Browsing results for Main Authors
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on March 14, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1992). Back to definitions: Cognition, semantics, and lexicography. Lexicographica, 8, 146-174.
DOI: 10.1515/9783110244120.146
A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 8 (pp. 237-257) of:
Wierzbicka, Anna (1996). Semantics: Primes and universals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Abstract:
Different words mean different things; they make different contributions to the communicative acts humans engage in. The contributions made by different words can be compared if we have some standard of measure for describing their communicative potential (i.e., their meaning). As pointed out by Descartes, Pascal, Leibniz, and others, such a common measure can be found in a set of words regarded as conceptual primes. We can single out in any language a group of words in terms of which the meaning (that is, the communicative potential) of all other words in that language can be described and compared. On this view of language, semantic description makes sense and will indeed be illuminating if it is anchored in a set of conceptual primes linked with lexical indefinables, that is, words (or morphemes, or expressions) whose meaning is relatively clear and intelligible, and in terms of which all the other words in the lexicon can be characterized revealingly and accurately.
This paper argues that the distinction between definable and indefinable concepts (and words) must be the cornerstone of any fruitful and linguistically relevant theory of definitions. It shows that meanings can be rigorously described and compared if they are recognized for what they are: unique and culture-specific configurations of universal semantic primitives.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) amae 甘え, (E) courageous, (E) games, (E) gaze, (E) glare, (E) graceful, (E) krasit красить, (E) paint, (E) scrutinize, (E) sensuous, (E) smooth, (E) soft, (E) watch, (T) English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 11, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1992). Talking about emotions: Semantics, culture, and cognition. Cognition and Emotion, 6(3/4), 285-319. DOI: 10.1080/02699939208411073
Translated into Polish as chapter 4 of:
Wierzbicka, Anna (1999). Język – umysł – kultura [Language, mind, culture]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
The author argues that the so-called “basic emotions”, such as happiness, fear or anger, are in fact cultural artifacts of the English language, just as the Ilongot concept of liger, or the Ifaluk concept of song, are the cultural artifacts of Ilongot and Ifaluk. It is therefore as inappropriate to talk about human emotions in general in terms of happiness, fear, or anger as it would be to talk about them in terms of liget or song. However, this does not mean that we cannot penetrate into the emotional world of speakers of languages other than our own. Nor does it mean that there cannot be any universal human emotions. Universality of emotions is an open issue which requires further investigation. For this further investigation to be fully productive, it has to be undertaken from a universal, language and culture-independent perspective; and it has to be carried out in a universalist framework that is language and culture-independent. The author proposes for this purpose the Natural Semantic Metalanguage based on universal (or near-universal) semantic primitives (or near-primitives), developed over two decades by herself and colleagues, and she argues that the use of this metalanguage facilitates such a perspective and offers such a framework.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) angry, (E) displeased, (E) displeasure, (E) glücklich, (E) grateful, (E) happy, (E) heureux, (E) joy, (E) liget, (E) pleased, (E) remorse, (E) sad, (E) song, (E) tjituru-tjituru, (E) watjilpa, (E) złość
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 20, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1992). Australian b-words (bloody, bastard, bugger, bullshit): An expression of Australian culture and national character. In André Clas (Ed.), Le mot, les mots, les bons mots/Word, words, witty words (pp. 21-38). Montréal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal.
Abstract:
The claim made in this paper is not that the Australian ‘b-words’ (bastard, bloody, bugger, and bullshit) are not used outside Australia. They are. But in Australia, they are part of everyday language and play a role that is truly unique. Elsewhere, they are more or less marginal. In Australia, they are central — in everyday life and even in public discourse (especially on the political scene). They are felt to be an important means of self-expression, self-identification, and effective communication with others.
Although the frequency of b-words in Australian speech is undoubtedly unique, and although it has often been commented on by visitors from other parts of the English-speaking world, it is, above all, in the meaning of these words, as they are used in Australia, that the Australians have managed to express something of their own cultural identity. Strictly speaking, then, it is not the b-words themselves but the meanings encapsulated in them that are characteristically Australian.
More information:
A more recent publication building on this one is:
Chapter 5 (pp. 198-234) of Wierzbicka, Anna (1997), Understanding cultures through their key words: English, Russian, Polish, German, Japanese. New York: Oxford University Press.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) bastard, (E) bloody, (E) bugger, (E) bullshit
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1992). What is a life form? Conceptual issues in ethnobiology. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 2(1), 3-29. DOI: 10.1525/jlin.1992.2.1.3
A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 12 (pp. 351-375) of:
Wierzbicka, Anna (1996). Semantics: Primes and universals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
A number of linguistic tests are proposed to reveal different aspects of conceptual organization as reflected in language. It is argued that important evidence on human conceptualization of the world can be derived from ways of referring (e.g., Look at that plant/animal!), grammatical congruity (e.g., three pigs vs. *three livestocks), morphological structure (e.g., blue spruce vs. tulip tree), collocations and metaphorical transfers (e.g., social butterfly, breed like rabbits), and lexical structure (e.g., Siamese/Siamese cat vs. dog/*spaniel dog). It is also argued that evidence of this kind supports the crucial role of hierarchical taxonomic organization in the domain of living kinds (in contrast to other conceptual domains) and helps clarify the crucial and yet controversial concept of life form proposed by Brent Berlin and his associates.
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on August 27, 2018.
Ameka, Felix (1992). The meaning of phatic and conative interjections. Journal of Pragmatics, 18(2/3), 245-271. DOI: 10.1016/0378-2166(92)90054-F
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the meanings of the members of two subclasses of interjections in Ewe: the conative/volitive which are directed at an auditor, and the phatic which are used in the maintenance of social and communicative contact. It is demonstrated that interjections like other linguistic signs have meanings which can be rigorously stated. In addition, the paper explores the differences and similarities between the semantic structures of interjections on one hand and formulaic words on the other. This is done through a comparison of the semantics and pragmatics of an interjection and a formulaic word which are used for welcoming people in Ewe. It is contended that formulaic words are speech acts qua speech acts while interjections are not fully fledged speech acts because they lack an illocutionary dictum in their semantic structure.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) (k)ss...!, (E) (particles for chasing animals), (E) à, (E) atúù!, (E) búbúbúi!, (E) dzáà!, (E) he!, (E) ú:ru!, (E) u:wúi!
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1992). The semantics of interjection. Journal of Pragmatics, 18(2/3), 159-192. DOI: 10.1016/0378-2166(92)90050-L
Translated into Russian as:
Вежбицкая, А. [Wierzbicka, Anna] (1999). Семантика междометия. In Вежбицкая, А. [Wierzbicka, Anna], Семантические универсалии и описание языков, под ред. Татьяна В. Булыгиной [Semantic universals and the description of languages, ed. Tatyana V. Bulygina] (pp. 611-649). Москва [Moscow]: Языки русской культуры [Languages of Russian Culture].
An expanded version of this paper was published earlier as chapter 8 (pp. 285-339) of:
Wierzbicka, Anna (1991, 2003). Cross-cultural pragmatics: The semantics of human interaction. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
This paper argues that interjections – like any other linguistic elements – have their meaning, and that this meaning can be identified and captured in the Natural Semantic Metalanguage developed by the author and her colleagues. A number of interjections from English, Polish, Russian, and Yiddish are discussed, and rigorous semantic formulae are proposed which can explain both the similarities and the differences in their range of use. For example, the English interjection yuk! is compared and contrasted with its nearest Polish and Russian counterparts fu!, fe!, rfu!. The author shows that while the meaning of interjections cannot be adequately captured in terms of emotion words such as disgust, it can be captured in terms of more fine-grained components, closer to the level of universal semantic primitives. The role of sound symbolism in the functioning of interjections is discussed, and the possibility of reflecting this symbolism in the semantic formulae is explored.
Published on May 10, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Ameka, Felix (1992). Interjections: The universal yet neglected part of speech. Journal of Pragmatics, 18(2/3), 101-118. DOI: 10.1016/0378-2166(92)90048-G
It is perhaps true that apart from nouns and verbs, interjections – those little words, or ‘non-words’, which can constitute utterances by themselves – are a word class found in all languages. But it is also true that this class of items has eluded description and has, for the most part, been ignored in theoretical linguistics discourse. In this introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Pragmatics dedicated to interjections and similar items, I want to attempt to draw out and suggest solutions to the confusion that has beset these important items.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) thank you, (E) Wow!
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1992). Lexical universals and universals of grammar. In Michel Kefer, & Johan van der Auwera (Eds.), Meaning and grammar: Cross-linguistic perspectives (pp. 383-415). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
In a sense, everything we say in this chapter is problematic, since in the approach sketched here the hypothetical “universal grammar” is a function of the hypothetical “universal lexicon” , and since this hypothetical “universal lexicon” is still in a state of flux, the grammar developed here is doubly hypothetical, and it must remain for some time in a state of “super-flux”.
Nonetheless, it is important, I believe, that strong substantive hypotheses of the kind put forward here should be formulated, because they give a direction to empirical investigations, which can be expected to lead, in turn, to the necessary revisions of the hypotheses themselves.
Published on January 10, 2022. Last updated on January 10, 2022.
Wierzbicka, Anna. (1992). Wschodnioeuropejska kultura żydowska w świetle żydowskiej „etnografii mowy” [Eastern European Jewish Culture in the Light of Jewish “Ethnography of Speaking”]. Teksty Drugie 5(17) pp 5–25.
In Polish
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1992). *On the name Stanislaw: The semantics of names. Études de linguistique romane et slave. Krakow.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1992). *Semantic primitives. In William Bright (Ed.), International encyclopaedia of linguistics: Vol. 3 (p. 403). New York: Oxford University Press.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1992). *The search for universal semantic primitives. In Martin Pütz (Ed.), Thirty years of linguistic evolution (pp. 215-242). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/z.61.20wie
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1992). Semantic primitives and semantic fields. In Adrienne Lehrer, & Eva Feder Kittay (Eds.), Frames, fields, and contrasts: New essays in semantic and lexical organization (pp. 209-227). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.
A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 5 (pp. 170-183) of:
Wierzbicka, Anna (1996). Semantics: Primes and universals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The entire Lehrer and Kittay collection was transferred to digital printing in 2009 by Routledge (New York).
(Modified) excerpt:
Semantic primitives offer us a tool for investigating the structure of semantic groupings or fields. In particular, they can show us how to distinguish nonarbitrary semantic groupings from arbitrary ones; and how to distinguish discrete, self-contained groupings from open-ended ones. I illustrate these tenets with a number of examples pertaining to several different areas of the lexicon: (1) the names of “natural kinds” and “cultural kinds”; (2) speech act verbs; (3) color words.
Tags: (E) blue
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on January 10, 2022.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1992). Semantics, culture, and cognition: Universal human concepts in culture-specific configurations. New York: Oxford University Press.
Abstract:
To what extent are languages essentially the same? Is every word in our language translatable into every other language or are some of our words and concepts culture-specific? Rejecting analytical tools derived from the English language and Anglo culture and replacing them with NSM, this innovative study argues that every language constitutes a different guide to reality. The lexicons of different languages do indeed seem to suggest different conceptual universes. Not everything that can be said in one language can be said in another, and this is not just a matter of certain things being easier to say in one language than in another.
The book investigates a wide variety of languages and cultures from a universal, language-independent perspective and integrates insights from linguistics, cultural anthropology and cognitive psychology.
Table of contents:
Introduction
I. Linguistic evidence for ethnopsychology
1. Soul, mind, and heart
2. Fate and destiny
II. Emotions across cultures
3. Are emotions universal or culture-specific?
4. Describing the indescribable
III. Moral concepts across cultures
5. Apatheia, smirenie, humility
6. Courage, bravery, recklessness
IV. Names and titles
7. Personal names and expressive derivation
8. Titles and other forms of address
V. Kinship semantics
9. Lexical universals and psychological reality
10. ‘Alternate generations’ in Australian Aboriginal languages
VI. Language as a mirror of culture and ‘national character’
11. Australian English
12. The Russian language
Translations:
Into Polish (Introduction only):
Wierzbicka, Anna (1991). Uniwersalne pojęcia ludzkie i ich konfiguracje w różnych kulturach. Etnolingwistyka, 4, 7-40.
Into Russian:
[Introduction]: Вежбицкая, Анна [Wierzbicka, Anna] (1993). СЕМАНТИКА, КУЛЬТУРА И ПОЗНАНИЕ: ОБЩЕЧЕЛОВЕЧЕСКИЕ ПОНЯТИЯ В КУЛЬТУРОСПЕЦИФИЧНЫХ КОНТЕКСТАХ*. THESIS, 1993 vol 3, pp. 185–206.
[Chapters 2 and 12]: Chapters 12 (pp. 424-497) and 10 (pp. 331-388) of Вежбицкая, Анна [Wierzbicka, Anna] (2011). Семантические универсалии и базисные концепты, под ред. А.Д. Кошелев [Semantic universals and basic concepts, ed. A.D. Koshelev]. Москва [Moscow]: Языки славянских культуры [Languages of Slavic Culture].
More information:
Chapter 1 builds on: Soul and mind: Linguistic evidence for ethnopsychology and cultural history (1989)
Chapter 3 builds on: Human emotions: Universal or culture-specific? (1986)
Chapters 7 and 8 build on: Prototypes in semantics and pragmatics: Explicating attitudinal meanings in terms of prototypes (1989)
Chapter 9 builds on: Kinship semantics: Lexical universals as a key to psychological reality (1987)
Chapter 10 builds on: Semantics and the interpretation of cultures: The meaning of ‘alternate generations’ devices in Australian languages (1986)
Chapter 11 builds on: Does language reflect culture? Evidence from Australian English (1986)
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
The tags mentioned below are limited to those not listed in work on which this book is based.
Tags: (E) auntie, (E) dad, (E) daddy, (E) granny, (E) heart, (E) mother, (E) mum, (E) mummy, (E) serdce сердце
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on January 22, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1992). Defining emotion concepts. Cognitive Science, 16(4), 539-581. DOI: 10.1207/s15516709cog1604_4
This article demonstrates that emotion concepts – including the so-called basic ones, such as anger or sadness – can be defined in terms of universal semantic primitives such as GOOD, BAD, DO, HAPPEN, KNOW, and WANT, in terms of which all areas of meaning, in all languages, can be rigorously and revealingly portrayed.
The definitions proposed here take the form of certain prototypical scripts or scenarios, formulated in terms of thoughts, wants, and feelings. These scripts, however, can be seen as formulas providing rigorous specifications of necessary and sufficient conditions (not for emotions as such, but for emotion concepts), and they do not support the idea that boundaries between emotion concepts are “fuzzy”. On the contrary, the small set of universal semantic primitives employed here (which has emerged from two decades of empirical investigations by the author and colleagues) demonstrates that even apparent synonyms such as sad and unhappy embody different – and fully specifiable – conceptual structures.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) amazement, (E) anger, (E) appalled, (E) ashamed, (E) contented, (E) delighted, (E) depressed, (E) despair, (E) disappointment, (E) distressed, (E) embarrassed, (E) excited, (E) frightened, (E) frustration, (E) glücklich, (E) grief, (E) guilt, (E) happy, (E) heureux, (E) humiliated, (E) hurt, (E) indignant, (E) indignation, (E) pleased, (E) pride, (E) relief, (E) remorse, (E) sad, (E) sčastliv, (E) shocked, (E) sorrow, (E) sorry, (E) surprise, (E) triumph, (E) unhappy, (E) upset, (T) English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 3, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (1992). Traditional Yankunytjatjara ways of speaking – A semantic perspective. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 12(1), 93-122. DOI: 10.1080/07268609208599472
Yankunytjatjara is a minority dialect of the Western Desert Language, spoken by several hundred people, primarily in the north-west of South Australia. This paper sets out to describe some of the dimensions of communicative competence in the traditional Yankunytjatjara lifestyle. Part One gives a brief outline of the walytja ‘kin, relationship’ system, essential social background for what follows. Parts Two and Three consider, respectively, the elaborately oblique speech style tjalpawangkanyi, and various kinds of boisterous banter and joking, concentrating on characterizing the linguistic devices and rhetorical strategies of these speech styles. In discussion sections at the end of Parts Two and Three, Anna Wierzbicka’s semantically inspired approach to cross-cultural pragmatics is applied to the data.
Note: The tag below identifies the rules for use of the speech styles explicated in this paper as cultural scripts, a term that was not yet current in the NSM framework at the time.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (S) speech styles
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 3, 2019.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1993). The alphabet of human thoughts. In Richard A. Geiger, & Brygida Rudzka-Ostyn (Eds.), Conceptualizations and mental processing in language (pp. 23-51). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
As human beings, we cannot place ourselves outside all cultures. This does not mean, however, that if we want to study cultures other than our own, all we can do is describe them through the prism of our own culture, and therefore to distort them. We can find a point of view which is universal and culture-independent; but we must look for such a point of view not outside all human cultures (because we cannot place ourselves outside them), but within our own culture, or within any other culture that we are intimately familiar with. To achieve this, we must learn to separate within a culture its idiosyncratic aspects from its universal aspects. We must learn to find “human nature” within every particular culture. This is necessary not only for the purpose of studying “human nature” but also for the purpose of studying the idiosyncratic aspects of any culture that we may be interested in. To study different cultures in their culture-specific features we need a universal perspective; and we need a culture-independent analytical framework. We can find such a framework in universal human concepts, that is in concepts which are inherent in any human language.
If we proceed in this way, we can study any human culture without the danger of distorting it by applying to it a framework alien to it; and we can aim both at describing it “truthfully” and at understanding it.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (1993). Conceptual axiology and axiological fields. In Peter Rolf Lutzeier (Ed.), Studien zur Wortfeldtheorie/Studies in lexical field theory (pp. 175-183). Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1993). Why do we say IN April, ON Thursday, AT 10 o’clock? In search of an explanation. Studies in Language, 17(2), 437-454. DOI: 10.1075/sl.17.2.07wie
Why do we say ON Thursday but AT 10 o’clock? Or why do we say AT night but IN the morning? One common answer to such questions is to dismiss the problem: this is the way we speak because this is the way to speak; it is all arbitrary, conventional, idiosyncratic.
It is argued that such answers are unilluminating and unsatisfactory. Prepositions such as ON, AT, or IN have their meanings, and the choice between them is motivated by these meanings. There are also certain conventions of use based on cultural expectations; the meanings and the cultural expectations interact and their interaction produces results whose “logic” may be difficult to detect — especially if one looks in the wrong direction, that is, that of “truth conditions” regarding external situations. In fact,
however, the problem is not insoluble, and if it is approached with the understanding that meaning is all in the mind and that it is a matter of conceptualizations rather than “truth conditions”, the hidden “logic ” behind the choice of prepositions for temporal adverbials can be explained.
The paper argues, and tries to demonstrate, that the prepositions AT, IN, and ON mean different things, and that the patterns of their use in different types of temporal phrases are determined by their meanings.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1993). *Intercultural communication in Australia. In G. Schulz (Ed.), The languages of Australia (pp. 83-103). Canberra: Australian Academy of the Humanities.
