Overview

This book is dedicated to Anna Wierzbicka, one of the most influential and innovative linguists of her generation. Her work spans a number of disciplines, including anthropology, cultural psychology, cognitive science, philosophy and religious studies, as well as her home base of linguistics. She is best known for the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach to meaning—a versatile tool for exploring 'big questions' concerning the diversity and universals of people’s experience in the world. In this volume, Anna Wierzbicka’s former students, old and current colleagues, ‘kindred spirits’ and ‘sparring partners’ engage with her ideas and diverse body of work. These authors cover topics from the grammar of action verbs to cross-cultural pragmatics, and over 30 languages from around the world are represented. The chapters in Part 1 focus on the NSM approach and cover four themes: lexico-grammatical semantics, cultural keywords, semantics of nouns, and emotion. In Part 2, the contributors connect with a meaning-based approach from their own intellectual perspectives, including syntax, anthropology, cognitive linguistics and sociolinguistics. The deep humanistic perspective, wide-ranging themes and interdisciplinary nature of Wierzbicka’s research are reflected in the contributions. The common thread running through all chapters is the primacy of meaning to the understanding of language and culture.

Full Product Details

Author:   Helen Bromhead ,  Zhengdao Ye
Publisher:   ANU Press
Imprint:   ANU Press
ISBN:  

9781760463922

ISBN 10:   1760463922
Publication Date:   21 December 2020
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Available To Order  
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Contributors Introduction – Zhengdao Ye and Helen Bromhead Part I: Meaning, life and culture: The Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach Prototypes, polysemy and constructional semantics: The lexicogrammar of the English verb climb – Cliff Goddard The comparative semantics of verbs of 'opening': West Africa vs Oceania – Felix K. Ameka and Deborah Hill Gezellig: A Dutch cultural keyword unpacked – Bert Peeters Royal semantics: Linguacultural reflections on the Danish address pronoun De – Carsten Levisen The Singlish interjection bojio – Jock Onn Wong The semantics of bushfire in Australian English – Helen Bromhead The semantics of migrant in Australian English – Zhengdao Ye The semantics of verbs of visual aesthetic appreciation in Russian – Anna Gladkova Christian values embedded in the Italian language: A semantic analysis of carità – Gian Marco Farese The semantics of two loanwords in Navarrese Spanish – Mónica Aznárez-Mauleón Time in Portuguese saudade and other words of longing – Zuzanna Bułat Silva Lost in translation: A semantic analysis of no da in Japanese – Yuko Asano-Cavanagh Part II: Meaning, life and culture: Perspectives Locating 'mind' (and ‘soul’) cross-culturally – Frances Morphy and Howard Morphy Teknocentric kin terms in Australian languages – Harold Koch Showing and not telling in a sign language – John Haiman Games that people play: Capitalism as a game – Annabelle Mooney Our ordinary lives: Pathways to a more human-oriented linguistics – John Newman On defining parts of speech with Generative Grammar and NSM – Avery D. Andrews Cut-verbs of the Oceanic language Teop: A critical study of collecting and analysing data in a language documentation project – Ulrike Mosel The depiction of sensing events in English and Kalam – Andrew Pawley Russian language-specific words in the light of parallel corpora – Alexei Shmelev ‘Sense of privacy’ and ‘sense of elbow’: English vs Russian values and communicative styles – Tatiana Larina On the semantics of cup – Keith Allan Where we part from NSM: Understanding Warlpiri yangka and the Warlpiri expression of part-hood – David Nash and David P. Wilkins Envoi Anna Wierzbicka’s life – Kevin Windle and Mary Besemeres Index

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