Browsing results for FEEL
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 17, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (1996). Cross-linguistic research on metaphor. Language & Communication, 16(2), 145-151. DOI: 10.1016/0271-5309(96)00003-1
This paper takes issue with the assertion that there is no culture-neutral boundary between what is literal and what is metaphorical, and with the undercurrent of extreme relativism shown in a recent paper published in the same journal. It furthermore makes the point that, to study (and even to identify) the metaphoric systems of other languages, a coherent theory of semantic description is required. It is argued that, despite the enormous semantic differences between languages, there is solid evidence that they share a small set of ‘universal meanings’, which can provide a non-arbitrary and non-ethnocentric vocabulary for cross-linguistic semantics.
The claims contained in this paper are underpinned by discussion of the semantic primes THERE IS and FEEL in Yankunytjatjara.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Onishi, Masayuki (1997). The grammar of mental predicates in Japanese. Language Sciences, 19(3), 219-233. DOI: 10.1016/S0388-0001(96)00061-7
The current NSM theory regards six mental predicates – THINK, KNOW, WANT, SEE, HEAR and FEEL – as indefinable semantic universals. This paper examines the syntax of their Japanese exponents (omou, sit-te iru, -tai/hosii, miru, kiku and kimoti). Special attention is paid to the syntax and semantics of major complementation types (S no, S koto and S to) found with the majority of these predicates. It is shown that each primitive predicate has a specific set of syntactic frames in which the primitive meaning is expressed, and that the extended meanings that may be expressed in other syntactic environments are specifiable by reductive paraphrase explications.
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 August 29, 2018.
Hasada, Rie (2000). An exploratory study of expression of emotions in Japanese: Towards a semantic interpretation. PhD thesis, Australian National University. PDF (open access)
The present study explores the emotional world of Japanese people. Using the framework of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage theory, this thesis attempts to explicate the conceptual organization of aspects of Modern Standard Japanese, with a special focus on the lexicon. This thesis also aims to explicate the cultural norms that are related to the emotion words/expressions with the use of culture-independent, universal Natural Semantic Metalanguage. A great amount of data is taken from various sources: TV or radio broadcasting, actual conversation, published literature both in Japanese and English, film scripts, dialogues in magazines, newspaper/magazine articles, comic books, advertisements, letters, dictionaries, and popular songs.
The work is organized in the following way. Chapter 1 is the introduction. Chapter 2 consists of a review of the literature on emotions and includes philosophical, anthropological, and psychological approaches. Chapter 3 demonstrates the importance of linguistic study for the research on emotions, and suggests the Natural Semantic Metalanguage as the most appropriate method for achieving the main goals of this thesis. Chapter 4 discusses the grammatical features of emotion expression sentences. Chapter 5 deals with those body parts terms which are related to emotions in Japanese. Chapters 6 to 11 explicate the meanings of various Japanese emotion words and expressions. Chapter 12 focuses on communication of nonverbal emotion in Japanese culture. Chapter 13 examines characteristic Japanese speakers’ attitudes towards emotions. Chapter 14 is the conclusion.
Wherever possible, the thesis seeks to probe into culturally-based aspects of the conceptual structure of emotion words/expressions, by drawing on a variety of anthropological, psychological, and sociological studies of Japanese society.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) (non-verbal communication), (E) ai 愛, (E) aishi 愛し, (E) aisuru 愛する, (E) akogareru 憧れる, (E) atama ni kuru 頭にき, (E) atama o kaku, (E) aware, (E) haji 恥, (E) hara ga tatsu 腹が立っ, (E) hara o tateru 腹を立てる, (E) hara 腹, (E) hazukashii 恥ずかしい, (E) horeru 惚れる, (E) ijirashii いじらしい, (E) itooshii いとおしい, (E) itoshii 愛しい, (E) jihi, (E) joo, (E) kanashii 悲しい, (E) kawaisoo かわいそう, (E) kenage 健気, (E) ki 気, (E) kinodoku 気の毒, (E) koi 恋, (E) koishii 恋しい, (E) koisuru 恋する, (E) kokoro 心, (E) kowai 怖い, (E) kuyashii 悔しい, (E) mune 胸, (E) mushi 虫, (E) nasake 情け, (E) nasakenai 情けない, (E) natsukashii 懐かしい, (E) omoiyari 思いやり, (E) osoreru 恐れる, (E) osoroshii 恐ろしい, (E) sabishii 寂しい, (E) setsunai 切ない, (E) shiawase 幸せ, (E) suki 好き, (E) tanoshii 楽しい, (E) tere-warai 照れ笑い, (E) terekusai 照れくさい, (E) tsurai 辛い, (E) uchooten 有頂天, (E) ureshii 嬉しい, (E) wabishii わびしい, (E) zoq, (S) affection, (S) emotions
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 10, 2018.
Priestley, Carol (2002). Insides and emotion in Koromu. Pragmatics & Cognition, 10(1/2), 243-270. DOI: 10.1075/pc.10.12.11pri
This paper describes several emotion expressions in Koromu, a language of Papua New Guinea. As in other languages, emotions can be expressed by reference to body events and processes. Bodily images are used for common and pertinent emotion expressions in Koromu; the alternative grammatical constructions in which some of these expressions occur enable speakers to express varying emotions while still indicating that there are shared semantic components between the expressions. In addition, as the emotion expressions are examined and their meanings explicated, a number of universal concepts and components of meaning can be observed. A study of these language-specific expressions therefore contributes to a cross-linguistic understanding of the relationship between emotion and the body.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) oru mei hekeni wera, (E) oru mere, (E) oru mere mae, (E) oru mereri, (E) oru meresera
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on May 5, 2019.
Levisen, Carsten (2016). Postcolonial lexicography: Defining creole emotion words with the Natural Semantic Metalanguage. Cahiers de lexicologie, 109, 35-60.
DOI: 10.15122/isbn.978-2-406-06861-7.p.0035
Abstract:
The lexicographical study of postcolonial language varieties is severely undertheorized and underdeveloped. Postcolonial Lexicography is a new framework that seeks to go some way towards filling the gap. It aims at providing a new praxis of word definition for the study of creoles, world Englishes, and other languages spoken in postcolonial contexts. NSM is used as an interpretative technique for the definition of meaning. The NSM approach allows for a fine-grained lexical-semantic analysis, and at the same time helps circumvent ‘conceptual colonialism’ and the related vices of Anglocentrism and Eurocentrism, all of which hamper advances in lexicographical studies in a postcolonial context.
More specifically, drawing on advances in lexical semantics, linguistic ethnography and postcolonial language studies, the paper offers an original analysis of emotion words in Urban Bislama, a creole language spoken in Port Vila, Vanuatu. The author develops a sketch of the Bislama lexicon of emotion and provides new definitions of kros, roughly ‘angry’, les, roughly ‘annoyed’ and sem, roughly ‘ashamed’. A table of Bislama exponents of NSM primes is included, as well as some discussion on the exponents for FEEL, GOOD, and BAD.
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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) kros, (E) les, (E) sem, (T) Bislama
Published on July 26, 2018. Last updated on May 5, 2019.
Tokula, Lillian & Pütz, Martin (2016). Emotion concepts in Igala language (Nigeria): A view from NSM theory. In Gratien G. Atindogbé & Evelyn Fogwe Chibaka (Eds.), Proceedings of the 7th World Congress on African linguistics: Vol. 2 (pp. 948-976). Bamenda (Cameroon): Langaa.
Abstract:
This study highlights the various characteristics of emotion concepts in Igala and shows the areas of overlap among the members of different categories of emotion concepts. The absence of a lexical exponent for FEEL in Igala is shown not to have any relevance to the expression and comprehension of emotive language in Igala, as shown by the side by side explication done simultaneously in both languages for happiness-, love- and fear-like emotions. The authors submit that, contrary to the claims made by the leading developers of the theory, FEEL is not necessary to the semantic explication of emotion concepts universally. They therefore recommend a review of the status of FEEL. In the face of evidence to the contrary from languages such as Igala and Sidaama, its present status as a semantic prime points to (unintended and paradoxical) ethnocentric bias on the part of the developers of the theory – a phenomenon, among others, that motivated the development of the theory in the first place. A re-evaluation of the status of the concept FEEL as a semantic molecule necessary for the semantic explication of emotion concepts in English and some other languages but not as a semantic prime found in ALL languages of the world may be more fitting to the data.
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Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) àyìlò, (E) ɛ̀dɔ̀ ɛ̀bɔ́, (E) òkpò, (E) ufɛ́dɔ̀, (E) ùyɔ̀, (T) Igala
Published on July 29, 2018. Last updated on June 29, 2019.
Brise, Lillian (2017). Eating regret and seeing contempt: A Cognitive Linguistic approach to the language of emotions in Igala (Nigeria). Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3726/b11354
Abstract:
This book, which deals with emotions and their expression in Igala, a Nigerian minority language with about two million speakers, calls for significant revisions within the NSM framework, its universal lexicon and its universal syntax, especially with respect to the prime FEEL. It challenges the claim that, in its present form, NSM is adequate for the analysis of emotion concepts universally. The challenge is based on the way emotions are conceptualized in Igala as well as on the absence of certain semantic primes that the NSM approach considers necessary for the analysis of emotions.
The author argues that NSM’s rigid claims to universality (of its syntax, for example) hinder the elegant description of emotion concepts in Igala and that the status of FEEL has to be re-evaluated. Igala does not have a generic lexical item that fits into the allegedly universal syntax specifications for FEEL and that lends itself to the explication of both physical and emotional (mental) states. FEEL must therefore possibly be downgraded and accorded the status of a semantic molecule rather than a prime. This would make it a language-specific concept, required for the explication of emotion concepts in some languages (e.g. English) but unnecessary in others (e.g. Igala).
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Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) àjìlò, (E) áɲó, (E) ɛ̀dɔ̀ dúdú, (E) ɛ̀dɔ̀ ɛ̀bɔ́, (E) ɛ̀dɔ̀ ɛ́kpabíe, (E) ɛ̀dɔ̀ ɛ̀kpabíɛ́, (E) ìhìɛ̀nɛ̀, (E) ìmélí, (E) ìwɔ̀, (E) òkpò, (E) ɔ́la ɟìɟìlì, (E) ufɛ́dɔ̀, (E) ùgɛ́dɔ̀, (E) ùgójì, (E) ùkàtà, (E) ùlàkà, (E) ùwɛ́dɔ̀, (E) ùyɔ̀, (T) Igala
Published on September 2, 2018. Last updated on September 4, 2018.
Holden, Josh (2018). Expressing concepts of FEEL, CAN, CAN’T, and PART in Denesųłiné. Working Papers in Dene Languages 2017, 55-72. Fairbanks, Alaska: Alaska Native Language Center.
This paper details the author’s attempt to elicit the semantic primes FEEL, CAN, CAN’T, and PART in the First Nations language Denesųłiné (Dene/Athabaskan language family, Northern Canada, with the goal of empirically testing NSM claims and shedding light on the Denesųłiné lexicon. If these primes are not found, it is shown how the concepts are expressed in Denesųłiné.
Although, in the author’s opinion, the findings suggest the need for changes to the current semantic prime inventory, they should not be viewed as discounting the NSM approach. Dene shows many cases where, even though one can posit the existence of an NSM exponent, there are still language-specific differences in denotational range and even meaning. One wonders how exact the correspondence must be, or even whether this exactness can even be verified without a deep, native-like knowledge of both source and metalanguage. Still, semantic primes as a concept may be useful in identifying a core of the lexicon where there is significant overlap in word meanings between languages, without these being true universals that can be elicited in the same core contexts.
The issues of translatability and equivalence raised by the NSM approach are also highly relevant to Dene language documentation, which is virtually always bilingual: a linguist translates words from the source language to English when glossing. The phenomenon of lexical incommensurability, in which a meaning in the studied language has no direct equivalent in the metalanguage language of description, can render any one-word translation culturally specific and therefore inaccurate as a representation of the source language meaning. This is problematic because future heritage learners and researchers will only be able to access the Indigenous lexicon through the prism of a flawed or incomplete English translation. Diligent cross-linguistic semantic analysis of the type that the NSM school proposes can help build a more authentic record of the lexicon. The NSM approach of explicating culture-specific meanings is therefore a valuable tool in language documentation efforts, although more empirical studies will be needed to test the universality of the semantic primes, and future revisions to the NSM inventory may be required in light of their results, and of the Denesųłiné data discussed here.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Published on January 8, 2019. Last updated on February 20, 2020.
Holden, Josh (2019). Semantic primes in Denesųłiné: In search of some lexical “universals”. International Journal of American Linguistics, 85(1), 75-121.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/700319
Abstract:
This study examines whether the semantic primes of NSM are attested in Denesųłiné (Athabaskan, Northern Canada; aka Dene). It argues that some of them are problematic, including (BE) SOMEWHERE, BAD, MOMENT, FEEL, KIND, and PART. Dene seems not to express partonymy and typonymy via abstract lexical items. This article suggests improvements to NSM in light of the Dene data and reflects on how semantic decomposition approaches like NSM can improve the documentation and analysis of this language.
Rating:
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Published on January 15, 2022. Last updated on January 15, 2022.
Wierzbicka, Anna. (2019). From ‘Consciousness’ to ‘I Think, I Feel, I Know’: A Commentary on David Chalmers. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 26(9–10), pp. 257–69
Abstract
David Chalmers appears to assume that we can meaning- fully discuss what goes on in human heads without paying any attention to the words in which we couch our statements. This paper challenges this assumption and argues that the initial problem is that of metalanguage: if we want to say something clear and valid about us humans, we must think about ourselves outside conceptual English created by one particular history and culture and try to think from a global, panhuman point of view. This means that instead of relying on untranslatable English words such as ‘consciousness’ and ‘experi- ence’ we must try to rely on panhuman concepts expressed in cross- translatable words such as THINK, KNOW, and FEEL (Wierzbicka, 2018). The paper argues that after ‘a hundred years of consciousness studies’ it is time to try to say something about us (humans), about how we think and how we differ from cats and bats, in words that are clear, stable, and human rather than parochially English.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
