Browsing results for Main Authors
Published on June 23, 2017. Last updated on November 5, 2021.
Peeters, Bert (2017). Du bon usage des stéréotypes en cours de FLE: le cas de l’ethnolinguistique appliquée [Making good use of stereotypes in the French foreign language classroom: the case of applied ethnolinguistics]. Dire, 9, 43-60. http://epublications.unilim.fr/revues/dire/816.
Written in French.
The stereotypes envisaged in this paper serve as a starting point for a research protocol aimed at corroborating the reality, in French languaculture, of the cultural value of stance-taking. The protocol adopted here is part of a research paradigm called applied ethnolinguistics, elaborated for use with and by foreign language students whose linguistic competence is sufficiently advanced to enable them to use their language resources to discover, through essentially (but not uniquely) linguistic means, the cultural values typically associated with the languaculture they study. Since the posited values are hypothetical, corroboration will be required. A specific protocol (the one illustrated here) has been set aside for this purpose. The cultural value of stance-taking will be presented in the form of a pedagogical script expressed in minimal French, a descriptive tool based on the French version of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage. Precautions are taken to ensure that end-users of such scenarios are aware that they are dealing with generalizations (which are unavoidable as languacultures are never homogeneous).
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (S) freedom of speech, (S) opinions
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 31, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2017). Terms of address in European languages: A study in cross-linguistic semantics and pragmatics. In Keith Allan, Alessandro Capone, & Istvan Kecskes (Eds.), Pragmemes and theories of language use (pp. 209-238). Berlin: Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-43491-9_12
One of the deepest differences between English-based human interaction and the interaction based on the languages of continental Europe has to do with terms of address. For speakers of languages like French, Italian, or German it goes without saying that “polite” words such as vous, Lei and Sie are indispensable in daily exchanges with others. What do these words actually mean? To what extent do their meanings differ from one European language to another? Why can some of these terms, for example, vous, be applied to God (or to one’s spouse), whereas others, for example, Sie, cannot?
There has been an upsurge of interest in both nominal and pronominal terms of address in recent years, but most publications in this area focus on frequencies, forms, functions, and sociolinguistic variation, with virtually no mention of meaning. To uncover the secrets hidden in the meanings of such essential tools of daily communication and to bring to light their cultural significance, we need an appropriate methodology. As I hope to show in the present paper, NSM semantics provides the necessary tools and techniques.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) grazie, (E) Lei, (E) się, (E) voi, (E) vous
Published on October 15, 2017. Last updated on May 23, 2019.
Asano-Cavanagh, Yuko (2017). Kawaii discourse: The semantics of a Japanese cultural keyword and its social elaboration. In Carsten Levisen & Sophia Waters (Eds.), Cultural keywords in discourse (pp. 211-234). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
DOI: 10.1075/pbns.277.09asa
Abstract:
Taking its starting point in the Japanese cultural key word kawaii (roughly, ‘cute’), this chapter explores contemporary Japanese social discourse. Using NSM to explicate kawaii, the two kawaii compounds ita-kawaii and otona-kawaii and the related cultural key words itai and otona, it breaks new ground and increases our understanding of the conceptual basis of kawaii and its elaborations in discourse. A view on Japanese socialization and gendered discourse is simultaneously developed, and the value of ‘being kawaii’ is being scrutinized through the stability and innovations of kawaii in discourse.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) ita-kawaii いた かわいい, (E) itai 痛い, (E) kawaii かわいい, (E) otona 大人, (E) otona-kawaii 大人ーかわいい
Published on August 14, 2018. Last updated on May 23, 2019.
Asano-Cavagh, Yuko & Lee, Duck-Young (2017). NSM Approach による類義語の意味分析: 日韓の伝達表現を中心に [NSM-based approach to meanings of synonyms: Focusing on hearsay markers in Japanese and Korean]. 日本語學硏究 [Japanese Language Association of Korea], 54, 87-106.
DOI: 10.14817/jlak.2017.54.87 / Open access
Abstract:
The aim of this study is to analyse the evidential markers そうだ souda, らしい rashii and って tte in Japanese and 대 tay and 니까 nikka in Korean from an NSM perspective. そうだ souda, らしい rashii and って tte are used in similar situations and are often translated in English as ‘he/she says’, or ‘I heard’. Although these hearsay markers are considered synonyms, they are not necessarily interchangeable. There are subtle differences that cannot be captured by a dictionary or conventional semantic analysis. The current study shows that the NSM approach is more beneficial than previous research in that it can describe the (dis)similarities of synonyms in a simple and accurate fashion. The study then analyses the Korean markers 대 tay and 니까 nikka, and compares the results with those obtained for the Japanese evidentials. It is demonstrated that the NSM approach is capable of dealing with the semantic properties of markers/expressions in different languages, and that definitions facilitate the understanding of each expression and enable the comparison of meanings cross-linguistically.
More information:
Written in Japanese. The first authors’ name is reported here as per the (incorrect) spelling used in the paper.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) nikka 니까, (E) rashii らしい, (E) sooda そうだ, (E) tay 대, (E) tte って, (T) Japanese, (T) Korean
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 25, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2017). The meaning of kinship terms: A developmental and cross-linguistic perspective. In Zhengdao Ye (Ed.), The semantics of nouns (pp. 19-62). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198736721.003.0002
This chapter seeks to portray the meanings of some basic kin terms in English and some other European languages in a new way, holding on to two principles: that all the meanings one posits have to be open to intuitive verification by ordinary native speakers, and that the meanings posited for individual kin words should add up to a coherent overall picture. To achieve this, the chapter aims at an account that could make sense in a developmental as well as cross-linguistic perspective: there must be some imaginable developmental progression from the meanings of children’s kin words such as mummy and daddy to the meanings of kin terms hypothesized as operating in adult speech. The chapter shows that semantic components phrased in the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) allow us to reconstruct such a progression in a way that is both rigorous and testable and that makes sense to ordinary speakers, including language learners.
See also:
Kotorova, Elizaveta (2018). Analysis of kinship terms using Natural Semantic Metalanguage: Anna Wierzbicka’s approach. Russian Journal of Linguistics, 22(3), 701-710.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) aunt, (E) auntie, (E) babuška, (E) child, (E) children, (E) ciocia (Polish), (E) ciotka (Polish), (E) daughter, (E) djadja, (E) djadjuška, (E) granddaughter, (E) grandfather, (E) grandma, (E) grandmother, (E) granny, (E) hermana (Spanish), (E) mama, (E) maman, (E) mother, (E) mum, (E) mummy, (E) nana, (E) pa, (E) papa, (E) sister, (E) tetja, (E) tetuška, (E) uncle, (E) wuj (Polish), (E) wujek (Polish)
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on August 18, 2018.
Priestley, Carol (2017). Some key body parts and polysemy: A case study from Koromu (Kesawai). In Zhengdao Ye (Ed.), The semantics of nouns (pp. 147-179). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198736721.003.0006
This chapter discusses body part nouns, a part of language that is central to human life, and the polysemy that arises in connection with them. Examples from everyday speech and narrative in various contexts are examined in a Papuan language called Koromu and semantic characteristics of body part nouns in other studies are also considered. Semantic templates are developed for nouns that represent highly visible body parts: for example, wapi ‘hands/arms’, ehi ‘feet/legs’, and their related parts. Culture-specific explications are expressed in a natural metalanguage that can be translated into Koromu to avoid the cultural bias inherent in using other languages and to reveal both distinctive semantic components and similarities to cross-linguistic examples.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) (various body parts) (Koromu), (E) arms, (E) ehi (Koromu), (E) ehi ahane (Koromu), (E) ehi tikirine (Koromu), (E) hands, (E) tekere (Koromu), (E) wapi, (E) wapi ahane, (E) wapi serene, (E) wapi tikiri/tekere
Published on April 21, 2018. Last updated on August 16, 2021.
François, Jacques (2017). Review of Bert Peeters (Ed.), Language and cultural values: Adventures in applied ethnolinguistics. Bulletin de la Société de linguistique de Paris, 112(2), 26-32.
Written in French.
Tags: (E) lige, (E) Ordnung, (E) tall poppy
Published on August 15, 2018. Last updated on August 15, 2021.
Vanhatalo, Ulla (2017). 65:lla alkusanalla kohti ymmärtämistä. In Sirpa Tarvainen, Soile Loukusa, Terhi Hautala, & Satu Saalasti (Eds.), Yhteinen ymmärrys – havainnoinnista tulkintaan: puheen ja kielen tutkimuksen päivät Helsingissä 30.-31.3.2017 (pp. …-…). Helsinki: Puheen ja kielen tutkimuksen yhdistys [Association of Speech and Language Research).
Written in Finnish.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 16, 2017. Last updated on September 29, 2018.
Ye, Zhengdao (2017). The semantics of nouns: A cross-linguistic and cross-domain perspective. In Zhengdao Ye (Ed.), The semantics of nouns (pp. 1-18). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198736721.003.0001
This introductory chapter explains the distinctive features which give the volume its coherence and uniqueness in the studies of the semantics of nouns. It explains the rationale of the volume, the importance of adopting a cross-linguistic and cross-domain perspective, and the unified framework which the contributors use for meaning analysis and meaning representation. In particular, it introduces the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) methodology, its approach to the studies of semantic content and the conceptual structure of concrete vocabulary over the last four decades, and its latest methodological developments, such as semantic molecules and semantic templates. The introduction also provides an overview of each chapter in the volume.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) hands, (E) happiness, (E) legs, (E) long
Published on January 10, 2022. Last updated on January 10, 2022.
Vanhatalo, Ulla, & Tissari, Heli. (2017). Esittelyssä alkusanakieli [Presenting Natural Semantic Metalanguage]. Virittäjä, 121(2), 244–263.
(in Finnish)
Published on December 17, 2017. Last updated on March 14, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2017). Natural Semantic Metalanguage and lexicography. In Patrick Hanks, & Gilles-Maurice de Schryver (Eds.), International handbook of modern lexis and lexicography (online). Berlin: Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-45369-4_14-1
Abstract:
This chapter gives perspectives on meaning description in lexicography from the standpoint of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach to linguistics, which among contemporary approaches to linguistics can claim the longest and most serious engagement with lexical semantics.
Note:
The Handbook is classified as a “Living Reference Work”, which means it is being continously updated. It was first published in 2017.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) birrimbirr, (E) mind, (T) English, (T) semantic molecules, (T) Spanish
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wong, Jock (2017). The ‘emes’ of linguistics. In Keith Allan, Alessandro Capone, & Istvan Kecskes (Eds.), Pragmemes and theories of language use (pp. 567-583). Berlin: Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-43491-9_29.
The three formal ‘emes’ of linguistics, phonemes, morphemes and lexemes, are among the things all first year linguistics students learn. However, while most linguistics students know what the formal emes are, the idea of a pragmeme, a concept conceived by preeminent scholar Jacob Mey, may be less familiar. A pragmeme has been defined as ‘a situated speech act’ by Alessandro Capone. One may ask whether it is a pragmatic analogue to the formal memes and how helpful the concept is for our understanding of pragmatics. This paper explores the notion of a pragmeme. It argues that it is indeed a helpful notion for analytical and pedagogic purposes, provided it is expressed in irreducible semantic elements and given a cultural interpretation.
Tags: (E) greet, (E) request
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 3, 2018.
Wong, Jock (2017). The culture of language. In Keith Allan, Alessandro Capone, & Istvan Kecskes (Eds.), Pragmemes and theories of language use (pp. 537-566). Berlin: Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-43491-9_28.
This paper examines several English forms and their interconnectedness in a cultural context. It describes the cultural values or ways of thinking they embody in the form of cultural scripts. The focus is on words, phrases and grammatical forms (especially the pragmeme usually but inaccurately referred to as a ‘request’) that express the Anglo respect for personal autonomy. It is argued that these English forms should not be taught separately to English learners, as is the norm, but collectively as a set of forms that express a certain value. Language users are cultural beings and the understanding of the culture underlying a language and the cultural interconnectedness of forms is crucial to anyone learning the language, especially the English language, given that it is the lingua franca of the world. The relationship between language and culture cannot be over-emphasized.
Tags: (E) lĭmào, (E) please, (E) rude, (E) thank you, (S) ‘asking’ people to do something, (S) a “suggestive” approach to influencing others, (S) An Anglo attitude linked to the interrogative-directive pragmeme, (S) autonomy, (S) avoiding pressuring the addressee, (S) certainty, (S) coach a child to do good things in a self-deterministic manner, (S) do not impose, (S) doing things for people, (S) egalitarianism, (S) free will, (S) how to say ‘no’ to an interrogative-directive, (S) illocutionary effect of the use of the imperative, (S) not taking people for granted, (S) personal autonomy, (S) routine use of the imperative, (S) rudeness, (S) uncertainty, (S) understanding “helpful suggestions”, (S) use of the hypothetical question form in the interrogative-directive pragmeme, (S) use of the interrogative-directive, (s) using language to express the value of egalitarianism, (S) what one wants
Published on May 16, 2017. Last updated on July 25, 2020.
Ye, Zhengdao (Ed.) (2017). The semantics of nouns. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198736721.001.0001
Abstract:
This volume represents state-of-the-art research on the semantics of nouns. It offers detailed and systematic analyses of scores of individual nouns across many different conceptual domains – ‘people’, ‘beings’, ‘creatures’, ‘places’, ‘things’, ‘living things’, and ‘parts of the body and parts of the person’. A range of languages, both familiar and unfamiliar, is examined. Each rigorous and descriptively rich analysis is fully grounded in a unified methodological framework consistently employed throughout the volume, and each chapter not only relates to central theoretical issues specific to the semantic analysis of the domain in question, but also empirically investigates the different types of meaning relations holding between nouns, such as meronymy, hyponymy, taxonomy, and antonymy.
This is the first time that the semantics of typical nouns has been studied in such breadth and depth, and in such a systematic and coherent manner. The collection of studies shows how in-depth meaning analysis anchored in a cross-linguistic and cross-domain perspective can lead to extraordinary and unexpected insights into the common and particular ways in which speakers of different languages conceptualize, categorize and order the world around them.
Table of contents:
- The semantics of nouns: A cross-linguistic and cross-domain perspective (Zhengdao Ye)
- The meaning of kinship terms: A developmental and cross-linguistic perspective (Anna Wierzbicka)
- The semantics of social relation nouns in Chinese (Zhengdao Ye)
- The meanings of ‘angel’ in English, Arabic, and Hebrew (Sandy Habib)
- Personhood constructs in language and thought: New evidence from Danish (Carsten Levisen)
- Some key body parts and polysemy: A case study from Koromu (Kesawai) (Carol Priestley)
- The semantics of standing water places in English, French, and Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara (Helen Bromhead)
- The semantics of demonyms in English: Germans, Queenslanders, and Londoners (Michael Roberts)
- The semantics of honeybee terms in Solega (Dravidian) (Aung Si)
- Furniture, vegetables, weapons: Functional collective superordinates in the English lexicon (Cliff Goddard)
More information:
Each chapter has its own entry, where additional information is provided.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on August 11, 2017. Last updated on August 15, 2021.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2017). W co wierzą chrześcijanie? Opowieść o Bogu i o ludziac [What Christians believe: The story of God and people]. Kraków: Znak.
Abstract:
What do Christians believe?
Does anyone who thinks of themselves as Christian know what they actually believe? – asks the author provocatively, and in an innovative way she presents the reader the most important truths of faith, as transmitted by the Holy Scriptures and the Apostolic writings.
Anna Wierzbicka’s book is a tale of Christian faith based on the results of extensive research on the languages of the world. In the forty chapters of The story of God and people, the author retells and re-thinks the basics of Christian faith using so-called minimal language, that is, using words and sentences understandable to everyone, having equivalents in all languages of the world. The book is a semantic and theological experiment, and at the same time, it is an experiment in cross-cultural communication: Minimal Polish and Minimal English match, word for word and phrase by phrase.
Preceded by an extensive introduction, The story of God and people does not use traditional religious or scientific language, and allows both Christians and non-Christians to look at faith in a fresh way.
More information:
Written in Polish. A more recent publication building on this one is:
Wierzbicka, Anna (2019). What Christians believe: The story of God and people in minimal English. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on August 21, 2023. Last updated on November 17, 2023.
Levisen, Carsten. (2018). Biases we live by: Anglocentrism in linguistics and cognitive sciences. Language Sciences, 76, 101173.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2018.05.010
Abstract
This paper explores “Anglocentrism” as a bias in contemporary linguistics and cognitive sciences. Anglo concepts dominate international discourse on language and cognition, but the influence that this Anglocentric metalinguistic discourse has on global knowledge production, research methods, and the theoretical framing of research questions is rarely debated. Three case studies on heavily “Anglicised” discursive domains are provided: (i) “the mind” – and the Anglicisation of global discourse of human personhood; (ii) “happiness” – and the Anglicisation of the global discourse of human values; (iii) “com- munity” – and the Anglicisation of the global discourse of human sociality. With cross- linguistic evidence from Europe (Danish), and the Pacific (Bislama), the paper denatural- ises the English words mind, happiness, and community and the cognitive models they stand for, demonstrating that these words are not “neutral” nor “innocent” metalinguistic descriptors. Rather, they are quintessential Anglo constructs, and as such they provide a lens on humanity that is biased towards an Anglo interpretation of the world. Finally, the paper explores the “bias” concept. Paradoxically, the bias concept is in itself a product of the Anglosphere, as as such a part of the problem. However, due to this word’s meta- discursive function, the paper argues that the bias concept can become a useful Trojan Horse, a concept through which we can fight Anglocentrism from within, and pave the way for a more adequate representation of human diversity in linguistics and cognitive sciences.
Published on September 25, 2018. Last updated on June 25, 2019.
Gladkova, Anna & Larina, Tatiana (2018). Anna Wierzbicka, words and the world. Russian Journal of Linguistics, 22(3), 499-520.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22363/2312-9182-2018-22-3-499-520 / Open access
Abstract:
This introduction to a special issue of the Russian Journal of Linguistics summarizes Anna Wierzbicka’s contribution to the linguistic study of meaning. It presents the foundations of the NSM approach, discussing the current state of the approach with reference to the 65 semantic primes, universal grammar and the principle of reductive paraphrase in semantic explications. The article also traces the origin of Wierzbicka’s ideas to Leibniz. The NSM framework has been tested on about thirty languages of diverse origin. The applications of the approach are broad and encompass lexical areas of emotions, social categories, speech act verbs, mental states, artifacts and animals, verbs of motion, kinship terms (among others), as well as grammatical constructions.
More information:
Simultaneously published in English and Russian. The Russian version follows the English one.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) happy, (T) Russian
Published on May 19, 2019. Last updated on June 25, 2019.
Gladkova, Anna, & Larina, Tatiana (2018). Anna Wierzbicka, language, culture and communication. Russian Journal of Linguistics, 22(4), 717-748.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22363/2312-9182-2018-22-4-717-748 / Open access
Abstract:
This introduction to the second part of a special issue of the Russian Journal of Linguistics marking Anna Wierzbicka’s 80th birthday focuses on her research in the area of language and culture. It surveys some of the fundamental concepts of Wierzbicka’s research program in cultural semantics and ethnopragmatics, in particular cultural key words and cultural scripts, both of which she unpacks using the universal human concepts of NSM. The article also discusses the concept of Minimal Language as a recent development in the NSM program and presents associated research in a variety of fields.
More information:
Simultaneously published in English and Russian. The Russian version follows the English one.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) sud'ba судьба, (S) imposition, (S) non-imposition, (S) personal autonomy, (S) sincerity
Published on August 7, 2017. Last updated on November 2, 2018.
Levisen, Carsten (2018). Dark, but Danish: Ethnopragmatic perspectives on black humor. Intercultural Pragmatics, 15(4), 515-531. DOI: 10.1515/ip-2018-0018
This paper explores sort humor ‘black humour’, a key concept in Danish conversational humour. Sort forms part of a larger class of Danish
synesthetic humour metaphors that also includes other categories such as tør ‘dry’, syg ‘sick’, and fed ‘fat’. Taking an ethnopragmatic perspective on humour discourse, it is argued that such constructs function as a local catalogue for socially recognized laughing practices.
The aim of the paper is to provide a semantic explication for sort humor and explore the discursive practices associated with the concept. From a comparative perspective, it is demonstrated that the Danish conceptualization of ‘blackness’ differs from that of l’humour noir, a category of French surrealism, and English black humour with its off-limit topics such as death and handicap. In Danish discourse, sort humor has come to stand for a practice of collaborative jocular non-sense making. It is further argued that the main function of sort humor is to establish or enhance a feeling of ‘groupy togetherness’.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) grine, (E) laugh, (E) sort humor, (E) tale sort, (T) Danish
Published on August 18, 2018. Last updated on September 13, 2018.
Levisen, Carsten (2018). The grammar of violence: Insights from Danish ethnosyntax and the Wierzbicka-Pinker debate. Etnolingwistyka, 30, 145-167. DOI: 10.17951/et.2018.30.145. PDF (open access)
This paper explores the Danish key word vold ‘violence, abuse’ and scrutinizes its associated ethnosyntax, which is hidden in compound morphology. Focusing on the compounds hustruvold ‘wife vold’ and politivold ‘police vold’, it explores the conceptual syntax embedded in such coinages. Exploring more recent constructs, such as forældrevold ‘parent vold’, the author argues that Danish ethnosyntax embodies a view of the world in which traditional authority figures (men, police, parents) are coded as aggressors, whereas women, citizens and children are coded as victims.
In more general terms, the paper aims to open a new ethnolinguistic research agenda for the study of negative sociality constructs and the positive value system hidden in them. It does so by drawing attention to the differences and similarities of violence-related concepts in ethnolinguistic communities, and to the key role played by ethnosyntax in the elaboration of violence, vold, and similar concepts.
The paper also proposes an explication for the Bislama word faetem ‘punch, fight physically’.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) faetem, (E) vold, (S) domestic violence against women, (S) police violence, (T) Danish
