Browsing results for “State of the art” publications
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 16, 2020.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1989). Semantic primitives and lexical universals. Quaderni di semantica, 10(1), 103-121.
Abstract:
Language is a tool for expressing meanings. The meanings we express constitute complex and culture-specific configurations of a restricted number of elementary concepts – conceptual building blocks. To be able to decode meanings with precision, to state them, to compare them across language boundaries, to study their growing complexity in child language, and so on, we must know what these elementary units are. To discover them, we must proceed by trial and error. A revealing semantic description is impossible without a well justified set of semantic prim(itiv)es. But a set of well justified prim(itiv)es cannot be found by mere theorizing. It can only be found on the basis of large scale lexicographic research.
More information:
This paper is best read in conjunction with the companion paper published by the same author in the same journal (Wierzbicka, Anna (1989). Semantic primitives – The expanding set. Quaderni di semantica, 10(2), 309-332).
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) good, (E) hungry, (E) mother, (E) part
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 16, 2020.
Wierzbicka, Anna (1989). Semantic primitives – The expanding set. Quaderni di semantica, 10(2), 309-332.
Abstract:
The set of hypothetical semantic prim(itiv)es proposed in earlier works is shown to be in need of considerable expansion. This outcome is due primarily to the work of Cliff Goddard. The present paper surveys a set of 28 elements, including – in addition to survivals from earlier sets – several elements proposed by Goddard, and some by Andrzej Bogusławski.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) angry, (E) become, (E) go, (E) soul, (E) To'!, (E) tu, (E) who
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 17, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (1999). Building a universal semantic metalanguage: The semantic theory of Anna Wierzbicka. RASK, 9-10, 3-35.
For some thirty years now, Anna Wierzbicka has been one of the most prolific, insightful, and lively scholars in the field of linguistic semantics. Her books and articles have ranged over diverse areas of lexical semantics, grammatical semantics, and pragmatics. At the level of theory, she is widely known for her insistence that universal semantic primitives exist as meanings of words in ordinary language. In recent years, her theory – now known as the ‘Natural Semantic Metalanguage’ (NSM) approach – has undergone considerable expansion and modification. This article presents an overview of current NSM theory, covering the expanded inventory of primitives, the novel concepts of allolexy and non-compositional polysemy, and new proposals about the syntax of the semantic metalanguage.
Tags: (T) English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 20, 2019.
Hasada, Rie (2002). The “Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM)” method for explicating the meaning of words and expressions: A linguistic approach to the study of emotion. 東京外国語大学留学生日本語教育センタ [Bulletin of Japanese Language Center for International Students, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies], 28, 69-102.
Open access
Abstract:
The focus of this paper is on the application of the NSM method to the study of emotion terminology. The author shows how the NSM approach can solve problems that cannot be solved by other approaches, especially the problems of ‘translation’, ‘definition’, and ‘ethnocentricity’, which have occurred mainly in non-linguistic, psychological, anthropological, or philosophical work.
No new explications are proposed. The paper is essentially a state-of-the-art report on the NSM framework as it was shaping up around the turn of the century.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) angry, (E) liget
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 4, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (2002). La métalangue sémantique naturelle au service de l’étude du transculturel [Natural Semantic Metalanguage at the service of cross-cultural research]. Travaux de linguistique, 45, 83-101. DOI: 10.3917/tl.045.083. PDF (open access)
Written in French.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 4, 2018.
Koselak, Arkadiusz (2003). La sémantique naturelle d’Anna Wierzbicka et les enjeux interculturels [Anna Wierzbicka’s natural semantics and its intercultural stakes]. Questions de communication, 4, 83-95. DOI: 10.4000/questionsdecommunication.4611. PDF (open access)
Written in French.
This paper is an introduction to an original method of semantic analysis still relatively little-known in France. The research carried out by Anna Wierzbicka takes full account of cultural differences and allows for different aspects of human communication to be envisaged by means of a single descriptive tool – the Natural Semantic Metalanguage. The presentation is divided into two sections: the first looks at the postulates that underpin Wierzbicka’s methodology, the second provides some concrete examples.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 27, 2018.
Durst, Uwe (2003). The Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach to linguistic meaning. Theoretical Linguistics, 29(3), 157-200. DOI: 10.1515/thli.29.3.157
After thirty years of language-internal, as well as cross-linguistic research, the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) model developed by Anna Wierzbicka and her colleagues has turned out to be a most useful theoretical and methodological framework for semantic analysis in various linguistic, and even non-linguistic, domains. This paper argues that the NSM approach to semantics constitutes a new paradigm in linguistic research that is free from various shortcomings of other semantic frameworks. The first section provides a brief survey of the historical development of NSM theory from the early seventies up to the present stage [2003]. Its theoretical and methodological principles are outlined in sections 2 and 3, which also illustrate how, in some cases (e.g. HAPPEN), words that used to be explicated have been discovered to be primes. Section 4 illustrates its applications in various domains by means of examples from a number of languages. These include a range of ‘anger’-related words that are compared to one another.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (T) English, (T) English (synopsis)
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 18, 2019.
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
Tags: (E) duša душа, (E) human being, (E) kokoro 心, (E) maum 몸, (E) mind, (E) unfair, (T) English
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 4, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2006). Natural Semantic Metalanguage. In Keith Brown (Ed.), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics. Second edition: Vol. 8 (pp. 544-551). Oxford: Elsevier.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 17, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff, & Peeters, Bert (2006). The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach: An overview with reference to the most important Romance languages. In Bert Peeters (Ed.), Semantic primes and universal grammar: Empirical evidence from the Romance languages (pp. 13-38). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.81.07god
Section 1.2 of this paper maps the growth of the NSM lexicon over the years. Sections 1.3 and 1.4 provide an account of the main analytical concepts (allolexy, portmanteaus and [non-compositional] polysemy) that, over the years, have emerged from the NSM enterprise, and notably from the pursuit of universality. Sections 1.5 and 1.6 report on developments in NSM syntax, including the idea that primes may have a number of “valency options”.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on August 15, 2018. Last updated on August 15, 2021.
Vanhatalo, Ulla (2009). Anna Wierzbicka ja ihmiskunnan yhteiset sanat [Anna Wierzbicka and the common words of mankind]. In Anna Idström, & Sachiko Sosa (Eds.), Kielissä kulttuurien ääni [The voice of cultures is in the languages] (pp. 35-47). Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.
Written in Finnish.
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 September 4, 2018.
Peeters, Bert (2010). La métalangue sémantique naturelle: acquis et défis [Natural Semantic Metalanguage: achievements and challenges]. In Jacques François (Ed.), Grandes voies et chemins de traverse de la sémantique cognitive (pp. 75-101). Leuven: Peeters.
Written in French.
For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach, and of those who, on the basis of superficial readings, may have reached the hasty conclusion that the Wierzbickian approach had nothing to offer them, this article provides an overview that is as systematic as possible: it leaves out nothing that is essential, either with respect to what has already been achieved (the «achievements»), or with respect to what remains to be done (the «challenges»). In reality, the NSM approach provides all those who do not remain indifferent to the desire to be understood, as much by scholars as by untrained readers, with a way to overcome the «crossing the creek» syndrome referred to by Georges Kleiber (2001: 3): «This syndrome, noted for the first time in the Middle Ages among the Oelenberg monks (in Reiningue, near Mulhouse) is well-known: sufferers keep hopping from one rock onto another, without ever falling into the water, but they forget they need to cross the river!» The Natural Semantic Metalanguage is shown to be at once unique and multi-faceted, with the English and French versions being used to briefly present its lexicon and grammar. Before moving on to the challenges, the notions of «cultural script» and «culture» are briefly dealt with. We particularly insist on some of the most recent tasks NSM practitioners have embarked on. These include the formulation of a typology of pathways enabling one to deal more effectively with the issue of language and cultural values, the compilation of the list of semantic molecules to be used to increase the readability of semantic explications, and the elaboration of «semantic templates» for the explication of words belonging to specific semantic categories such as emotions, physical contact verbs, speech act verbs etc.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) boire, (E) drink, (E) eat, (E) mains, (E) manger, (E) sfogarsi, (S) commitment, (T) French
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 4, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2010). The Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach. In Bernd Heine, & Heikko Narrog (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of linguistic analysis (pp. 459-484). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2nd ed.
Goddard, Cliff (2015). The Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach. In Bernd Heine, & Heikko Narrog (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of linguistic analysis (pp. 817-841). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199677078.013.0018
The basic conviction behind the NSM approach – bolstered by scores of empirical studies – is that meaning is the key to insightful and explanatory descriptions of most linguistic phenomena, phonetics and phonology excepted. The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) is a decompositional system of meaning representation based on empirically established universal semantic primes, i.e., simple indefinable meanings that appear to be present as word meanings in all languages. The NSM approach offers a comprehensive and versatile approach to meaning analysis: highly constrained and systematic, non-ethnocentric, and capable of producing representations with high cognitive plausibility. Given the pervasiveness of meaning-based and meaning-related phenomena in languages (in lexicon, morphology, syntax, prosody, and pragmatics), the approach surely has a tremendous amount to offer linguistics at large. Of course, NSM is not a complete theory or methodology of linguistic analysis. If languages can be thought of as systems for correlating meanings with forms, NSM’s strengths lie on the meaning side of the equation.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 4, 2018.
Tallarico, Giovanni (2011). La sémantique d’Anna Wierzbicka et l’approche MSN: recherches et applications [Anna Wierzbicka’s semantics and the NSM approach: research and applications]. Publif@rum 16. http://publifarum.farum.it. PDF (open access)
Written in French.
This paper, written by a non-NSM practitioner, presents the theoretical underpinnings of the NSM approach, sketches its evolution, and comments on its applications. Some critical remarks are also canvassed.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on June 21, 2019.
Yoon, Kyung Joo (2011). Theoretical and empirical review of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage theory: A tool for semantic analysis of cultural specificity. 인문학연구 [The Journal of Humanities], 19, 143-169.
Abstract:
This paper assesses the theoretical assumptions and principles of the NSM approach and its practicality as a semantic tool for explicating language-specific concepts.
By way of background, the author first presents a review of the literature on universal human concepts in general. She then introduces the methodological issues that are involved in cross-linguistic research aimed at testing the hypotheses that underpin the NSM approach in particular. She briefly summarizes some of its major empirical findings over the past few decades, showing that cross-linguistic investigations against typologically divergent languages are useful for understanding universal features of natural languages. Finally, she demonstrates the practicality of the metalanguage by presenting some examples of semantic analyses relying on NSM.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on February 17, 2019.
Goddard, Cliff (2011). Semantic analysis: A practical introduction. Second edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Revised and expanded version of:
Goddard, Cliff (1998). Semantic analysis: A practical introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The summary below reflects the contents of the second edition.
This lively textbook introduces students and scholars to practical and precise methods for articulating the meanings of words and sentences, and for revealing connections between language and culture. Topics range over emotions (Chapter 4), speech acts (Chapter 5), discourse particles and interjections (Chapter 6), words for animals and artefacts (Chapter 7), motion verbs (Chapter 8), physical activity verbs (Chapter 9), causatives (Chapter 10), and nonverbal communication. Alongside English, it features a wide range of other languages, including Malay, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Spanish, and Australian Aboriginal languages. Undergraduates, graduate students and professional linguists alike will benefit from Goddard’s wide-ranging summaries, clear explanations and analytical depth. Meaning is fundamental to language and linguistics. This book shows that the study of meaning can be rigorous, insightful and exciting.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
No tags entered yet.
Published on May 12, 2017. Last updated on September 4, 2018.
Wierzbicka, Anna (2015). Natural semantic metalanguage. In Karen Tracy, Cornelia Ilie, & Todd Sandel (Eds.), The international encyclopedia of language and social interaction (pp. 1076-1092). New York: John Wiley.
The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) is a minilanguage corresponding, evidence suggests, to the shared core of all languages. This minilanguage has as many versions as there are human languages. For example, there is an English NSM, a Russian NSM, and a Chinese NSM, with matching minilexicons and minigrammars. Each such minilexicon has a set of fewer than 100 words and a very simple grammar. For example, the lexicon of the English NSM includes the words good, bad, big, small, very, someone, and something, and the lexicon of the Russian NSM, the matching Russian words: xorošij, ploxoj, bol’šoj, malen’kij, očen, kto-to, and čto-to, with the same combinatorial possibilities (e.g., very good, očen’ xorošij). The grammar of the English NSM does not include any of the complex, language-specific machinery of full English,with its relative clauses, gerunds, participles, and so on, but it does include for example if clauses — which, evidence suggests, can be found in all languages. Thus, one can say in English (and in NSM English): “if you do this, something bad can happen to you”, and one can say in Russian (and in NSM Russian) the literal equivalent of that English sentence: “esli ty ėto sdelaeš, čto-to ploxoe možet slučit’sja s toboj”.
This encyclopedia entry introduces some of the machinery of NSM, including primes, NSM grammar, semantic molecules, and cultural scripts. It also discusses the role of “NSM English” or “minimal English” in the era of globalization.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) Bog, (E) flaque d'eau, (E) God, (E) hands, (E) legs, (E) long, (E) mana, (E) puddle, (S) addressing adults, (S) bare imperatives, (S) emotions, (S) names, (S) potential mother-in-law, (S) verbal caution, (S) whimperatives, (T) English
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 March 30, 2018. Last updated on September 5, 2018.
Goddard, Cliff (2018). Ten lectures on Natural Semantic Metalanguage: Exploring language, thought and culture using simple, translatable words. Leiden: Brill. DOI: 10.1163/9789004357723
These lively lectures introduce the theory, practice, and application of a versatile, rigorous, and non-Anglocentic approach to cross-linguistic semantics.
Table of contents:
- Preliminary material
- From Leibniz to Wierzbicka: The history and philosophy of NSM
- Semantic primes and their grammar
- Explicating emotion concepts across languages and cultures
- Wonderful, terrific, fabulous: English evaluational adjectives
- Semantic molecules and semantic complexity
- Words as carriers of cultural meaning
- English verb semantics: Verbs of doing and saying
- English verb alternations and constructions
- Applications of NSM: Minimal English, cultural scripts and language teaching
- Retrospect: NSM compared with other approaches to semantic analysis
Chapter 3 discusses selected exponents of primes in Farsi (Persian). Chapter 4 provides an explication of a North-Spanish homesickness word (morriña). Chapter 7 provides an explication of Chinese 孝 xiào ‘filial piety’.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tags: (E) Alles in Ordnung, (E) ask, (E) at night, (E) believe that, (E) blink, (E) brilliant, (E) build, (E) children, (E) complex, (E) contented, (E) crawl, (E) cut, (E) delighted, (E) delightful, (E) dig, (E) during the day, (E) eat, (E) entertaining, (E) excellent, (E) exciting, (E) great, (E) happy, (E) homesick, (E) impressive, (E) know someone, (E) know that, (E) lykke, (E) memorable, (E) men, (E) morriña, (E) mouth, (E) not fair, (E) order, (E) pleased, (E) pour, (E) powerful, (E) sčitat’ čto считать что, (E) sky, (E) stars, (E) stunning, (E) suggest, (E) sun, (E) swim, (E) tell, (E) terrific, (E) tęsknić, (E) water, (E) women, (E) wonderful, (E) xiào 孝, (E) xìngfú 幸福, (S) expressiveness, (S) feelings, (S) personal autonomy, (S) personal comments, (S) personal remarks, (S) requests, (S) sincerity, (T) Chinese, (T) English, (T) Finnish, (T) semantic molecules
