Tag: (E) God

(2018) Polish — Address terms, Religion

Wierzbicka, Anna. (2018). Polskie słowo Boże w perspektywie porównawczej [The Polish word God in comparative perspective]. In Jolanta Chojak and Zofia Zaron (eds.) Ku rzeczom niebłahym, 221–234. Wydanie I, Warszawa: BEL Studio.

Written in Polish

Abstract
All European languages have a word for God, and this word means exactly the same in all of them. But when it comes to addressing God, the situation is very different. Speakers of different European languages tend to relate to God in different ways. Each group has its own characteristic ways of addressing God, encoded in certain words, phrases and grammatical forms. These words, phrases, and grammatical forms both reflect and shape the speakers’ habitual way of thinking about God and relating to God. Often, they also reflect some other aspects of their cultural memory and historical experience. This paper is about the Polish vocative Boże, commonly used in Polish to address God in prayer. The paper discusses the meaning of this vocative comparing it with addressative expressions such as O God in English, Mon Dieu in French and Gospodi in Russian, within the framework of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM).


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2019) Ethnopsychology and personhood

Peeters, Bert (2019). Delving into heart- and soul-like constructs: Describing EPCs in NSM. In Bert Peeters (Ed.), Heart- and soul-like constructs across languages, cultures, and epochs (pp. 1-29). New York: Routledge.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315180670-1

Abstract:

This introduction to a collection of four thematically related studies addresses the perennial problem of Anglocentrism and reification in scholarly discourse, where English continues to set the tone and its constructs continue to be used as yardsticks in the description of cultural diversity, thereby elevating the English language to a status it does not deserve, no matter how important it may be on a world scale. Use of NSM is put forward as a way out of the problem. In addition, to illustrate the idea that “every explication is an experiment”, the author reconstructs the various stages that explications of the English ethnopsychological personhood construct mind have gone through since the first attempt was made in the late 1980s.

More information:

A more recent publication building on this one is:

Peeters, Bert (2019). The English ethnopsychological personhood construct mind “deconstructed” in universally intelligible words. Critical studies in languages and literature, 1(1), 61-77.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2018) English, German – ‘Grace’

Bolin, Mary (2018). Natural Semantic Metalanguage: Primes, universals, and syntax with data from the semantic field Grace in the Old Testaments of the King James Bible and Martin Luther’s German Bible. University of Nebraska, Lincoln: Faculty Publications. PDF (open access)

This study looks at semantic analysis through the lens of NSM as described by Wierzbicka and others, showing how primes combine syntactically to make culture. The focus is on the semantic field Grace in the Bible’s Old Testament, both in German and English, and on how this field can be analysed using NSM. The explications are preliminary and could be extensively overhauled and edited to make them clearer, more exhaustive, and more contrastive. NSM analysis both confirms things about this data that were already shown by previous analyses, and provides further insights. The optimism, tenaciousness, and forthrightness of this approach make it intriguing and promising and the staunch empiricism of NSM researchers provides a lot of evidence that can be evaluated and used.


Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner

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(2011) Leibniz

Wierzbicka, Anna (2011). Common language of all people: The innate language of thought. Problems of information transmission, 47(4), 378-397. DOI: 10.1134/S0032946011040065

English translation of a Russian text (2011) published in Problemy Peredachi Informatsii, 47(4), 84-103.

As is well known, Leibniz was interested in language throughout his life, and he saw in it a key to the understanding of the human mind. Many of his ideas about language were expressed in unpublished manuscripts, and what has come to us is not always clear. Nevertheless, some of his ideas — even if he did not always consistently adhere to them himself — seem to be both clear and extremely appealing.

I would summarize these ideas as follows:

1. All human thoughts can be decomposed into a relatively small number of elementary concepts;
2. All explanations depend on the existence of some concepts which are self-explanatory (otherwise, they would lead to an infinite regress);
3. The elementary concepts are common to all languages, and can be found by means of semantic analysis;
4. These concepts are the foundation of an innate language, “lingua naturae.” Just as mathematics is, as Galileo said, the language of the physical world, so the innate “lingua naturae” is the language of the inner world, the language of thoughts;
5. This language can be identified;
6. This language can serve as an auxiliary means of mutual understanding for speakers of different languages;
7. This language can help us to reach a greater clarity in our thinking;
8. This language can serve as a means for clarifying, elucidating, storing and comparing ideas.

These are also the main ideas which lie at the basis of the NSM program and from which this program has derived and continues to derive its inspiration.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2015) Natural Semantic Metalanguage

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

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(2011) English, Hebrew, Arabic – Religion

Habib, Sandy (2011). Contrastive lexical-conceptual analysis of folk religious concepts in English, Arabic, and Hebrew: NSM approach. PhD thesis, University of New England, Armidale.

Abstract:

The primary aim of this dissertation is to explore a number of religious concepts in English, Arabic, and Hebrew. It is the first detailed study of folk religious concepts from a linguistic vantage point. The concepts included in the study are those behind the English words angels, the devil, God, heaven, hell, martyr, sin, and grace, as well as their Arabic and Hebrew near-equivalents. The theoretical framework is that of the NSM approach.

To lay the groundwork, Arabic and Hebrew versions of NSM are established, which had not been done before. Semantic explications of the target religious concepts are then developed in terms that are both comprehensible to ordinary people and translatable between the three languages (English, Arabic, and Hebrew). This allows for easy identification of the similarities and differences among the various concepts in the languages under investigation.

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Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2015) English, Arabic – Folk religious concepts

Habib, Sandy (2015). Can God and Allah promote intercultural communication? RASK (International Journal of Language and Communication), 42, 77-103.

Open access

Abstract:

This article deals with the concept of English God and its Arabic equivalent Allah. The two concepts are analysed based on how ordinary native English speakers and Muslim Arabs, respectively, use them in their native languages. Additionally, an explication is constructed for each concept. Comparing the explications shows that the two concepts are very similar to each other. The only differences found are as follows: (1) God appears to be perceived as being in the same place to which “good” people go after they die, while Allah is not; (2) God seems to be conceived of as an omnipresent spirit; as for Allah, no linguistic evidence was found to suggest this same idea, and (3) only God seems to have a visual representation, which is that of an old father. Being very similar to each other, these two concepts might prove useful in promoting intercultural communication between native English speakers and Muslim Arabs. In addition, the analysis of the two concepts can provide cultural outsiders with access to an insider perspective on each concept.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2002) Religion – Folk religious concepts

Baumgartner, Joanne M. (2002). Key cultural concepts in Australian Aboriginal languages as used in biblical translation. In Nga kete o te matauranga / Global pressures, local impacts: Challenges for the Pacific Rim. Association of Pacific Rim Universities 2nd Doctoral Students Conference, 1-4 February 2001, University of Auckland. Los Angeles: University of Southern California [CD Rom]. 11 pp.

In Aboriginal Bible translation today, it is necessary to separate pagan beliefs and their associated word usage from Christian beliefs and its totally different concepts, and, having done this, to describe the work being translated in traditional Aboriginal terms. It is possible to do this using NSM, which employs universal terms to identify concepts that are common to all languages, thus preserving the cultural identity already in existence in Aboriginal language use. This avoids the confusion that occurs when academic English is applied to languages that require different cultural concepts, such as Aboriginal languages. This new way of translating can then be used by theologians when applying current translation techniques.

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Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner

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