Tag: (E) nostalgia

(2019) English, Italian, Japanese – Emotions

Farese, Gian Marco; Asano-Cavanagh, Yuko (2018/19). Analysing nostalgia in cross-linguistic perspective. Philology, 4, 213-241.

DOI: https://doi.org/103726/PHIL042019.6

Abstract:

This paper presents a contrastive semantic analysis of the English nostalgia, the Italian nostalgia and the Japanese 懐かしい natsukashii adopting the methodology of the NSM approach. It is argued that: (i) emotion terms of different languages reflect different and culture-specific conceptualizations of human feelings; (ii) the Anglo conceptualization of feelings is not valid for all cultures; and (iii) linguistic analysis is central to the analysis of human feelings. The paper challenges the claim made by some psychologists that the English word nostalgia expresses a feeling that is pancultural and criticizes the use of English emotion terms as the basis for discussions on human feelings.

Rating:


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2007) Semantic primes and universal grammar (Book review)

François, Jacques (2007). Book review of Bert Peeters (Ed.), Semantic primes and universal grammar: Empirical evidence from the Romance languages. Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris, 102(2), 116-125.

Written in French.

This book review includes French translations of some of the explications provided in the chapters by Patrick Farrell and by Mónica Aznárez Mauleón and Ramón González Ruiz.

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(2006) Portuguese (Brazil) – Emotions of absence and longing

Farrell, Patrick (2006). Portuguese saudade and other emotions of absence and longing. In Bert Peeters (Ed.), Semantic primes and universal grammar: Empirical evidence from the Romance languages (pp. 235-258). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/slcs.81.16far

Relying on semantic primes and universal syntax, this study underscores the culture-specificity and explicates the meaning of the Portuguese emotion word saudade. It makes comparisons with related concepts in Portuguese and, to some extent, English. Among the kinds of evidence included are claims encountered in previous studies, native-speaker intuitions about the acceptability of constructed expressions employing the word in different ways, actual use in literary works and internet sources, aspects of the word’s grammar and its distributional properties, and contrasts with respect to these matters between saudade and other emotions. The approach differs from that of earlier work not only in its use of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage but also in its heavy reliance on distributional evidence and colloquial corpora.


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

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