Browsing results for Main Authors

(2011) English (Australia) – Cultural key words: THE BUSH

Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 15, 2021.

Bromhead, Helen (2011). The bush in Australian English. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 31(4), 445-471. DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2011.625600

Individual landscape terms in various languages do not always have exact equivalents in other languages, or even in different varieties of the same language. One example is the term the bush in Australian English. The bush denotes an Australian landscape zone, but the word has developed additional senses related to culture and human geography. This study delineates the semantics of the bush in Australian English in relation to Australian culture. These meanings of the bush are described using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach to linguistic analysis.

The study finds that the bush is a key word in Australian culture. The author shows that in Australian English and other settler Englishes the meanings of national landscape terms can shed light on the relationship between settlers’ cultures, and their new environments and ways of life.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2011) English, Arabic – Folk religious concepts

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 27, 2019.

Habib, Sandy (2011). Angels can cross cultural boundaries. RASK (International Journal of Language and Communication), 34, 49-75.

Open access

Abstract:

The aim of this study is to explore how ordinary Native English speakers and Muslim Arabs view English angel and its Arabic equivalent malāk, respectively. The two terms are examined and analysed based on linguistic data that show how people from each group understand and use one of these terms in their native language.

The results demonstrate that there are similarities and differences between the two concepts. The similarities include, among other things, (1) the categorization of angels and ‘malāʿika‘ (pl. of malāk), (2) their habitat, (3) their good nature, and (4) their relation with people. The differences are manifested mainly in the conceptualization of these creatures’ (visual) appearances. Being similar to each other, these two concepts may prove to be helpful in promoting cross-cultural communication between ordinary native English speakers and Muslim Arabs. Additionally, the analysis of the two terms can provide cultural outsiders with access to the insider perspective of each term.

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Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2011) English, French – False friends

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.

Peeters, Bert (2011). Les faux amis, une question de degré: l’apport de la métalangue sémantique naturelle [False friends, a matter of degree: the NSM contribution]. In Fabienne Baider, E. Lamprou, & M. Monville-Burston (Eds.), La marque en lexicographie: états présents, voies d’avenir (pp. 87-109). Limoges: Lambert-Lucas.

(2011) English, Hebrew, Arabic – Religion

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on July 26, 2020.

Habib, Sandy (2011). Contrastive lexical-conceptual analysis of folk religious concepts in English, Arabic, and Hebrew: NSM approach. PhD thesis, University of New England, Armidale.

Abstract:

The primary aim of this dissertation is to explore a number of religious concepts in English, Arabic, and Hebrew. It is the first detailed study of folk religious concepts from a linguistic vantage point. The concepts included in the study are those behind the English words angels, the devil, God, heaven, hell, martyr, sin, and grace, as well as their Arabic and Hebrew near-equivalents. The theoretical framework is that of the NSM approach.

To lay the groundwork, Arabic and Hebrew versions of NSM are established, which had not been done before. Semantic explications of the target religious concepts are then developed in terms that are both comprehensible to ordinary people and translatable between the three languages (English, Arabic, and Hebrew). This allows for easy identification of the similarities and differences among the various concepts in the languages under investigation.

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Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2011) English, Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara – Ethnogeographical categories

Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 15, 2021.

Bromhead, Helen (2011). Ethnogeographical categories in English and Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara. Language Sciences, 33, 58-75. DOI: 10.1016/j.langsci.2010.07.004

This study examines the contrastive lexical semantics of a selection of landscape terms in English and the Australian Aboriginal language, Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara. It argues that languages and cultures categorize the geographical environment in diverse ways. Common elements of classification are found across the languages, but it is argued that different priorities are given to these factors. Moreover, the study finds that there are language-specific aspects of the landscape terms, often motivated by culture and land use. Notably, this study presents ethnogeographical concepts as being anchored in an anthropocentric perspective, based on human vision and experience in space. The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) technique of semantic analysis is used throughout, and it is argued that this methodology provides an effective tool in the exploration of ethnogeographical categories.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2011) Japanese – Evidentials

Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 26, 2018.

Asano-Cavanagh, Yuko, & Cavanagh, Rob (2011). Semantic invariance and variance in linguistic analyses. In Jan Wright (Ed.), Researching across boundaries: AARE International Research in Education Conference proceedings. Hobart: Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE). http://www.aare.edu.au/publications-database.php. PDF (open access)

This paper was written for a symposium on invariance (The Invariance Condition in Educational Research: Invariance Between Groups, Instruments, Language and Across Time). The philosophical genre of hermeneutical phenomenology provided a perspective for examination of invariance in scientific research and linguistic analysis that applies the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) Approach. In both instances, a medium (theory and instruments) is constructed a priori on the assumption it will display invariance when taken out of the laboratory. The real world then inscribes the medium in accordance with qualitative differences (variance) in the phenomenon of interest. In this study, the medium is the Natural Semantic Metalanguage Approach and the phenomenon of interest are three Japanese ʻhearsayʼ markers: らしい rashii, そうだ sooda and って tte.

The raw data for this study are the meanings of らしい rashii, そうだ sooda and って tte as expressed in a corpus of eight novels written in Japanese and with English translations. Using the NSM Approachʼs syntactic rules, a combination of primes was used to define each marker. Reductive paraphrases that are simpler than the original words were identified by a process of semantic reduction. The resulting definitions comprised discrete components that defined the respective markers.

This NSM Approach analysis illustrates how explicating the differences between similar terms in one language and across more than one language needs a common medium with specific attributes. The medium requires that meaning be reduced to a level beyond which further simplification is not possible. This medium also limits the number of semantic primes to 64. It is the invariant nature of the NSM Approach that provides definitions that can accurately and consistently reveal qualitative differences between the terms – linguistic variance.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2011) Japanese – Tag questions

Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.

Asano-Cavanagh, Yuko (2011). An analysis of three Japanese tags: Ne, yone, and daroo. Pragmatics and Cognition, 19(3), 448-475. DOI: 10.1075/pc.19.3.04asa

This paper presents an analysis of three Japanese words: ne, yone, and daroo. These three expressions are often interpreted as tag questions in English. Although these words are semantically closely related, they are not always interchangeable. The subtle differences between them are difficult to grasp, especially for language learners. Numerous studies have been undertaken to clarify the meanings of ne, yone, and daroo. However, opinions vary among different scholars, and definitions for these markers are not fully established.

This paper applies the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach. It proposes new explications in terms of semantic primes. The proposed semantic formulas clarify the differences between the three expressions and serve as practical tools indicating criteria that can assist in choosing an appropriate word for a given situation.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2011) Leibniz

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 31, 2018.

Wierzbicka, Anna (2011). Common language of all people: The innate language of thought. Problems of information transmission, 47(4), 378-397. DOI: 10.1134/S0032946011040065

English translation of a Russian text (2011) published in Problemy Peredachi Informatsii, 47(4), 84-103.

As is well known, Leibniz was interested in language throughout his life, and he saw in it a key to the understanding of the human mind. Many of his ideas about language were expressed in unpublished manuscripts, and what has come to us is not always clear. Nevertheless, some of his ideas — even if he did not always consistently adhere to them himself — seem to be both clear and extremely appealing.

I would summarize these ideas as follows:

1. All human thoughts can be decomposed into a relatively small number of elementary concepts;
2. All explanations depend on the existence of some concepts which are self-explanatory (otherwise, they would lead to an infinite regress);
3. The elementary concepts are common to all languages, and can be found by means of semantic analysis;
4. These concepts are the foundation of an innate language, “lingua naturae.” Just as mathematics is, as Galileo said, the language of the physical world, so the innate “lingua naturae” is the language of the inner world, the language of thoughts;
5. This language can be identified;
6. This language can serve as an auxiliary means of mutual understanding for speakers of different languages;
7. This language can help us to reach a greater clarity in our thinking;
8. This language can serve as a means for clarifying, elucidating, storing and comparing ideas.

These are also the main ideas which lie at the basis of the NSM program and from which this program has derived and continues to derive its inspiration.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2011) Mandarin Chinese – NSM primes in child language

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.

Tien, Adrian (2011). Lexical semantics of children’s Mandarin Chinese during the first four years. München: Lincom.

Revised version of the author’s PhD thesis, The semantics of children’s Mandarin Chinese: The first four years (University of New England, Armidale, 2005).

If children’s early words or word-like “phrasemes” have any meanings at all, then it should be possible to study and analyse their meanings. But how can early words and meanings be rigorously studied and analysed? In examining naturalistic production data from forty-seven subjects acquiring Mandarin during the first four years, this innovative study takes a radical, semantic approach to words and their meanings in child Mandarin through adopting the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach.

Amongst our findings, lexical exponents of sixty-one or so semantic primes posited in NSM are present in child Mandarin before the end of the fourth year. Many of these are among the earliest and the most frequent words that children produce. In addition, combinatorial properties of these lexical exponents also support hypotheses advanced about universal syntax within the NSM framework, despite challenges posed by a few exponents.

Early vocabulary comprises a great many semantically complex, i.e. “non-prime”, words. Before an NSM prime acquires a lexical exponent, it may first be conceptually present as core semantic elements in the meanings of common non-prime words. This phenomenon is termed “latency”: a semantic prime is considered “latent” when it is first represented conceptually and expounded lexically only later in development.

On the whole, in adopting a representational system (NSM) that is commensurable with the adult system, this study demonstrates that there is, in fact, developmental continuity between the young child’s semantic system and the adult’s system.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2011) Moral absolutes

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.

Wierzbicka, Anna (2011). Moral absolutes and the multiplicity of languages. Quadrant, …
(12), 81-88.

To delineate the conceptual structure of moral norms and to render it transparent we need also to reflect on the problem of language. We cannot achieve “a common understanding” if we don’t address the question of the multiplicity of languages. I believe that key value concepts encoded in the vocabulary of
different languages can contribute moral insights to the global pool of moral understanding. Value concepts such as “omenie”, “fairness” or “loyalty” are not empirical moral universals, recognised by all, or even most, human groups. They crystallise distinct, culture-specific perspectives arising from the moral experience of particular human groups and as such are worthy of attentive consideration by people from other groups. I would suggest that studying key moral concepts from many different cultural traditions could be one way (among others) to approach the formidable task of moral education in multicultural countries, and in the global world. At the very least, such education would stretch the moral imagination of young people, and enable them to look at life from many different moral
perspectives.

(2011) NSM and lexicography

Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 17, 2021.

Bullock, David (2011). NSM + LDOCE: A non-circular dictionary of English. International Journal of Lexicography, 24(2), 226-240.

DOI: 10.1093/ijl/ecq035

Abstract:

This paper describes an approach used to test the expressive power of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) and its tiny set of semantic primes. A small dictionary was created, using NSM to paraphrase definitions for each word in the controlled defining vocabulary of the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE). Student participants performed several headword-identification tasks to evaluate the quality of these definitions. The resulting 2000-word dictionary is non-circular, and by extension provides non-circular definitions for all the words in the LDOCE.


Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner

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(2011) NSM primes

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.

Goddard, Cliff (2011). Semantic primitives (primes). In Patrick Colm Hogan (Ed.), The Cambridge encyclopedia of the language sciences (pp. 740-742). New York: Cambridge University Press.

(2011) Russian – Arguing

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.

Wierzbicka, Anna (2011). Arguing in Russian: Why Solzhenitsyn’s fictional arguments defy translation. Russian Journal of Communication, 4(1/2), 8-37.

This paper discusses patterns of ‘arguing’ which prevails in Russian speech culture and shows that they differ profoundly from those characteristic of modern Anglo culture(s). The author focuses on the extended arguments (spory) in Solzhenitsyn’s novel ‘In the First Circle’ and shows that many linguistic and cultural aspects of the original are lost in the English translation. She argues that this was inevitable because English doesn’t have and “doesn’t need” linguistic resources to render various aspects of Russian communicative practices, which are culture-specific and have no counterparts in Anglophone
culture(s). The paper shows too that the techniques of semantic analysis developed in the “NSM” approach to cultural semantics help explain why Solzhenitsyn’s fictional arguments defy translation, and more generally, how they can be used to identify some deep differences between Russian and Anglo
speech cultures and communicative norms.

(2011) Semantic analysis: A practical introduction [BOOK]

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 17, 2019.

Goddard, Cliff (2011). Semantic analysis: A practical introduction. Second edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Revised and expanded version of:

Goddard, Cliff (1998). Semantic analysis: A practical introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

The summary below reflects the contents of the second edition.

This lively textbook introduces students and scholars to practical and precise methods for articulating the meanings of words and sentences, and for revealing connections between language and culture. Topics range over emotions (Chapter 4), speech acts (Chapter 5), discourse particles and interjections (Chapter 6), words for animals and artefacts (Chapter 7), motion verbs (Chapter 8), physical activity verbs (Chapter 9), causatives (Chapter 10), and nonverbal communication. Alongside English, it features a wide range of other languages, including Malay, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Spanish, and Australian Aboriginal languages. Undergraduates, graduate students and professional linguists alike will benefit from Goddard’s wide-ranging summaries, clear explanations and analytical depth. Meaning is fundamental to language and linguistics. This book shows that the study of meaning can be rigorous, insightful and exciting.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2011) Semantic universals and basic concepts [BOOK]

Published on August 25, 2017. Last updated on June 16, 2019.

Вежбицкая, Анна [Wierzbicka, Anna] (2011). Семантические универсалии и базисные концепты [Semantic universals and basic concepts]. Москва [Moscow]: Языки славянских культуры [Languages of Slavic Culture].

Abstract:

This book is an anthology of papers and chapters by Anna Wierzbicka, originally published in English  and appearing here in a Russian translation. Chapter 11 may have been originally written in Russian.

Table of contents:

Семантические универсалии (Semantic universals)

1. Из введения в книгу «Семантика: примитивы и универсалии» [From the introduction to the book Semantics: Primes and universals]
2. Семантические универсалии и «примитивное мышление» [Semantic universals and “primitive thought”]
3. Прототипы и инварианты [Prototypes and invariants]
4. Приложение [Illustration; Russian versions of NSM explications for flowers, animals and apples]

Семантика грамматики (Semantics of grammar)

5. Семантическая основа грамматического описания и типология: переходность и возвратность [A semantic basis for grammatical description and typology: Transitivity and reflexives]
6. Что значит имя существительное? (или: Чем существительные отличаются по значению от прилагательных?) [What’s in a noun? (Or: How do nouns differ in meaning from adjectives?)]
7. Лексические прототипы как универсальное основание межъязыковой идентификации «частей речи» [Lexical prototypes as a universal basis for cross-linguistic identification of “parts of speech”]
8. Дело о поверхностном падеже [The case for surface case]
9. Семантическое описание падежей в терминах ЕСМ: новый анализ польского дательного падежа [Semantic description of case in NSM: A reanalysis of the Polish dative]

Ключевые темы в русской культуре и языке (Key themes in Russian culture and language)

10. Русский язык [The Russian language]
11. Русские культурные скрипты и их отражение в языке [Russian cultural scripts and their reflection in the language]
12. Судьба и предопределение [Fate and destiny]

Семантический анализ евангельских текстов (Semantic analysis of gospel texts)

13. Значение Иисусовых притч: семантический подход к Евангелиям [The meaning of Jesus’ parables: A semantic approach to the Gospels]
14. Как люди могут понимать чувства других, как они могут «читать» их лица? Иисус в Гефсимании [How can people understand the feelings of others, how can they “read” their faces? Jesus in Gethsemane]

More information:

Chapter 1 is a translation of: Semantics: Primes and universals (1996), chapter 1

Chapter 2 is a translation of: Semantic universals and primitive thought: The question of the psychic unity of humankind (1994)

Chapter 3 is a translation of: Semantics: Primes and universals (1996), chapter 4

Chapter 5 is a translation of: Semantics: Primes and universals (1996), chapter 14

Chapter 6 is a translation of: What’s in a noun? (Or: How do nouns differ in meaning from adjectives?) (1986)

Chapter 7 is a translation of: Lexical prototypes as a universal basis for cross-linguistic identification of “parts of speech” (2000)

Chapter 8 is a translation of: Excerpts of The case for surface case (1980)

Chapter 9 is a translation of: Case in NSM: A reanalysis of the Polish dative (2009)

Chapter 10 is a translation of: Semantics, culture, and cognition: Universal human concepts in culture-specific configurations (1992), chapter 12

Chapter 11 is a reprint of: Russian cultural scripts and their reflection in the language (2002)

Chapter 12 is a translation of: Semantics, culture, and cognition: Universal human concepts in culture-specific configurations (1992), chapter 2

Chapter 13 is a translation of: The meaning of Jesus’ parables: A semantic approach to the Gospels (1998)

Chapter 14 is a translation of: ?

See the original chapters for abstracts and links to explications and cultural scripts.

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(2011) Semantics and cognition

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.

Goddard, Cliff, & Wierzbicka, Anna (2011). Semantics and cognition. Wiley interdisciplinary reviews: Cognitive science, 2(2), 125-135. DOI: 10.1002/wcs.101

The words and grammar of any language encode a vast array of complex prepackaged concepts, most of them language-specific and culture-related. These concepts are manipulated routinely in almost every waking hour of most people’s lives. They are largely acquired in infancy and they are intersubjectively shared among members of the speech community. It is hard to imagine such elaborate and variable representation systems not having a substantial role to play in ordinary cognition, and yet the language-and-thought question continues to be a contested one across the various disciplines and sub-disciplines of cognitive science. This article provides an overview from the vantage point of linguistic semantics.

(2011) Spanish – DOLOR

Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.

Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2011). El dolor y el tango [Pain and tango]. Estudios hispánicos, 19, 27-37. PDF (open access)

Written in Spanish.

The present paper is dedicated to the analysis of the Spanish word dolor (‘pain’) on the basis of a corpus consisting of 100 tango lyrics. I describe the linguistic picture of dolor in tangos, demonstrating its cultural specificity. To describe its lexical and cultural meaning without an ethnocentric bias I rely on the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2012 sqq) Portuguese – CASA (3 sequential papers)

Published on August 10, 2018. Last updated on September 1, 2018.

Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2012). Portugalski DOM – uma casa portuguesa [Portuguese HOME]. In Maciej Abramowicz, Jerzy Bartmiński, & Iwona Bielińska-Gardziel (Eds.), Wartości w językowo-kulturowym obrazie świata Słowian i ich sąsiadów: Volume 1 (pp. 123-135). Lublin: UMCS.

Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2014). Portugalski DOM – badanie korpusowe [Portuguese HOME – corpus examination]. In Jerzy Bartmiński, Iwona Bielińska-Gardziel, & Stanisława Niebrzegowska-Bartmińska (Eds.), Wartości w językowo-kulturowym obrazie świata Słowian i ich sąsiadów: Volume 2. Wokół europejskiej aksjosfery (41-52). Lublin: UMCS.

Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2014). Jaki obraz DOMU mają młodzi Portugalczycy? Badanie ankietowe [How do young Portuguese picture their ‘home’? A survey]. In Iwona Bielińska-Gardziel, Stanisława Niebrzegowska-Bartmińska, & Joanna Szadura (Eds.), Wartości w językowo-kulturowym obrazie świata Słowian i ich sąsiadów: Volume 3. Problemy eksplikowania i profilowania pojęć (pp. 309-322). Lublin: UMCS.

Written in Polish. The first of the three papers is a virtual translation into Polish of a Portuguese original (2012), which has its own entry.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2012) Chinese – Cultural key words

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.

Tien, Adrian (2012). Chinese intercultural communication in the global setting, as reflected through contemporary key words in the Chinese multimedia. In Birgit Breninger, & Thomas Kaltenbacher (Eds.), Creating cultural synergies: Multidisciplinary perspectives on interculturality and interreligiosity (pp. 169-184). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

The author casts a closer look on Chinese-speaking communities and cultural key words, which he claims play an important role in intercultural competence. Chinese cultural key words allow one to gain various cultural glimpses on different aspects of modern Chinese culture and society.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2012) Chinese (Cantonese) – Discourse particles

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 9, 2020.

Wakefield, John C. (2012). A floating tone discourse morpheme: The English equivalent of Cantonese lo1. Lingua, 122(14), 1739-1762.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2012.09.008

Abstract:

Cantonese linguists have said that Cantonese sentence-final particles (SFPs) express the same kinds of meanings that are expressed by intonation in languages such as English, yet apparently no study has ever systematically attempted to discover whether any SFPs have English intonational equivalents. This study identifies the English intonational counterpart to the SFP 咯 lo1 by looking at the pitch contours of Cantonese-to-English audio translations, which were provided by four Cantonese/English native bilingual participants.

Based on the data, it is concluded that the English equivalent of 咯 lo1 is a high-falling pitch contour. A definition using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage is formulated to define 咯 lo1, and native English-speaker judgments indicate that this same definition also defines the meaning of 咯 lo1‘s English equivalent. Examples are given to demonstrate that this definition succeeds at defining either 咯 lo1 or its English equivalent in any context within which they are used. It is proposed that this 咯 lo1-equivalent pitch contour is a floating tone morpheme in the English lexicon. Linguists have long debated whether or not any forms of intonation have context-independent meanings. This study offers empirical evidence in support of the argument that they do.

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