Tag: (S) think first

(2006) English – Meaning and culture [BOOK]

Wierzbicka, Anna (2006). English: Meaning and culture. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195174748.001.0001

It is widely accepted that English is the first truly global language and lingua franca. Its dominance has even led to its use and adaptation by local communities for their own purposes and needs. One might see English in this context as being simply a neutral, universal vehicle for the expression of local thoughts and ideas. In fact, English words and phrases have embedded in them a wealth of cultural baggage that is invisible to most native speakers.

Anna Wierzbicka, a distinguished linguist known for her theories of semantics, has written the first book that connects the English language with what she terms “Anglo” culture. Wierzbicka points out that language and culture are not just interconnected, but inseparable. This is evident to non-speakers trying to learn puzzling English expressions. She uses original research to investigate the “universe of meaning” within the English language (both grammar and vocabulary) and places it in historical and geographical perspective. For example, she looks at the history of the terms “right” and “wrong” and how with the influence of the Reformation “right” came to mean “correct.” She examines the ideas of “fairness” and “reasonableness” and shows that, far from being cultural universals, they are in fact unique creations of modern English.

Table of contents

PART I MEANING, HISTORY, AND CULTURE

1. English as a cultural universe
2. Anglo cultural scripts seen through Middle Eastern eyes

PART II ENGLISH WORDS

3. The story of RIGHT and WRONG and its cultural implications
4. Being REASONABLE: A key Anglo value and its cultural roots
5. Being FAIR: Another key Anglo value and its cultural underpinnings

PART III ANGLO CULTURE REFLECTED IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR

6. The English causatives: Causation and interpersonal relations
7. I THINK: The rise of epistemic phrases in Modern English
8. PROBABLY: English epistemic adverbs and their cultural significance

PART IV CONCLUSION

9. The “cultural baggage” of English and its significance in the world at large

Chapter 3 builds on: Right and wrong: From philosophy to everyday discourse” (2002)
Chapter 6 builds on: English causative constructions in an ethnosyntactic perspective: Focusing on LET (2002)


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

Tags listed below are in addition to those listed at the end of the entries for the earlier work on which this book builds.

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(2010) Cultural scripts and intercultural communication

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

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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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(2009) Cultural scripts

Goddard, Cliff (2009). Cultural scripts. In Gunter Senft, Jan-Ola Östman, & Jef Verschueren (Eds.), Culture and language use (pp. 68-80). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/hoph.2.07god

Previously published as:

Goddard, Cliff (2006). Cultural scripts. In Jan-Ola Östman, & Jef Verschueren (Eds.), Handbook of pragmatics: Vol. 10. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/hop.10.cul2

The term ‘cultural script’ refers to a technique for articulating culture-specific norms, values, and practices in terms which are clear, precise, and accessible to cultural insiders and outsiders alike. This result is possible because cultural scripts are formulated in the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) of semantic primes, a highly constrained ‘mini-language’ of simple words and grammatical patterns which evidence suggests have equivalents in all languages. Cultural scripts exist at different levels of generality (high level and lower level; high level scripts are sometimes referred to as master scripts). They may relate to different aspects of thinking, speaking, and behaviour. The cultural scripts approach offers a promising method for describing cultural norms and practices in a way that is free from Anglocentrism and that lends itself to direct practical applications in intercultural communication and education.


Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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