Tag: (E) Wow!

(2019) Akan – Interjections

Thompson, Rachel (2019). Tweaa! – A Ghanaian interjection of “contempt” in online political comments. Ampersand, 6.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amper.2019.100047 / Open access

Abstract:

This study examines the use of tweaa [tɕʏɪaa], an Akan emotive interjection that expresses contempt for a person, in the Corpus of GhanaWeb Comments in Ghana’s 2016 Election (CGCGE16). CGCGE16 comprises reader comments posted in the build-up to Ghana’s presidential elections in December 2016 on www.ghanaweb.com, a news website that guarantees freedom of speech and ensures citizen participation in online sociopolitical discussions. The study employs NSM to unpack the meaning of tweaa and give a fuller understanding of its rhetorical power in online political discourse. It points out that tweaa is derogatory and expresses lack of respect for the user’s target, thus, according to traditional Ghanaian values, its use is unacceptable, especially during asymmetrical interactions. Citizens, however, hide behind the shield of anonymity guaranteed by online platforms, and their ability to circumvent traditional gatekeepers of acceptable speech forms during online discourse, and freely use tweaa to vent their feelings against authority figures.

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(2009) Componential analysis

Goddard, Cliff (2009). Componential analysis. In Gunter Senft, Jan-Ola Östman, & Jef Verschueren (Eds.), Culture and language use (pp. 58-67). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/hoph.2.06god

Previously issued as:

Goddard, Cliff (2005). Componential analysis. In Jan-Ola Östman, & Jef Verschueren (Eds.), Handbook of pragmatics 2003-2005 (12 pages). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/hop.m.comm1

The 2005 text is a heavily revised version of:

Goddard, Cliff (1995). Componential analysis. In Jef Verschueren, Jan-Ola Östman, & Jan Blommaert (Eds.), Handbook of pragmatics: Manual (pp. 147-153). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Abstract:

Componential analysis (CA) in the broadest sense, also known as ‘lexical decomposition’, is any attempt to formalize and standardize procedures for the analysis of word meanings. CA often aspires to represent the cognitive or psychological reality of the speakers, and to shed light on correlations between language and culture.

The idea that word meanings may be broken down into combinations of simpler components is an ancient one, supported by a range of facts. These include the efficacy of paraphrase, the intuitively felt relationships (such as antonymy, hyponymy, partonymy) between word meanings, the fact that sentences may be tautologous, contradictory or odd due to the interplay of the meanings of their constituent words. The assumption of decomposability underlies the definitional side of traditional lexicography. For expository purposes, methods in CA may be described under four headings: the structuralist tradition, linguistic anthropology, generative and typological studies, and paraphrase semantics (1995) / Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) (2005/2009). Some other trends and problems are briefly discussed.

Explications included in the 1995 version relate to the emotion term indignant, the speech act verb suggest, the interjection Wow! and the kinship term mother.

Explications included in the 2005 and 2009 versions relate to the emotion term sad, the social category friend, the performative verbs threaten and warn, and the semantic molecule animal.


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(1992) Arrernte, English, Italian – Interjections

Wilkins, David P. (1992). Interjections as deictics. Journal of Pragmatics, 18(2/3), 119-158. DOI: 10.1016/0378-2166(92)90049-H

Reissued in an abridged format as:

Wilkins, David P. (1995). Expanding the traditional category of deictic elements: Interjections as deictics. In Judith F. Duchan, Gail A. Bruder, & Lynne E. Hewitt (Eds.), Deixis in narrative: A cognitive science perspective (pp. 359-386). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.

The paper examines some of the semantic and pragmatic consequences of a form being both a lexeme (i.e. a simple sign) and a conventional utterance. The approach presented here has far-reaching consequences for the manner in which interjections are identified, analyzed, and subclassified. In particular it it suggested that interjections have all the features attributed to utterances, including the facts that they convey complete propositions and have an illocutionary purpose. Given that interjections are context-bound, it is possible to observe that the referential arguments in the propositions conveyed by interjections are provided by context. As lexemes, interjections have ‘real’ semantic (i.e. propositional/conceptual) content, and within the decomposition of all interjections are basic deictic elements. These ‘primitive’ deictic elements are not tied referentially to any entities until they are placed in context. In this sense both a pragmatic and a semantic approach are required to account for interjections. Interjections are, therefore, shifters (indexicals) by virtue of being built semantically out of basic deictic elements and so should be considered a reasonable topic within the study of deixis.

Definitions, using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach to lexical decomposition, are proposed for a varied range of interjections from English, Mparntwe Arrernte (Central Australia), American Sign Language, and Italian.


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(1995) Arrernte, English, Italian – Interjections

Wilkins, David P. (1995). Expanding the traditional category of deictic elements: Interjections as deictics. In Judith F. Duchan, Gail A. Bruder, & Lynne E. Hewitt (Eds.), Deixis in narrative: A cognitive science perspective (pp. 359-386). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.

The bulk of this chapter is an abridged and re-edited version of an earlier paper (Wilkins, 1992). The primary purpose of that paper and, hence, this chapter is to argue that the traditional American linguistic view of deictic elements must be expanded to embrace interjections alongside the more standard members such as pronouns and demonstratives. To rescue interjections from the periphery of linguistic concerns requires a demonstration of two points: (a) that interjections share specific linguistic and communicative properties with more standard deictic elements, and (b) that it is possible to render a convincing account of the semantic structure and pragmatic usage of interjections. I attempt to expand this argument, and extend the demonstration of the two forementioned points by tying interjections in with the narrative and deictic center concerns that form the focus of the book in which the new version appears, but that were not explicitly covered in the original paper.


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(2016) English – Interjections

Gladkova, Anna; Vanhatalo, Ulla; & Goddard, Cliff (2016). The semantics of interjections: An experimental study with Natural Semantic Metalanguage. Applied Psycholinguistics, 37(4), 841-865.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716415000260

Abstract:

This paper reports the results of a pilot experimental study aimed at evaluating NSM explications of English interjections. It proposes a novel online survey technique to test NSM explications with language speakers. The survey tested recently developed semantic explications of selected English interjections used to mark either ‘surprise’ (wow, gosh, gee, yikes) or ‘disgust’ (yuck, ugh). The results provide overall support for the proposed explications and indicate directions for their further development. It is interesting that respondents’ preexisting knowledge of NSM and other background variables (age, gender, being a native speaker, or studying linguistics) were shown to have little influence on the test results.

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(1992) Interjections

Ameka, Felix (1992). Interjections: The universal yet neglected part of speech. Journal of Pragmatics, 18(2/3), 101-118. DOI: 10.1016/0378-2166(92)90048-G

It is perhaps true that apart from nouns and verbs, interjections – those little words, or ‘non-words’, which can constitute utterances by themselves – are a word class found in all languages. But it is also true that this class of items has eluded description and has, for the most part, been ignored in theoretical linguistics discourse. In this introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Pragmatics dedicated to interjections and similar items, I want to attempt to draw out and suggest solutions to the confusion that has beset these important items.


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