Wierzbicka, Anna (2001). The conceptual system in the human mind. Humboldt Kosmos, 78, 20-21.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(2001) Cultural semantics, intercultural communication
Goddard, Cliff (2001). *Cultural semantics and intercultural communication. In David Killick, Margaret Perry, & Alison Phipps (Eds.), Poetics and praxis of languages and intercultural communication (pp. 33-44). Glasgow: Glasgow University Press.
(2001) Emotions in crosslinguistic perspective [BOOK]
Harkins, Jean, & Wierzbicka, Anna (Eds.) (2001). Emotions in crosslinguistic perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110880168
Abstract:
This volume aims to enrich the current interdisciplinary theoretical discussion of human emo-tions by presenting studies based on extensive linguistic data from a wide range of languages of the world. Each language-specific study gives detailed semantic descriptions of the meanings of culturally salient emotion words and expressions, offering fascinating insights into people’s emotional lives in diverse cultures including Amharic, Chinese, German, Japanese, Lao, Malay, Mbula, Polish and Russian.
The book is unique in its emphasis on empirical language data, analysed in a framework free of ethnocentrism and not dependent upon English emotion terms, but relying instead on independently established conceptual universals. Students of languages and cultures, psychology and cognition will find this volume a rich resource of description and analysis of emotional meanings in cultural context.
Table of contents:
Introduction (Anna Wierzbicka, Jean Harkins)
Testing emotional universals in Amharic (Mengistu Amberber)
Emotions and the nature of persons in Mbula (Robert D. Bugenhagen)
Why Germans don’t feel”anger” (Uwe Durst)
Linguistic evidence for a Lao perspective on facial expression of emotion (N. J. Enfield)
Hati: A key word in the Malay vocabulary of emotion (Cliff Goddard)
Talking about anger in Central Australia (Jean Harkins)
Meanings of Japanese sound-symbolic emotion words (Rie Hasada)
Concepts of anger in Chinese (Pawel Kornacki)
Human emotions viewed through the Russian language (Irina B. Levontina, Anna A. Zalizniak)
A culturally salient Polish emotion: Przykro (pron. pshickro) (Anna Wierzbicka)
An inquiry into “sadness” in Chinese (Zhengdao Ye)
Each chapter has its own entry, where additional information is provided.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(2001) English (Singapore) – NSM syntax (existential primitive)
Wong, Jock (2001). The Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach to the universal syntax of the Singlish existential primitive. National University of Singapore Centre for Advanced Studies Research Papers Series, 30.
(2001) English (Singapore) – Particles (A)
Wong, Jock Onn (2001). To speak or not to speak? The ‘a’ particles of Singlish. National University of Singapore Centre for Advanced Studies Research Papers Series, 37, 33 pp.
A more recent publication building on parts of this one is chapter 7 (pp. 230-259) of:
Wong, Jock O. (2014). The culture of Singapore English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139519519
(2001) English, Malay – Attitudes
Goddard, Cliff (2001). Sabar, ikhlas, setia – patient, sincere, loyal? Contrastive semantics of some ‘virtues’ in Malay and English. Journal of Pragmatics, 33(5), 653-681. DOI: 10.1016/S0378-2166(00)00028-X
The words sabar, ikhlas, and setia arguably identify core personal virtues in traditional Malay culture. Using Anna Wierzbicka’s ‘Natural Semantic Metalanguage’ (NSM) approach, this paper undertakes a contrastive semantic analysis of these terms and their usual English translations, such as patient, sincere, and loyal. A number of significant meaning differences are brought to light, allowing an improved understanding of the cultural semantics of the Malay concepts.
(2001) Introduction [to Harkins & Wierzbicka (2001)]
Wierzbicka, Anna, & Harkins, Jean (2001). Introduction. In Jean Harkins, & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.) (2001), Emotions in crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 1-34). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110880168.1
Abstract:
The purpose of the crosslinguistic studies presented in this volume is to demonstrate how the tools of linguistic analysis can be applied to produce more accurate descriptions of the meanings of emotion words and, more generally, ways of speaking about emotions in different languages. Such analyses of linguistic meaning not only complement findings from other approaches to the study of emotions, but help to resolve methodological problems that arise when these other approaches have to deal with data from different languages. Before proceeding to the language-specific studies, we draw readers’ attention to the relevance of language in the study of human emotions, and give some background to the approaches to analysing language data that are used in these studies.
By presenting detailed semantic descriptions of culturally-situated meanings of culturally salient words used in the “emotion talk” in different cultures, we can offer glimpses into other people’s emotional lives – without
imposing on those lives a perspective derived from the vocabulary and other resources of our own native language. Since the descriptions presented here are phrased in universal, that is, shared, concepts, they can be
both faithful to the perspective of the speaker whose emotions we purport to be talking about, and intelligible to others. (These others include scholars, who often don’t seem to realise that they too are speakers of another
language, with their own spectacles, tinted by their own native language.) We can combine the insiders’ point of view with intelligibility to outsiders.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(2001) Leibniz
Wierzbicka, Anna (2001). Leibnizian linguistics. In István Kenesei, & Robert M. Harnish (Eds.), Perspectives on semantics, pragmatics, and discourse: A festschrift for Ferenc Kiefer (pp. 229-253). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/pbns.90.18wie
The “Natural Semantic Metalanguage” used currently in cross-linguistic investigations is of course not the same thing as Leibniz’s ideal and universal language. But it is an embodiment of the same basic idea. For the set of universal and presumably innate concepts postulated in current NSM work could only be arrived at by trial and error on the basis of intensive explorations of many diverse languages; and yet such explorations could only proceed in the first place on the basis of a hypothetical set of universal concepts postulated prior to any wide-ranging
cross-linguistic investigations.
The “NSM” project has proceeded all along according to the Leibnizian methodology of trial and error: first, a minimal set of hypothetical universal concepts was posited on the basis of speculation andt radition (going back to Aristotle’s Categories). Then it was continually expanded and modified as the empirical basis of the study broadened to include more and more languages, more and more conceptual domains, and more and more aspects of language structure and language use.
As a result of this process of continual revision, the number of postulated universal concepts has increased from fourteen (seeWierzbicka 1972) to sixty, and three elements from the original set (IMAGINE, WORLD, and DON’T WANT) have been definitely removed from the list. At the same time, the lexical focus of the search (that is, the focus on the “alphabet of human thoughts”) has been replaced by a more broadly-based search for a universal “language of human thoughts”, embracing both a universal lexicon and a universal grammar. Since the universal grammar is conceived in NSM work as a universal combinatorics of the lexically embodied universal concepts, the work on universal grammar constitutes a natural continuation of the work on the universal lexicon.
(2001) Lexico-semantic universals
Goddard, Cliff (2001). Lexico-semantic universals: A critical overview. Linguistic Typology, 5(1), 1-65. DOI: 10.1515/lity.5.1.1
Are there any word meanings which are absolute and precise lexico-semantic universals, and if so, what kind of meanings are they? This paper assesses the status, in a diverse range of languages, of about 100 meanings which have been proposed by various scholars (linguists, anthropologists, psychologists) as potential universals. Examples include: ‘I’, ‘this’, ‘one’, ‘big’, ‘good’, ‘true’, ‘sweet’, ‘hot’, ‘man’, ‘mother’, ‘tree’, ‘water’, ‘sun’, ‘wind’, ‘ear’, ‘say’, ‘do’, ‘go’, ‘sit’, ‘eat’, ‘give’, ‘die’, ‘maybe’, ‘because’. Though relatively small, the sample is variegated enough to justify the preliminary conclusion that the semantic primes proposed by Wierzbicka (1996) and colleagues are much stronger contenders for universal status than are terms designating natural phenomena, body parts, concrete objects, and other putative experiential or cultural universals.
(2001) Lexicon (universal units)
Goddard, Cliff (2001). Universal units in the lexicon. In Martin Haspelmath, Ekkehard König, Wulf Oesterreicher, & Wolfgang Raible (Eds.), Language typology and language universals: An international handbook: Vol. 2 (pp. 1190-1203). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110171549.2.11.1190
It is impossible to proclaim with absolute certainty that any meaning is universally attested as the meaning of a lexical unit in all languages. The sample of languages on which we are able to obtain information and analysis of the necessary quality is too small. This does not mean, however, that no firm conclusions can be reached.
First, even a small sample of languages shows that only very few meanings have any chance at all of being universal. Many impressionistically “basic” items of English vocabulary (such as go, water, and eat) lack precise equivalents in other languages.
Second, it emerges very clearly that it is among the semantic primes identified within the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach that the best candidates for the status of universal meanings are found. Of the 25 or so prime meanings we consider in this paper, all are strong candidates for universal status. On the other hand, of the 25 or so NON-prime candidates for universal status reviewed in this article, only ‘man’, ‘woman’, ‘mother’, ‘day’, and ‘make’ seem to have much hope of being lexical universals.
Constraints of space prevent us from canvassing the entire inventory of 55-odd NSM primes. Aside from various predicates we do not examine (including say, see, hear, there is, have, live, die), there are entire “minidomains” of temporal, spatial, and “logical” meanings we leave untouched. Though it is too early to be conclusive, sufficient cross-linguistic evidence is available to indicate that all or most of them are plausible lexical universals.
(2001) Malay – Cultural key words / Emotions / Ethnopsychology and personhood
Goddard, Cliff (2001). Hati: A key word in the Malay vocabulary of emotion. In Jean Harkins, & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.), Emotions in crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 167-195). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110880168.167
Abstract:
The word hati is one of the key words of Malay culture: it functions as a conceptual focal point for an entire complex of characteristically Malay values, attitudes and expectations. By studying the meaning and uses of this one word we can learn a surprising amount about Malay culture – in particular, about the conceptualization of emotion in Malay culture.
The aims of this paper are threefold: first, to outline the range of use and collocational possibilities of hati, informally comparing and contrasting it with English heart; second, to advance and argue for an explicit semantic explication of hati in its core or central meaning (as in an expression like hati orang ‘a person’s hati‘); third, to explicate the semantics of five common fixed expressions involving hati, all of which designate what we might term feeling states or emotional reactions: susah hati ‘troubled, worried’, senang hati ‘relaxed, easy at heart’; sakit hati ‘annoyed, offended’, puas hati ‘satisfied (with someone)’, and kecil hati ‘feel hurt’.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(2001) Malay – Focus particles (PUN)
Goddard, Cliff (2001). The polyfunctional Malay focus particle pun. Multilingua, 20(1), 27-59. DOI: 10.1515/multi.2001.002
This is a study of the usage and semantics of the focus particle pun in contemporary Malay (Bahasa Melayu), the national language of Malaysia. Drawing on a sizeable corpus of naturally occurring textual examples, I propose a small set of semantic explications for pun, within the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework. The polyfunctionality of pun, and its diverse range of translation equivalents and effects, is shown to be attributable partly to polysemy and partly to the operation of contextual inference.
(2001) NSM primes (early language development)
Goddard, Cliff (2001). Conceptual primes in early language development. In Martin Pütz, & Susanne Niemeier (Eds.), Applied Cognitive Linguistics: Vol. 1. Theory and language acquisition (pp. 193-227). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110866247.193
The present study explores certain hypotheses about the nature and identities of the innate concepts which may underpin language acquisition. These hypotheses have arisen from one of the most promising and productive approaches to cognitive semantics – the natural semantic metalangage (NSM) approach originated by Anna Wierzbicka. Though the NSM approach has been responsible for literally hundreds of descriptive studies in lexical and grammatical semantics and pragmatics across a wide range of languages, it has not been applied very extensively to language acquisition. I hope to show, however, that the NSM approach generates interesting research hypotheses on language acquisition and allows for increased precision and testability in the notoriously difficult area of child language semantics. In particular, it enables one to propose concrete and constrained semantic analyses of early “child meanings”, proposals of a kind which are surprisingly sparse in the otherwise abundant literature on early lexical development.
(2001) Polish – Emotions (PRZYKRO)
Wierzbicka, Anna (2001). A culturally salient Polish emotion: Przykro [pron. ‘pshickro]. In Jean Harkins, & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.), Emotions in crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 337-357). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110880168.337
Abstract:
The author analyses, on the basis of naturally occurring examples, the Polish word przykro, which, she argues, plays an important role in Polish emotion talk. She compares and contrasts this word with its closest English counterparts, such as hurt, offended, sorry, and sad, and she shows how each of these English words differs in meaning from the Polish key word przykro. To be able to show, clearly and precisely, what these differences are, she uses NSM and, in doing so, seeks to demonstrate the explanatory power of the proposed framework (the “NSM” semantic theory). At the same time, the author shows how language-specific lexical categories such as the Polish word przykro are linked with a culture’s core values. She also shows the cultural implications of the lexical category “hurt” in Anglo culture, and discusses the cultural implications of the absence of a word like przykro in English, and of a word like hurt in Polish.
More information:
Also published as:
Wierzbicka, Anna (2001). A culturally salient Polish emotion: Przykro [‘pshickro]. The International Journal of Group Tensions, 30(1), 3-27. DOI: 10.1023/a:1026697815334
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(2001) Polish – Verbal aspect
Wierzbicka, Anna (2001). Universal semantic primitives and the semantics of the Polish aspect. In Viktor S. Chrakovskij, Maciej Grochowski, & Gerd Hentschel (Eds.), Studies on the syntax and semantics of Slavonic languages: Papers in honour of Andrzej Boguslawski on the occasion of his 70th birthday (pp. 429-448). Oldenburg: Bibliotheks- und Informationssystem der Universität Oldenburg.
(2001) What did Jesus mean? [BOOK]
Wierzbicka, Anna (2001). What did Jesus mean? Explaining the sermon on the mount and the parables in simple and universal human concepts. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/0195137337.001.0001
Translated into Polish as:
Wierzbicka, Anna (2002). Co mówi Jezus? Objaśnianie przypowieści ewangelicznych w słowach prostych i uniwersalnych. Warszawa: PWN.
This book explores the meaning of Jesus’ key sayings and parables from a radically new perspective – that of simple and universal human concepts, found in all languages. Building on modern biblical criticism in general and the vast literature on the Sermon on the Mount and the parables in particular, the author also brings to the task a close knowledge of recent developments in linguistics, anthropology, and cultural psychology. Her explanations of “what Jesus meant” build on her work as the author of many books on cultural diversity and the universals of language and thought.
(2002) Chinese (Mandarin) – ’Emotional adverbs’
Ye, Zhengdao (2002). ‘I’m not a ghost!’: Semantic analyses of some ‘emotional adverbs’ in Mandarin Chinese. In Peter Collins, & Mengistu Amberber (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2002 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society. http://www.als.asn.au/proceedings/als2002.html. PDF (open access)
This paper constitutes a first attempt to carry out a systematic and in-depth semantic analysis of a selected set of ‘emotional adverbs’ in Mandarin Chinese, an area that has received little attention in Western linguistic discussion. It shows that, as elusive as their meanings are, with a rigorous semantic tool, the core meanings of emotional adverbs can be uncovered and stated in a clear and precise manner, making this category and its semantic contents accessible to both linguists and learners of Mandarin Chinese.
The analysis of you reveals that it expresses more than a simple ‘denial’, as commonly understood. Instead, it expresses a denial of an unstated message, which means an inference is being made by the speaker. In one of its uses, pian suggests a degree of perplexity towards an event that could have been avoided but that happened nonetheless, putting the speaker at the receiving end. In a different use, it is the speaker him- or herself who goes against someone else’s wish.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(2002) Chinese (Mandarin) – Emotions and the body
Ye, Zhengdao (2002). Different modes of describing emotions in Chinese: Bodily changes, sensations, and bodily images. Pragmatics & Cognition, 10, 307-339. DOI: 10.1075/pc.10.12.13ye
In Chinese talk about emotions, the body is linguistically codified in different ways. There are three general modes of emotion description: one that relies on externally observable (involuntary) bodily changes, a second one that relies on sensations, and a third one that relies on figurative bodily images. While an attempt is made to introduce a typology of subcategories within each mode of emotion description, the paper focuses on the meaning of different iconic descriptions through the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM). On the one hand, the linguistic evidence, from a Chinese perspective, attests to the emotional universals proposed by Wierzbicka (1999). On the other, it points to cultural diversity in the bodily conceptualization and interpretation of emotional experiences, which are crystallized in the linguistic conventions of Chinese emotion talk, including certain syntactic constructions. The paper also demonstrates the importance of examining the language of emotions in emotion studies, and concludes that a full account of emotions must include an examination of the language used to talk about them.
Explications are included for the following words and phrases: 煎熬 jiān’áo ‘simmering and stewing’, xin xiang zhen zha side ‘(my) heart is being pricked by needles’, 胆破 dǎn pò ‘broken gallbladders’, 魂不附体 hún bú fù tǐ ‘escaped souls’, 牵肠挂肚 qiān cháng guà dù ‘pulling on an intestine and hanging on a stomach’, xuan xin ‘heart dangling’, 心里七上八下 xīn li qī shàng bā xià ‘a heart like seven up and eight down’, 肝火 gānhuǒ ‘liver fire’.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(2002) Emotions
Goddard, Cliff (2002). Explicating emotions across languages and cultures: A semantic approach. In Susan R. Fussell (Ed.), The verbal communication of emotions: Interdisciplinary perspectives (pp. 19-53). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
This chapter sketches out the integrated and meaning-based approach to the study of emotions that has been pioneered by Anna Wierzbicka. It seeks to bring together the study of the emotion lexicon of different languages with the study of different “cultural scripts” that are one factor (among others, of course) influencing the expression of emotions in discourse. More than this, it also aims to take in the encoding of emotional meanings by means of other linguistic devices, such as exclamations and specialized grammatical constructions, and even the encoding of emotional meanings in facial expressions and kinaesthetics. Because the Natural Semantic Metalanguage is based on simple, universally available meanings, it provides a tool that enables us to undertake this very broad range of investigations across languages and cultures, while minimizing the risk of ethnocentrism creeping into the very terms of description.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(2002) Emotions and body parts
Enfield, N. J., & Wierzbicka, Anna (2002). Introduction: The body in description of emotion. Pragmatics & Cognition, 10(1/2), 1-25. DOI: 10.1075/pc.10.12.02enf
Introduction to a special issue of Pragmatics & Cognition.
Anthropologists and linguists have long been aware that the body is explicitly referred to in conventional description of emotion in languages around the world. There is abundant linguistic data showing expression of emotions in terms of their imagined “locus” in the physical body. The most important
methodological issue in the study of emotions is language, for the ways people talk give us access to “folk descriptions” of the emotions. “Technical terminology”, whether based on English or otherwise, is not excluded from this “folk” status. It may appear to be safely “scientific” and thus culturally neutral, but in fact it is not: technical English is a variety of English and reflects, to some extent, culture-specific ways of thinking (and categorising) associated with the English language. People — as researchers studying other
people, or as people in real-life social association — cannot directly access the emotional experience of others, and language is the usual mode of “packaging” one’s experience so it may be accessible to others. Careful description of linguistic data from as broad as possible a cross-linguistic base is thus an important part of emotion research. All people experience biological events and processes associated with certain thoughts (or, as psychologists say, “appraisals”), but there is more to “emotion” than just these physiological phenomena. Speakers of some languages talk about their emotional experiences as if they are located in some internal organ such as “the liver”, yet they cannot localise feeling in this physical organ. This phenomenon needs to be understood better, and one of the problems is finding a method of comparison that allows us to compare descriptions from different languages which show apparently great formal and semantic variation. Some simple concepts including feel and body are universal or near-universal, and as such are good candidates for terms of description which may help to
eradicate confusion and exoticism from cross-linguistic comparison and semantic typology. Semantic analysis reveals great variation in concepts of emotion across languages and cultures—but such analysis requires a sound and well-founded methodology.While leaving room for different approaches to the task, we suggest that such a methodology can be based on empirically established linguistic universal (or near-universal) concepts, and on “cognitive scenarios” articulated in terms of these concepts. Also, we warn against the danger of exoticism involved in taking all body part references “literally”. Above all, we argue that what is needed is a combination of empirical cross-linguistic investigations and a theoretical and methodological awareness, recognising the impossibility of exploring other people’s emotions
without keeping language in focus: both as an object and as a tool of study.
