memorable, (E) outstanding, (E) powerful, (E) terrific, (E) wonderful
Published on February 16, 2019. Last updated on June 20, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff, & Anna Wierzbicka (2019). Direct and indirect speech revisited: Semantic universals and semantic diversity. In Alessandro Capone, Manuel García-Carpintero, & Alessandra Falzone (Eds.), Indirect reports and pragmatics in the world languages (pp. 173-199). Cham: Springer.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78771-8_9
Abstract:
The new interpretations of ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ speech presented in this chapter are framed using simple and cross-translatable words and phrases, i.e. using a language that is transparent both to linguists and to the speakers whose ways of speaking the analyst is trying to understand.
In relation to ‘direct speech’, the authors present linguistic generalizations about two forms of quoted speech, which, they claim, are very likely to be found in all languages of the world. The semantics of logophoric constructions in West African languages are examined next, with particular reference to Goemai, which has been claimed to have no direct speech. It is argued instead that logophoric constructions in Goemai are forms of direct speech on any reasonable, semantically-based definition and that, until proof of the contrary, direct speech is a language universal.
The final part of the paper is about ‘indirect speech’, focusing on the English say that… construction.
An overall theme of the paper is that specialized and hybrid forms of reported speech, including logophoric speech, reflect cultural concerns and practices.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) [direct speech], (E) dó, (E) ke
Published on December 9, 2020. Last updated on December 9, 2020.
Goddard, Cliff and Anna Wierzbicka (2019). Cognitive Semantics, Linguistic Typology and Grammatical Polysemy: “Possession” and the English Genitive. Cognitive Semantics 5: 224-247.
DOI: http://doi.org/10.1163/23526416-00502003
Abstract
This paper explores the cognitive semantics of the typological category “possession” using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (nsm) approach. At the macro level, we argue that “possession” is not a unitary cognitive category for speakers, but instead represents an aggregation of diverse semantic schemas which center around three distinct conceptual anchor points: ownership, body-parts, and kinship relations. It is shown how each of these conceptual anchor points can be clearly identified using the nsm metalanguage of semantic primes and molecules. At the micro level, the paper undertakes a close examination of the cognitive semantics of English s-genitives in the frame [THIS SOMEONE’S] SOMETHING, e.g. Mary’s ring, Mary’s shoes, Mary’s drawing, Mary’s plate, Mary’s train. It is argued that the wide range of use of the s-genitive can be captured in a set of five semantic schemas, which constitute a network of grammatical polysemy.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) my, (E) S-genitive, (E) someone's
Published on May 19, 2019. Last updated on June 20, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff, & Wierzbicka, Anna (2019). Reported speech as a pivotal human phenomenon: Commentary on Spronck and Nikitina. Linguistic Typology, 23(1), 167-175.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/lingty-2019-0006
Abstract:
The authors take issue with the target paper on a number of theoretical and methodological matters. The most significant of these is the need to de-Anglicize linguistic terminology. The use of complex, poorly-defined, English-bound terms, including technical terms such as semiotic, ‘demonstratedness’, epistemic, modality, and representation, as well as ordinary, but equally English-bound, words such as report(ed), message, discourse, and utterance is unnecessary. Instead, people’s speech practices should be described in terms that are accessible to the people concerned.
Rather than trying to bring everything that may be counted as “reported speech” under a single, extremely abstract characterization, the authors favour an approach that analyses these diverse constructions one at a time, so to speak, linking them all to the prototypical direct speech construction in a family resemblance fashion. To make this more concrete, they briefly analyse the Yankunytjatjara quotative particle kunyu and the English say that… construction.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) [direct speech], (E) say that
Published on February 16, 2019. Last updated on February 9, 2020.
Goddard, Cliff (2020). ‘Country’, ‘land’, ‘nation’: Key Anglo English words for talking and thinking about people in places. Journal of Postcolonial Linguistics, 1(2), 8-27.
Abstract:
This is a corpus-assisted, lexical-semantic study of the English words ‘country’, ‘land’ and ‘nation’, using the NSM technique of paraphrase in terms of simple, cross-translatable words. The importance of these words and their derivatives in Anglophone public and political discourses is obvious. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say that without the support of words like these, discourses of nationalism, patriotism, immigration, international affairs, land rights, and post/anti-colonialism would be literally impossible.
The study builds on Anna Wierzbicka’s (1997) seminal study of “homeland” and related concepts in European languages, as well as more recent NSM work that has explored ways in which discursively powerful words encapsulate historically and culturally contingent assumptions about relationships between people and places. The primary focus is on conceptual analysis, lexical polysemy, phraseology and discursive formation in mainstream Anglo English, but the study also touches on one specifically Australian phenomenon, which is the use of country in a distinctive sense which originated in Aboriginal English, e.g. in expressions like my grandfather’s country and looking after country. This highlights how Anglo English words can be semantically “re-purposed” in postcolonial and anti-colonial discourses.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) be called, (E) country, (E) creature, (E) earth, (E) ground, (E) grow, (E) land, (E) nation, (E) we
Published on February 16, 2019. Last updated on November 11, 2020.
Goddard, Cliff, & Kerry Mullan (2020). Explicating verbs for “laughing with other people” in French and English (and why it matters for humor studies). Humor, 33(1), 55-77.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2017-0114
Abstract:
This study undertakes a contrastive lexical-semantic analysis of a set of related verbs in English and French (English to joke and to kid, French rigoler and plaisanter), using the NSM approach to semantic analysis. We show that the semantic and conceptual differences between French and English are greater than commonly assumed. These differences, we argue, have significant implications for humor studies: first, they shed light on different cultural orientations towards “laughter talk” in Anglo and French linguacultures; second, they highlight the danger of conceptual Anglocentrism in relying on English-specific words as a theoretical vocabulary for humor studies.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) joke, (E) kid, (E) plaisanter, (E) rigoler
Published on August 19, 2021. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Goddard, Cliff. (2020). De-Anglicising humour studies. European Journal of Humour Research 8(4): 48–58
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7592/EJHR2020.8.4.Goddard
Abstract:
This Commentary has two main aims. The first is to argue that systematic approaches to “humour” have been hampered and skewed by terminological Anglocentrism, i.e. by reliance on terms and categories which are English-specific, such as ‘amusing’, ‘joking’, ‘serious’, and ‘mock’, and even by the banner term ‘humour’ itself. Though some humour scholars have recognised this problem, I contend that they have under-estimated its severity. Anglocentric terminology not only interferes with effective communication within the field: it affects our research agendas, methodologies, and theoretical framings. Needless to say, humour studies is not alone in facing this predicament, which at its largest can be described as the global Anglicisation of humanities and social science discourse.
While calls to make humour studies more conceptually pluralistic are laudable, they cannot fully succeed while ‘full’ Anglo English remains the dominant scholarly lingua franca. The second aim of this paper is to argue that considerable progress can be made by “de- Anglicising English” from within, using a newly developed approach known as Minimal English. This allows re-thinking and re-framing humour terminology and agendas using a small vocabulary of simple cross-translatable English words, i.e. words which carry with them a minimum of Anglo conceptual baggage. For illustrative purposes, I will discuss how complex terms such as ‘wit, wittiness’ and ‘fantasy/absurd humour’ can be clarified and de- Anglicised using Minimal English.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) hāzer javābi, (E) joking, (E) pour plaisanter
