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(2009) English – Metaphor

Wearing, Catherine (2009). Metaphor and the Natural Semantic Metalanguage. Journal of Pragmatics, 41, 1017-1028. DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2009.01.004

Within the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework, it is claimed that metaphorical content is paraphrasable by means of explications based on semantic primes. This paper examines this account of metaphor, explores the importance of paraphrasing metaphors for the NSM approach, and argues that the prospects for successful paraphrases are less promising than has been claimed. It is then shown that the explications that have been proposed for the metaphors a soft wine and language is a mirror of the mind do not suffice to explain how these metaphors work, and it describes how NSM explications must be supplemented to generate a more adequate explanation.

No actual improvements to the explications themselves are proposed.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2010) French – Discourse particles: QUOI, BEN

Waters, Sophia (2010). The semantics of French discourse particles quoi and ben. In Yvonne Treis & Rik De Busser (Eds.), Selected papers from the 2009 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society. http://www.als.asn.au/proceedings/als2009.html. PDF (open access)

Discourse particles are strewn throughout natural spoken discourse, revealing the speakers’ attitude towards what they are saying and guiding the interlocutors’ interpretation of that utterance. The majority of works in the area of the French discourse particles quoi and ben provide detailed analyses and place their primary focus on usage. Problems arise, however, when word usage is discussed without a systematic approach to semantics. The present study applies the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) method of description to these particles, proposing definitive explications that can be substituted into naturally occurring examples of quoi and ben without causing any semantic loss. Explications, framed in the culture-neutral terms of the NSM, capture the subtleties of meaning conveyed by each discourse particle. They are presented in parallel English and French versions and are tested against a corpus of spoken French.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2012) English – Cultural key words: RUDE

Waters, Sophia (2012). “It’s rude to VP”: The cultural semantics of rudeness. Journal of Pragmatics, 44, 1051-1062. DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2012.02.002

Over recent years, linguists have given an increasing amount of attention to impoliteness studies. Oddly, however, little attention has yet been paid to the semantics of the English word rude. Lacking precise translation equivalents in many languages, rude is a key word revealing much about socially accepted ways of behaving in Anglo society. In Australian English, as in English generally, it is the primary ethno-descriptor in the domain of “impoliteness”. This paper provides a detailed lexical semantic analysis of rude in the productive formula It’s rude to VP, and also in the fixed expression rude word. The semantic explications are framed in the simple universal primes of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM). The argumentation is supported by data on Australian English collected from Google searches.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2014) English (Australia), French – “Sociality” terms

Waters, Sophia Elizabeth (2014). The cultural semantics of “sociality” terms in Australian English, with contrastive reference to French. PhD thesis, University of New England.

This thesis investigates the lexical semantics of nice and a set of other superficially “simple” sociality concepts (rude, polite and manners) in Australian English. When appropriately analysed, these words reveal much about the socially accepted and approved ways of behaving in Australian society. As expected of heavily culture-laden words, nice and rude lack precise translation equivalents in many languages and can be regarded as cultural key words. The comparative reference to French (for example, nice vs. gentil lit. ‘kind’, rude vs. mal élevé lit. ‘badly brought up’) highlights differences in ways of behaving and construals of sociality.

The thesis engages with the (im)politeness literature, and addresses the problem of transparent definitions of sociality words as they are used by ordinary speakers. This thesis enriches the current literature on (im)politeness and sociality by providing clear and accessible lexical semantic analyses of these words in Australian English, in a range of contexts, collocations and constructional frames in 24 explications. The methodology for the semantic analysis is the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach. The lexical semantic analysis of the abstract noun manners pioneers the theoretical innovation of “manners scripts”, which are an extension of the cultural scripts approach.

A quasi-ethnographic approach was taken to compile the dataset of example sentences of Australian English and French sourced from the search engine Google. These form a purpose-built corpus of almost 3000 tokens.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2010) Chinese (Cantonese) – Discourse particles

Wakefield, John C. (2010). The English equivalents of Cantonese sentence-final particles: A contrastive analysis. PhD thesis, Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Open access

Abstract:

Cantonese has a lexical tone system that severely restricts its ability to manipulate pitch. As a result, many of the speaker-oriented discourse meanings that are expressed through intonation in languages such as English are expressed in the form of sentence-final particles (SFPs) in Cantonese. Although this is widely known and accepted by linguists, apparently no study to date has made a systematic attempt to discover whether any of the more than 30 Cantonese SFPs have English intonational equivalents, and if so, what those equivalents are. To work towards filling this research gap, this study examines the English intonational equivalents of four Cantonese SFPs that divide into the following two pairs: particles of obviousness: 咯 lo1 and 吖吗 aa1maa3; question particles: 咩 me1 and 呀 aa4.

The English equivalent form of each of the four SFPs of this study is identified by examining the pitch contours of Cantonese-to-English audio translations, provided by Cantonese/English native-bilingual participants. A definition using Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) is proposed for each SFP, which is hypothesized to apply equally to its English intonational counterpart. Following earlier proposals by Hirst regarding emphatic intonation, these pitch contours are proposed to be floating tones that exist as lexical entries in the minds of native speakers of English. Syntactic positions are proposed for the SFPs and their English equivalents adopting Rizzi‘s split-CP hypothesis.

The findings of this study have far reaching implications regarding the descriptions and classifications of intonation, as well as regarding the classifications of the various forms of suprasegmentals. This study used segmental discourse markers to discover their suprasegmental counterparts in English, exploiting a unique window through which to examine the forms and meanings of English discourse intonation, which is one of the least understood and most difficult to study aspects of English. This research has arguably provided the strongest and clearest evidence to date regarding the forms and meanings of the particular forms of English intonation with which it deals.

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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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(2011) Chinese (Cantonese) – Discourse particles

Wakefield, John C. (2011). Disentangling the meanings of two Cantonese evidential particles. Chinese Language & Discourse, 2(2), 250-293.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/cld.2.2.05wak

Abstract:

Some linguists have argued that sentence-final particles (SFPs) are only meaningful in relation to discourse content. Adopting as a working hypothesis the idea that SFPs have core meanings independent of the discourse context, this paper proposes definitions for two evidential SFPs in Cantonese with related meanings: 咯 lo1 and 吖吗 aa1maa3.

Corpus-based examples and constructed minimal-pair dialogues are used to demonstrate that the definitions succeed at accounting for all the contexts that allow one, the other, both, or neither of the SFPs to be used based on acceptability judgments from native speakers of Cantonese. In addition to furthering our understanding of the two SFPs under discussion, this paper provides empirical evidence in support of the idea that discourse particles have context-independent meanings.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2012) Chinese (Cantonese) – Discourse particles

Wakefield, John C. (2012). A floating tone discourse morpheme: The English equivalent of Cantonese lo1. Lingua, 122(14), 1739-1762.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2012.09.008

Abstract:

Cantonese linguists have said that Cantonese sentence-final particles (SFPs) express the same kinds of meanings that are expressed by intonation in languages such as English, yet apparently no study has ever systematically attempted to discover whether any SFPs have English intonational equivalents. This study identifies the English intonational counterpart to the SFP 咯 lo1 by looking at the pitch contours of Cantonese-to-English audio translations, which were provided by four Cantonese/English native bilingual participants.

Based on the data, it is concluded that the English equivalent of 咯 lo1 is a high-falling pitch contour. A definition using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage is formulated to define 咯 lo1, and native English-speaker judgments indicate that this same definition also defines the meaning of 咯 lo1‘s English equivalent. Examples are given to demonstrate that this definition succeeds at defining either 咯 lo1 or its English equivalent in any context within which they are used. It is proposed that this 咯 lo1-equivalent pitch contour is a floating tone morpheme in the English lexicon. Linguists have long debated whether or not any forms of intonation have context-independent meanings. This study offers empirical evidence in support of the argument that they do.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2013) English (USA), Chinese (Cantonese) – Child-rearing values

Wakefield, John C. (2013). When cultural scripts collide: Conflicting child-rearing values in a mixed-culture home. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 42(4), 376-392.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17475759.2013.838984

Abstract:

This paper discusses some key differences between the child-rearing values of American-English culture and Hong Kong-Cantonese culture. Evidence is drawn from contrasts in the child-rearing-related speech behaviour of people from the two cultures, including the American English-speaking author and his Hong Kong Cantonese-speaking partner. Speaker-oriented cultural scripts written in NSM are developed in an attempt to articulate and explain these differences in verbal behaviour. It is proposed that a major contrast between the two cultures is whether or not parents believe children can or should determine for themselves what is appropriate to say and do.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2014) Chinese (Cantonese), English – Discourse particles and intonation

Wakefield, John C. (2014). The forms and meanings of English rising declaratives: Insights from Cantonese. Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 42(1), 109-149.

Open access

Abstract:

The study reported in this paper exploited the existence of a pair of semantically related Cantonese question particles (咩 me1 and 呀 aa4) to learn more about the forms and meanings of the tones that mark declarative questions in English. First each particle was defined using NSM. Cantonese-to-English translations were then elicited from native-bilinguals to discover the English-equivalent forms of the particles. The NSM explications proposed for 咩 me1 and 呀 aa4 are hypothesized to apply equally to their English-equivalent forms. The results of this study provide empirical evidence that suggests there are at least two forms of rising declaratives in English with distinct meanings. It is argued that high-rising (but not mid-rising) declaratives express a prior belief in the negative form of their propositional content.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2016) English – Evidentiality, religion

Wakefield, John C. (2016). Emotional feelings as a form of evidence: A case study of visceral evidentiality in Mormon culture. In Alessandro Capone, & Jacob L. Mey (Eds.), Interdisciplinary studies in pragmatics, culture and society (pp. 899-923). Cham: Springer.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12616-6_35

Abstract:

This paper develops a set of cultural scripts articulating some of the sociopragmatic knowledge held by the speech community popularly known as the Mormons – officially members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). These scripts focus on the value that Mormons place on using feelings as the best and ultimate form of evidence for verifying the truth of anything related to their religious beliefs. They are proposed to account for the linguistic behaviour of Mormons in relation to their knowledge claims, in relation to their stated source of this knowledge, and in relation to their sense of duty to cause others to acquire this knowledge.

The scripts in this paper are supported by linguistic evidence, which comes primarily from the discourse of respected members of the LDS community. The online searches for evidence and the formulation of the scripts were guided by the author’s intuitive knowledge as an L1 speaker of “Mormonese”, born and raised within the Mormon community.

Basing beliefs on feelings is a value that most cultures and individuals possess to some degree, and the things that are “proven” by one’s feelings to be true will vary depending on the specific belief system of the culture or individual. This phenomenon is referred to as culturally-constructed visceral evidentiality (CVE). The LDS community overtly articulates the value of visceral evidentiality to an unusual degree, so this speech community provides an excellent opportunity for analysing the characteristics of a specific case of CVE.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2020) Chinese (Cantonese), English – Intonational morphology [BOOK]

Wakefield, John C. (2020). Intonational morphology. Singapore, Springer, 2020.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2265-9

Abstract:

This book discusses the morphological properties of intonation, building on past research to support the long-recognized relationship between the functions and meanings of discourse particles and the functions and meanings of intonation. The morphological status of intonation has been debated for decades, and this book provides evidence from the literature combined with new and compelling empirical evidence to show that specific intonational forms correspond to specific segmental discourse particles. It also describes how intonation is represented in speakers’ minds, which has important implications for first and second language acquisition as well as for theories and approaches to artificial speech recognition and production.

Chapter 6 of the book presents evidence that strongly indicates that six Cantonese sentence-final particles (SFPs) have English intonational equivalents. These six SFPs divide into three pairs of related particles: the evidential particles 咯 lo1 and 吖吗 aa1maa3; the question particles 咩 me1 and 呀 aa4; and the “only” particles zaa3 and ze1. Each SFP’s meaning is described and an NSM explication of it is presented before showing and discussing the data related to its English equivalent. The data comprise Cantonese-to-English oral translations and their accompanying F0 contours. The translators were ambilingual speakers of L1 Cantonese and L1 English. Based on the fact that each SFP translated into English as the same form of intonation by more than one ambilingual translator in more than one context, it is assumed that the definition given to each SFP also applies to its English intonational equivalent. It is further proposed that these English forms of intonation are tonal morphemes that reside in native-English speakers’ lexicons.

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Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners

(2014) Church Slavonic, Latin – Emotions (passion)

Vukoja, Vida (2014). Passion, a forgotten feeling. In Fabienne Baider, & Georgeta Cislaru (Eds.), Linguistic perspectives on emotions in discourse (pp. 39-69). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/pbns.241.04vuk

When contemporary sciences and humanities use the term emotion while discussing human mental-sentient dynamics, they usually don’t question its supposed status of a conceptual universal. Yet, despite its frequent usage, the term is surprisingly ambiguous, and its universality status is highly dubious. For
instance, it shows not to be particularly adequate for the analysis of the Croatian Church Slavonic  lexis that expresses phenomena linked to the human mental-sentient dynamics. Instead, this lexis seems to be in concordance with the concepts pertaining to the medieval paradigm relying on the Latin terms passio (Eng. equivalent: passion) and affectus (Eng. equivalent affect). The paradigm is articulated in the most interesting way by Thomas Aquinas and unfortunately almost forgotten or unwarrantably confounded with the paradigm of emotions.

The third option in conceptualizing human mental-sentient dynamics (besides those that rely on emotions on one hand, and passions and affect on the other) argues that the concept FEEL is the most convincing universal candidate. Namely, the researchers of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage hypothesis present substantial theoretical evidence and ample amounts of corroborating data from typologically different languages of the world that back up such a proposal. This paper benefits from this finding, since the word FEEL, and NSM in general, proved to be an adequate tool for delineating similarities and differences between concepts of ‘emotion’, Lat. ‘passio’ and Lat. ‘affectus’.

(2014) Finnish – NSM primes

Vanhatalo, Ulla; Tissari, Heli; Idström, Anna (2014). Revisiting the universality of Natural Semantic Metalanguage: A view through Finnish. SKY Journal of Linguistics, 27, 67-94. PDF (open access)

The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) provides a method of semantic analysis that can be used for various tasks mainly in the field of linguistic research. A crucial part of the theory is the set of primes, minimal lexical units that are used to explicate words, cultural scripts and other concepts. Identifying the primes in a new language is an opportunity to reinforce and/or revisit the theory. The remarks presented in this paper result from the identification process of the Finnish exponents of the NSM primes. The goal of this paper is to direct attention to some fundamental aspects in the Natural Semantic Metalanguage theory, especially to the relation between the universal language-independent NSM concepts and the English-based NSM. A number of remarks are made on the general system of the primes, as the paper points out issues related to e.g. the number, selection and mutual hierarchy of the primes. The economy and logic of certain prime constructions and the argumentation behind allolexy are discussed as well.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2003) French, Romanian – Thanking behaviour

Van Hecke, Tine (2003). Cultural scripts for French and Romanian thanking behaviour. In Katarzyna M. Jaszczolt, & Ken Turner (Eds.), Meaning through language contrast: Vol. 2 (pp. 237-250). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/pbns.100.15van

In her semantic dictionary of English speech act verbs, Wierzbicka (1987:214–215) proposes an all-round definition for the verb to thank that applies as well to the French and Romanian speech act verbs remercier and a mulţumi. However, in order to account for some differences between French and Romanian thanking behaviour, I propose to reduce it in some cases, and to further develop it in others.

(2001) Folk religious concepts

Трнавац, Радослава [Trnavac, Radoslava] (2001). Елементи концепта наде као хришћанске врлине [Elements of the concept of hope as a Christian virtue]. Српски језик [Serbian language], 6(1-2), 469-478.

No abstract available.

More information:

Written in Serbian.

(2002) Serbian – ‘Hope’

Trnavac, Radoslava (2002). Koncept nade u srpskom jeziku u svetlu Prirodnog Semantickog Metajezika [The concept of hope in Serbian in the light of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage]. Zbornik Matice srpske za filologiju i lingvistiku, 45(1-2), 245-269.

Written in Serbian.

(2003) Serbian – ‘Hope’

Trnavac, Radoslava (2003). Koncept nade u srpskom jeziku [The concept of hope in Serbian]. Slavia Meridionalis, 4, 215-246.

Written in Serbian.

(2008) English, Serbian – Imperatives

Trbojević-Milošević, Ivana (2008). Grammar can hurt: A contrastive view of English and Serbian imperatives. In Katarina Rasulic, & Ivana Trbojević (Eds.), ELLSSAC Proceedings – English language and literature studies: Structures across cultures. Volume I (pp. 103-114). Belgrade: Faculty of Philology.

(2009) English, Serbian – Politeness

Trbojević-Milošević, Ivana (2009). Some contrasts in politeness structure of English and Serbian. In Marek Kuźniak, & Bożena Rozwadowska (Eds.), PASE Papers 2008: Studies in language and methodology of teaching foreign languages (pp. 177-184). Wrocław: Oficyna Wydawnicza ATUT.

(2012) English, Serbian – Modal hedges

Trbojević-Milošević, Ivana (2012). Modal hedges in para-pharmaceutical product instructions: Some examples from English and Serbian. Revista de lenguas para fines específicos, 18, 71-92. PDF (open access)

The paper investigates how modal hedges, understood as expressions of procedural meaning, i.e. expressions containing instructions for the addressee/reader on how to process the propositional content of an utterance/statement are used in product descriptions, advertisements and consumer instructions leaflets for a number of products belonging to the Consumer Health Care category for the purposes of complying with consumer protection laws on the one hand and serving as an implicit disclaimer of manufacturer’s responsibility on the other. The analysis is carried out contrastively for two languages, English and Serbian. The results obtained are discussed and viewed as a matter of cultural variety and difference, especially taking into consideration the fact that consumer protection laws seem to be equally strict in US, UK and Commonwealth, Europe and Serbia.


Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner

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