29.4799, Review: Cognitive Science; Linguistic Theories; Philosophy of Language; Psycholinguistics; Semantics: Goddard (2018)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-29-4799. Mon Dec 03 2018. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 29.4799, Review: Cognitive Science; Linguistic Theories; Philosophy of Language; Psycholinguistics; Semantics: Goddard (2018)

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Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2018 20:41:33
From: Ami Okabe [amiokabe26 at gmail.com]
Subject: Ten Lectures on Natural Semantic Metalanguage

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/29/29-1685.html

AUTHOR: Cliff  Goddard
TITLE: Ten Lectures on Natural Semantic Metalanguage
SUBTITLE: Exploring Lanuage, Thought, and Culture Using Simple, Translatable Words
SERIES TITLE: Distinguished Lectures in Cognitive Semantics
PUBLISHER: Brill
YEAR: 2018

REVIEWER: Ami Okabe

SUMMARY 

The book “Ten Lectures on Natural Metalanguage” offers an overview of various
aspects of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach, which is a
semantic theory first proposed by Anna Wierzbicka (Australian National
University) in the early 1970s. The book is a transcribed version of the
lectures given by Cliff Goddard (Griffith University), another major proponent
of NSM. Each chapter of the book corresponds to one of the ten lectures given
by Goddard at the 16th China International Forum on Cognitive Linguistics from
November to December 2016. In addition, the book provides online access to the
audio recording of the lectures themselves. In the book, the lectures are
augmented by slides and notes to indicate Goddard’s movements pointing to
certain parts of the slides.

As the book is based on a series of lectures at a linguistic event, it is
intended for linguists, especially those with a background in cognitive
linguistics, but not necessarily knowledge of NSM. Therefore, the book begins
with a general introduction to the NSM approach, followed by various examples
of analysis using NSM, application of the theory to related fields such as
pragmatics and cultural studies, and comparison with other semantic theories. 

Chapter 1 outlines the NSM as a kind of mini-language for semantic
description. Goddard then contextualizes NSM in the European philosophical
tradition dating back to ancient Greece. The NSM owes its origin to 17th
century philosopher Leibniz, who insisted on the existence of basic elements
of thought, which led to the notion of “semantic primes” in the NSM approach.

In Chapter 2, Goddard develops the concept of semantic primes as one of the
basic ideas of the NSM approach. He presents an overview of semantic primes
and explains how to detect an exponent of a semantic prime in a language. In
addition, Goddard illustrates the grammar of semantic primes using examples
from the semantic primes HAPPEN, DO, and SAY.

Chapter 3 gives a number of examples of semantic explications, which are
explanatory paraphrases composed of semantic primes and semantic molecules.
The examples include two case studies of emotion concepts: one for words
expressing “longing for home” in English, Polish, and Spanish, and the other
for the English word “happy” and its equivalents in Danish and Chinese.
Goddard also introduces a useful concept called the “semantic template,” which
is a general schema found in semantic explications shared by words of a
particular semantic class. 

In Chapter 4, Goddard further develops the concept of the semantic template
and proposes a grouping of words based on such templates. He analyzes
evaluational adjectives in English (e.g., “awesome,” “boring,” “depressing,”
“exciting”), suggesting that this kind of adjective can be categorized into
five groups based on a semantic template. He further points out that the NSM
approach is well-suited for descriptions of subjective meaning. Moreover, this
chapter demonstrates that the NSM approach functions at two levels of
analysis, namely at a micro level via explications and at a meso level via
semantic templates.

In Chapter 5, the notion of a “semantic molecule” is introduced; this is a
complex lexical meaning that serves as a semantic unit in an explication and
allows for the description of semantically more complex words. Goddard
distinguishes between two types of semantic molecules: universal molecules,
such as “water,” “children,” and “sky,” and non-universal molecules like
“rice,” “paper,” “year,” and “school.” Each molecule has its own relevance and
can be implemented in semantic explications at any level, leading to a nested
structure of molecules. Thus, the introduction of semantic molecules enables
us to account not only for a wider range of vocabulary items but also for
semantic dependencies and interrelations.

In Chapter 6, Goddard moves on to the application of the NSM to culturally
significant words, namely “cultural key words.” He names three examples:
“fair” in English, “xiao” ‘filial piety’ in Chinese, and “Ordnung” ‘order’ in
German to demonstrate that the meaning of these culture-rich and
translation-resistant words can be described well by NSM.

Chapter 7 illustrates the application of the NSM approach to verbs, especially
from the viewpoint of verb classes and verbal semantics. The English verbs of
doing and saying are the focus of this chapter. There are three types of
examples: verbs of bodily motion (e.g., “run,” “crawl”), verbs of transitive
activity (e.g., “eat,” “cut”), and speech-act verbs (e.g., “order,” “ask”).
Goddard discusses how each subclass of verbs follows its own semantic
template. 

Verbs are also a central part of Chapter 8, but Goddard tackles more
grammatical issues here. He discusses the aspectual transposition of verbs by
introducing the notion of “derivational base.” The derivational base functions
like a semantic molecule but it is more specialized and localized in the sense
that it typically appears in a lexical derivation process (e.g., “ill” in
“illness”). Goddard suggests that the derivational base also explains the
aspectual transposition of verbs (e.g., a shift from “be eating” to “ate”) as
well as alternation phenomena (e.g., an alternation between “she is cutting
it” and “he cut his hand on a rock”). Thus, from an NSM perspective, these
kinds of specialized constructions can be seen as a lexical derivation
analogous to word formation. 

Chapter 9 focuses on the practical applications of NSM in the fields of
language teaching, interpreting, and translating, etc. The chapter is divided
into two parts. The first half introduces an NSM-related concept called
“Minimal English,” which is a reduced English that can be used for practical
purposes. The latter part discusses the use of cultural scripts in the
classroom. The cultural script approach is cultural pragmatics
(Ethnopragmatics) using an NSM-based method. It describes cultural norms and
values using semantic primes. Goddard argues that cultural scripts are
relevant in language teaching.

In Chapter 10, Goddard reviews the previous chapters and compares the NSM
approach with a number of other semantic theories such as formal semantics,
so-called “extensionalist” semantics developed by the Max Planck Institute for
Psycholinguistics, conceptual semantics, the generative lexicon, and FrameNet.
Compared to these theories, Goddard argues that the NSM approach is
advantageous in terms of the clearly defined metalanguage, its
comprehensiveness, an anti-Anglocentric standpoint, a long history of careful
empirical research, and conceptual experimentation. 

EVALUATION

The book offers a comprehensive explanation of the NSM approach with various
examples of different linguistic phenomena. Most importantly, it provides an
overview of the up-to-date version of the theory in a clear and well-organized
way, which is valuable for NSM beginners and advanced NSM researchers as well
as semanticians, lexicographers and pragmaticians in general. 

The book is suitable for anyone interested in semantics, especially for those
who want to learn about NSM. The chapters are well-ordered and readers will be
able to build their knowledge step-by-step to gain a full understanding of the
theory. Moreover, the book includes various examples from a number of
languages with detailed explications, which helps readers achieve a deeper
understanding of NSM. It should be noted, however, that since the book’s
content is based on a lecture series it is not structured like a traditional
textbook. Goddard (2011) would be a better choice for those who want to learn
how to use NSM, since it covers a wider variety of linguistic phenomena and
also includes practical assignments.

The book is also of great interest to current members of the NSM community,
since it is the latest book and updates the overall theory. As indicated in
the book, the NSM theory is undergoing continuous revision, which sometimes
makes it difficult to keep up to date about the most current version. Although
the theory has been applied to various linguistic phenomena, research results
are mostly reported in individual papers that do not provide a comprehensive
overview of the theory. Thus, this book is a useful source to establish the
most current NSM approach. 

It would have been helpful for readers if Goddard had commented on the
expected future development of the theory. The NSM approach has expanded in
recent decades and its usefulness in describing meanings of words and
constructions has been adequately demonstrated. Now it seems that the theory
is mature enough to take the next step. For example, will NSM simply remain a
useful descriptive tool? Or will there be a project to build an NSM-based
dictionary, similar to FrameNet? Or will the NSM ideology and analytic method
be expanded to other linguistic fields like syntax and pragmatics to create a
coherent NSM approach applicable to languages as a whole? Although its rigid
criteria and strong ideology are obvious in the volume, the goal of the NSM
approach is not clearly presented, which might confuse some newcomers to the
theory. This shortcoming, however, is small compared to the value this book
offers to the field.

In sum, the book is a valuable contribution to the field of semantics and to
cognitive linguistics in general. It will mainly be of interest to students
and researchers working in the fields of semantics, lexicography, and
pragmatics, and it is a text especially appropriate for those who want to
familiarize themselves with the NSM approach.

REFERENCES

Cliff, Goddard. 2011. Semantic Analysis. A Practical Introduction. 2nd ed.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Ami Okabe, currently a guest PhD candidate at Leiden University Centre for
Linguistics, is a PhD Candidate at Kyoto University (Japan) and a research
fellow of JSPS (DC2). Her research interests include lexical semantics, corpus
linguistics and comparative linguistics. Her current work focuses on the
semantics of posture verbs and their historical development in Dutch and
German.





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