This course, taught by an expert in semantics and the author of many books in this field, provides practical training for anyone interested in the study of meaning, intercultural communication, or translation. It focuses on basic and universal human concepts and their role as a tool for comparing meanings across languages and cultures. The course explores semantic universals and their implications for semantic analysis on all levels of language, including lexicon, grammar and discourse. The course aims at improving the student's skills in exploring and describing the meaning of words, constructions and whole texts in the context of the study of languages and the 'stream of life'.

Topics discussed will involve the following: semantic analysis in current debate e.g. ‘genocide', semantic universals and the issue of ‘primitive thought', comparing grammatical categories and the semantics of modals and evidentials, social categories and kinship terms, bodies and their parts, emotions with a focus on ‘happiness', cultural scripts and intercultural communication, physical activities, semantic molecules, semantic templates, nonverbal communication, semantics and social cognition with a focus on reflexive and reciprocal constructions, writing explications, writing cultural scripts

On satisfying the requirements of the course, the students will be able to:

1. Analyse the meaning of words, phrases and grammatical constructions in different languages.
2. Articulate the meaning of expressions through the natural semantic metalanguage in a precise and clear way.
3. Articulate cultural norms through 'cultural scripts'.
4. Clarify ideas, values and norms through simple and universal concepts.
5. Participate effectively in a collective thinking process leading towards a consensus about the meaning of expressions and ideas.

Two 3,000 word essays (45% each) and class participation, including class presentation (10%).

A two hour weekly seminar

Weekly readings as specified in the Course Schedule

Semantics LING2008 or equivalent, or with permission of Lecturer.

Wierzbicka, Anna. 1996. Semantics: Primes and Universals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Required Reading:

            Chapter 1: Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 3-34.

            Chapter 15. Comparing Grammatical Categories across Languages: The Semantics of

                        Evidentials. 427-458.

            Chapter 2: A Survey of Semantic Primitives. pp 35-111

Chapter 3: Universal Grammar: The Syntax of Universal Semantic Primitives. pp112-147.

Background Reading:

            Chapter 6. Semantics and "Primitive Thought". 184-210.

Chapter 14. A Semantic Basis for Grammatical Description and Typology: Transitivity and

                        Reflexives. 402-426.   

  As in the Reading Brick

• Goddard, Cliff. In press. The Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach to linguistic analysis. In Heine and Narrog (eds.). Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis.
• Gaita, Raimond. 2009. Holocaust Resentment: the implications of the claim that the holocaust is unique and that aspects of it will forevere defeat our attempts to understand it. Lecture given at the Fritz Bauer Institute and Department of Philosophy of the University of Frankfurt on Holocaust Memorial Day.
• Wierzbicka, Anna. In press. Bilingualism and Cognition: Perspective from Semantics. In Vivian Cook and Benedetta Bassetti (eds.) Language and Bilingual Cognition.
• Goddard, Cliff. To appear. Have to, Have Got To, and Must: NSM Analyses of English Modal Verbs of "Necessity". Journal of English Linguistics.
• Goddard, Cliff and Anna Wierzbicka. Forthcoming. Men, women and children: the semantics of basic social categories. Language.
• Priestley, Carol. Forthcoming. What's in a name? Cultural values and terms of address and reference in a Papuan language.
• Wierzbicka, Anna. Forthcoming. "Sex" in a cross-linguistics, cross-cultural and historical perspective. In Fifty English Keywords. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Goddard, Cliff and Anna Wierzbicka. 2008. Universal human concepts as a basis for contrastive linguistics. In María de los Ángeles Gómez-González, Lachlan Mackenzie and Elsa González Álvarez. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• Gladkova, Anna. 2008. Tolerance. New and traditional values in Russian in comparison with English. In Cliff Goddard. Cross-Linguistic Semantics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
• Wierzbicka, Anna. 2009. Language and Metalanguage: Key issues in emotion research. Emotion Review. 1 (1) 3-14. With the Debate, four short papers. 15-23.
• Ye, Zhengdao. 2001. An inquiry into "sadness" in Chinese. In Jean Harkins and Anna Wierzbicka. Emotions in Crosslinguistic Perspective. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 359-404.
• Wierzbicka, Anna. 2008. A conceptual basis for intercultural pragmatics and world-wide understanding. In Martin Pütz and JoAnne Neff-van Aertselaer. Developing Contrastive Pragmatics: Interlanguage and Cross-Cultural Perspectives.
• Yoon, Kyung-Joo. 2009. Imposition as an expression of ceng ‘affection' in the Korean cultural context. Presented at the international Cross-Culturally Speaking, Speaking Cross-culturally Conference, Macquarie University, Sydney (on July 6^th 2009).
• Wierzbicka, Anna In press. All people eat and drink. Does that mean that ‘eat' and ‘drink' are universal human concepts? In John Newman (ed.). The Linguistics of Eating and Drinking. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• Ye, Zhengdao. 2006. Why the "inscrutable" Chinese face? Emotionality and facial expression in Chinese. In Cliff Goddard. Ethnopragmatics: Understanding Discourse in Cultural Context. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
• Wierzbicka, Anna. Reading human faces: Emotion components and universal semantics. Pragmatics and Cognition 1(1) 1-23.
• Wierzbicka, Anna. 2009. Case in NSM: A reanalysis of the Polish dative. In The Oxford Handbook of Case. Oxford University Press.
• Goddard, Cliff. 2008. Natural Semantic Metalanguage: The state of the art. Introduction to Cross-Linguistic Semantics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 1-34.
• Goddard, Cliff. 2006. Cultural Scripts. In Jan Östman and Jef Verschueren in colloboration with Eline Versluys. Handbook of Pragmatics.
• Goddard, Cliff and Anna Wierzbicka. 2004. Cultural Scripts: What are they and what are they good for? Intercultural Pragmatics. (Special Issue on Cultural Scripts) 2: 153-165.

In Chifley Library

Goddard, Cliff and Anna Wierzbicka. 2002. Meaning and Universal Grammar: Theory and empirical findings. Volumes I and II. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Wierzbicka, Anna. 2006. English: Meaning and culture. New York: OUP

Wierzbicka, Anna. 2010. Experience, Evidence, and Sense: The hidden cultural legacy of English. New York: Oxford University Press.