Wierzbicka, Anna (2003). Sexism in grammar: The semantics of gender in Australian English. Anthropological Linguistics, 44(2), 143-177.
(2003) English (Singapore)
Wierzbicka, Anna (2003). Singapore English: A semantic and cultural perspective. Multilingua, 22, 327-366.
Abstract:
This paper examines some aspects of Singapore English, raising questions about Singaporean culture and national identity, and, more generally, about the nature of links between language and culture in a multilingual, hetero- geneous, and rapidly changing society. It argues that Singapore English is grounded in Singapore experience; in doing so, it takes up the notion of ‘interculturality’, proposed by the Singapore linguist Ho Chee Lick. Using the ‘Natural Semantic Metalanguage’, developed by the author and col- leagues, and based on empirically established universal human concepts, the paper offers a detailed semantic analysis of a number of Singaporean ‘key words’, and shows how their meaning reflects the unique Singaporean experience. The detailed semantic analysis of these ‘key words’, and of some other aspects of Singapore English, leads the author to posit some Singaporean ‘cultural scripts’, also formulated in universal human concepts.
Ratings:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(2003) English (Singapore) – Discourse particles: LAH
Besemeres, Mary & Wierzbicka, Anna (2003). Pragmatics and cognition: The meaning of the particle lah in Singapore English. Pragmatics & Cognition, 11(1), 3-38. DOI: 10.1075/pc.11.1.03bes
This paper tries to crack one of the hardest and most intriguing chestnuts in the field of cross-cultural pragmatics and to identify the meaning of the celebrated Singaporean particle lah, the hallmark of Singapore English. In pursuing this goal, the authors investigate the use of lah and seek to identify its meaning by trying to find a paraphrase in ordinary language that would be substitutable for lah in any context. In doing so, they try to enter the speakers’ minds, and as John Locke urged in his pioneering work on particles, published in 1691, “observe nicely” the speakers’ “postures of the mind in discoursing”. At the same time, they offer a general model for the investigation of discourse markers and show how the methodology based on the NSM semantic theory allows the analyst to link pragmatics, via semantics, with the study of cognition.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(2003) NSM primes
Wierzbicka, Anna (2003). Semantic primitives. In William J. Frawley (Ed.), International encyclopedia of linguistics: Vol. 4 (pp. 12-13). New York: Oxford University Press.
(2004) Bilingual lives, bilingual experience
Wierzbicka, Anna (2004). Bilingual lives, bilingual experience. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 25(2/3), 94-104.
(2004) Conceptual primes in humans and animals
Wierzbicka, Anna (2004). Conceptual primes in human languages and their analogues in animal communication and cognition. Language Sciences, 26(5), 413-441.
(2004) Cultural scripts
Goddard, Cliff, & Wierzbicka, Anna (2004). Cultural scripts: What are they and what are they good for? Intercultural Pragmatics, 1(2), 153-166. DOI: 10.1515/iprg.2004.1.2.153
The term cultural scripts refers to a powerful new technique for articulating cultural norms, values, and practices in terms which are clear, precise, and accessible to cultural insiders and to cultural outsiders alike. This result is only possible because cultural scripts are formulated in a tightly constrained, yet expressively flexible, metalanguage, known as NSM, consisting of simple words (semantic primes) and grammatical patterns that have equivalents in all languages.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(2004) Cultural scripts [SPECIAL ISSUE]
Goddard, Cliff, & Wierzbicka, Anna (Eds.) (2004). Cultural scripts. Intercultural Pragmatics, 1(2) (Special issue).
Table of contents:
Each paper has its own entry, where additional information is provided.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(2004) English – Emotions: happiness
Wierzbicka, Anna (2004). ‘Happiness’ in cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective. Daedalus, 133(2), 34-43. DOI: 10.1162/001152604323049370
Also published as:
Wierzbicka, Anna (2007). “Happiness” in cross-linguistic and cross-cultural perspective. Slovo a Smysl – Word and Sense, 8. HTML (open access)
A more recent publication building on this one is chapter 5 (pp. 102-126) of:
Goddard, Cliff, & Wierzbicka, Anna (2014). Words and meanings: Lexical semantics across domains, languages, and cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199668434.001.0001
Progress in cross-cultural investigations of happiness and subjective well-being requires a greater linguistic and cross-cultural sophistication than that evident in much of the existing literature on the subject. To compare meanings across languages, we need a well-founded semantic metalanguage; and to be able to interpret self-reports across cultures, we need a methodology for exploring cultural norms that may guide the interviewees in their responses. It is the author’s firm belief that the Natural Semantic Metalanguage can solve the first problem and that the methodology of cultural scripts can solve the second. Together, they bring significant advances to the intriguing and controversial field of happiness studies.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(2004) English – Vocabulary of child rearing (GOOD BOY, GOOD GIRL)
Wierzbicka, Anna (2004). The English expressions good boy and good girl and cultural models of child rearing. Culture & Psychology, 10(3), 251-278. DOI: 10.1177/1354067X04042888
The expressions good boy and good girl are widely used in Anglo parental speech directed at children to praise them for their actions. Used in this way, these expressions have no equivalents in other European languages. In tracing the history of these expressions, and their negative counterparts bad boy and bad
girl, this paper seeks to show that they reflect a unique cultural model of child rearing, which links evaluation of a child’s behaviour with evaluation of the child him- or herself. It is argued that this model, which might seem natural and universal, but which is in fact culture-specific, has its roots in England’s and America’s Puritan past. Using the NSM semantic methodology, the paper explores the changes and continuities in this cultural model against the backdrop of broad linguistic usage.
(2004) Jewish cultural scripts and understanding of the Gospel
Wierzbicka, Anna (2004). Еврейские кул’турные скрипты и понимание Евангелия [Jewish cultural scripts and understanding of the Gospel]. In Jurij D. Apresjan (Ed.), Sokrovennye smysly: Festschrift for N. D. Arutjunova (pp. 533-547). Moskva.
Written in Russian.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(2004) Polish – NSM syntax
Wierzbicka, Anna (2004). Polish and universal grammar. Studies in Polish Linguistics, 1, 9-28.
(2005) Christ’s “eucharistic words”
Wierzbicka, Anna (2005). W poszukiwaniu lepszego zrozumienia “słów eucharystycznych” Chrystusa [In search of a better understanding of Christ’s “eucharistic words”]. Znak, 604, 33-55.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(2005) English – CULTURE
Wierzbicka, Anna (2005). In defense of ‘culture’. Theory and Psychology, 15(4), 575-597. DOI: 10.1177/0959354305054752
The concept of ‘culture’, as used in anthropology and related fields, has been under continual and mounting criticism for several decades. This paper argues that while this concept needs indeed to be
scrutinized and problematized, we are nonetheless much better off with it than without it. By rejecting it, we would jeopardize, in particular, the vital interests of immigrants, refugees and other crossers of cultural boundaries, who need to learn about cultural differences to be able to flourish, or even survive (socially), in a new environment. Drawing on autobiographical cross-cultural literature, the paper shows how the experience of transcultural lives and transcultural ‘selves’ vindicates the ‘culture’ concept, despite its limitations, and how this experience points to a need for crosscultural education, rather than for the abandonment of the concept of ‘culture(s)’. At the same time, the paper shows how the results of linguistic semantics and pragmatics, and especially those of the so-called ‘Natural Semantic Metalanguage’ (NSM) theory developed by the author and colleagues, allow us to better identify different cultural assumptions, values and understandings associated with different languages and to articulate
different ‘cultural scripts’ in a way which would reflect the perspective of cultural insiders while being intelligible to outsiders. It also shows how the theory of ‘cultural scripts’, which is an offshoot of the NSM theory of language and thought, helps to refine the ‘culture’ concept and to make it more theoretically viable and more workable in practical applications.
(2005) Ethnopsychology and personhood
Wierzbicka, Anna (2005). Empirical universals of language as a basis for the study of other human universals and as a tool for exploring cross-cultural differences. Ethos, 33(2), 256-291.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.2005.33.2.256
Abstract:
Genuine universals of culture or cognition can only be formulated if we have at our disposal a universal language, and similarly, only a universal language can allow us to formulate generalizations about different cultures from a culture-independent point of view. In this article, it is argued that a universal, “culture-free” language suitable both for the study of human universals and the exploration of cultural differences, can be built on the basis of empirical universals of language. Furthermore, it is claimed that such a language has already been largely constructed, thus bringing the notion of a “universal language” from the realm of utopia to the realm of everyday reality. The article shows that this language (NSM) can be used to describe and explore both universal and culture-specific forms of human thinking, and in particular, to identify and compare personhood models across languages and cultures.
Translations:
Into French (with some cuts):
Wierzbicka, Anna (2006). Les universaux empiriques du langage: tremplin pour l’étude d’autres universaux humains et outil dans l’exploration de différences transculturelles. Linx, 54, 151-179.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/linx.517 / Open access
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(2005) Exploring bilingual lives with NSM
Wierzbicka, Anna (2005). Universal human concepts as a tool for exploring bilingual lives. International Journal of Bilingualism, 9(1), 7-26. DOI: 10.1177/13670069050090010201
Embodied within every language is a unique universe of meaning. This raises some key questions about the conceptual universes of bilingual persons: What meanings does a bilingual person live with? How does such a person (in contrast with a monolingual person) think and feel? How are their thoughts and emotions related to their two different languages? In order to investigate these questions we need to listen to the subjective experience of bilingual people and, in particular, bilingual writers who have been able to reflect deeply on their personal experience and to articulate their own insights. We also need to analyze semantic differences between languages and try to link the “soft” subjective experience of bilingual persons with “hard” objective evidence derived from rigorous semantic analysis. Finally, we need to recognize that in order to compare the different meanings that bilingual persons live with, we need a common measure at our disposal. In this paper, I will argue that the “Natural Semantic Metalanguage” based on empirically established lexical and grammatical universals provides such a common measure, and I will try to show how the use of this metalanguage can help us to explore the conceptual worlds of bilingual people more effectively and more revealingly.
(2005) Visual semantics
Wierzbicka, Anna (2005). There are no “color universals” but there are universals of visual semantics. Anthropological Linguistics, 47(2), 217-244. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25132327
The search for the “universals of colour” that was initiated by Berlin and Kay’s classic book is based on the assumption that there can be, and indeed that there are, some conceptual universals of colour. This article brings new evidence, new analyses, and new arguments against the Berlin and Kay paradigm, and offers a radically different alternative to it. The new data on which the argument is based come, in particular, from Australian languages, as well as from Polish and Russian. The article deconstructs the concept of “colour,” and shows how indigenous visual descriptors can be analysed without reference to colour, on the basis of identifiable visual prototypes and the universal concept of seeing. It also offers a model for analysing semantic change and variation from “the native’s point of view”.
(2006) ‘Mind’, ‘agency’, ‘morality’
Wierzbicka, Anna (2006). On folk conceptions of mind, agency and morality. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 6(1/2), 165-179. DOI: 10.1163/156853706776931286
This paper is part of a special issue on folk conceptions of mind, agency and morality. It consists of four parts, in which the author comments on the topic at large, then singles out three of the papers in it for further comment. At the end of the first part, she makes the following main points, which apply, in one way or the other, to all papers in the special issue.
- To compare folk conceptions or folk concepts of any kind we need a tertium comparationis, that is, a culture-independent semantic metalanguage.
- English cannot serve as such a metalanguage, because like any other natural language, it is itself saturated with culture-specific folk conceptions.
- A culture-independent metalanguage in which unbiased comparisons can be carried out is available in “NSM”, that is, the Natural Semantic Metalanguage.
- Language is a key issue in all cross-cultural research and all research that has as its subject human cognition. No matter how broad the empirical basis of a cross-cultural study, or the study into human cognition, is, if this study does not pay attention to the language in which its hypotheses and analyses are formulated, it is likely to impose on the data an ethnocentric perspective. Such ethnocentrism may have been unavoidable in the past, before it was known what the universal, culture-independent human concepts were. Now that this is known, however, it is no longer unavoidable. The Natural Semantic Metalanguage is available as a tested analytical tool for anyone who would wish to engage in a study of human speech practices, and human cognition, in an unbiased and maximally (if not entirely) culture-independent way. The effectiveness of this tool has been demonstrated in hundreds of analyses, carried out by many scholars across a broad spectrum of languages, cultures, and conceptual domains.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(2006) Colours and vision
Wierzbicka, Anna (2006). The semantics of colour: A new paradigm. In Carole P. Biggam, & Christian J. Kay (Eds.), Progress in colour studies: Vol. 1. Language and culture (pp. 1-24). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/z.pics1.05wie
Abstract:
To be able to establish the true universals of visual semantics we must first of all reject the ones that are false. Above all, we must reject the widespread view that there are some ‘colour universals’, whether absolute or implicational. There are no ‘colour universals’ because ‘colour’ itself is not a universal concept. What is universal is the concept of SEEing. SEEing, not colour, must be the starting point, and the cornerstone, of our investigations.
It appears that in all languages there are visual descriptors referring to some features of the natural environment. Apart from such universal or widespread environmental features, all languages appear to have visual descriptors referring to some features of the local environment, in particular to visually salient local minerals and other pigments, especially those that can be used for painting, decoration, or dyeing. It also appears that in all languages there are some visual descriptors linked to the human (and sometimes animal) body. In addition to such commonalities in the visual descriptors, there is also a wide variety of more restricted and even idiosyncratic types.
To understand the human conceptualization of the visual world in both its diversity and its commonalities, we need to recognize the role of environmental and bodily prototypes recurring in human experience (such as fire, sun, blood, sky and grass), and to base our analysis on the bedrock of universal human concepts; and it is only on this basis that we can hope to arrive at a tenable and enduring synthesis.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
(2006) English – ‘Putting pressure’
Wierzbicka, Anna (2006). Anglo scripts against “putting pressure” on other people and their linguistic manifestations. In Cliff Goddard (Ed.), Ethnopragmatics: Understanding discourse in cultural context (31-63). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110911114.31
Translated into Russian as:
Анна Вежбицкая (2007). Англоязычные сценарии против «давления» на других людей и их лингвистические манифестации. Жанры речи [Speech genres], 5.
No abstract available.
