Browsing results for Ye Zhengdao

(2015) Ethnopragmatics

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 29, 2019.

Goddard, Cliff, with Zhengdao Ye (2015). Ethnopragmatics. In Farzad Sharifian (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of language and culture (pp. 66-83). London: Routledge.

Abstract:

Ethnopragmatics pursues emic (or culture-internal) perspectives on speech practices across languages and cultures. As such, it studies the links between language in use, on the one hand, and culture, on the other. The approach is based on the premise that there is an explanatory link between the cultural values/norms and the speech practices specific to a speech community. Ethnopragmatics relies on NSM to decompose cultural norms and notions in terms of simple meanings that are thought to be shared by all languages. Since it relies on linguistic evidence and ethnographic data from insiders to the culture, one of its central objectives is to explore ‘cultural key words’, or words that capture culturally constructed concepts that are pivotal to the ways of thinking, feeling, behaving, and speaking of a speech community.

To illustrate the approach, the chapter includes two ethnographic sketches from Anglo English and Chinese culture, respectively.

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(2016) “Happiness” and “pain” across languages and cultures [BOOK]

Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 23, 2019.

Goddard, Cliff & Ye, Zhengdao (Eds.) (2016). “Happiness” and “pain” across languages and cultures. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

DOI: 10.1075/bct.84

Abstract:

In the fast-growing fields of happiness studies and pain research, which have attracted scholars from diverse disciplines including psychology, philosophy, medicine, and economics, this volume provides a much needed cross-linguistic perspective. It centres on the question of how much ways of talking and thinking about happiness and pain vary across cultures, and seeks to answer this question by empirically examining the core vocabulary pertaining to happiness and pain in many languages and in different religious and cultural traditions. The authors not only probe the precise meanings of the expressions in question, but also provide extensive cultural contextualization, showing how these meanings are truly cultural. Methodologically, while in full agreement with the view of many social scientists and economists that self-reports are the bedrock of happiness research, the volume presents a body of evidence highlighting the problem of translation and showing how local concepts of happiness and pain can be understood without an Anglo bias.

Table of contents:

  1. Exploring “happiness” and “pain” across languages and cultures (Cliff Goddard & Zhengdao Ye)
  2. “Pain” and “suffering” in cross-linguistic perspective (Anna Wierzbicka)
  3. The story of “Danish happiness” (Carsten Levisen)
  4. The meaning of “happiness” (xìngfú) and “emotional pain” (tòngkŭ) in Chinese (Zhengdao Ye)
  5. Japanese interpretations of “pain” and the use of psychomimes (Yuko Asano-Cavanagh)
  6. Some remarks on “pain” in Latin American Spanish (Zuzanna Bułat-Silva)
  7. The semantics and morphosyntax of tare “hurt/pain” in Koromu (PNG) (Carol Priestley)

Each chapter has a separate entry, where more information is provided.

More information:

Previously published as:

Goddard, Cliff & Ye, Zhengdao (Eds.) (2014). “Happiness” and “pain” across languages and cultures. International Journal of Language and Culture, 1(2) (Special issue). DOI: 10.1075/ijolc.1.2

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(2017) Chinese (Mandarin) – Social relation nouns

Published on May 16, 2017. Last updated on September 2, 2019.

Ye, Zhengdao (2017). The semantics of social relation nouns in Chinese. In Zhengdao Ye (Ed.), The semantics of nouns (63-88). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198736721.003.0003

Abstract:

This study investigates the nature of Chinese social grouping by analysing the meaning and conceptual structure of a set of nouns that denote salient social relations in Chinese and that form two pairs of complementary opposites. It discusses in detail the commonalities and differences underlying the construals of semantic relation within and between both pairs and offers a semantic method to represent them. The study brings to attention the social categories and associated ways of conceptualizing social and meaning relations that are not often talked about in English, and illustrates that an in-depth analysis of social relation nouns enables researchers to access non-obvious aspects of human social cognition, therefore contributing to a deeper knowledge and understanding of the priorities at play in human social categorization.

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(2017) Nouns

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.


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(2017) The semantics of nouns [BOOK]

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:

  1. The semantics of nouns: A cross-linguistic and cross-domain perspective (Zhengdao Ye)
  2. The meaning of kinship terms: A developmental and cross-linguistic perspective (Anna Wierzbicka)
  3. The semantics of social relation nouns in Chinese (Zhengdao Ye)
  4. The meanings of ‘angel’ in English, Arabic, and Hebrew (Sandy Habib)
  5. Personhood constructs in language and thought: New evidence from Danish (Carsten Levisen)
  6. Some key body parts and polysemy: A case study from Koromu (Kesawai) (Carol Priestley)
  7. The semantics of standing water places in English, French, and Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara (Helen Bromhead)
  8. The semantics of demonyms in English: Germans, Queenslanders, and Londoners (Michael Roberts)
  9. The semantics of honeybee terms in Solega (Dravidian) (Aung Si)
  10. 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.

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(2019) Chinese – Semantics of grammar

Published on February 10, 2020. Last updated on February 10, 2020.

Ye, Zhengdao (2019). The emergence of expressible agency and irony in today’s China: A semantic explanation of the new bèi-construction. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 39(1), 57-78.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2019.1542933

Abstract:

This paper focuses on the new passive bèi-construction in Chinese, dating approximately from 2009. By 2012, this new usage had entered the most authoritative Chinese dictionary. While previous studies have mostly focused on the pragmatic effect of this structure, this study aims to trace the motivational forces behind this language innovation by examining the linguistic, cultural and social factors contributing to its emergence. In particular, it examines the specific features of the bèi-construction, using NSM to spell out its meaning and identify the semantic links between its variant forms, especially with respect to degrees of transitivity. It is then demonstrated that it is not accidental that the conventional bèi-construction has been ingeniously and humorously recruited and modified to express agency and disagreement with a higher authority, or even dissent in an authoritarian society, and that a deeper understanding of the bèi phenomenon not only affords insight into the cultural ethos developing in today’s China, but also offers an excellent example of (a) non-autonomous syntax and (b) mechanisms of language change in the age of internet and social media, when language innovation often takes place consciously
among internet users, transcends geographical barriers and is easier to trace than before.

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(2019) Emotions

Published on January 15, 2022. Last updated on January 15, 2022.

Ye, Zhengdao. (2019).The semantics of emotion: From theory to empirical analysis. Pritzker, Sonya.E., Fenigsen, Janina., & Wilce, James.M. (Eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Language and Emotion (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367855093

Abstract

This chapter provides a systematic account of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach to emotion and “affective science,” especially how it addresses three methodological questions: (a) how emotional meaning can be explicated in terms that are psychologically real to people; (b) how culture-specific meanings can be convened authentically to another linguacultural community, so that important nuances in the conceptualizations of emotions can be appreciated by cultural outsiders; and (c) how commonalities and differences in human experiences can be identified and articulated? The chapter draws upon a wide selection of NSM work across many languages, including Bislama, English, Mbula (PNG), and Chinese.

 


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(2020) Meaning, Life and Culture [BOOK]

Published on August 14, 2021. Last updated on August 15, 2021.

Bromhead, Helen and Zhengdao Ye (eds.). (2020). Meaning, Life and Culture. Canberra: ANU Press.

DOI: http://doi.org/10.22459/MLC.2020 (Open Access)

Abstract:

This book is dedicated to Anna Wierzbicka, one of the most influential and innovative linguists of her generation. Her work spans a number of disciplines, including anthropology, cultural psychology, cognitive science, philosophy and religious studies, as well as her home base of linguistics. She is best known for the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach to meaning—a versatile tool for exploring ‘big questions’ concerning the diversity and universals of people’s experience in the world.

In this volume, Anna Wierzbicka’s former students, old and current colleagues, ‘kindred spirits’ and ‘sparring partners’ engage with her ideas and diverse body of work. These authors cover topics from the grammar of action verbs to cross-cultural pragmatics, and over 30 languages from around the world are represented.

The chapters in Part 1 focus on the NSM approach and cover four themes: lexico-grammatical semantics, cultural keywords, semantics of nouns, and emotion. In Part 2, the contributors connect with a meaning-based approach from their own intellectual perspectives, including syntax, anthropology, cognitive linguistics and sociolinguistics.

The deep humanistic perspective, wide-ranging themes and interdisciplinary nature of Wierzbicka’s research are reflected in the contributions. The common thread running through all chapters is the primacy of meaning to the understanding of language and culture.

Each chapter has its own entry, where additional information is provided.

 

Chapters:

Part I: Meaning, life and culture: The Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach

  1. Prototypes, polysemy and constructional semantics: The lexicogrammar of the English verb climb – Cliff Goddard doi
  2. The comparative semantics of verbs of ‘opening’: West Africa vs Oceania – Felix K. Ameka and Deborah Hill doi
  3. Gezellig: A Dutch cultural keyword unpacked – Bert Peeters doi
  4. Royal semantics: Linguacultural reflections on the Danish address pronoun De – Carsten Levisen doi
  5. The Singlish interjection bojio – Jock Onn Wong doi
  6. The semantics of bushfire in Australian English – Helen Bromhead doi
  7. The semantics of migrant in Australian English – Zhengdao Ye doi
  8. The semantics of verbs of visual aesthetic appreciation in Russian – Anna Gladkova doi
  9. Christian values embedded in the Italian language: A semantic analysis of carità – Gian Marco Farese doi
  10. The semantics of two loanwords in Navarrese Spanish – Mónica Aznárez-Mauleón doi
  11. TIME in Portuguese saudade and other words of longing – Zuzanna Bułat Silva doi
  12. Lost in translation: A semantic analysis of no da in Japanese – Yuko Asano-Cavanagh doi

Part II: Meaning, life and culture: Perspectives (Links in this section lead to the PDF download on the ANU Press website)

  1. Locating ‘mind’ (and ‘soul’) cross-culturally – Frances Morphy and Howard Morphy doi
  2. Teknocentric kin terms in Australian languages – Harold Koch doi
  3. Showing and not telling in a sign language – John Haiman doi
  4. Games that people play: Capitalism as a game – Annabelle Mooney doi
  5. Our ordinary lives: Pathways to a more human-oriented linguistics – John Newman doi
  6. On defining parts of speech with Generative Grammar and NSM – Avery D. Andrews doi
  7. CUT-verbs of the Oceanic language Teop: A critical study of collecting and analysing data in a language documentation project – Ulrike Mosel doi
  8. The depiction of sensing events in English and Kalam – Andrew Pawley doi
  9. Russian language-specific words in the light of parallel corpora – Alexei Shmelev doi
  10. ‘Sense of privacy’ and ‘sense of elbow’: English vs Russian values and communicative styles – Tatiana Larina doi
  11. On the semantics of cup  – Keith Allan doi
  12. Where we PART from NSM: Understanding Warlpiri yangka and the Warlpiri expression of part-hood – David Nash and David P. Wilkins doi

Envoi

 

(2020) NSM

Published on August 14, 2021. Last updated on August 15, 2021.

Ye, Zhengdao and Bromhead, Helen. (2020). Introduction. In Bromhead, Helen and Zhengdao Ye (eds.). Meaning, Life and Culture. Canberra: ANU Press pp

(Open Access)

 

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(2021) Australian English, American English, British English, Chinese — migrant, immigrant, refugee

Published on January 15, 2022. Last updated on January 15, 2022.

Ye, Zhengdao. (2021). The semantics of migrant, immigrant and refugee: a cross-linguistic perspective. In Aleksandrova, Angelina and Meyer, Jean-Paul (Eds.) Nommer l’humain: descriptions, catégorisations, enjeux, 97–122. Paris: L’Harmattan.

This paper investigates and presents the meanings of words denoting people who change, either voluntarily or involuntarily, places where they live. More specifically, it contrasts the meanings of ‘migrant’, ‘immigrant’, and ‘illegal immigrant’ in three varieties of English (e.g. Australian, British and American), and provides a cross-linguistic perspective by discussing the major differences in meaning between yímin (’emigrant/immigrant’) and nánmin (‘refugee’) in Chimpse and their counterparts in English. The analytical and comparative framework used in this paper for contrastive lexico-conceptual analysis is the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) (e.g. Wierzbicka, 1972, 1996; Goddard & Wierzbicka, 2014). The paper first discusses the larger context in which this methodology is situated (Sec. 2), as well as its basic principles (Sec. 3), before introducing NSM work on nouns for people and some of the key insights on which the present study is built (Sec. 4). Sec. 5 presents the analysis of the terms in question, and § 6 summarizes the implications arising from this study.

 


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