Tag: (S) apologies
Perović, Slavica (2016). Apologising and the Montenegrin cultural script. Logos et Littera, 1(3), pp. 1-24. PDF (open access)
The paper deals with the representation of the speech act of apology through cultural scripts. The research has been done on a corpus of students’ responses gathered through an interview of the Discourse Completion Task (DCT) type. The speech act of apology is analysed within the politeness theory originated by Brown and Levinson (1987) and the category of ‘face’. The complexity and specificity of this speech act in Montenegrin leads us to establish six semantic components of apologizing for which we devise cultural scripts. Furthermore, two broad categories of apologies are identified: non-verbal and verbal. These are labelled ‘to do is to say’ and ‘to say is to do’, respectively, and give rise to do master scripts. The analysis in this paper relies on the idea of cultural scripts developed by Anna Wierzbicka and Cliff Goddard, executed through the semantic primes of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM).
Crude application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tagged as: (E) (abasement), (E) (admittance), (E) (regret), (E) (responsibility), (E) poniženje, (S) apologies
Dendenne, Boudjemaa (2017). A cross-cultural study of speech act realisations in Arabic and English: A cultural-scripts approach. Revue académique des études humaines et sociales, Series B: Littérature et Philosophie, 18, 3-15. PDF (Researchgate)
This paper reports on the findings of a cross-cultural pragmatic study into the realization of two speech acts that are common in Arabic and English, namely requests and apologies. Natural Semantic Metalanguage and cultural scripts have been employed for this purpose. The usefulness of the adopted approach lies in the fact that it describes norms, behaviours and cultural meanings in a particular language/culture in a way that is accessible to both insiders and outsiders. Cross-cultural education and intercultural communication both stand to benefit from such an approach.
The ultimate goal behind the use of NSM and cultural scripts is to reduce cultural misunderstandings and conflicts. The author strongly recommends adoption of these tools to re-describe and re-explicate findings that are regarded as empirically well founded in previous cross-cultural studies.
Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Tagged as: (S) apologies, (S) requests
Goddard, Cliff (1997). Cultural values and ‘cultural scripts’ of Malay (Bahasa Melayu). Journal of Pragmatics, 27(2), 183-201. DOI: 10.1016/S0378-2166(96)00032-X
This paper documents some Malay ‘rules of speaking’ and articulates their connections with Malay cultural values, using the new theory of ‘cultural scripts’ developed by Anna Wierzbicka. Aspects of the preferred Malay discourse style, which is normally described as refined, restrained, and charming, are shown to be linked with the Malay social emotion of malu ‘shame, propriety’, with the personal qualities of maruah ‘dignity, self-respect, pride’ and harga diri ‘self-esteem’, and with the ideal of senang hati ‘a heart at ease; (lit.) easy heart’. It is argued that the cultural scripts approach enhances descriptive accuracy, helps reduce ethnocentricm, and facilitates the integration of pragmatics and cultural semantics.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tagged as: (E) halus, (E) kasar, (E) malu, (E) maruah, (E) senang hati, (S) apologies, (S) expressing feelings, (S) expressing what one wants, (S) speaking
Wierzbicka, Anna (1994). “Cultural scripts”: A semantic approach to cultural analysis and cross-cultural communication. Pragmatics and Language Learning [Monograph Series], 5, 1-24. PDF (open access)
This paper argues that the ways of speaking characteristic of a given speech community cannot be satisfactorily described (let alone explained) in purely behavioral terms. They constitute a behavioral manifestation of a tacit system of “cultural rules” or “cultural scripts”. To understand a society’s ways of speaking, we have to identify and articulate its implicit “cultural scripts”. Furthermore, it is argued that to be able to do this without ethnocentric bias we need a universal, language-independent perspective; this can be attained if the”rules” in question are stated in terms of lexical universals, that is, universal human concepts lexicalized in all languages of the world.
To illustrate these general propositions, the author shows how cultural scripts can be stated and how they can be justified. This is done with particular reference to Japanese, (White) Anglo-American, and Black American cultural norms.
The cultural scripts advanced in this paper are formulated in a highly constrained Natural Semantic Metalanguage, based on a small set of lexical universals (or near-universals) and a small set of universal (or near-universal) syntactic patterns. It is argued that the use of this metalanguage allows us to portray and compare culture-specific attitudes, assumptions, and norms from a neutral, culture-independent point of view and to do so in terms of simple formulae that are intuitively self-explanatory while at the same time being rigorous and empirically verifiable.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tagged as: (E) enryo 遠慮, (S) advocate stance, (S) agreement, (S) apologies, (S) attitudes to emotion, (S) criticism of others, (S) freedom of expression, (S) imposition of opinions, (S) likes and dislikes, (S) non-advocate stance, (S) open-mindedness, (S) opinions of others, (S) resilience, (S) self-assertive behaviour, (S) speech, (S) spokesman stance, (S) toughness, (S) verbal restraint, (T) English
Wierzbicka, Anna (1996). Japanese cultural scripts: Cultural psychology and “cultural grammar”. Ethos, 24(3), 527-555.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.1996.24.3.02a00060
Abstract:
To describe a language we need to describe, first of all, its vocabulary and its grammar. The task of describing a culture can be approached in many different ways; one useful and illuminating way of doing so is through linguistics, by describing a society’s ‘key words’ (embodying key cultural concepts) and its ‘cultural grammar’, that is, a set of subconscious rules that shape a people’s ways of thinking, feeling, speaking, and interacting. This paper focuses more specifically on Japanese cultural rules.
Translations:
Into Russian:
Chapter 14 (pp. 653-681) of Вежбицкая, Анна (1999), Семантические универсалии и описание языков [Semantic universals and the description of languages]. Москва [Moscow]: Языки русской культуры [Languages of Russian Culture].
Chapter 3 (pp. 123-158) of Вежбицкая, Анна (2001), Сопоставление культур через посредство лексики и прагматики [Comparison of cultures through vocabulary and pragmatics]. Москва [Moscow]: Языки Славянской Культуры [Languages of Slavic Culture].
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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tagged as: (S) apologies, (S) bad feelings, (S) compliments, (S) denying responsibility, (S) everyone thinks the same, (S) everyone wants the same, (S) feel good, (S) gifts and favours, (S) group identification, (S) I do it because I want to do it, (S) I don't think the same, (S) I don't think this, (S) I don't want the same, (S) I don't want this, (S) I think the same, (S) I think this, (S) I think very good things about myself, (S) I think you think the same, (S) I want this, (S) other people's bad feelings, (S) other people's wants, (S) personal wants, (S) saying no, (S) self-effacement, (S) self-enhancement, (S) success due to luck, (S) undeservedness
Wierzbicka, Anna (2010). Cultural scripts and intercultural communication. In Anna Trosborg (Ed.), Pragmatics across languages and cultures (pp. 43-78). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110214444.1.43
Insights from cross-cultural literature written in English by authors of non-Anglo backgrounds throw a great deal of light on the challenges of cross-cultural lives and cross-cultural encounters. NSM techniques allow the author to translate such experiential evidence into cultural scripts written in a controlled mini-language based on simple and cross-translatable words. The scripts can either portray how cultural insiders think, or they can specifically target outsiders and newcomers to a culture. The paper provides a large range of examples involving more than a dozen different languages in different social situations including, for example, Russian and English scripts for “making a request”, scripts against “criticizing the person you are with”, scripts for “pleasant interaction”, scripts against “blurting out what one thinks”, to mention just a few.
Although cultural scripts may be seen by some as stereotypes, their use, provided it is consistent with the “objective evidence” of lexical facts and the “subjective evidence” from bicultural writers, can lead to increased cross-cultural understanding and serve as a basis for intercultural training. The methodology of cultural scripts formulated in simple and universal human concepts can help explain shared assumptions and values embedded in ways of speaking in different languages and cultures and can at the same time be practically useful in intercultural education.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Tagged as: (S) apologies, (S) blurting out what one thinks, (S) criticism of others, (S) cushioning the blow, (S) I am someone above this someone, (S) personal remarks, (S) pleasant interaction, (S) requests, (S) self-expression, (S) self-justification, (S) softening the blow, (S) straight talk, (S) think first, (S) this someone is someone above me, (S) this someone is someone like me, (T) English
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
Tagged as: (E) free, (E) freedom, (E) menghormati, (E) sabar, (S) apologies, (S) freedom of action, (S) opinions, (S) personal autonomy, (S) respect for older people, (S) think first, (S) whimperatives, (T) English
