Browsing results for Main Authors
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 18, 2019.
Levisen, Carsten (2012). Cultural semantics and social cognition: A case study on the Danish universe of meaning. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110294651
Abstract:
This book contributes to the emerging discipline of cultural semantics, and to the ongoing debates of linguistic diversity, metalanguage, and the use of linguistic evidence in studies of culture and social cognition. Presenting original, detailed studies of key words of Danish, it breaks new ground for the study of language and cultural values, offering new tools for comparative research into the diversity of semantic and cultural systems in contemporary Europe.
Based on evidence from the semantic categories of everyday language, such as the Danish concept of hygge (roughly ‘pleasant togetherness’), the book provides an integrative socio-cognitive framework for studying and understanding language-particular universes. The author uses NSM to account for the meanings of highly culture-specific and untranslatable linguistic concepts. It is argued that the worlds we live in are not linguistically and conceptually neutral, but rather that speakers who live by Danish concepts are likely to pay attention to their world in ways suggested by central Danish key words and lexical grids.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) co-cognition, (E) glad, (E) hygge, (E) hygger, (E) hygger sig, (E) janteloven, (E) lykkelig, (E) mener, (E) overskue, (E) security, (E) sind, (E) skråsikker, (E) stemning, (E) synes, (E) tilfreds, (E) tryg, (E) trygge rammer, (E) tryghed, (E) varm, (S) apprehension, (S) assertivity, (S) autonomous thinking, (S) categoricalness, (S) children, (S) cognitive relativism, (S) expectations, (S) humanism, (S) hygge, (S) imposing one's opinion, (S) living in the moment, (S) personal uniqueness, (S) self-worth, (S) strong group identity, (S) togetherness, (S) un-independence, (S) unreasonableness, (T) Danish
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on January 15, 2022.
Waters, Sophia (2012). “It’s rude to VP”: The cultural semantics of rudeness. Journal of Pragmatics, 44, 1051-1062. DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2012.02.002
Over recent years, linguists have given an increasing amount of attention to impoliteness studies. Oddly, however, little attention has yet been paid to the semantics of the English word rude. Lacking precise translation equivalents in many languages, rude is a key word revealing much about socially accepted ways of behaving in Anglo society. In Australian English, as in English generally, it is the primary ethno-descriptor in the domain of “impoliteness”. This paper provides a detailed lexical semantic analysis of rude in the productive formula It’s rude to VP, and also in the fixed expression rude word. The semantic explications are framed in the simple universal primes of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM). The argumentation is supported by data on Australian English collected from Google searches.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) rude, (E) rude word
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2012). The history of English seen as the history of ideas: Cultural change reflected in different translations of the New Testament. In Terttu Nevalainen, & Elizabeth Closs Traugott (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of the history of English (pp. 434-445). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199922765.013.0037
Research on the history of English has often been undertaken in a somewhat atomistic spirit, with an emphasis on particular areas of phonology, morphology, syntax, and (to a far lesser degree) lexicon, or on aspects of what Ferdinand de Saussure termed “external history.” However, there is no attempt to take a broader view of the overall direction in which the English language was going. This article argues that the history of English is closely linked with the history of ideas and spiritual culture. It looks at some aspects of the hidden cultural legacy of English by analysing selected examples from the Revised Standard Version of the New Testament and its successor, the New Revised Standard Version, and comparing them with the King James Version. It also examines some close links between semantic change, cultural history, and the history of ideas, and shows that these links can be investigated in a rigorous and illuminating manner with the aid of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage.
Tags: (E) beseech, (E) urge
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2012). The semantics of “sex” in a cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective. In Jurij Apresjan, Igor Boguslavsky, Marie-Claude L’Homme, Leonid Iomdin, Jasmina Milicevic, Alain Polguère, & Leo Wanner (Eds.), Meaning, text, and other exciting things: A festschrift to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Professor Igor Alexandrovič Mel’čuk (pp. 641-649). Moscow: Jazyki slavjanskoj kultury. PDF (open access)
This paper explores the meanings of the English word sex in a cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective, and argues that – unlike the universal and indefinable concept ‘die’ – the concept encoded in the present-day English word sex is culture-bound and is, in fact, a relatively recent conceptual artefact of Anglo culture. The paper seeks to show that the meanings of this word can be elucidated through the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) based on simple and universal concepts.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) sex
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 17, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2012). Cultural scripts and communication style differences in three Anglo Englishes (English English, American English and Australian English). In Barbara Kryk-Kastovsky (Ed.), Intercultural miscommunication past and present (pp. 101-120). Frankfurt: Peter Lang. DOI: 10.3726/978-3-653-01353-5
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 29, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2012). ‘Early interactions’ in Australian English, American English, and English English: Cultural differences and cultural scripts. Journal of Pragmatics, 44, 1038-1050.
DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2012.04.010
Abstract:
Different communicative styles pertaining to initial self-presentation have implications for mutual misperception, negative evaluation and stereotyping. This study applies the techniques of contrastive ethnopragmatics to communicative style in initial conversational interactions in three varieties of Anglo English: Australian English, American English, and English English. It proposes for each variety a distinctive suite of cultural scripts concerning matters such as presumed stance in relation to sameness and difference, degree of attention to accent and speech style, expected degree of interest in personal information about the interlocutor, expressions of accomplishments and ambitions, and ‘phatic complimenting’. Evidence is drawn from personal testimonies about cultural cross-talk, sociological and cultural studies, and contrastive corpus data.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 3, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2012). When cultural scripts clash: Miscommunication in “multicultural” Australia. In Barbara Kryk-Kastovsky (Ed.). Intercultural miscommunication past and present (pp. 121-148). Lódz: Peter Lang.
No abstract available.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 11, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2012). Is pain a human universal? Conceptualisation of pain in English, French and Polish. Colloquia Communia, 92, 29-53.
A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 6 (pp. 127-155) of:
Goddard, Cliff & Wierzbicka, Anna (2014). Words and meanings: Lexical semantics across domains, languages, and cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Note (11 September 2018): Tags will be added as soon as possible.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on July 25, 2020.
Habib, Sandy (2012). Meeting the prince of darkness: A semantic analysis of English the devil, Arabic ashshaytan, and Hebrew hasatan. In Gil’ad Zuckermann (Ed.), Burning Issues in Afro-Asiatic Linguistics (pp. 123-160). Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Abstract:
In Christianity, he is a fallen angel; in Islam, he is a kind of jinn, and, in Judaism, he is the only being of his kind. This being is known as the devil by English-speaking Christians, as الشيطان ashshayṭān by Muslim Arabs, and as הסטן hasatan by native Hebrew speakers. Notwithstanding the theological differences, the phrase the devil is almost always glossed in dictionaries and translated in books and stories as الشيطان ashshayṭān, in Arabic, and הסטן hasatan, in Hebrew, and vice versa. Consequently, there is good reason to believe that ordinary native English speakers, Muslim Arabs, and native Hebrew speakers would think that the devil, الشيطان ashshayṭān, and הסטן hasatan refer to the same non-human being. To verify this matter, this study explores these three concepts and delineates the similarities and differences between them.
Since the three concepts originate in three different cultures, each concept is analysed and described in a way that would make it understood, not only to cultural insiders, but also to outsiders. To explain the term the devil, for instance, using words such as supernatural and evil might be problematic, especially when such words (1) are themselves no less complex than devil and hence need explication and (2) do not have equivalents or exact equivalents in other languages. As a consequence, not any linguistic analysis can achieve the goals of this chapter. One method that can is the NSM approach.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) ashshayṭān الشيطان, (E) devil, (E) hasatan הסטן, (T) Arabic, (T) Hebrew
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 11, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2012). Is pain a human universal? A cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective on pain. Emotion Review, 4(3), 307-317. DOI: 10.1177/1754073912439761
A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 6 (pp. 127-155) of:
Goddard, Cliff & Wierzbicka, Anna (2014). Words and meanings: Lexical semantics across domains, languages, and cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pain is a global problem whose social, economic and psychological costs are immeasurable. It is now seen as the most common reason why people seek medical (including psychiatric) care. But what is pain? This article shows that the discourse of pain tends to suffer from the same problems of ethnocentrism and obscurity as the discourse of emotions in general. Noting that, in the case of pain, the costs of miscommunication are particularly high, this article offers a new paradigm for communicating about pain. It shows how the use of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) techniques can help in this area, as in other areas concerned with human subjectivity, and can lead to a greater understanding between psychologists, psychiatrists, medical practitioners, social workers, and ordinary suffering mortals.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) hurt, (E) hurting, (E) pain, (E) pika, (E) pleasure, (E) sore, (T) English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 3, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2012). ‘Advice’ in English and in Russian: A contrastive and cross-cultural perspective. In Holger Limberg, & Miriam A. Locher (Eds.), Advice in discourse (pp. 309-332). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/pbns.221.19wie
This paper argues that the English word advice encodes a language-specific perspective on the universe of discourse and that to analyse discourse in other languages and cultures in terms of this culture-specific English word would involve imposing on them an Anglocentric perspective. The paper introduces a different approach – the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach – based on 60 or so simple and universal human concepts. Using the NSM framework, the paper presents a comparative analysis of Russian and Anglo communicative norms and values associated with the English words advice and advise and their closest Russian counterparts, and demonstrates how the differences in the meanings of these words go hand-in-hand with differences in cultural practices, norms, and values. he paper concludes by proposing contrastive “cultural scripts” for English and Russian, which can be of practical use in language teaching, intercultural communication and education.
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Ameka, Felix Kofi (2012). Ewe: Its grammatical constructions and illocutionary devices. München: Lincom Europa.
Facsimile edition of the author’s PhD thesis, Australian National University (1991).
This thesis primarily provides an overview of Ewe grammar and a detailed investigation of the meanings of specific grammatical constructions and illocutionary devices in the language. The basic idea behind the study is that every grammatical and illocutionary construction or device encodes a certain meaning which can be discovered and stated so that the meanings of different devices can be compared not only within one language but across language boundaries. An attempt is made to explain the usage of grammatical forms from different perspectives. Priority is given to semantic, functional and discourse-pragmatic concerns although formal constraints and diachronic
considerations are also invoked in the explanations. A major concern throughout the thesis is to characterize the communicative competence of a native speaker of Ewe.
The body of the thesis is divided into four parts. Each part is preceded by a short overview about the rationale for its organisation.
Part I is a brief overview of the structural grammar of Ewe. It consists of three brief chapters. Chapter 1 contains introductory material about the language, the theoretical and methodological assumptions and the aims and organisation of the thesis. Chapter 2 describes the phonology while Chapters 3 and 4 provide information on the basic morphosyntax of Ewe. The other three parts are organised on the basis of three (macro-)functions (Halliday’s semantic metafunctions) of language: propositional, textual and interpersonal.
Part II is concerned with the grammatical coding of some cognitive domains: qualities or property concepts as coded by adjectivals (chapter 5); aspectual meanings, specifically the semantics of the ingressive and perfective aspect markers (chapter 6); and possession (chapter 7).
Part III examines the grammatical resources available to the Ewe speaker for structuring and packaging information in a clause. The constructions investigated here encode the different perspectives a speaker can assume with respect to how to present the message being conveyed or with respect to how a participant in the situation is conceptualized. Chapter 8 deals with scene-setting topic constructions. Chapter 9 describes “nyá-inverse” constructions and presents them in a typological perspective. Chapter 10 investigates the different ways of conceptualizing an ‘experiencer’ in Ewe through the different grammatical relations such an argument can assume in a clause.
Part IV is concerned with the illocutionary devices and constructions used in interpersonal communication. The description of the illocutionary devices is preceded by two chapters that serve as background for the understanding of the other chapters. Chapter 11 discusses the ethnography of speaking Ewe. Chapter 12 explores some theoretical issues in the analysis of illocutionary devices. The illocutionary devices are described in the remaining three chapters. Chapter 13 describes the modes of address in Ewe. Chapter 14 analyses various interactional speech formulae. This part – and the thesis – ends with an investigation of the significance of interjections (Chapter 15).
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (2012). Les petites idées d’un petit Belge, ou quand petit ne renvoie pas à la taille [Les petites idées d’un petit Belge, or when petit doesn’t refer to size]. In F. Neveu, V. Muni Toke, P. Blumenthal, T. Klingler, P. Ligas, S. Prévost & S. Teston-Bonnard (ed.), CMLF 2012 – 3e Congrès mondial de linguistique française (pp. 1893-1907). Paris: EDP Sciences. DOI: 10.1051/shsconf/20120100071
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (2012). L’interculturel servi à la sauce MSN, ou À quoi sert la métalangue sémantique naturelle? [Intercultural research served with an NSM sauce, or: what is NSM good for?]. In Nathalie Auger, Christine Béal & Françoise Demougin (Eds.), Interactions et interculturalité: variété des corpus et des approches (pp. 149-180). Bern: Peter Lang.
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on May 23, 2019.
Asano-Cavanagh, Yuko (2012). Expression of kawaii (‘cute’): Gender reinforcement of young Japanese female school children. In Jan Wright (Ed.), Joint AARE APERA International Conference Proceedings. Sydney: Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE). http://www.aare.edu.au/publications-database.php.
Open access
Abstract:
This paper examines the Japanese cultural key word kawaii ‘cute’. Although the kawaii phenomenon has been discussed by many scholars, there has been no rigorous semantic analysis, particularly in its use by parents, students and teachers. Teachers frequently use kawaii to show positive feelings towards objects in the classroom. Girls, too, are primary users of the word, which suggests they are acquiring kawaii as an index of female gender identity. From a linguistic perspective, kawaii is not lexicalized in other languages. While English speakers may say cute for various social actions, scholars suggest that kawaii is tied to empathy and relationships.
NSM was used to explicate the exact meaning of kawaii for non-Japanese speakers. The analysis indicates that the core meaning of kawaii is linked to the notion of a ‘child’, and the emotion is explained as ‘when I see this, I can’t not feel something good’. The kawaii syndrome reveals a Japanese cultural characteristic that puts much emphasis on being ‘gender appropriate’ in society and schools. The analysis has implications for understanding gender construction and expression in non-Western cultures.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) kawaii かわいい
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Priestley, Carol (2012). The expression of potential event modality in the Papuan language of Koromu. In Maia Ponsonnet, Loan Dao, & Margit Bowler (Eds.), Proceedings of the 42nd Australian Linguistic Society Conference – 2011 (pp. 389-422). http://hdl.handle.net/1885/9404. PDF (open access)
This paper aims to give an overview of the morphosyntax and semantics of potential event modality in
Koromu (Kesawai), a Madang language in the Papuan group. Potential event modality refers to Palmer’s “events that are not actualized…but are merely potential” (2001: 70). Some characteristics of event modality are compared with English and other Papuan/regional languages. The study is based on Koromu data in recorded texts, collected over a number of years and on earlier grammatical analysis. Meanings are represented in semantic explications in the Natural Semantic Metalanguage, a metalanguage that can be used in many different languages. The findings include a range of constructions and meanings for “imperative” and “desiderative” type expressions, a distinction between external, internal and negative desires, and strategies for testing meaning and grammar analysis with Koromu speakers.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 19, 2021.
Priestley, Carol (2012). Koromu temporal expressions: Semantic and cultural perspectives. In Luna Filipovic, & Kasia Jaszczolt (Eds.), Space and time in languages and cultures: Language, culture and cognition (pp. 143-165). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/hcp.37.12pri
This chapter examines different types of time expressed in Koromu (Kesawai), a Papuan language, to show the interaction of time expressions with cultural and environmental contexts and to investigate semantic description. Meanings are explicated in a metalanguage based on semantic primitives. The discovery of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) temporal primes and investigation of semantic molecules, non-primitive meanings that occur within the meaning of other concepts, promotes comparative and contrastive semantic description. The finding of culture-specific concepts referring to ‘time-’ and ‘event-based’ time intervals, linear and cyclical time, suggests that a range of expressions need consideration when cultural perspectives are assessed.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 23, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2012). Semantic primes, semantic molecules, semantic templates: Key concepts in the NSM approach to lexical typology. Linguistics, 50(3), 711-743.
DOI: 10.1515/ling-2012-0022
Abstract:
The NSM approach has a long track record in cross-linguistic lexical semantics. It is therefore not surprising that it has a clear theoretical position on key issues in lexical semantic typology and a well-developed set of analytical techniques.
From a theoretical point of view, the overriding issue concerns the tertium comparationis. What are the optimal concepts and categories to support the systematic investigation of lexicons and lexicological phenomena across the world’s languages? The NSM answer to this question is that the necessary concepts can – and must – be based on the shared lexical-conceptual core of all languages, which NSM researchers claim to have discovered over the course of a thirty-five year program of empirical cross-linguistic semantics. This shared lexical-conceptual core is the minilanguage of semantic primes and their associated grammar.
In addition, NSM researchers have developed certain original analytical constructs that promise to enhance the power and systematicity of the approach: in particular, the notions of semantic molecules and semantic templates. This paper sets out to explain and illustrate these notions, to report some key analytical findings (updated, in many cases, from previously published accounts), and to extrapolate their implications for the further development of lexical typology.
This paper contains detailed explications of the English verb drink and its closest Kalam counterpart ñb ‘eat/drink’, as well as of the English verb cut and its Japanese counterpart 切る kiru.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) children, (E) cut, (E) drink, (E) hands, (E) head, (E) kiru 切る, (E) legs, (E) long, (E) ñb, (E) women, (T) Japanese, (T) Russian, (T) semantic molecules, (T) Spanish
Published on May 10, 2012. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2012). O conceito de ‘casa’ em português europeu [The concept of ‘home’ in European Portuguese]. In Petar Petrov, Pedro Quintion de Sousa, Roberto López-Iglésias Samartim, & Elias J.Torres Feijó (Eds.), Avanços em ciências da linguagem (pp. 343-357). Faro: Através.
Written in Portuguese.
This introductory analysis of the lexico-cultural meaning of the word casa in European Portuguese shows in the main that ‘casa’ is an essential value in Portugal. Casa is an important reference point, a place where one stays for a short time or a long time, but always a place to go back to. Casa is linked to family, thought of not just as a group of people who live together, but rather as a network of multi-generational relations and obligations. Casa is more than just a place in physical space, it is also a metaphorical place in the heart, a place that inspires beautiful emotions, necessary for humans to live well.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) casa, (T) Portuguese
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on May 1, 2019.
Bułat Silva, Zuzanna (2012). Saudade: A key Portuguese emotion. Emotion Review, 4(2). 203-211.
DOI: 10.1177/1754073911430727
Abstract:
This paper analyses the meaning of the Portuguese emotion word saudade, roughly translatable as ‘nostalgia’, in an attempt to show its cultural significance and contradict the view that nostalgia is a marginal feeling, deprived of any practical function. Saudade is not a marginal feeling in Portuguese culture, but an important and basic emotion term going hand in hand with amor ‘love’. Saudade may be viewed as a typically prototypical category, because it covers the whole scale of feelings, from sadness to happiness. The Portuguese claim it has no equivalents in any other language in the world and regard it as a fundamental and distinctive feature of their national identity. Its main characteristic lies in its ambivalence — saudade is both a memory and a feeling; it is both pleasure and pain.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) saudade
