Tien, Adrian (2015). The semantics of Chinese music: Analysing selected Chinese musical concepts. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/clscc.5
Music is a widely enjoyed human experience. It is, therefore, natural that we have wanted to describe, document, analyse and, somehow, grasp it in language. This book surveys a representative selection of musical concepts in Chinese language, i.e. words that describe, or refer to, aspects of Chinese music. Important as these musical concepts are in the language, they have been in wide circulation since ancient times without being subjected to any serious semantic analysis. The current study is the first known attempt at analysing these Chinese musical concepts linguistically, adopting the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach to formulate semantically and cognitively rigorous explications. Readers will be able to better understand not only these musical concepts but also significant aspects of the Chinese culture that many of these musical concepts represent. This volume contributes to the fields of cognitive linguistics, semantics, music, musicology and Chinese studies, offering readers a fresh account of Chinese ways of thinking, not least Chinese ways of viewing or appreciating music. Ultimately, this study represents trailblazing research on the relationship between language, culture and cognition.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
See also: (E) cai 采, (E) chi 遲, (E) dan 澹 / 淡, (E) daqi 大氣, (E) gu 古, (E) hanxu 含蓄, (E) hé 和, (E) hong 宏, (E) ji 寂, (E) jian 健, (E) jiān 堅, (E) jie 潔, (E) jing 靜, (E) li 麗, (E) liang 亮, (E) liu 溜, (E) mo 默, (E) nong 濃, (E) qing 清, (E) qing 輕, (E) qu 曲, (E) run 潤, (E) sheng 聲, (E) shi 實, (E) shici 實詞, (E) shiyin 實音, (E) su 速, (E) tian 恬, (E) wanyue 婉約, (E) wanzhuan 婉轉, (E) weiwan 委婉, (E) xi 喜, (E) xi 細, (E) xiu 休, (E) xu 虛, (E) xuci 虛詞, (E) xuyin 虛音, (E) ya 雅, (E) yi 逸, (E) yin yue 音樂, (E) yin 音, (E) yiyang duncuo 抑揚頓挫, (E) yuan 圓, (E) yuan 遠, (E) yun 韵, (E) zhong 重, (S) “sound” versus “non-sound” in music, (T) English, (T) semantic molecules
Tien, Adrian (2016). What does it mean to “commemorate”? Linguistic and cultural evidence from Chinese. The Irish Journal of Asian Studies, 2, 1-11.
What does it mean to “commemorate”? Is commemorate or its derivations in English understood and accordingly practiced in other languages and cultures? This article demonstrates, through the case of Chinese language and culture, that people do not all share the same understanding about “commemoration” or practice it as it is in the Anglo context. Even though commemorate is translated into Chinese as jì niàn and these words show certain linguistic similarities, jì niàn is not an exact translational equivalent of the English word. Furthermore, evidence is presented to show that jì niàn is likely a recent word in Chinese, based on contemporary Chinese notions of something like to “commemorate” that reflect possible influences from the West. In drawing evidence from conventional Chinese linguistic and cultural practices, this article illustrates how Chinese “commemorate” in ways that are indigenous to them. As part of this, semantic analyses using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) are performed on the Chinese words jì niàn and zhuī yuǎn, lit. ‘to recollect the distant past’. These are then compared with the semantic analysis for commemorate in English, for an in-depth appreciation of what makes Chinese understanding of something like “commemorate” unique.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
See also: (E) commemorate, (E) jì niàn, (E) zhuī yuǎn, (T) English
Tien, Adrian (2016). Not so fast: Speed-related concepts in Chinese music and beyond. Global Chinese, 2(2), 189-211. DOI: 10.1515/glochi-2016-0008
While speed as a sonic and musical experience may be a universal phenomenon, concepts referring to kinds of speed are language-specific and culture-dependent. This paper focuses on the notion of speed in Chinese and concepts associated with speed in Chinese, especially in relation to music. Five speed-related concepts in Chinese are subjected to scrutiny: kuai, ji, su, man and huan. These concepts are scrutinized in traditional musical, contemporary musical and general contemporary contexts. The musical genres in which these concepts present themselves are the music of guqin (a seven-stringed zither) and Peking Opera. Semantic analyses adopting the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach are utilized in order to explicate these concepts. Preliminary findings demonstrate that, unlike in some other musical traditions in which one might expect the capacity to play at markedly contrastive speeds in a musical performance to be aesthetically desirable or even essential, as the meanings of the speed-related concepts in Chinese reveal, the ability to play fast is not necessarily aesthetically praiseworthy in at least traditional Chinese music, nor is speed necessarily a major consideration as one executes speed in a Chinese musical interpretation.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
See also: (E) huan 緩, (E) ji 急, (E) kuai 快, (E) man 慢, (E) su 速, (S) making pleasurable and entertaining music, (S) moderation of speed in Chinese music
Tien, Adrian (2016). Compositionality of Chinese idioms: The issues, the semantic approach and a case study. Applied Linguistics Review, 7(2), 149-180. DOI: 10.1515/applirev-2016-0007
Idioms – or something like idioms – occupy a special place as a speech genre in languages. It is compelling that the issue of what idioms are (or are not) and how they distinguish themselves from other related, though different, linguistic and phraseological categories, are of concern to all. This paper first examines various linguistic issues concerning the idiom genre before going into a detailed discussion about the chengyu in Chinese, which is an approximate yet by no means identical counterpart of the idiom as it is understood in English. It is argued that, as phrasal structures, Chinese chengyus are not all lexically fixed, neither are they all semantically non-compositional. By virtue of the example of the sememe zhong, lit. ‘(bronze) bell’, and its incorporation into certain chengyus, it is demonstrated that the sememic constituents of a chengyu can be only not compositionally significant semantically speaking but also, they may well hold the key to the reason why the literal meaning of a chengyu should be closely integrated into its intended, idiomatic (figurative) meaning. Chengyus that incorporate the sememe zhong comprise an idiomatic analogy and, in fact, zhong as a lexical item is represented in the content of this analogy as a cognitively real element. This paper adopts the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework as the basis for semantic analyses of such chengyus.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
See also: (E) zhong 重, (T) English
Tallarico, Giovanni (2011). La sémantique d’Anna Wierzbicka et l’approche MSN: recherches et applications [Anna Wierzbicka’s semantics and the NSM approach: research and applications]. Publif@rum 16. http://publifarum.farum.it. PDF (open access)
Written in French.
This paper, written by a non-NSM practitioner, presents the theoretical underpinnings of the NSM approach, sketches its evolution, and comments on its applications. Some critical remarks are also canvassed.
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
Taheri Ardali, Mortaza & Jahangardi, Kiyoomarss (2013). Natural Semantic Metalanguage and lexicography. In Ataollah Koupal, Shahram Modarres Khiabani, & Javad Yaghoubi Derabi (Eds.), Proceedings of the 1st Conference on Language and Linguistics, 27 February 2013, Azad University of Karaj: Vol. 2 (pp. 413-430). Tehran: Neveeseh.
Written in Persian.
No English abstract available.
Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
See also: (E) qeyrat غیرت
Swan, Karen Esther (2013). Borrowing the essentials: A diachronic study of the semantic primes of Modern English. MA thesis, Brigham Young University. PDF (open access)
In order for communication to take place, there must be a set of core concepts that are universal to all speakers. Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) has proposed an inventory of these concepts, called semantic primes, and uses them as universal concepts in the explication and exploration of cultural values. The English semantic primes, while the majority are Anglo‐Saxon, contain words that have been borrowed from Latin, Old Norse, and French. Borrowing lexical items into core vocabulary has many implications. First, the primes are not entirely stable or immune to foreign influence, even the Anglo‐Saxon primes have been susceptible to the processes of language change. Second, the primes do not reflect the trends of borrowing in English as a whole. And finally, because the primes are core vocabulary, this study opens up a new aspect of English as a mixed language.
Svetanant, Chavalin (2013). Exploring personhood constructs through language: Contrastive semantic of “heart” in Japanese and Thai. International Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Communication, 7(3), 23-32.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18848/2324-7320/cgp/v07i03/53576
Abstract:
This paper aims to explore personhood constructs of the Thai community and compare them to those of the Japanese community, with special reference to heart-related terms. It carries out a linguistic inquiry into the historical side of the lexicon and compares the conceptualization of ‘heart’ in Thai and Japanese to clarify the cognitive and conceptual similarities and differences in the underlying semantic structures. The framework for semantic analysis employed in this paper is the NSM approach.
A large number of heart/mind-related words in Thai and Japanese show features that are shared across the two communities, as well as subtle cognitive and conceptual differences; for example, ใจ chai (Thai) and 気 ki (Japanese) are relatively more dynamic and sensitive to mental/psychological changes when compared to 心 kokoro (Japanese). Linguistically speaking, they keep moving around, changing shape, size, colour, and temperature. However, while the entities of ใจ chai and 心 kokoro are cognitively more substantial as emotional containers of human beings, 気 ki is treated more like the intangible energy wrapping around 心 kokoro and contains no intellectual element.
The evidence from this study suggests that a semantic explication of personhood lexicalizations is a practical approach to clarify the obscure entities and contribute to the understanding of the conceptuality of personhood constructs across languages and cultures.
Rating:
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
See also: (E) chai ใจ, (E) ki 気, (E) kokoro 心
Sun, Jaclyn Kayen (2010). Deciphering the Chinese smile: The importance of facial expressions in linguistic communication. Cross-Sections, 6, 105-120.
This paper explores the role of facial expressions in Cantonese people’s communication, with a focus on 笑 siu3 (lit. ‘smiling’, ‘laughing’, ‘grinning’). The communicative implications underlying linguistic communication are discussed with reference to two core cultural values, 和諧關係 wo4 haai4 gwaan1 hai6 or wo6 haai4 gwaan1 hai6 (lit. ‘harmonious relationship’, ‘together relationship’) and 含蓄 ham4 chuk1 (lit. ‘implicit’, ‘contained’, ‘control’), which govern the facial movements of the Chinese. Semantic explications of cultural key words and cultural scripts are generated based on the author’s personal reflections as a native speaker of Cantonese who has resided in Hong Kong for 20 years. The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) is used as the methodology of this paper so that these cultural values can be captured through an insider perspective, in a language that is culture-independent. The use of NSM in this present study effectively avoids ethnocentrism, while meanings can be spelt out in an undistorted way that can be understood and translated systematically across different languages, serving as a rigorous tool for comparing different cultural norms. It is hoped that this will aid better understanding of the communicative styles involved and so help to facilitate an effective intercultural communication between Chinese speakers and cultural outsiders.
The following Cantonese words are explicated: 臉色 lim5 sik1 ‘complexion, look’; 賠笑 pui4 siu3 ‘compensating smile’; 苦笑 fu2 siu3 ‘bitter smile’
Note: Provided the first line (“many people think like this”) is dropped, the cultural scripts proposed by the author for particular types of smiles are at the same time semantic explications for the phrases used in Cantonese to identify the smiles in question.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
See also: (E) fu2 siu3 苦笑, (E) lim5 sik1 臉色, (E) pui4 siu3 賠笑, (S) communicative styles, (S) conflict, (S) emotions, (S) relationships, (S) smiling
Sun, Gui-Li, & Hsieh, Ching-Yu (2008). Three emotional adverbs in Mandarin Chinese: An application of Natural Semantic Metalanguage. Feng Chia Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 17, 121-139. PDF (open access)
Emotional adverbs are usually difficult for non-native speakers to comprehend. They belong to a category of function words that are not easily defined and that appear to be semantically empty. Few researchers have explored them. This study examines the emotional adverbs 明明 mingming, 萬萬 wanwan and 簡直 jianzhi by means of the NSM approach. The data for the study was mostly selected from the Academia Sinica Balanced Corpus of Modern Chinese, and from conversations among junior high school students.
The result shows that each of the adverbs has different implications and can be used in certain specific situations. For example, 明明 mingming is used to express negative emotions like disaffection or anger, while 萬萬 wanwan can be used to show speakers’ positive and negative feelings, although it is used only in negative sentences. 簡直 jianzhi is usually followed by a metaphor or simile and implies a complaint and incredibility. The underlying cognition of the three emotional adverbs is revealed by an analysis of explications.
Approximate application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
See also: (E) jianzhi 簡直, (E) joyful, (E) mingming 明明, (E) wanwan 萬萬
Stollznow, Karenina (2002). Terms of abuse in Australian English: A study of semantics and usage. BA(Hons) thesis, University of New England.
The purpose of this thesis is to present and justify semantic explications for seventeen abusive epithets commonly used in contemporary Australian English: wanker, smart arse, dickhead, fuckwit, drongo, yobbo, bludger, wowser, whinger, wuss, poofter, bimbo, bitch, slut, arsehole, prick and cunt. Although many of these words are often perceived as non-specific or vague terms, I aim to prove that each epithet has a distinct meaning and usage. These words have been chosen given their frequency in natural speech and within mediums such as newspapers, television, literature and the Internet. Furthermore, these terms are important in that they encode information about the Australian culture and people. Although prevalent in the lexicon of many Australian people, some of these terms are of a taboo nature and have been insufficiently treated academically.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
See also: (E) arsehole, (E) bimbo, (E) bitch, (E) bludger, (E) cunt, (E) dickhead, (E) drongo, (E) fuckwit, (E) poofter, (E) prick, (E) slut, (E) smart arse, (E) wanker, (E) whinger, (E) wowser, (E) wuss, (E) yobbo
Stollznow, Karenina (2004). Whinger! Wowser! Wanker! Aussie English: Deprecatory language and the Australian ethos. In Christo Moskovsky (Ed.), Proceedings of the 2003 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society. http://www.als.asn.au/proceedings/als2003.html. PDF (open access)
Abusive epithets form a significant part of the vocabulary of many people and have become a colourful and expressive part of the Australian lexicon, surfacing with great frequency within Australian television, radio, literature, magazines, newspapers and in domestic, social and work domains. Australian terms of abuse are unique compared to those found in other varieties of English. The aim of this study is to examine the meaning, usage and cultural significance of the popular abusive epithets whinger, wowser and wanker as they are used in contemporary Australian English. The words selected for this study are culturally significant and representative of social values in that they express characteristics deemed undesirable in Australian society. Abusive epithets are labels that admonish deviant social behaviour and can be considered to be keys to understanding synchronic cultural values. Thus, the socially leveling term wanker ridicules a person who is pretentious and arrogant, thereby suggesting that humility, solidarity and being down-to-earth are highly valued qualities in Australian society. Wowser derides prudishness and intolerance, indicative of a laissez-faire society, valuing tolerance and open-mindedness. Whinger conveys disapproval for a person who complains excessively and without validity, expressing that stoicism and fortitude are valued.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
See also: (E) wanker, (E) whinger, (E) wowser
Stollznow, Karen (2008). Dehumanisation in language and thought. Journal of Language and Politics, 7(2), 177-200. DOI: 10.1075/jlp.7.2.01sto
Dehumanization is a central tool of propaganda, war and oppression, but could it also be an everyday phenomenon? This paper attempts to demonstrate that dehumanization is not invariably deviant behaviour, but that it is often grounded in normal cognition. Dehumanization is often defined as ‘to make less human’ (Encarta) or ‘to deprive of human character’ (Oxford English Dictionary). Are these adequate definitions? Is there evidence of polysemy, and a more salient sense? How can we explain the meaning and enactment of this process? This paper investigates the linguistic and behavioural representation of dehumanization, with reference to modern and historical events. This semantic analysis considers aspects of pragmatics, semiotics, cognition and metaphor. The framework used in this examination is the Natural Semantic Metalanguage method of reductive paraphrase.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
See also: (E) dehumanization
Stollznow, Karen (2017). The language of discrimination. München: Lincom.
Abstract:
This book presents and justifies semantic explications for a field of words pertaining to the language of abuse, hatred and the processes of discrimination. Semantic representations adopt the principles of the NSM approach. The discussion is categorized into four sections, commencing with an examination of the speech act verbs insult, abuse, denigrate, vilify and offend. Then follows an analysis of words that describe the social acts of discrimination, including dehumanize, demonize, marginalize, stigmatize and discriminate. Next is an analysis of words that describe the cognitive elements of discrimination, including stereotype, intolerance, prejudice, xenophobia, racism and sexism. The final section is a treatise on overt and covert discrimination, and discusses perspectives and directions in this area of research.
The data is sourced from naturally occurring examples and corpora, including Collins Word Bank and the British National Corpus. Where applicable, the work engages in a comparative discussion of lexicographical and lexicological methodology. The explications are supported by pragmatic and syntactic evidence, extracted from speech media, corpora and other textual sources. The findings of this research have practical applications for many diverse fields, including law, public policy, education and conflict resolution. This work also endeavours to enhance the contribution of lexical semantics to lexicography.
More information:
The 2017 version is a facsimile edition of the author’s PhD thesis, University of New England (2007). Open access
Rating:
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
See also: (E) abuse, (E) dehumanize, (E) demonize, (E) denigrate, (E) discriminate, (E) insult, (E) intolerance, (E) marginalize, (E) offend, (E) prejudice, (E) racism, (E) sexism, (E) stereotype, (E) stigmatize, (E) vilify, (E) xenophobia
Stock, Kristin (2008). Determining semantic similarity of behaviour using Natural Semantic Metalanguage to match user objectives to available web services. Transactions in GIS, 12(6), 733-755. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9671.2008.01128.x
Natural Semantic Metalanguage specifies a set of semantic primitives identified by linguists since the 1970s as being present in all analysed languages and not capable of further reduction. In this article, the 63 semantic primitives are used to define the semantics of user objectives and web services in the form of semantic explications, which are then compared to determine whether the web services are likely to be
helpful in meeting the user objective. The comparison of the user objectives and web services is a two stage process. Firstly, the content is compared by classifying the semantic primitives from the candidate web service and user objective on the basis of whether the primitives are common or similar. On the basis of these classifications, the percentage match and semantic relationship (subset, superset, overlaps, disjoint, identical) are determined. Secondly, the order of the semantic primitives is compared
and the edit distance determined as a measure of semantic similarity. The method is tested using two examples: a comparison of spatial relations and a comparison of a user objective and three geospatial web services. The results show that the method is able to determine which concepts are broadly semantically similar and which are not.
Stock, Kristin (2010). Describing spatial relations using informal semantics. In Mordechai (Muki) Haklay, Jeremy Morley, & Hanif Rahemtulla (Eds.), Proceedings of the GIS Research UK 18th Annual Conference GISRUK 2010 (pp. 267-272). London: University College London.
This paper presents the results of an experiment that evaluated the use of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) for the definition of spatial relations by non-experts, and the consequent
comparison of those semantic definitions. This approach has the benefits of allowing informal
semantics to be expressed and capturing individual variations in semantics, rather than requiring a
consensus view to be adopted. The paper describes an experiment and its outcomes, and in doing this, shows how NSM can be used to compare the semantic equivalence of expressions constructed by different individuals, even if they are non-experts using naïve, non-literal, individually-specific definitions of the spatial relations concerned.
Stock, Kristin, & Cialone, Claudia (2011). Universality, language-variability and individuality: Defining linguistic building blocks for spatial relations. In Max Egenhofer, Nicholas Giudice, Reinhard Moratz, & Michael Worboys (Eds.), Spatial information theory. 10th international conference (COSIT 2011) (pp. 391-412). Berlin: Springer.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23196-4_21
Abstract:
Most approaches to the description of spatial relations for use in spatial querying attempt to describe a set of spatial relations that are universally understood by users. While this method has proved successful for expert users of geographic information, it is less useful for non-experts. Furthermore, while some work has implied the universal nature of spatial relations, a large amount of linguistic evidence shows that many spatial relations vary fundamentally across languages. The NSM approach is a methodology that has helped identify the few specific spatial relations that are universal across languages. We show how these spatial relations can be used to describe a range of more complex spatial relations, including some from non-Indo-European languages that cannot readily be described with the usual spatial operators. Thus we propose that NSM is a tool that may be useful for the development of the next generation of spatial querying tools, supporting multilingual environments with widely differing ways of talking about space.
Rating:
Sound application of NSM principles carried out without prior training by an experienced NSM practitioner
See also: (E) across, (E) alongside, (E) cross, (E) inside, (E) pereekhat’, (E) pereezdit’, (E) pereidti, (E) perekhodit’, (E) surround, (E) vicino a
Stanwood, Ryo E. (1993). *The hitchhiker’s guide to shake, wave, swing, and wag. Working Papers in Linguistics [University of Hawai’i], 22(2), 141-147.
Stanwood, Ryo E. (1997). The primitive syntax of mental predicates in Hawaii Creole English: A text-based study. Language Sciences, 19(3), 209-217. DOI: 10.1016/S0388-0001(96)00060-5
This study presents evidence collected from basilectal texts that the NSM mental predicates (THINK, KNOW, WANT, FEEL, SAY, SEE, and HEAR) have clear lexical exponents in Hawaii Creole English and that these HCE predicates occur, with minor qualification, in the syntactic configurations predicted as universal within the NSM approach.
Stanwood, Ryo E. (2014). On the adequacy of Hawai`i Creole English. Dallas: SIL International. PDF (open access)
Published version of a previously unpublished PhD thesis (1999).
Low prestige, non-standard speech varieties have been stigmatized by some psychologists and educators as a cognitive handicap responsible for the poor academic performance of minority children. This study investigates whether a particular non-standard variety, Hawai‛i Creole English (HCE), is equal to “real” languages (such as Standard English) in its expressive capacity. The Natural Semantic Metalanguage
(NSM) specification is the only explicit hypothesis about the expressive apparatus underlying all natural languages. It therefore offers us the only empirical means to carry out our investigation. This investigation argues in exhaustive detail that all the primitives and all the primitive combinations of the NSM specification are present in HCE.
Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners
