Tag: (E) sabar

(2001) English, Malay – Attitudes

Goddard, Cliff (2001). Sabar, ikhlas, setia – patient, sincere, loyal? Contrastive semantics of some ‘virtues’ in Malay and English. Journal of Pragmatics, 33(5), 653-681. DOI: 10.1016/S0378-2166(00)00028-X

The words sabar, ikhlas, and setia arguably identify core personal virtues in traditional Malay culture. Using Anna Wierzbicka’s ‘Natural Semantic Metalanguage’ (NSM) approach, this paper undertakes a contrastive semantic analysis of these terms and their usual English translations, such as patient, sincere, and loyal. A number of significant meaning differences are brought to light, allowing an improved understanding of the cultural semantics of the Malay concepts.

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(2004) English, Malay – Cultural scripts

Goddard, Cliff (2004). “Cultural scripts”: A new medium for ethnopragmatic instruction. In Michel Achard & Susanne Niemeier (Eds.), Cognitive Linguistics, second language acquisition, and foreign language teaching (pp. 143-163). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

DOI: 10.1515/9783110199857.143

Abstract:

The cultural scripts approach is a descriptive technique for capturing ethnopragmatic knowledge that has grown out of the cross-linguistic semantic work of Anna Wierzbicka and colleagues. This work has established a metalanguage of simple cross-translatable terms that can be used not only for lexical semantics, but also for describing communicative norms. The paper illustrates and explains the cultural scripts approach, and makes some suggestions about its pedagogical advantages and applications in the teaching of ethnopragmatics. These include greater precision and intelligibility, a reduced risk of ethnocentrism, and enhanced opportunity to demonstrate links between discourse practices and cultural values, as embodied in cultural key words, proverbs, etc.

Examples are drawn from studies of the cultural pragmatics of English and of Malay (Bahasa Melayu, the national language of Malaysia).

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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