A resource base of publications using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach. 1,100+ detailed notices, and counting!
Wierzbicka, Anna. (2007). Do all languages have the same expressive power? An NSM perspective on semantic variation and universals. In Jocelyne Fernandez-Vest (ed.), Combat pour les langues du monde. Fighting for the world’s languages: Hommage à Claude Hagège, 483-496. Paris: L’Harmattan.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Erinita, Dwi Agus (2016). Analisis ranah rasa dengan pendekatan Natural Semantic Metalanguage [An analysis of the domain of taste using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach]. Sirok Bastra, 4(2), 129-136.
DOI: 10.26499/sb.v4i2.82 / Open access
Abstract:
This paper analyses the lexical domain related to the human sense of taste, with special reference to Indonesian. It is shown that, in Indonesian, apart from the four main tastes (corresponding to the English words sweet, sour, salty, and bitter), there are several more tastes, including two words for ‘spicy’, another word reminiscent of ‘bitter’, and furthermore words for ‘savory’, ‘bland’ and ‘tasteless’. All can be explicated with reference to ingredients, fruit, and other food items, i.e. categories that are present in nature and daily life.
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Written in Indonesian.
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Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Indrawati, Dianita (2006). Makian dalam Bahasa Madura: Kajian Metabahasa Semantik Alami [Cursing in Madurese: A Natural Semantic Metalanguage study]. Linguistik Indonesia, 24(2), 145-155.
Abstract:
While the concept of cursing is found in all languages, its verbal expression is unique to each. The verbal expressions of cursing used by a community grow and develop based on the culture of that community. This paper describes the literal meaning and the semantic structure of a number of curse words in Madurese.
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Written in Indonesian.
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Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Gusmeldi, Ridha Fitryani (2017). Indonesian cultural keyword hati and its English translation. Master’s thesis, Australian National University.
Hati, regarded by Indonesian speakers as the central controller of psychological functioning, is a cultural key word that is very difficult to translate into other languages. Due to this fact, selecting equivalent words for target texts, as well as understanding the concept of hati itself, is highly challenging. However, without a good understanding of this cultural key word, cultural and linguistic misunderstandings of hati-related terms are bound to emerge in translation.
This thesis investigates the meanings and English translations of hati-related terms in Bahasa Indonesia. Hati-related terms are grouped into several categories: feeling, moral judgement, thinking, religion, and physical meaning. The eleven highest frequency terms including hati are explicated using semantic primes. The terms are dalam hati, sepenuh hati, sakit hati, patah hati, senang hati, besar hati, menarik hati, baik hati, rendah hati and sesuka hati.
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Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Goddard, Cliff (2004). Speech-acts, values and cultural scripts: A study in Malay ethnopragmatics. In Robert Cribb (Ed.), Asia examined: Proceedings of the 15th biennial conference of the ASAA. PDF (open access)
The speech act lexicon of any language provides its speakers with a readymade “catalogue” of culture-specific categories of verbal interaction: a catalogue that makes sense within, and is attuned to, a particular portfolio of cultural values, assumptions, and attitudes. So it is that a microscopic examination of the semantics of speech act verbs can shed a great deal of light on broader cultural themes, but equally the significance of any particular speech act category can only be fully understood in broader cultural context.
This study illustrates these contentions with the Malay speech act verb pujuk, which can variously translated as ‘coax’, ‘flatter’, ‘persuade’, or ‘comfort’, but which really has no precise equivalent in English. Naturally occurring examples are given from Bahasa Melayu, the national language of Malaysia. The methods employed are the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach, and its companion, the theory of cultural scripts. I propose a single semantic explication for pujuk which accounts for its diverse range with much greater precision than any normal dictionary definition; but the explication must be read against the background of several Malay cultural scripts reflecting the important role of feelings and “feelings management” in the Malay tradition, as reflected in expressions like timbang rasa ‘lit. weigh feelings’, jaga hati orang ‘minding people’s feelings/hearts’, ambil hati ‘lit. get heart, be charming’, among others.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Goddard, Cliff (1996). The “social emotions” of Malay (Bahasa Melayu). Ethos, 24(3), 426-464. DOI:
Studies of cultural variation in emotional meanings have played an important part in the development of the interdisciplinary field of cultural psychology. It is now widely accepted that the language of emotion can be an invaluable window into culture-specific conceptualizations of social life and human nature. Such studies inevitably involve explorations in cross-linguistic semantics. Despite their undoubted value, however, from the point of view of linguistic semantics these inquiries have been informal in the sense that they have not utilized any rigorous framework for semantic analysis. It is the premise of this article that a suitably rigorous method of cross-cultural semantic analysis is the NSM (Natural Semantic Metalanguage) approach developed primarily by Anna Wierzbicka. The present study applies the NSM approach to a subset of the emotion vocabulary of Malay (Bahasa Melayu), the national language of Malaysia. The underlying theoretical question is the extent to which emotion concepts are culturally constituted. The related methodological problem is how to analyse and describe emotion terms in a way that does not take Western/English language emotion concepts as neutral or natural scientific categories.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Goddard, Cliff (1997). Contrastive semantics and cultural psychology: ‘Surprise’ in Malay and English. Culture & Psychology, 3(2), 153-181. DOI: 10.1177/1354067X9700300204
This paper argues that psychology has yet to come fully to grips with the extent of semantic variation between languages, and that it can benefit, in this regard, from certain developments in linguistic semantics. It outlines Anna Wierzbicka’s ‘Natural Semantic Metalanguage’ (NSM) approach to cross-cultural semantics, and demonstrates the approach through a contrastive study of ‘surprise-like’ words from two languages: Malay (terkejut, terperanjat, hairan) and English (surprised, amazed, shocked, startled). It is shown that there is no exact Malay equivalent to English surprise; and also that there is no semantic core shared by the various terms, only a loose set of cross-cutting and overlapping semantic correspondences. These results are at odds with the classic “basic emotions” position, which would have it that ‘surprise’ is a universal and discrete biological syndrome. The overriding contention of the paper is that Wierzbicka’s approach to linguistic semantics can furnish psychology with valuable new analytical and descriptive tools.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Goddard, Cliff (2000). “Cultural scripts” and communicative style in Malay (Bahasa Melayu). Anthropological Linguistics, 42(1), 81-106. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30028746
The “cultural scripts” approach is a descriptive technique that has grown out of the cross-cultural semantic theory of Anna Wierzbicka. The author uses this technique to describe and make sense of aspects of Malay communicative style. The proposed Malay cultural scripts are linked with the importance placed on appropriate (patut, sesuai) behavior and on nasihat ‘advice’, and on the need to balas budi (roughly) ‘return good treatment’, to jaga hati orang ‘look after people’s feelings’, and to menghormati ‘show respect, deference’.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Goddard, Cliff (2001). Hati: A key word in the Malay vocabulary of emotion. In Jean Harkins, & Anna Wierzbicka (Eds.), Emotions in crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 167-195). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110880168.167
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The word hati is one of the key words of Malay culture: it functions as a conceptual focal point for an entire complex of characteristically Malay values, attitudes and expectations. By studying the meaning and uses of this one word we can learn a surprising amount about Malay culture – in particular, about the conceptualization of emotion in Malay culture.
The aims of this paper are threefold: first, to outline the range of use and collocational possibilities of hati, informally comparing and contrasting it with English heart; second, to advance and argue for an explicit semantic explication of hati in its core or central meaning (as in an expression like hati orang ‘a person’s hati‘); third, to explicate the semantics of five common fixed expressions involving hati, all of which designate what we might term feeling states or emotional reactions: susah hati ‘troubled, worried’, senang hati ‘relaxed, easy at heart’; sakit hati ‘annoyed, offended’, puas hati ‘satisfied (with someone)’, and kecil hati ‘feel hurt’.
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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Goddard, Cliff (2008). Contrastive semantics and cultural psychology: English heart vs. Malay hati. In Farzad Sharifian, René Dirven, Ning Yu, & Susanne Niemeier (Eds.), Culture, body, and language: Conceptualizations of internal body organs across cultures and languages (pp. 75-102). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110199109.2.75
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This is a contrastive NSM analysis of two ethnopsychological constructs (English heart, Malay hati). Rejecting the use of English-specific metaterminology, such as mind, cognition, affect, etc., as both ethnocentric and inaccurate, the study seeks to articulate the conceptual content of the words under investigation in terms of simple universal concepts such as FEEL, THINK, WANT, KNOW, PEOPLE, SOMEONE, PART, BODY, HAPPEN, GOOD and BAD.
For both words, the physical body-part meaning is first explicated, and then the ethnopsychological sense or senses (it is claimed that English heart has two distinct ethnopsychological senses). The chapter also reviews the phraseology associated with each word, and in the case of English heart, proposes explications for a number of prominent collocations: a broken heart, listening to your heart, losing heart and having your heart in it.
The concluding discussion makes some suggestions about experiential/semantic principles whereby body parts can come to be associated with cultural models of feeling, thinking, wanting and knowing. At a theoretical level, the study seeks to draw links between culturally informed cognitive semantics, on the one hand, and the field of cultural psychology, on the other.
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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
Hamid, Hazidi bin Haji Abdul (2002). Similar words, different meanings: A Natural Semantic Metalanguage exploration of cultural differences. GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies, 2(1). PDF (open access)
Anna Wierbicka and other Natural Semantic Metalanguage (henceforth NSM) practitioners often argue that anthropologists and psychologists, particularly Western, are wrong for applying concepts like mind, anger and depression to foreign cultures because these cultures do not have words with similar intention and extensions. Their critics on the other hand argue that the NSM critique is unjustified because, while other cultures do not necessarily have similar words, they must have corresponding concepts simply because people in these other cultures, like in Malaysia, experience feelings like these. This paper intends to show that the NSM critique is justified because these corresponding concepts can be similar to a certain extent but can also carry great semantic difference when broken down to their more basic elements of meaning. More importantly, this is done using analysis of the Malay language.
Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
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Crude application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner |
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Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner |
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Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner |
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Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners |
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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners |