Browsing results for Main Authors
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 3, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2009). Cultural scripts. In Gunter Senft, Jan-Ola Östman, & Jef Verschueren (Eds.), Culture and language use (pp. 68-80). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/hoph.2.07god
Previously published as:
Goddard, Cliff (2006). Cultural scripts. In Jan-Ola Östman, & Jef Verschueren (Eds.), Handbook of pragmatics: Vol. 10. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/hop.10.cul2
The term ‘cultural script’ refers to a technique for articulating culture-specific norms, values, and practices in terms which are clear, precise, and accessible to cultural insiders and outsiders alike. This result is possible because cultural scripts are formulated in the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) of semantic primes, a highly constrained ‘mini-language’ of simple words and grammatical patterns which evidence suggests have equivalents in all languages. Cultural scripts exist at different levels of generality (high level and lower level; high level scripts are sometimes referred to as master scripts). They may relate to different aspects of thinking, speaking, and behaviour. The cultural scripts approach offers a promising method for describing cultural norms and practices in a way that is free from Anglocentrism and that lends itself to direct practical applications in intercultural communication and education.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (S) active metaphorizing, (S) addressing adults, (S) directives, (S) expressiveness, (S) greeting, (S) interaction with respected old people, (S) interpersonal warmth, (S) names, (S) personal autonomy, (S) Philosophy of the Middle Way, (S) positive thinking, (S) projection of positive feelings, (S) return in kind for one's deeds, (S) supernatural beings, (S) think first, (S) vertical model of society
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2009). Language and metalanguage: Key issues in emotion research. Emotion Review, 1(1), 3-14. DOI: 10.1177/1754073908097175
Building on the author’s earlier work, this paper argues that language is a key issue in understanding human emotions and that treating English emotion terms as valid analytical tools continues to be a roadblock in the study of emotions. Further, it shows how the methodology developed by the author and colleagues, known as NSM (Natural Semantic Metalanguage), allows us to break free of the shackles of English psychological terms and explore human emotions from a culture-independent perspective. The use of NSM makes it possible to study human emotions from a genuinely cross-linguistic and cross-cultural, as well as a psychological, perspective and thus opens up new possibilities for the scientific understanding of subjectivity and psychological experience.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) adēmonein αδημονείν, (E) ekthambeisthai εκθαμβεισθαι, (E) fear, (T) English
Published on August 2, 2018. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Besemeres, Mary, & Wierzbicka, Anna (2009). Emotion terms as a window on culture, social psychology and subjective experience. In S. V. Ionov et al. (Eds.), Language and emotions: Semantic and pragmatic aspects. Festschrift for Viktor Ivanovich Shakhovsky (pp. 14-32). Volgograd: Volgograd University Press.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on August 18, 2018. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2009). The language of “bullying” and “harassment”. Quadrant, 53(12), 102-107.
While there is no shortage of various attempted definitions of bullying, they are usually lacking in clarity, precision and explanatory value. This is partly because to provide an adequate definition of bullying one needs to consider closely not only human behaviour but also the meanings of words and ways in which these meanings can be accurately defined and intelligibly explained.
What matters here is not how the word should be used, or what it should mean, but rather, what it actually means as it is normally used by “ordinary people”. It is this plain meaning manifested in “ordinary people’s” use of the word which functions as part of the shared conceptual
currency of speakers of English. To identify this meaning accurately and intelligibly we need a workable methodology. Such a methodology can be found in the so-called “NSM” (from “Natural Semantic Metalanguage”) approach. Using this approach, we can overcome the inadequacies of traditional models of definition, and we can actually explain the meaning of words, in ways which can be both cognitively accurate and socially and educationally useful.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) bully, (E) bullying, (E) harassment
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2009). The ‘communication concept’ and the ‘language concept’ in everyday English. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 29(1), 11-25. DOI: 10.1080/07268600802516350
This paper presents a semantic/conceptual analysis of the concepts of communication and language, as represented in the lexicon of everyday English. Section 1 gives a brief orientation to the method to be employed, the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach originated by Anna Wierzbicka. In the main body of the paper, I propose semantic explications for several senses of the English words communicate, communication and language, supporting these explications by reference to naturally occurring data, and, in the case of polysemy, by reference to distinctive grammatical or phraseological properties of the polysemic meanings. The paper closes with observations on how the differing semantics of the ‘communication concept’ and the ‘language concept’ may contribute to the differing orientations of linguistics and communication studies.
Lexical Semantics; Communication; Language Concept; NSM
Published on August 2, 2018. Last updated on September 1, 2018.
Besemeres, Mary, & Wierzbicka, Anna (2009). The concept of frustration: A culture-specific emotion and a cultural key word. In Agata Błachnio, & Aneta Przepiórka (Eds.), Closer to emotions: Vol. 3 (pp. 211-226). Lublin: KUL.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2009). What makes a good life? A cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4, 260-272.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 13, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2009). Exploring English phraseology with two tools: NSM semantic methodology and Google. Journal of English Linguistics, 37(2), 101-129. DOI: 10.1177/0075424209334338
A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 10 (pp. 395-406) of:
Wierzbicka, Anna (2010). Experience, evidence, and sense: The hidden cultural legacy of English. New York: Oxford University Press.
The study of phraseology, which not long ago was often dismissed as a linguistic activity of only minor interest, has now come into its own and is an increasingly popular and diversified field, with many different approaches and foci of interest. Significantly, regardless of their particular focus and goals, more and more writers adopt corpus-based approaches to phraseological phenomena. This article arises from a larger study of various phraseological networks based on the English cultural key word sense (as in, e.g., a sense of humour, a sense of direction and a sense of relief), and it explores some types of sense-based collocations with two tools: the NSM (Natural Semantic Metalanguage) semantic methodology and Google. The article argues that the use of corpora and the Web combined with the use of NSM methodology opens new perspectives for the semantic and cultural study of English phraseology.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) mission, (E) sense, (T) English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 3, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2009). Not taking yourself too seriously in Australian English: Semantic explications, cultural scripts, corpus evidence. Intercultural Pragmatics, 6(1), 29-53. DOI: 10.1515/IPRG.2009.002
In the mainstream speech culture of Australia (as in the UK, though perhaps more so in Australia), taking yourself too seriously is culturally
proscribed. This study applies the techniques of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) semantics and ethnopragmatics (Goddard 2006b, 2008; Wierzbicka 1996, 2003, 2006a) to this aspect of Australian English speech culture. It first develops a semantic explication for the language-specific expression taking yourself too seriously, thus helping to give access to an ‘‘insider perspective’’ on the practice. Next, it seeks to identify some of the broader communicative norms and social attitudes that are involved, using the method of cultural scripts (Goddard and Wierzbicka 2004). Finally, it investigates the extent to which predictions generated from the analysis can be supported or disconfirmed by contrastive analysis of Australian English corpora as against other English corpora, and by the use of the Google search engine to explore different subdomains of the World Wide Web.
Published on November 19, 2018. Last updated on November 19, 2018.
Годдард, Клифф [Goddard, Cliff] (2009). “Следуй путем рисового поля”: семантика пословиц в английском и малайском языках [“Sleduy putem risovogo polya”: semantika poslovits v angliyskom i malayskom yazykakh / “Follow the way of the rice plant”: The semantics of proverbs in English and Malay (Bahasa Melayu)]. Жанры речи [Zhanry rechi / Speech genres], 6, 184-207.
Russian translation of a paper presented at the Wenner-Gren Foundation Symposium on Ritual Communication, Portugal, 17-23 March 2007. Updated and published in English as chapter 8 of:
Goddard, Cliff & Wierzbicka, Anna (2014). Words and meanings: Lexical semantics across domains, languages, and cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
No English abstract available. The proverbs explicated (in Russian) include: (English) A stitch in time saves nine, Make hay while the sun shines, Out of the frying pan into the fire, Practice makes perfect, All that glitters is not gold, Too many cooks spoil the broth, You can’t teach an old dog new tricks; Where there’s smoke there’s fire; (Malay) Ikut resmi padi ‘Follow the way of the rice plant’, Seperti ketam mangajar anak berjalan betul ‘Like a crab teaching its young to walk straight’, Binasa badan kerana mulut ‘The body suffers because of the mouth’, ‘Ada gula, ada semut ‘Where there’s sugar, there’s ants’, Seperti katak di bawah tempurung ‘Like a frog under a coconut shell’, Keluar mulut harimau masuk mulut buaya ‘Out from the tiger’s mouth into the crocodile’s mouth’, Bila gajah dan gajah berlawan kancil juga yang mati tersepit ‘When elephant fights elephant it’s the mousedeer that’s squashed to death’.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (T) Russian
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2009). “Like a crab teaching its young to walk straight”: Proverbiality, semantics, and indexicality in English and Malay. In Gunter Senft, & Ellen B. Basso (Eds.), Ritual communication (pp. 103-125). New York: Berg.
My objective is to give a balanced, contrastive treatment of the textual semantics, cultural-historical positioning, and interdiscursivity of proverbs in two widely different speech cultures. In what follows, I look first at contemporary English, addressing the way proverbs, as instances of a language-specific category, can be identified on linguistic evidence. I propose a template in the NSM metalanguage to articulate the semantic framing inherent in the proverb genre (essentially, the semantic content of “proverbiality”) and demonstrate the utility of the approach with a full analysis of several English metaphorical proverbs (“A stitch in time saves nine”) and maxims (“Practice makes perfect”). I discuss aspects of the interdiscursivity of proverbs in English, with particular reference to the ethos of modernity. In the remainder of the chapter, I apply a parallel analysis and discussion to proverbs (peribahasa) in contemporary Malay, including the metaphorical Malay proverb Seperti ketam mengajar anak berjalan betul ‘like a crab teaching its young to walk straight’.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff, & Wierzbicka, Anna (2009). Contrastive semantics of physical activity verbs: ‘Cutting’ and ‘chopping’ in English, Polish, and Japanese. Language Sciences, 31, 60-96. DOI: 10.1016/j.langsci.2007.10.002
This study explores the contrastive lexical semantics of verbs comparable to ‘cut’ and ‘chop’ in three languages (English, Polish, and Japanese), using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) technique of semantic analysis. It proposes a six-part semantic template, and argues that this template can serve as a basis for a lexical typology of complex physical activity verbs in general. At the same time, it argues that language-specific aspects of the semantics are often culturally motivated. Nine verbs are examined (English cut, chop, slice, Polish ciąć ‘‘cut’’, krajać ‘‘cut/slice’’, obcinać ‘‘cut around’’, rąbać ‘‘chop’’, Japanese kiru ‘‘cut’’, kizamu ‘‘chop’’), and NSM explications are proposed for each one based on its range of use in natural contexts, thus capturing the semantic similarities and differences in fine-grained detail.
Contrastive semantics; Lexical semantics; Physical activity verbs; NSM; Lexical typology; Semantic template; Lexicology; Polysemy; Semantics and culture
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 15, 2021.
Bromhead, Helen (2009). The reign of truth and faith: Epistemic expressions in 16th and 17th century English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
This ground-breaking study in the historical semantics and pragmatics of 16th and 17th century English examines the meaning, use and cultural underpinnings of confident- and certain-sounding epistemic expressions, such as forsooth, by my troth and in faith, and first person epistemic phrases, such as I suppose, I ween and I think. It supports the hypothesis that the British Enlightenment and its attendant empiricism brought about a profound epistemic shift in ways of thinking and speaking. In contrast to the modern ethos of empiricism and doubt, the 16th and 17th centuries were dominated by an ethos of truth and faith, which manifests itself (among other ways) in the meanings and usages of epistemic expressions for certainty and confidence.
The study is firmly based on evidence from texts and collocations in the writings of the day and is conducted using the framework of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM).
Reviewed by:
Gladkova, Anna (2012). Intercultural Pragmatics, 9(2), 281-285. DOI: 10.1515/ip-2012-0016
Levisen, Carsten (2012). Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 22(1), 128-129. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1395.2012.01120.x
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) by my faith, (E) by my troth, (E) forsooth, (E) I suppose, (E) I think, (E) I trow, (E) I ween, (E) I wot, (E) in faith, (E) in truth, (E) methinks, (E) pleased, (E) probably, (E) really, (E) suppose, (E) surely, (E) truth, (E) verily
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Asano-Cavanagh, Yuko (2009). A semantic analysis of Japanese epistemic markers: Chigainai and hazuda. Language Sciences, 31(5), 837-852. DOI: 10.1016/j.langsci.2009.02.002
This paper presents a semantic analysis of two epistemic markers in Japanese, chigainai and hazuda. These are often translated as I am sure, must, or should in English, and they indicate the speaker’s certainty about the truth or falsehood of a proposition. While chigainai and hazuda are semantically similar, they are not always interchangeable. Thus, questions arise about the level of certainty implied by the terms and also about how to articulate their differences.
Although certainty is a convenient vehicle for capturing the meaning, it is problematic in explaining the differences between these synonyms since the level of certainty cannot be accurately articulated. Previous studies have attempted to explicate the differences between the two expressions by the use of qualifying terms such as ‘firm faith’, ‘reliable and firm grounds’, or ‘absolute basis for assertion’. These attempts are also problematic because the definitions they propose are not necessarily consistent with the actual usage of each expression. Alternatively, this paper adopts the framework of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) Theory. It addresses the issue of how to explain the speaker’s certainty by using semantic primes.
The findings of the study indicate that the semantic differences between chigainai and hazuda are not concerned with the degree of the speaker’s certainty. Instead, the meanings of the expressions are illustrated by cognitive scenarios such as ‘I can’t think not like this’, or ‘I think that it can’t be not like this’. The definitions proposed by this approach clarify the differences between chigainai and hazuda, and more generally serve as a practical guide to the understanding of the epistemic markers in Japanese.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) chigainai 違いない, (E) hazuda はずだ, (T) Japanese
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Tien, Adrian (2009). Semantic prime HAPPEN in Mandarin Chinese: In search of a viable exponent. Pragmatics & Cognition, 17(2), 356-382. DOI: 10.1075/p&c.17.2.07tie
HAPPEN is part of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) inventory of primes. Its most appropriate exponent in Mandarin Chinese was previously thought to be fa1sheng1. This article argues that fa1sheng1 is not the correct exponent of HAPPEN as it is marked for ‘adversity’ as well as what I call ‘serious mention’ or ‘noteworthiness’ of the event, i.e., that an event is sufficiently serious or noteworthy to fare a mention. This article puts forward you3, lit. ‘have, exist, happen’, and zen3(me)yang4 / zhe4(me)yang4, lit. ‘like how/like this’ instead, as allolexic exponents of HAPPEN in Mandarin Chinese. Though highly polysemous each in its own way, the HAPPEN sense of you3 and zen3(me)yang4 / zhe4(me)yang4 can, respectively, be shown to be semantically irreducible and pragmatically neutral. This article delineates some of the syntactic and contextual distributions attesting to the viability of you3 and zen3(me)yang4 / zhe4(me)yang4 as the Mandarin Chinese exponents of HAPPEN.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (T) Chinese (Mandarin)
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2009). The conceptual semantics of numbers and counting: An NSM analysis. Functions of Language, 16(2), 193-224. DOI: 10.1075/fol.16.2.02god
This study explores the conceptual semantics of numbers and counting, using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) technique of semantic analysis (Wierzbicka 1996; Goddard & Wierzbicka (eds.) 2002). It first argues that the concept of a number in one of its senses (number-1, roughly, “number word”) and the meanings of low number words, such as one, two, and three, can be explicated directly in terms of semantic primes, without reference to any counting procedures or practices. It then argues, however, that the larger numbers, and the productivity of the number sequence, depend on the concept and practice of counting, in the intransitive sense of the verb. Both the intransitive and transitive senses of counting are explicated, and the semantic relationship between them is clarified. Finally, the study moves to the semantics of abstract numbers (number-2), roughly, numbers as represented by numerals, e.g. 5, 15, 27, 36, as opposed to number words. Though some reference is made to cross-linguistic data and cultural variation, the treatment is focused primarily on English.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 16, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2009). Case in NSM: A reanalysis of the Polish dative. In Andrej Malchukov, & Andrew Spencer (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of case (pp. 151-169). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199206476.013.0011
Abstract:
In this chapter, I show how NSM can be applied to the study of cases by revisiting my earlier (1986) study of the Polish dative. Since that earlier study, the metalanguage has been significantly expanded and revised in the light of empirical cross-linguistic investigations. As this chapter hopes to show, its current form offers a more precise and more effective tool for exploring the meaning of cases. At the same time, this chapter continues the semantic approach to cases launched, in opposition to the then prevailing ‘autonomous syntax’ approaches, in the author’s 1980 book The case for surface case.
Translations:
Into Russian:
Chapter 9 (pp. 302-328) of Вежбицкая, Анна (2011), Семантические универсалии и базисные концепты [Semantic universals and basic concepts]. Москва [Moscow]: Языки славянских культуры [Languages of Slavic Culture].
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 22, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2009). The theory of the mental lexicon. In Sebastian Kempgen, Peter Kosta, Tilman Berger, & Karl Gutschmidt (Eds.), Die slavischen Sprachen/The Slavic languages: Eine internationales Handbuch zu ihrer Struktur, ihrer Geschichte und ihrer Erforsching/An international handbook of their structure, their history and their investigation: Volume 1 (pp. 848-863). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI : https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110214475.1.11.848
The main thesis of this article is that (contrary to what, for example, Chomsky claims) a great deal is by now known about the mental lexicon. First of all, there is currently a great deal of evidence that at the heart of this lexicon lies a set of sixty or so universal semantic primes, each with its own set of combinatory characteristics. Second, cross-linguistic evidence suggests that large sections of the mental lexicon have a hierarchical structure, with several levels of semantic molecules operating and thus allowing for great conceptual complexity to be combined with relatively simple semantic structures. Third, it is now clear that many sections of the mental lexicon are organized according to a certain pattern, or template, shared by a large number of words. Fourth, a large body of research has shown that the mental lexicon of the speakers of any given language includes many words whose meanings are unique to that particular language, and that such words – a language’s cultural key words – help bind the speakers of a language into a cohesive cultural community.
The chapter focuses in particular on the relatively new areas of semantic molecules and semantic templates. The illustrative material analysed is drawn from Polish and relates to emotions (including but not limited to emotions reminiscent of envy and compassion in English), speech acts (reminiscent of to order and to ask (someone about something) in English), names of animals (mice), and motion verbs.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) ask (someone to do something), (E) denerwować się, (E) doszed, (E) kazać, (E) martwić się, (E) mysz, (E) poszed, (E) prosić, (E) przeszed, (E) przyszed, (E) pytać, (E) współczuć, (E) wszed, (E) wyszed, (E) zazdrościć, (T) Polish
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2009). How to use both the NSM and CL approaches to meaning – Portuguese lexeme paixão ‘passion’. Studia Linguistica, 28, 31-41. PDF (open access)
The aim of this paper is to show that the NSM approach to meaning can be used together with some methodological tools elaborated within Cognitive Linguistics. By combining NSM explications, based on reductive paraphrase, with prototype semantics, stating that meaning of a lexeme has a centric structure (with some senses more salient than others) we are able to refer more accurately to the peripheral senses of a given word. The radial network diagram makes it possible to isolate precisely the lexical unit we are interested in and describe it in terms of semantic primes.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) paixão, (T) English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2009). Pragmatics and cultural values: The hot centre of Russian discourse. In B. Fraser & K. Turner (Eds.), Language in life, and a life in language: Jacob Mey – A festschrift (pp. 423-434). Bingley: Emerald.
