(Cultural Linguistics) Farzad Sharifian 2017 (Eds.) - Advances in Cultural Linguistics-Springer Singapore KOVECSES SILVA MUSOLFF

Cultural Linguistics
Farzad Sharifian Editor
Advances in
Cultural
Linguistics
Series editor
Farzad Sharifian, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Cultural Linguistics advances multidisciplinary inquiry into the relationship
between language and cultural conceptualisations. It champions research that
advances our understanding of how features of human languages encode culturally
constructed conceptualisations of experience. Edited by world-renowned linguist
Professor Farzad Sharifian, Cultural Linguistics publishes monographs and edited
volumes from diverse but complementary disciplines as wide-ranging as
cross-cultural pragmatics, anthropological linguistics and cognitive psychology to
present new perspectives on the intersection between culture, cognition, and
language. Featured themes include:
• Cultural conceptualisations and the structure of language

• Language and cultural categorisation
• Language, culture, and embodiment
• Language and cultural conceptualisations of emotions
• Cultural conceptualisations and pragmatic meaning
• Cultural conceptualisations and (im)polite language use
• Applied Cultural Linguistics (e.g., Cultural Linguistics and English Language
Teaching, Cultural Linguistics and World Englishes, Cultural Linguistics and
Intercultural Communication, Cultural Linguistics and Political Discourse
Analysis)
The series editors welcome proposals that fit the description above. For more
information about how you can submit a proposal, please contact the publishing
editor, Ilaria Walker. E-mail: ilaria.walker@springer.com
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14294

Farzad Sharifian
Editor
Advances in Cultural
Linguistics
123
Editor
Farzad Sharifian
Monash University
Melbourne
Australia
ISSN 2520-145X ISSN 2520-1468 (electronic)

ISBN 978-981-10-4055-9 ISBN 978-981-10-4056-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017932774
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017

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Acknowledgements
The editor wishes to thank the authors of the chapters in this volume not only for
their valuable contributions, but also for their help in serving as internal reviewers
of other contributions. A number of other (anonymous external) reviewers also
deserve a special word of thanks for their helpful comments, particularly on the
initial proposal for the volume. I am grateful to Ilaria Walker, Nick Melchoir, and
Dion Kagan from Springer for their very passionate and valuable help and support
during the preparation of this volume. I would also like to thank my research
assistant, Marzieh Sadeghpour, for her help with designing the diagrams presented
in Chap. 1. I received financial support from the Australian Research Council
throughout the process of editing this book (ARC[DP140100353]). Chapter 23 is a
reprint from the International Journal of Language and Culture, 3(2), 2016, 137–
160 (https://dx.doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.3.2.01pee). Permission to reprint was granted
by John Benjamins Publishing Company.
v
Contents
1 Cultural Linguistics: The State of the Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Farzad Sharifian
2 Cultural Conceptualisations in Humorous Discourse
in English and Serbian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Diana Prodanović Stankić
3 Cultural Conceptualisations of DEATH in Taiwanese Buddhist
and Christian Eulogistic Idioms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Wei-lun Lu
4 LIFE AS OPERA: A Cultural Metaphor in Chinese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Ning Yu
5 Cultural Conceptualisations of Collective Self-representation
Among Chinese Immigrants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Yanying Lu
6 Cultural Conceptualisations of IRONY in Greek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Angeliki Athanasiadou
7 The Interface Between Language and Cultural
Conceptualisations of Gender in Interaction:
The Case of Greek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Angeliki Alvanoudi
8 Grounding and Relational Schemas in Managalase,
Papua New Guinea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
William H. McKellin
9 Kinship Semantics: Culture in the Lexicon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Alice Gaby
vii
viii Contents
10 Cultural Conceptualisations of MOUTH, LIPS, TONGUE

and TEETH in Bulgarian and English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Alexandra Bagasheva
11 Cultural Conceptualisations of RIVER in Hungarian
Folksongs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Judit Baranyiné Kóczy
12 Pride in British English and Polish: A Cultural-Linguistic
Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Paul A. Wilson and Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk
13 Beyond Metaphorisation and Myth-Making: Tertium Datur
for Language and Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Adam Głaz
14 Context in Cultural Linguistics: The Case of Metaphor. . . . . . . . . . 307
Zoltán Kövecses
15 Metaphor and Cultural Cognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
Andreas Musolff
16 The Conceptualisation of AUSTERITY in the Portuguese,
Spanish and Irish Press . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
Augusto Soares da Silva, Maria Josep Cuenca and Manuela Romano
17 Cultural Conceptualisations of DEMOCRACY and Political
Discourse Practices in Ghana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
Gladys Nyarko Ansah
18 Perceptions of Impoliteness from a Cultural Linguistics
Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
Farzad Sharifian and Tahmineh Tayebi
19 Seoul Uncle: Cultural Conceptualisations Behind
the Use of Address Terms in Korean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
Hyejeong Ahn
20 Evidentiality—A Cultural Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
Enrique Bernárdez
21 Noun Classes and Toponyms in Shüpamem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461
Lydie Christelle Talla Makoudjou and Victor Loumngam Kamga
22 Corpora and Cultural Cognition: How Corpus-Linguistic
Methodology Can Contribute to Cultural Linguistics . . . . . . . . . . . . 477
Kim Ebensgaard Jensen
23 APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS Is Cultural Linguistics, but
Is It CULTURAL LINGUISTICS? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507
Bert Peeters
Contents ix
24 Expanding the Scope of Cultural Linguistics: Taking Parrots

Seriously. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529
Roslyn M. Frank
25 Where Japanese and Occidental Cultural Conceptualisations Meet:
Reading Manga Which Anthropomorphise Nations as Kyara
‘Characters’ Through the Lens of Cultural Linguistics . . . . . . . . . . . . 561
Debra J. Occhi
26 Are Marriages Made in Heaven? A Cultural-Linguistic Case
Study on Indian-English Matrimonials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573
Frank Polzenhagen and Sandra Frey
27 Cultural Linguistics and Ageing: What Naming Practices
in Australian English Can Reveal About Underlying
Cultural Conceptualisations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607
Réka Benczes, Kate Burridge, Farzad Sharifian and Keith Allan
28 Terms of Adoption: Cultural Conceptual Factors Underlying
the Adoption of English for Aboriginal Communication . . . . . . . . . 625
Ian G. Malcolm
29 Cultural Conceptualisations in Stories of Māori-English
Bilinguals: The Cultural Schema of MARAE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 661
Marta Degani
30 De-escalation—A Cultural-Linguistic View on Military
English and Military Conflicts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 683
Hans-Georg Wolf
31 Developing Meta-cultural Competence in Teaching English
as an International Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 703
Zhichang Xu
32 Cultural Linguistics and ELT Curriculum: The Case
of English Textbooks in Vietnam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 721
Thuy Ngoc Dinh
Editor and Contributors
About the Editor

Farzad Sharifian is Professor and holds the Chair in Cultural Linguistics at Monash
University. He has made significant contributions to the development of Cultural Linguistics as a
multidisciplinary area of research. He is the author of Cultural Conceptualisations and Language
(John Benjamins 2011), the author of Cultural Linguistics (John Benjamins 2017). Amsterdam,
PA: John Benjamins, the founding Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Language and
Culture (IJoLC) [John Benjamins] and the founding Editor of the Cultural Linguistics book series
[Springer].
Contributors
Hyejeong Ahn Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
Keith Allan Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Angeliki Alvanoudi James Cook University, Cairns, Australia
Gladys Nyarko Ansah University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana
Angeliki Athanasiadou Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki,
Greece
Alexandra Bagasheva Sofia University, Sofia, Bulgaria
Judit Baranyiné Kóczy Széchenyi István University, Győr, Hungary
Réka Benczes Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary
Enrique Bernárdez Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Kate Burridge Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Maria Josep Cuenca University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain
Marta Degani University of Verona, Verona, Italy
xi
xii Editor and Contributors
Thuy Ngoc Dinh Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

Roslyn M. Frank University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA
Sandra Frey Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany
Alice Gaby Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Adam Głaz Marie Curie-Skłodowska University (UMCS), Lublin, Poland
Kim Ebensgaard Jensen University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Zoltán Kövecses Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk University of Lodz, Lodz, Poland; State
University of Applied Sciences, Konin, Poland
Victor Loumngam Kamga University of Yaounde I—Ecole Normale Supérieure,
Yaoundé, Cameroon
Wei-lun Lu Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Yanying Lu Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Ian G. Malcolm Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia
William H. McKellin University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Andreas Musolff University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
Debra J. Occhi Miyazaki International College, Miyazaki, Japan
Bert Peeters Australian National University, Canberra, Australia; Griffith
University, Brisbane, Australia
Frank Polzenhagen Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany
Manuela Romano Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Farzad Sharifian Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Augusto Soares da Silva Catholic University of Portugal, Braga, Portugal
Diana Prodanović Stankić Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad, Novi
Sad, Serbia
Lydie Christelle Talla Makoudjou University of Yaounde I—Ecole Normale
Supérieure, Yaoundé, Cameroon
Tahmineh Tayebi Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Paul A. Wilson University of Lodz, Lodz, Poland
Hans-Georg Wolf Potsdam University, Potsdam, Germany
Zhichang Xu Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Ning Yu Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
Chapter 1
Cultural Linguistics: The State of the Art
Farzad Sharifian
1.1 Introduction
While the term ‘cultural linguistics’ (or the more frequently used term ‘ethnolin-
guistics’) may be used to refer to the general area of research on the relationship
between language and culture (see, e.g., Peeters 2016, reprinted in this volume), I
use ‘Cultural Linguistics’ to refer to a recently developed discipline with multidis-
ciplinary origins that explores the relationship between language and cultural con-
ceptualisations (Sharifian 2011, 2017). In particular, Cultural Linguistics explores
the features of human languages that encode culturally constructed conceptualisa-
tions of the whole range of human experience. It offers both a theoretical framework
and an analytical framework for investigating the cultural conceptualisations that
underlie the use of human languages. Cultural Linguistics has drawn on several other
disciplines and sub-disciplines to develop its theoretical basis. These include cog-
nitive psychology, complexity science, distributed cognition, and anthropology.
Cultural Linguistics has also been applied to and has benefited from several areas of
applied linguistics, including intercultural communication, intercultural pragmatics,
World Englishes, Teaching English as an International Language, and political
discourse analysis (Sharifian 2011; Sharifian and Palmer 2007).
1.2 The Theoretical Framework of Cultural Linguistics
At the heart of the theoretical framework of Cultural Linguistics is the concept of

cultural cognition, which affords an integrated understanding of the notions of
‘cognition’ and ‘culture’ as they relate to language (e.g. Sharifian 2009, 2011). This
F. Sharifian (&)
Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
e-mail: Farzad.Sharifian@monash.edu
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017 1

F. Sharifian (ed.), Advances in Cultural Linguistics, Cultural Linguistics,
DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_1
2 F. Sharifian
concept offers a multidisciplinary understanding of cognition that moves beyond

the level of the individual mind (e.g. Clark and Chalmers 1998; Sutton 2005, 2006;
Wilson 2005). As Frank (2015, p. 494) puts it, cultural cognition is “a form of
cognition that ... is not represented simply as some sort of abstract disembodied
‘between the ears’ entity”. Furthermore, cultural cognition is a form of enactive
cognition (Stewart et al. 2011) that comes about as a result of social and linguistic
interactions between individuals across time and space (see also Cowley and
Vallée-Tourangeau 2013). Crucially, the elements of a speech community’s cul-
tural cognition are not equally shared by speakers across that community, so much
so that, in fact, cultural cognition is a form of (heterogeneously) distributed cog-
nition (Hutchins 1994). Speakers show variation and differences in their access to
and internalisation of their community’s cultural cognition. Also, cultural cognition
is dynamic in that it is constantly being negotiated and renegotiated across gen-
erations and through contact between speech communities.
The study of cultural cognition has parallels in several subfields and sub-
paradigms of the cognitive sciences (see also Frank 2015). For example, scholars
working in the area of complexity science, often under the rubric of Complex
Adaptive Systems (CAS), have been seeking to explain how relationships between
parts, or agents, give rise to the collective behaviours of a system or group (e.g.
Holland 1995; Waldrop 1992). Similarly, Cultural Linguistics explores cultural
cognition as a complex adaptive system that emerges from the interactions between
members of a speech community across time and space. Frank (2015, p. 497)
observes that “the adoption [by Cultural Linguistics] of a CAS approach as well as
other analytical tools, such as ‘distributed cognition’, opens up the possibility of
productive dialogue between scholars in the humanities and investigators operating
in subfields of cognitive science”.
As a central aspect of cultural cognition, language serves [to use the term used
by wa Thiong’o (1986)], as a ‘collective memory bank’ of the cultural cognition of
a speech community. Many aspects of language are shaped by elements of cultural
cognition that have prevailed at different stages in the history of a speech com-
munity. In other words, these elements can leave traces in subsequent linguistic
practice. In this sense, language can be viewed as a primary mechanism for
‘storing’ and communicating cultural cognition, acting both as a memory bank and
a fluid vehicle for the (re-)transmission of cultural cognition.
The theoretical framework of Cultural Linguistics, as a whole, may be dia-
grammatically represented as in Fig. 1.1, which shows that this is a framework that
also provides a basis for understanding cultural conceptualisations and their real-
isation in language. Language plays a dual role in relation to cultural conceptual-
isations. On the one hand, linguistic interactions are crucial to the development of
cultural conceptualisations, as they provide a space for speakers to construct and
co-construct meanings about their experiences. On the other hand, many aspects of
both language structure and language use draw on and reflect cultural conceptu-
alisations. Hence, the study of language itself is of key significance to our under-
standing of cultural conceptualisations and, ultimately, of the broader cultural
cognitions associated with languages and language varieties.
1 Cultural Linguistics: The State of the Art 3
Fig. 1.1 The theoretical framework of Cultural Linguistics
Apart from language, cultural conceptualisations may also be instantiated in

various other aspects of people’s lives, including cultural arts, literature, ritual,
cultural events, emotion, etc., as represented in Fig 1.2. Exploring cultural con-
ceptualisations is thus not only relevant to language (and linguistics), for these
conceptualisations are reflected in many aspects of human life. Consequently,
research into cultural conceptualisations can be undertaken by scholars across a
wide range of disciplines, including anthropology, psychology, literature, sociol-
ogy, theology, and fine arts.
1.3 The Analytical Framework of Cultural Linguistics
The analytical framework of Cultural Linguistics provides tools for analysing the
relationship between language and cultural conceptualisations. They include the
notions of ‘cultural schema’, ‘cultural category’, and ‘cultural metaphor/metonymy’
4 F. Sharifian
Fig. 1.2 The relevance of cultural conceptualisations to various disciplines/domains
(cross- or intra-domain conceptualisation). Many features of human languages are

entrenched in cultural conceptualisations. As such, notions such as cultural schema,
cultural category and cultural metaphor provide fruitful analytical tools for exam-
ining features of language that instantiate culturally constructed conceptualisations
of experience. The contributions to this volume present many examples of cultural
conceptualisations encoded in human languages.
Cultural schemas capture beliefs, norms, rules, and expectations of behaviour as
well as values relating to various aspects and components of experience. Cultural
categories are those culturally constructed conceptual categories that are primarily
reflected in the lexicon of human languages. Examples of cultural categories are
‘colour categories’, ‘age categories’, ‘emotion categories’, ‘food categories’, ‘event
categories’, and ‘kinship categories’. Cultural metaphors are cross-domain con-
ceptualisations that have their conceptual basis grounded in cultural traditions such
as folk medicine, worldview, or a spiritual belief system. The analytical framework
of Cultural Linguistics can be diagrammatically represented as in Fig. 1.3.
In summary, the theoretical and the analytical frameworks of Cultural
Linguistics can be presented as in Fig. 1.4, which reflects the fact that various
features and levels of language, from morpho-syntactic features to pragmatic/
semantic meaning and discourse, may be entrenched in cultural conceptualisations
taking the form of cultural schemas, cultural categories, and cultural metaphors.
Fig. 1.3 Analytical framework of Cultural Linguistics
Apart from the above, an important aspect of our conceptual life is what can be
referred to as the reconceptualisation of cultural conceptualisations. This phe-
nomenon is gaining momentum as the processes of globalisation bring about
increased contacts between different speech communities and, consequently, dif-
ferent systems of cultural conceptualisations. An example of reconceptualisation is
provided by the way in which the cultural conceptualisations of Christmas are
adapted in non-Christian, non-Western societies, as is the case in the author’s place
of birth, Iran. Local adaptations of the CHRISTMAS schema may involve modifying
the cultural categories of CHRISTMAS PARTY, including the subcategories of
CHRISTMAS GIFT, CHRISTMAS FOOD, and CHRISTMAS DRINK. The whole event category
of CHRISTMAS may be conceptualised as a Western celebration, rather than a religious
occasion, providing the host of such a party with a chance to project a (Western)
“modern” identity. It is well known that, even in the Western world, historically,
6 F. Sharifian
Fig. 1.4 The theoretical and the analytical frameworks of Cultural Linguistics
Christmas has been reconceptualised first from a pagan celebration, then to a

Christian cultural event, and more recently in many cases from a religious event to a
more commercial one or simply a family gathering. Other examples of reconcep-
tualisation are provided by event categories such as VALENTINE’S DAY, THANKSGIVING
DAY, and HALLOWEEN. In some parts of the world, including China, people may
celebrate Thanksgiving Day to thank teachers and parents, rather than conforming
to the original, earlier idea of thanking God for the blessings of the year, including
harvest, as continues to be done in the United States. Thus, in general, reconcep-
tualisation may take various forms, such as blending elements of conceptual sys-
tems drawn from different speech communities and cultural traditions, a
phenomenon that may be referred to as cross-cultural reconceptualisation. A
noteworthy case would be where a conceptual/spiritual system, such as a religion, is
amalgamated into a local system of conceptualisations, as in the case of the
Christianisation of events such as Yule (which became Christmas) and Valentine’s
Day (which grew out of the ancient Roman fertility festival of Lupercalia).
Processes such as transnational trade, colonisation, and (increasingly) globalisation
often lead to such cases of reconceptualisation.
1.4 This Volume
The contributions to this volume collectively represent contemporary cutting-edge

research in the newly developed field of Cultural Linguistics. As the editor of the
volume, I find the very wide range of topics, methodologies, and languages rep-
resented (more than 30) extremely impressive and promising. The volume as a
whole is a clear indication of how well established the field of Cultural Linguistics
has become over what has been a relatively short period of time, and is a reflection
of its very promising future. Another indication of the firm establishment of
Cultural Linguistics as a viable and robust research paradigm has been the signif-
icant success of the First International Conference of Cultural Linguistics, held in
Prato, Italy, in 2016, with approximately 150 presentations from around 40 different
countries. Hopefully, this trend will continue to escalate in the years to come.
The following table presents a quick snapshot of the methodologies/data and
areas of study represented in this volume:
# Author Methodology/data Area/s of the study

1 Diana Prodanović- Discourse analysis of film Language and humour
Stankić and TV dialogues
2 Wei-lun Lu (Analysis of) specialised Language of death, language
database (eulogy request and religion
system)
3 Ning Yu Cultural texts/artefacts Language and
analysis conceptualisations of life
4 Yanying Lu Qualitative discourse Discourse of (diaspora) identity
analysis of focus group
interviews
5 Angeliki Corpus analysis Situational irony in Greek
Athanasiadou
6 Angeliki Alvanoudi Conversation analysis and Language, gender, and
interactional approaches to cognition
discourse
7 William H. McKellin Ethnography, discourse Kinship, personhood, and
analysis (verbal epistemology
negotiations)
8 Alice Gaby Ethnography Kinship
9 Aleksandra Corpus analysis Language and cultural
Bagasheva conceptualisations relating to
body parts
10 Judit Baranyiné Corpus analysis Folksongs
Kóczy
11 Paul A. Wilson and GRID Language and emotion
Barbara instrument, cognitive
Lewandowska- corpus linguistics
Tomaszczyk approach, online sorting
methodology
(continued)
8 F. Sharifian
(continued)
12 Adam Głaz Peircean semiotics Mythology and religious
discourse
13 Zoltán Kövecses Theoretical/argumentative Language, context, and
essay metaphorical conceptualisation
14 Andreas Musolff Questionnaire survey of Language and politics
metaphor interpretation
15 Augusto Soares da Corpus analysis, Language and politics
Silva, Maria Josep contrastive analysis
Cuenca, and
Manuela Romano
16 Gladys Nyarko Discourse analysis of radio Language and politics
Ansah talk programmes
17 Farzad Sharifian and Meta-discourse analysis, Language and (im)politeness
Tahmineh Tayebi discourse analysis,
conceptual analysis
18 Hyejeong Ahn Discourse analysis of TV Language and address terms
series
19 Enrique Bernárdez Syntactic analysis of Morpho-syntax (evidentiality)
literary and journalistic
texts
20 Lydie Christelle Interview, ethnography Morpho-syntax
Talla Makoudjou and
Victor Loumngam
Kamga
21 Kim Ebensgaard Corpus-linguistic Research methodology
Jensen techniques
22 Bert Peeters Theoretical/argumentative Applied ethnolinguistics
essay
23 Roslyn M. Frank Analysis of YouTube Inter-species communication
videos
24 Debra J. Occhi Analysis of Multimodal communication
anthropomorphised
characters
25 Frank Polzenhagen Analysis of marriage Language and marriage
and Sandra Frey adverts
26 Réka Benczes, Kate Corpus analysis Language and ageing
Burridge, Farzad
Sharifian, and Keith
Allan
27 Ian Malcolm Discourse analysis World Englishes
28 Marta Degani Narrative analysis World Englishes
29 Hans-Georg Wolf Discourse analysis World Englishes and
intercultural communication
30 Zhichang Xu On-line discussion Teaching English as an
International Language (TEIL)
(continued)
(continued)
31 Thuy Ngoc Dinh Ethnography, text/visual English Language Teaching
analysis (ELT) curriculum
Against this background, and by way of presenting an overview of the volume, I

now turn to presenting summaries of each chapter.
In Chap. 2, Diana Prodanović-Stankić focuses on cultural conceptualisations
underlying verbal humour as reflected in film and television dialogues in English
(British and American varieties) and Serbian. A general tendency emerging from
the data analysed for the study is that the British and Serbian films and television
series resort more often to playing with language to create the intended humorous
effects, whereas the American examples appear to place more value on extralin-
guistic, non-verbal humour, such as slapstick. The data also includes a significant
number of ethnically based conceptualisations that capture the popular beliefs and
stereotypes that are used as a basis for creating humour. These include conceptu-
alisations such as PEOPLE LIVING IN THE SOUTH/EAST ARE UNEDUCATED/LESS INTELLIGENT/
STINGY. The data from the UK reveals a tendency towards using “others”, such as
different social classes and immigrants, as the target of humour. American
telecinematic discourse, on the other hand, tends to favour mockery of popular
culture. Overall, Prodanović-Stankić maintains that Cultural Linguistics, and in
particular the notion of ‘cultural conceptualisations’, provides robust analytical
tools for exploring humorous discourse.
In Chap. 3, Wei-lun Lu focuses on cultural conceptualisations of DEATH in
Taiwanese Buddhist and Christian eulogistic idioms. To begin with, he notes that
FUNERAL is a cultural event category and that different speech communities/religious
groups may have different customs and rituals associated with funerals. The study
relies on Mandarin eulogistic idioms stored in the official eulogy request system in
Taiwan. Lu observes that in the Buddhist data the idioms analysed for the study
reflect six major cultural metaphors: DEATH IS REBIRTH, DEATH IS A JOURNEY TOWARDS
REBIRTH, REBIRTH IS WEST, LIFE IS A CIRCLE, A PERSON IS A LOTUS, and HEAVEN IS FULL OF
LOTUSES. The Christian data reflects three underlying cultural metaphors: DEATH IS
REST, HEAVEN IS AN ETERNAL HOME, and DEATH IS A RETURN JOURNEY. Some of these
cultural metaphors appear to be based on underlying cultural schemas. For example,
the Taiwanese Buddhist cultural metaphor DEATH IS REBIRTH is consistent with the
underlying cultural schema of REINCARNATION, according to which life and death
form a never ending cycle where death is not only the end of a particular life but it
is also the beginning of another. The metaphor according to which DEATH/REBIRTH IS
WEST is consistent with a Buddhist cultural schema by virtue of which, at life’s end,
people return to the Western Heaven, and Buddha looks westward to bless a per-
son’s soul. The metaphor A PERSON IS A LOTUS appears to be based on a Buddhist
cultural schema according to which SYMBOLS OF PURITY AND HOLINESS are concep-
tualised as lotuses, and when a person is portrayed as a lotus, it implies that their life
10 F. Sharifian
is pure and spotless. Similarly, the conceptualisations reflected in the Christian

idioms are consistent with the worldview that characterises Christianity and
according to which, for example, death is a return journey to the Lord. Lu notes that
in some cases more than one conceptualisation is reflected in a single idiom. He
also notes that some of the underlying metaphors, such as the one according to
which DEATH IS A JOURNEY, appear to be shared by both groups. In general, the study
presented in this chapter makes a strong case for employing Cultural Linguistics in
religious linguistic analysis (to analyse the language of death). It also reveals how
Cultural Linguistics can benefit from using specialised databases.
In Chap. 4, Ning Yu explores the Chinese cultural metaphor LIFE IS AN OPERA by
drawing on ‘cultural texts and artefacts’, the collective term he uses to refer to song
lyrics and items from Chinese visual arts, such as photographs, paintings, and
calligraphies. He contrasts this cultural metaphor with the cultural metaphor LIFE IS A
PLAY associated with Anglo varieties of English. Yu notes that the basis of the
Chinese metaphor is the cultural category of (CHINESE/BEIJING) OPERA as well as the
associated Chinese cultural schema, which captures the culture’s extensive
knowledge of the opera’s elements, including the cultural subschemas of the
OPERA’S ACTORS, an OPERA PERFORMANCE, and the OPERA VENUE. Each of these is
elaborated upon and shown to include various sophisticated features. For example,
PEOPLE captures knowledge about role types, characteristic costumes, makeups,
masks, and decorations. Yu observes that all this knowledge both gives shape to
and reflects a core component of the Chinese cultural conceptualisation of life.
In Chap. 5, Yanying Lu examines cultural conceptualisations of collective
self-representation in a group of Chinese migrants in Australia. The data for this
study comes from focus group interviews with 25 Mainland Chinese first generation
immigrants living in Australia. During the focus group meetings, participants dis-
cussed ways of life in different cultural contexts, including their experiences with
the differences, benefits, and challenges associated with these different cultural
contexts. Two dominant cultural schemas emerge from the qualitative discourse
analysis of the focus group interviews: the cultural schema of the SINO-CENTRIC
WORLDVIEW, and the cultural schema of the ROLE OF THE CULTURAL EXEMPLAR. Lu
observes that for the participants in her study the latter schema appears to be
strongly associated with the moral teachings they received in China, such as the
Confucian idea of self-cultivation and the nation-building ideology of modern
China. The data also reveals the conceptualisation of social group membership in
terms of a CONTAINER cultural image schema. A dominant cultural metaphor
emerging from the data is that of the CULTURAL GROUP (CHINESE IDENTITY) AS A
BOUNDED AREA. A further cultural metaphor reflected in the corpus is that of the
CULTURAL GROUP AS A CONTAINER FOR CORRECT OPINIONS. Overall, the analyses pre-
sented in this chapter reveal how Cultural Linguistics can provide fruitful analytical
tools for examining the discourse of (diaspora) identity and of self-representation. It
also reveals how focus group interviews can be used as a viable source of data
collection in Cultural Linguistics.
In Chap. 6, Angeliki Athanasiadou shows how cultural conceptualisations of
historical origin have influenced the conceptualisation and expression of irony in
Greek. The chapter explores the impact three types of Ancient Greek irony (as
represented in selected masterpieces of Ancient Greek philology), namely, Socratic
irony, dramatic irony, and irony of fate, have had on contemporary linguistic
research on the topic of irony. Given that culture structures our experience and is
transmitted across generations of speakers, it is to be expected that the central
meaning of the device of irony also draws on its source diachronic meaning. The
chapter discusses instances of situational irony, atypical states or events, and
instances of irony of fate (an aspect of situational irony), and demonstrates that the
various features that make a situation appear as ironic are deeply entrenched in
history.
In Chap. 7, Angeliki Alvanoudi investigates the relationship between language
and cultural conceptualisations of gender. She, too, focuses on the Greek language.
To begin with, she notes that GENDER is a cultural category that refers to social,
cultural, and psychological attributes and behaviours that are commonly associated
with male/female sex. Alvanoudi observes that the Greek language categorises the
world on the basis of an asymmetric gender dichotomy involving both grammatical
and lexical gender. The author views linguistic items marked by grammatical or
lexical gender in Greek as referential indices of gender and notes that the use of
these items in conversation communicates gendered messages that in turn reflect
certain cultural schemas about social gender order. Alvanoudi argues that “inter-
action is the ‘natural habitat’ of cultural conceptualisations of gender, that is, the
environment in which cultural conceptualisations emerge and are negotiated in
daily life”. For this study, she analysed some 45 hours of audio-recorded naturally
occurring conversations. By adopting a conversation analysis (CA) approach
combined with the analytical framework of Cultural Linguistics, she demonstrates
that the use of referential indices of gender in these conversations reflects and
sustains two cultural schemas: MAN AS NORM and HETERONORMATIVITY. The former
underpins the use of the masculine grammatical gender to refer both to female and
male humans, whereas the latter leads to covert presuppositions that interlocutors
share in conversation. Alvanoudi shows that the role the two cultural schemas play
in social interaction becomes more obvious in cases of repair and gendered
noticing. A major implication of this study for Cultural Linguistics is that its pivotal
notion of ‘cultural cognition’ “is shown to be a socially situated phenomenon,
which is embedded in social action, and can be examined empirically in interac-
tion”. This study also reveals how CA and interactional approaches to discourse can
be beneficially used by scholars subscribing to a Cultural Linguistics perspective.
As Alvanoudi puts it, the chapter shows that “it is possible for analysts to examine
the emergence and negotiation of cultural conceptualisations in real conversational
time”. She also argues that Cultural Linguistics provides researchers working in the
area of language and gender with robust analytical tools for investigating the
interface between language, gender, and cognition.
In Chap. 8, William McKellin explores several cultural schemas that underpin
the daily lives of the Managalase of Papua New Guinea. Together, these cultural
schemas shape metaphorical idioms, lexical choices, discourse structures, narrative
recall, and assumptions about common ground and intersubjectivity in verbal
12 F. Sharifian
negotiations. The Managalase have two relational schemas based on shared bodily
substance. The first, LINEALITY, is grounded in procreation; the second,
TERRITORIALITY, is based on sharing food grown or caught in places that are them-
selves also shared. A third relational schema, EXCHANGE, captures the dynamics of
marriage, “which ideally should occur between members of different clans, and
should over time achieve reciprocity”. The three relational schemas provide the
basis for two additional Managalase schemas, PERSONHOOD and EPISTEMOLOGY, which
capture the Managalase concepts of individual viewpoint and perspective in
interaction, on the one hand, and individuals’ socially legitimate access to
knowledge, on the other. McKellin observes that the Managalase relational schemas
are reflected in everyday actions, including the use of language. He notes, for
example, that they are lexically foregrounded by the prohibition of individuals
using words that are phonologically similar to the names of their in-laws. The
impact of the PERSONHOOD and EPISTEMOLOGY schemas is also further elaborated
upon. In addition, the Managalase use of metaphors in indirect, allegorical rhetoric
for negotiations highlights the relational notion of PERSONHOOD and provides evi-
dence of the existence of cultural assumptions about a speaker’s and hearer’s
knowledge that challenge conventional assumptions about the role of common
ground and shared intentions or intersubjectivity during language-based social
interaction. McKellin shows that, by employing the Cultural Linguistics concept of
‘distributed cultural conceptualisations’, it is possible to appreciate the role of
participant viewpoints and perspectives on language use. The analyses presented in
this chapter clearly reveal the significance of cultural schemas and the value of the
analytical framework of Cultural Linguistics for analysing language in social
interaction.
In Chap. 9, Alice Gaby applies the analytical notion of ‘cultural category’ to
kinship terms in Kuuk Thaayorre, an Australian Aboriginal language. The kinship
terms in this language can be divided into four categories: (a) referential terms,
(b) vocative terms, (c) bereavement terms, and (d) hand signs. Referential kin terms
refer to individuals in terms of how they are related to a particular ego (e.g., my
father). Vocative kin terms highlight the relationship between speaker and
addressee (e.g., Father!). This is a significant cultural category in this speech
community, as kin terms may be used to refer to anybody within the community,
whether or not they are related to the speaker. When this kind of term is addressed
to someone who is not related to the speaker (for instance someone from
Pormpuraaw referring to Alice Gaby as ‘Daughter!’), we could say the term is being
used metaphorically, which illustrates cultural metaphors are at work. Bereavement
kin terms are used to refer to individuals following the death of a close relative or a
surrogate (e.g., one bereaved of a father). Hand sign categories are part of the sign
language that exists in many Aboriginal languages; they may be used either in
conjunction with speech or in particular contexts where speech is avoided (e.g.,
while hunting or during mourning seclusion). An example of this would be the use
of the biceps hand sign to refer to a father. These categories are not just a matter of
labelling; rather, they accompany certain behavioural and linguistic norms and
expectations. These are captured in a number of the Kuuk Thaayorre cultural
schemas, discussed in this chapter. The significance of Kuuk Thaayorre cultural

categorisations is reflected in Gaby’s observation that when, for instance, a stranger
from another community in the same area comes to meet someone from
Pormpuraaw, “their first task will usually be to identify some third party known to
both, so that the interlocutors can establish how to address one another in accor-
dance with how they address that third party (i.e. ‘if you call John ‘Son’ and I call
John ‘Father’, I must call you ‘Paternal Grandfather’’)”. Finally, Gaby also presents
evidence from both language and culture to account for the internal structure of
Kuuk Thaayorre cultural categorisations. This is another chapter that demonstrates
the usefulness of Cultural Linguistics for exploring the domain of kinship and its
relationship to sociocultural structure.
In Chap. 10, Alexandra Bagasheva examines cultural conceptualisations relating
to mouth, lips, tongue, and teeth in English and their counterparts in Bulgarian. By
drawing on several corpora, Bagasheva presents sets of comparable data from the
two languages and notes some similarities and a significant number of differences in
conceptualisations based on these body-part terms. For example, in both languages
the opening of the mouth is conceptually associated with speaking, surprise, and
foolishness, whereas the closing of the mouth is associated with reticence, stupidity,
and refusal to engage in social interactions. As for the differences, Bagasheva notes
that the mouth is used to conceptualise social awkwardness only in English,
whereas it is used to conceptualise broken dreams and expectations only in
Bulgarian. Moreover, in English, communication is perceived as a socially and
individually regulated activity that implies premeditation and self-reflection. By
contrast, in Bulgarian, communication is perceived as a more leisurely and
unselfconscious interactive behaviour. The chapter illustrates the usefulness of the
analytical tools of Cultural Linguistics for specifying differences underlying cultural
conceptualisations in what is supposedly a human universal—the body.
In Chap. 11, Judit Baranyiné Kóczy explores folk cultural conceptualisations
(particularly cultural image schemas and cultural metaphors) involving the
Hungarian word for river, as reflected in Hungarian folksongs. The data for this
study comes from 2500 texts, thematically arranged into 47 subtypes. Baranyiné
Kóczy notes the emergence of the cultural metaphor EMOTION IS RIVER WATER as a
dominant conceptualisation in the analysed folksongs. Some texts reflect the cul-
tural metaphors FALLING IN LOVE IS BATHING IN RIVER WATER and BEING OVERCOME WITH
EMOTION IS THE FLOOD OF RIVER WATER. Other texts reflect underlying conceptuali-
sations of temperature in relation to river water, in particular EMOTIONAL REST IS
FROZEN RIVER WATER. Another noteworthy cultural metaphor reflected in the corpus
of folksongs is TROUBLED RIVER WATER IS THE LOVER’S (GIRL’S) ANGER. In the folk-
songs, the cultural metaphor for the unification of lovers, a sexual act, or marriage is
plucking a flower, which frequently appears in the image schema of CROSSING THE
RIVER. Here the two banks of the river represent the man and woman in the
relationship. Baranyiné Kóczy maintains that folksongs express particular princi-
ples of morality, including gender role schemas as well as norms associated with the
choice of a spouse. These in turn lead to a specific treatment of emotions and
sexuality, captured in a cultural schema that she labels RESERVEDNESS. An important
14 F. Sharifian
finding of this study is that conceptualisations embodied in folksongs appear to

support the Cultural Linguistics principle of heterogeneous distribution, insofar as
some but not all of the properties of the resembling images are shared. On the
whole, the analyses presented in this chapter reveal the robustness of Cultural
Linguistics for analysing and cross-culturally comparing folk cultural artefacts,
including folksongs.
In Chap. 12, Paul Wilson and Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk employ three
methodological tools to carry out their contrastive analysis of the cultural emotion
schemas of PRIDE in British English and Polish. They use GRID methodology,
which is based on a system of dimensions and components, to gain insight into the
nature of prototypical structures of emotion. A cognitive corpus linguistics
approach provides information on the probabilities of the occurrence of some lin-
guistic patterns of emotional language use based on frequency and distributional
patterns. Finally, in an online emotions sorting study, participants were asked to
freely categorise emotion terms displayed on a computer desktop into as many or as
few groups as they wished. Although the negative evaluation of (English) pride
relative to (Polish) duma that shows up in the results of all three approaches is at
first surprising from an individualistic versus collectivistic standpoint, it might be
attributable to a sense of communal pride, that is, pride in others that one would
expect to be a salient feature of the relatively more collectivistic Polish cultural
schema of PRIDE. This remarkable result can also be traced back to some asym-
metries in the English and Polish lexical systems. Polish has a larger set of PRIDE
cluster members than English, which allows for a more granular classification of
shades of pride in Polish than in English. Out of the basic three terms in Polish,
duma is the most positive (neutral and weakly negative in some contexts). The other
two, próżność and pycha, carry a negative charge in all contexts. Since English has
two corresponding word forms, i.e., pride and vanity, the comparison is necessarily
non-symmetric. The distribution of positive and negative evaluative aspects differs
from what is found in Polish. While English vanity is entirely negative, English
pride contains, apart from its weaker evaluative charge (which can be positive), a
component that is more strongly negative compared to the term duma in Polish.
In Chap. 13, Adam Głaz returns to the problem of metaphorical versus
mythological thinking, recognised in Polish ethnolinguistics (Bartmiński 2009).
Relying on Peircean semiotics and the notions of ‘pragmatic maxim’, ‘final logical
interpretant’, and ‘habit’, which link thinking with action, Głaz offers an interpre-
tation of Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ (Francis 2015) and shows it to be a
text that demonstrates a kind of thinking that is more than metaphorical and yet not
mythological. Indeed, it is a text rich in symbolic imagery, bordering on the
ecopoetic. Głaz addresses the question of whether this discourse of inclusion, which
seems “a-cultural”, actually is so. He concludes that since humans are inherently
cultural beings, it in fact represents a cultural mindset (in the sense of Underhill
2011). This is where Cultural Linguistics, with its focus on conceptualisation and
symbolic expression, enters the stage. On the basis of the encyclical, Głaz recon-
structs a cultural model of home, or rather of the earth, as OUR COMMON HOME,
MOTHER and SISTER. Naturally, the model sits within the whole network of Cultural
Linguistic constructs and emphasises the important role played by cultural values.
Finally, the Cultural Linguistic framework is located vis-à-vis anthropological
linguistics, ethnolinguistics, and linguistic anthropology.
In Chap. 14, Zoltán Kövecses approaches metaphorical conceptualisation
against the backdrop of a multi-layered, and therefore rather broad, understanding
of context that includes various components of the situation of discourse (situa-
tional context), the discourse itself (discourse context), the conceptual-cognitive
background (conceptual-cognitive context) and the body of the speaker (bodily
context). All four layers of context, Kövecses argues, can influence the creation of
metaphor in discourse; culture has relevance for the first and the third. The fact that
culture can capture concepts, ideas, values, principles, behaviours, etc. that are
specific to a particular speech community illustrates its relevance to situational
context. The fact that it can be viewed as the result (or product) of various types of
conceptualisations specific to a community of speakers (i.e., various types of the
cultural conceptualisations that are at the heart of the Cultural
Linguistics enterprise) illustrates its relevance to the conceptual-cognitive context.
For Kövecses, it is the latter view of culture (culture as conceptual-cognitive
context) that is likely to underlie the production of metaphorical conceptualisations.
In this view, culture “is a dynamic and constantly evolving system characterising a
group of people (a community) who live in a social, historical and physical envi-
ronment making sense of their experiences in a more or less unified manner. We
can think of the conceptual system conceived of this way as one form of culture,
which can function as context of a particular kind”.
In Chap. 15, Andreas Musolff focuses on culture-specific interpretations of the
conceptual metaphor THE NATION AS A BODY. After discussing the shortcomings of
Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), he maintains that Cultural Linguistics, with
its focus on cultural cognition, cultural schemas, cultural categories, and cultural
metaphors can provide significant insights into the culturally constructed concep-
tualisations of various human experiences that are encoded through human lan-
guages and language varieties, including the use of cultural metaphors in political
discourse. Using a questionnaire, Musolff examined how participants from 10
different countries apply the metaphor THE NATION AS A BODY to their home nation.
He notes the emergence of two dominant patterns of interpretation in his data: THE
NATION AS A GEOBODY and THE NATION AS A FUNCTIONAL WHOLE. Musolff links these
interpretations to the conceptual and historical (cultural) traditions of the countries
in his sample. Musolff also notes a significant degree of further intra-cultural
variation in the participants’ interpretations. The findings support the notion of
‘heterogeneously distributed conceptualisations’ in Cultural Linguistics, a notion
which repudiates the essentialist notion of ‘culture’ while retaining a cultural
perspective.
In Chap. 16, Augusto Soares da Silva, Maria Josep Cuenca and Manuela
Romano analyse the conceptualisations of AUSTERITY in a representative newspaper
from each of three countries, Portugal, Spain, and Ireland, countries especially
affected by austerity measures. They focus on metaphors associated with austerity
in the fields of economy and politics, classifying them according to the proposition
16 F. Sharifian
schemas, image schemas, and event schemas they instantiate. The authors find that,
in general terms, austerity policies and measures are conceptualised in terms of
human attributes and behaviour, including psychological and moral attributes, as
well as individual and national ideas. Schematic analysis of the data shows that the
proposition schematic conceptualisations of austerity and related concepts represent
models of thought and human behaviour, as well as living entities, natural and
supernatural forces, etc. The authors then turn their attention to image schematic
conceptualisations of austerity (and cuts and debts), which take the form of
embodied patterns of movement in space, manipulation of objects, and so forth,
before highlighting event schematic conceptualisations of AUSTERITY in terms of
war, show business, competitive games, etc. A comparative analysis of the three
newspapers suggests that although the kinds of metaphors used are similar, there are
differences in the frequency of appearance of metaphoric conceptualisations asso-
ciated with austerity across the three newspapers. The authors capture these dif-
ferences as follows: a deep conservative morality of self-discipline and punishment
prevails in Portugal; a strong sense of outrage against austerity measures and the
country’s creditors exists in Spain; and the idea that the crisis and its effects are
hitting the country but not hitting as hard as they do elsewhere predominates in
Ireland. In general, Soares da Silva, Cuenca and Romano maintain that Cultural
Linguistics and its analytical tools (in particular cultural conceptualisation, cultural
metaphor, and cultural schema) provide a very powerful tool set for exploring how
certain political-ideological conceptualisations allow governments to legitimise
economic and political measures.
In Chap. 17, Gladys Nyarko Ansah builds on the premise of Cultural Linguistics
that political discourse is not free from the influence of cultural conceptualisations
and explores how contemporary Ghanaian cultural conceptualisations of
DEMOCRACY influence political discourse in Ghana. She argues that current trends
in Ghanaian political discourse represent a clash of cultural conceptualisations
(worldviews). In particular, she claims that current trends appear to be signalling a
reconceptualisation of DEMOCRACY shaped by Ghanaian traditional cultural con-
ceptualisations as well as conceptualisations associated with Western traditions. To
begin with, Ansah notes that the Ghanaian cultural schema of (IM)POLITENESS
encourages the mitigation, through the use of apologetics or indirectness, of any act
of communication that could be interpreted as face-threatening, especially if the act
involves authority or leadership. This schema in turn influences the norms of
political discourse in Ghana, in the sense that democracy and freedom of speech
need to be exercised within the limits of Ghanaian politeness norms. Ansah
observes that the Western notion of ‘freedom of speech’ is inherently hostile to
Ghana’s traditional norms, according to which the collective interest of the society
is elevated above that of the individual. She analyses linguistic labels used to
encode the concept of ‘democracy’ in three Ghanaian languages, and notes that they
mainly revolve around ‘permission to speak’, which only covers one aspect of
democracy in the Western sense of the word. By drawing on radio talk programmes
that broadcast in major Ghanaian languages, Ansah presents data that reflects
Ghanaian conceptualisations of appropriate political discourse. For example, she
notes that in response to an inflammatory speech by an ex-president, a number of

clergymen called for “a political discourse that is characterised by mutual respect,
coolness and a decent language”. She also presents cases where “constitutionally
permissible” political discourse is deemed culturally inappropriate, again in light of
the Ghanaian cultural schemas of POLITE POLITICAL DISCOURSE. The latter involve, for
example, “avoidance of open critical discourses in the face of authority”. In general,
it appears that “the increasing use of invective language rather than politeness
strategies in modern political discourses and the responses the practice receives may
be attributable to the clash of cultural schemas of political discourse in the two
contexts—western-based cultures and Ghanaian traditional culture”. Overall, the
discussion and analyses presented in this chapter reveal how political discourse
analysis can benefit from employing the analytical tools of Cultural Linguistics.
In Chap. 18, which is based on data drawn from Persian, Farzad Sharifian and
Tahmineh Tayebi explore the role of culture in perceptions of impolite use of
language from the perspective of Cultural Linguistics. Using online data and field
notes, the authors develop a three-tier methodology that involves: (a) a metadis-
course analysis, (b) a discourse analysis, and (c) a conceptual analysis. The
metadiscourse analysis focuses on identifying expressions or lexical items that
“tag” part of a communicative interaction as impolite, such as the use of the word
rude. The discourse analysis is based on a close scrutiny of incidents—such as
refraining from extending an invitation to someone—that lead to a perception of
impoliteness. The conceptual analysis explores a possible link between the per-
ception of impoliteness and specific cultural conceptualisations, for example, a
possible “breach” of values associated with a cultural schema. The analysis of the
data collected for this study reveals that perceptions of impoliteness emerge more
frequently when speakers do not fully share the same cultural conceptualisations
and consequently have non-homogenous patterns of understanding and models of
interaction. This is consistent with the idea of ‘heterogeneously distributed cultural
conceptualisations’, which lies at the heart of Cultural Linguistics. It highlights the
importance of this notion as an explanatory mechanism for analysing empirical
data, and not just as a theoretical construct in Cultural Linguistics. On the whole,
this study underlines the usefulness of repudiating as empirically inaccurate the
essentialist notion of ‘culture’ and adopting instead the analytical framework of
cultural conceptualisations when examining perceptions of impolite language use.
In Chap. 19, Hyejeong Ahn focuses on cultural conceptualisations underlying
the use of Korean address terms. The data from this study comes from a Korean
reality TV show entitled The Return of Superman. Ahn notes that the use of address
terms in Korean in general reflects the cultural schema of JANGUYUSEO [‘there must
be order between seniors and juniors’], a schema that is concerned with maintaining
hierarchical social relationships based on Confucian values. She notes that since it
is a taboo to address people with personal names and pronouns, Korean speakers
have developed a rather sophisticated system of address that makes use of kinship
terms, teknonymy, geononymy, occupation titles, etc. For example, the word abeoji
‘father’ may be used to refer to a speaker’s friend’s father. Teknonymy, on the other
hand, refers to the practice of addressing someone by the name of their child (e.g.,
18 F. Sharifian
mother of-so-and-so). Geononymy is the practice of utilising a place name as a

qualifier for a kinship term (e.g., Seoul’s uncle). The use of kinship terms to refer to
non-kin members also reflects the cultural metaphor COMMUNITY MEMBERS AS KIN.
Ahn observes that all of the above usage patterns of address terms exist in the data
that she has analysed for her study. Finally, she discusses the importance of her
findings for intercultural communication between Korean and non-Korean speak-
ers. The study reported in this chapter demonstrates the strength of Cultural
Linguistics as a vehicle for investigating the use of address terms, an area which has
traditionally been explored from the perspective of sociolinguistics.
In Chap. 20, Enrique Bernárdez develops a view of evidentiality based on
Cultural Linguistics. He notes that, in the past, some accounts of evidentiality have
ignored language use, which lies at the heart of Cultural Linguistics, only taking
into account grammatical and/or lexical elements in isolation from context.
Bernárdez reviews several definitions of evidentiality and presents examples from
several languages, including Afrikaans glo, Swedish lär, and Icelandic ku, as well
as a morpho-syntactic construction in German involving the verb sollen. He points
out, for example, that in Swedish the particle lär is frequently used as a marker of
evidentiality to indicate that ‘what is told has been learned from someone else, and
does not stem from the direct experience of the speaker’. Bernárdez also closely
analyses evidentiality in a number of other languages, including Cha’palaa, and
argues that in these cases it reflects three cultural conceptualisations, as follows:
• Small groups living in isolated environments are more likely to develop
evidentials.
• Difficulties in accessing the world around enhance the probability of developing
evidentials; such difficulties can be the impenetrability of the forest, as is the
case in the Amazon and also the rainy forest inhabited by the Chachi.
Evidentials can furthermore be related to the impossibility of easy travel even
over short distances due to weather conditions, etc. Absence of literacy, as is the
case of the Quechua, is another fundamental factor.
• Very tight relations within the group and with neighbouring groups also enhance
the probability of developing evidentials.
Bernárdez presents a set of culturally constructed principles that appear to be at
work in association with the evidentials in the languages referred to, including the
principle that “every member of the community knows—to a greater or lesser
degree—all, or most other members”. Bernárdez then discusses how these
conceptualisations/principles perfectly fit with the sociocultural and environmental
features of the speakers of a language such as Cha’palaa. Overall, in this chapter,
Bernárdez shows how it is “possible and convenient indeed to try to interpret
evidentiality in the framework of Cultural Linguistics as driven by cultural and
cognitive factors at the same time and through history”. The analyses of eviden-
tiality in this chapter make another case for the potential of Cultural Linguistics
when examining cultural conceptualisations that are encoded in the
morpho-syntactic and lexical features of human languages.
In Chap. 21, Lydie Christelle Talla Makoudjou and Victor Loumngam Kamga
examine cultural conceptualisations, particularly cultural categories, associated with
toponyms as noun classes in Shüpamem, a language spoken by the Bamuns in the
West region of Cameroon. Previous studies mention up to 15 noun classes, which
serve as cultural categories in Shüpamem. These noun classes relate to many
aspects of the lives of Shüpamem speakers as well as to various features of the
language itself. In addition, they incorporate the traditional worldview and cultural
cognition associated with the Shüpamem language. For example, classes 1 and 2
and their sub-classes represent most human nouns (kinship terms, titles, etc.) as well
as a number of animals. Classes 3 and 4 include some names of animals, small
items (such as boxes), and some plants. Makoudjou and Kamga also discuss four
other main locative morphemes in Shüpamem. Toponyms in this language make
use of these prefixes to foreground aspects such as altitude, direction, or distance.
On the whole, this study reveals the potential of Cultural Linguistics for exploring
aspects of morpho-syntax that are entrenched in cultural conceptualisations.
In Chap. 22, Kim Jensen discusses how Cultural Linguistics can benefit from
adding corpus-linguistic techniques to its list of research methods. A major aim of
the corpus-linguistic approach is to identify association patterns such as colloca-
tions, colligations, and collostructions in large, but well-circumscribed, datasets.
Jensen begins his chapter with an overview of culturally sensitive corpus-linguistic
research to date and then moves on to present case studies of his own. Drawing on
data from Danish as well as several varieties of English, he explains how
corpus-linguistic analysis can discern patterns of instantiated cultural conceptuali-
sations in the naturalistic use of language. For example, he observes that
corpus-linguistic analysis of collostructional relations in a Danish
pseudo-coordinating construction points to a Danish cultural schema where sitting,
rather than standing, appears to be the prototypical bodily posture of verbal inter-
action. In another case study, he analyses a corpus of data from twenty national
varieties of English, examining usage patterns for the X make love to Y construction.
He notes that in all these varieties the construction appears to be associated with a
heteronormative cultural schema of intercourse in which men are agents and
women are patients. Jensen convincingly argues that corpus-linguistic and experi-
mental methods can complement each other and provide a platform for triangula-
tion through naturalistic and experimental data sources.
In Chap. 23, Bert Peeters explores the possibility of building bridges between
applied ethnolinguistics (Peeters’s own framework) and Cultural Linguistics. He
also makes a distinction between Cultural Linguistics, as represented in the work of
Sharifian, and the broader field of research on the relationship between language
and culture, which he suggests calling ‘cultural linguistics’ (in lowercase). While
any attempt to examine the relationship between language and the broad notion of
‘culture’ may be termed cultural linguistics or ethnolinguistics, Cultural Linguistics
focuses on the interrelationship between language and cultural conceptualisations.
Applied ethnolinguistics, a by-product of the NSM (Natural Semantic
Metalanguage) approach developed by Anna Wierzbicka and Cliff Goddard,
examines how features of human languages reflect cultural values. Peeters notes
20 F. Sharifian
that while Cultural Linguistics does acknowledge the relationship between cultural
values and language through cultural conceptualisations, it does not utilise the term
‘cultural value’ as a technical term. In contrast, applied ethnolinguistics explores the
relationship between cultural values and language through six different pathways,
five of which are intended to help advanced foreign language learners formulate
hypotheses about relevant cultural values, with the sixth being used for the cor-
roboration of initial hypotheses. The five initial pathways are: ethnolexicology (the
study of culturally salient words or word-like units), ethnophraseology (the study of
culturally salient phrases), ethnosyntax (the study of culturally salient syntactic
patterns), ethnopragmatics (the study of culturally salient communicative beha-
viours) and ethnorhetorics (the study of culturally salient figures of speech). The
pathway used for corroboration is known as ethnoaxiology. Peeters doubts that
Cultural Linguistics and applied ethnolinguistics will eventually amalgamate, but
hopes that the two paradigms can learn from each other and contribute to
cross-cultural and intercultural understanding, for which there is an ever-increasing
need in these volatile times.
In Chap. 24, Roslyn Frank shows how the scope of Cultural Linguistics can be
expanded to include the study of interspecies communication, specifically to
investigate the cognitive abilities and cultural world of home-raised parrots. The
chapter begins with a brief overview of research done on the linguistic abilities of
parrots, the avian order of Psittaciformes, concentrating on a species of parrots
called African Greys (Psittacus erithacus), well recognised as both intelligent and
long-lived—40 to 60 years in captivity—as well as being unquestionably the most
proficient bird at accurately modelling human speech. The results from research on
the neurobiology of parrots reveals their reasoning skills are comparable to those of
a two- to three-year old child. Home-raised parrots, like young children, rely on
‘babbling’ and ‘self-talk’ or ‘monologue speech’ to acquire routines and improve
their pronunciation. Moreover, parrots, like humans and unlike non-human pri-
mates, entrain to the beat, demonstrating rhythmic entrainment, long believed an
exclusively human capacity. Drawing on concrete examples of parrot-human
interactions taken from YouTube videos, Frank shows how parrots switch back and
forth between utterances in their native tongue, the whistles, chirps, clicks and
squawks, vocalisations typical of the species, referred to as L1 vocalisations, and
those that form part of their L2 enculturated repertoire. At the same time, the
cognitive aspects of parrot speech are revealed, for instance, how they cognitively
process their interactions with humans and particularly how over time they build up
their own cultural conceptualisations aided by repeated linguistic interactions with
their human keepers. She also shows how they develop cultural schemas and cat-
egories which allow them to understand what is taking place around them and to
establish and maintain the relationships they have developed with members of their
human family. Detailed analyses of sample YouTube videos explore the way in
which the cultural cognition and awareness of the birds—their ability to verbally
express their internal and refer to their external worlds—result from social and
linguistic interactions they have on a daily basis with humans as well as from their
ability to model and creatively modify these verbal interactions. In short, the
chapter sets out and achieves two objectives: it demonstrates (1) how the field of
Cultural Linguistics can benefit by enlarging its scope to include the study of the
communication skills of home-raised Greys; and (2) how the tools and concerns of
Cultural Linguistics are especially appropriate for this task.
In Chap. 25, Debra Occhi applies the inherent Cultural Linguistics concern with
conceptualisation in two ways, first by considering culturally specific attitudes
towards anthropomorphised conceptualisation in general, and then, by evaluating
particular examples of this type of conceptualisation in popular culture media. She
analyses Japanese and (Anglo) English-based cultural conceptualisations of a par-
ticular style of representation in terms of animate and anthropomorphised characters
(kyara). She explains that while these conceptualisations are historically grounded,
there is a danger for this aspect of them to be overlooked in contemporary discourse
due to the globalisation of popular culture entities based on these conceptualisa-
tions. Japanese representations of various entities as anthropomorphised characters
reflect a cultural history of animistic depiction. That representational style is not
always considered acceptable outside of Japan because of different conceptualisa-
tions relating to animism and anthropomorphisation held particularly in Christian
and Cartesian-influenced Anglo-English speaking cultures. As Japanese popular
culture globalises, a genre specialising in the critical interpretation of it in the
English-speaking media has also emerged. These unflattering interpretations may
be reflected in judgments of Japanese culture as a whole. In addition, the chapter
includes some case studies of anthropomorphised kyara in Japanese-created media
with global context and contents, specifically two narratives originally available as
online manga. Each of these two manga (Axis Powers Hetalia and Watashitachi no
doumei) show nations themselves depicted in ways that arguably represent
stereotypical personalities of persons, in a style of representation reminiscent of
culture-and-personality studies. These narratives also present nations as gendered
persons in relationships, heterosexual or homosexual, that serve to symbolise the
political relationships between the nations. Both stories rely on and reify inter-
locking cultural conceptualisations (Orientalism and Occidentalism) even as they
employ a specifically Japanese representational style. Overall, the chapter reveals
how Cultural Linguistics provides an effective tool for analysing multimodal
communication.
In Chap. 26, Frank Polzenhagen and Sandra Frey present a Cultural Linguistics
analysis of matrimonials, an Indian English word referring to marriage adverts. In
particular, they examine cultural conceptualisations reflected in a relatively large
number of matrimonials selected from four English-medium Indian newspapers and
a corpus of 150 matrimonials selected from a British-based newspaper. The analysis
undertaken in this chapter reveals that certain conceptualisations, such as MARITAL
RELATIONSHIP IS A UNITY OF PARTS, exist in both sets of adverts. There appear,
however, to be significant differences between the two corpora. For example, UNITY
22 F. Sharifian
in the Indian data not only encompasses the two individuals who are getting
married, but extends to the families of the couple as well as to even larger groupings
such as caste. A striking feature of the Indian adverts is that they reflect the cultural
metaphor FINDING A SPOUSE IS AN APPLICATION PROCEDURE. This is encoded in plural
forms of words (grooms, boys, girls) as well as the presence of expressions such as
apply, write with biodata and photo, and send CV in the adverts. Polzenhagen and
Frey note that a CV in this context refers to a comprehensive list of extended family
members, their marital status, education, profession, and major possessions. They
note that some of these details are also included in the adverts. According to the
authors, the cultural metaphor appears to be consistent with the dominant Indian
proposition schema MARRIAGE ADVERTS ARE ABOUT COMMUNICATING AND DETERMINING
THE CONDITIONS OF A WEDDING AND INITIATING ITS NEGOTIATION. Polzenhagen and Frey
also find evidence of a partial reconceptualisation of the WEDDING schema among
the modern urban Indian middle-class, since, when compared with traditional
arranged marriages, there is greater participation on the part of the future couple.
Certain elements, such as status and parental consent, however, appear to be
retained as crucial in contemporary conceptualisations. An important finding of this
study is that the dominant cultural conceptualisations with respect to marriage in
contemporary India do not mirror or converge with those of the West, despite the
fact that this view has been put forward in simplistic accounts of globalisation.
Polzenhagen and Frey’s study investigates the potential of Cultural Linguistics
when it comes to analysing the language and cultural conceptualisations associated
with sociocultural traditions/institutions such as marriage. The authors show that
Cultural Linguistics unpacks not only what is said at the linguistic level, but also
what is not said (as what is taken for granted, or assumed to be shared, is
often situated at the level of cultural conceptualisations).
In Chap. 27, Réka Benczes et al. examine cultural conceptualisations of ageing
in Australian English. They note that in recent years ageing has been undergoing a
major reconceptualisation in this variety of English. This process includes (a) the
emergence of novel cultural categories, (b) category extension and (c) the emer-
gence of new cultural metaphors and schemas. A web-based database of Australian
newspapers from 1987 to 2014 revealed a number of cultural categories of ageing,
but an overwhelming preference for HEALTHY AGEING. This new cultural category
focuses on cultural schemas that centre around those aspects of ageing that prolong
health such as eating healthily, staying fit, etc.—compare the triumph of SUCCESSFUL
AGEING in the United States (where success is a more central schema than in
Australian culture). An example of category extension in Australian English
is provided by the term older Australians, which seems to be replacing seniors.
Benczes et al. maintain that the expression older Australians is preferred because it
leaves the lower end of the ageing scale open and thus blurs the entry point of ‘old
age’—everybody is an older Australian. Findings were buttressed by an earlier
investigation of the naming practices of aged care facilities in Melbourne (com-
paring the strategies of 2013 with 1987). This study revealed a number of novel
cultural metaphors reflected in the names of these facilities. A large number of them
evoke either a FAMILY metaphor or a VACATION metaphor. These cultural metaphors

are associated with positive cultural schemas in Australian English, and as such
mitigate certain negative connotations of living in care facilities. Benczes et al.’s
study points to the benefits that accrue from employing the analytical tools of
Cultural Linguistics when examining social phenomena such as ageing.
In Chap. 28, Ian Malcolm examines cultural conceptualisations in Aboriginal
English, a term that refers collectively to the varieties of English indigenised by
Aboriginal Australians. An example of a cultural category in Aboriginal English is
CLEVER, which means ‘spiritually powerful’. An example of a cultural schema is
what Malcolm calls the SCARY THINGS schema, which “enables Aboriginal English
speakers to allude to the activity of powers beyond their control which may affect
their lives”. Scary Things include what non-Aboriginal people refer to as the
supernatural. An example of a cultural metaphor in Aboriginal English is THE EARTH
AS A HUMAN BEING, which is embodied in the expression we close the fire in with all
the sand to heal the wound of the earth. Malcolm observes that Aboriginal speakers
have reworked the input they have been exposed to in four different ways, processes
that together have led to the development of Aboriginal English. Malcolm labels
these as retention, elimination, modification, and extension. ‘Retention’ refers to the
maintenance of features of varieties of English that Aboriginal speakers were
exposed to, such as certain non-standard features from several varieties from the
South and South-West of England. ‘Elimination’ refers to non-occurrence of fea-
tures that are part of the input varieties, including Australian English. An example
of this would be that man car instead of that man’s car. ‘Modification’ refers to
cases where features of Aboriginal English reflect a modification of the features of
input varieties. An example of this would be the use of the transitive suffix –im in
expressions like eatim up goanna ‘eat the goanna’. ‘Extension’ refers to cases
where some features are transferred from Aboriginal languages, or where meanings
are metaphorically extended. An example of the latter would be the use of the
Nyungar word kepa ‘water’ to refer to alcoholic drinks. Malcolm elaborates on five
cultural conceptual imperatives that have led to the development of Aboriginal
English, including ‘group orientation’ and ‘interconnectedness’. Interconnectedness
refers to an aspect of the Aboriginal worldview where the land, animals, and human
beings are all interconnected. This is, for example, conveyed by the Aboriginal
expression This land is me. On the whole, this chapter presents a variety of English
where the speakers nativise the language, adapting it to their own cultural con-
ceptualisations and worldview. The chapter provides yet another example of a case
where Cultural Linguistics proves to offer a robust and useful framework of analysis
for examining the conceptual basis of varieties of Englishes.
In Chap. 29, Marta Degani examines cultural conceptualisations embedded in a
set of stories told by Māori-English bilinguals. In particular, the study focuses on
marae as a key Māori conceptualisation, which is also used as a borrowing in
general New Zealand English (NZE). In NZE the word marae refers to the
courtyard of a Māori meeting house. Degani discusses how marae is far more than
just a building for Māori speakers. Indeed, it is an expression of their tribal identity,
24 F. Sharifian
which connects them to the land, rituals, customs, values, ancestors, and the Māori
worldview. The main building of a marae, wharenui (lit. ‘the big house’), is used in
a cultural metaphor, given that its structure embodies the ancestor (MARAE AS THE
ANCESTOR’S BODY). For example, the entrance and windows of the building represent
the ancestor’s mouth and his eyes. Degani also shows how the narratives she
analysed for this study incorporate the cultural schema of MARAE, which, for
example, partly captures conceptualisations regarding the need to respect the rules
and follow the right procedure on the marae ground during a funeral. The cultural
schema of MARAE connects many aspects of Māori life and the Māori worldview to
each other; this includes the link between the land and the cultural categories of IWI
‘tribe’ and HAPŪ ‘sub-tribe’. Like several other chapters in the book, this study
reveals how English may encode cultural conceptualisations that were not originally
associated with it. That is, in the process of the nativisation of English, culturally
diverse speakers bring to bear various features of the English language to express
and communicate their cultural conceptualisations. The study also shows the
robustness of Cultural Linguistics, in particular the analytical framework of cultural
conceptualisations and language, for exploring conceptualisations associated with
different varieties of English.
In Chap. 30, Hans-Georg Wolf demonstrates how Cultural Linguistics can be a
highly effective vehicle for examining intercultural (mis)understanding in military
contexts. He begins by elaborating on the notion of ‘Military English’ (ME), a
technical variety of English similar to Aviation English (AE). Wolf argues that the
terms ME and AE should not only be used to refer to instances of military personnel
communicating amongst themselves, but also to the way English is used to share
and exchange information between military and non-military communities, such as
between Allied Forces and the Iraqi speakers in Iraq. In this sense, ME does not
only refer to a particular variety of English, but to a ‘context’ of use of English, in
the broad sense of the term, namely, the military context. Wolf explores the
potential of the ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) and EIL (English as an
International Language) paradigms in examining and understanding ME. He notes
that EIL, thanks to its engagement with cultural conceptualisations and meta-
cultural competence (Sharifian 2013), provides a much more fruitful approach. This
is because speakers in military contexts usually come from various cultural back-
grounds and are therefore very likely to draw on different—non-homogenous—
systems of cultural conceptualisation. Wolf then presents three examples of cases
from military-based contexts that manifest significant differences in the cultural
conceptualisations held by the speakers taking part in the interactions. In his
examination of these three sets of interactions Wolf also demonstrates the analytical
strength of Cultural Linguistics as a way to explore these underlying cultural
conceptualisations and their role in communication and miscommunication. For
example, he draws on a quote by a young Iraqi speaker in which the word shame is
used several times when referring to the American forces. Wolf extracts several
underlying cultural conceptualisations from the quote, including ACTIONS INFLICTED
BY FORCE ARE SHAME, and SHAME IS A DIRTY THING, as well as REMOVAL OF SHAME
(REVENGE) IS AN OBLIGATION. In conclusion, Wolf notes that the three examples
“demonstrate how a Cultural Linguistic take on military conflicts and peacekeeping

missions in international contexts could contribute to better intercultural under-
standing and hence, possibly, de-escalation”.
In Chap. 31, Zhichang Xu adopts a Cultural Linguistics perspective in his
reflections on TEIL (Teaching of English as an International Language).
Globalisation has significantly changed the ways in which English is both used and
conceptualised. In the majority of cases, English is now employed for communi-
cation between those who were once categorised as “non-native speakers” of the
language, and this observation has important implications for how we conceptualise
(e.g. English as a Multicultural/International Language) as well as how we
teach/use the language. Sharifian (2013) maintains that within the paradigm of
English as an International Language, English needs to be viewed as a
multi-varietal language that is used by speakers from many different backgrounds to
express, communicate, and negotiate their cultural conceptualisations as well as to
benefit from exposure to new systems of conceptualising experience. For Sharifian
(2013), TEIL should develop meta-cultural competence among learners.
Meta-cultural competence (a notion that is based on the analytical framework of
Cultural Linguistics) enables interlocutors, in the course of intercultural commu-
nication, to successfully communicate and negotiate their cultural conceptualisa-
tions through three major dimensions, ‘variation awareness’, ‘explication strategy’,
and ‘negotiation strategy’. In this chapter, Xu further elaborates on the idea of
developing meta-cultural competence in TEIL, and offers three new principles for
achieving this competence. He calls these principles: (a) acknowledge; (b) antici-
pate; and (c) acquire and accomplish. Principle (a) relates to acknowledging the
rapidly changing profile of English, both in terms of its uses and its users. Principle
(b) encourages speakers to anticipate that the English language is used to encode
and express a wide range of systems of cultural conceptualisation, and is not
confined to cultural conceptualisations associated with Anglo-based varieties of
English. Principle (c) refers to acquiring familiarity with various systems of con-
ceptualising experience and developing competence in the effective use of strategies
to negotiate intercultural meanings. Finally, Xu provides clear examples of prac-
tices that can develop meta-cultural competence within the context of teaching EIL
in tertiary contexts. In addition, this chapter shows how Cultural Linguistics can
contribute in substantial ways to the area of English Language Teaching (ELT),
particularly in terms of how various aspects and components of this field need to be
revisited within the context of the rapid globalisation and glocalisation (Sharifian
2010) of the language.
In Chap. 32, Thuy Ngoc Dinh examines the representation of culture in the ELT
curriculum in Vietnam by exploring cultural conceptualisations in one local and one
international developed textbook in Vietnam. She observes that although the
question of representing culture is a central one for ELT curriculum development,
her use of Cultural Linguistics provides the first fully elaborated analytical
framework for exploring this aspect of the ELT curriculum. Dinh focuses on
comparing and contrasting a particular cultural event category, that of TEA DRINKING,
as described in the textbooks that she analysed for this study. Consultation of the
26 F. Sharifian
available ethnographic literature on tea drinking in the Vietnamese and

Anglo-English cultures enables her to identify certain conceptual commonalities
and differences associated with the relevant cultural schemas and subschemas. She
notes for example that, for Vietnamese speakers, NEIGHBOURHOOD AND FRIENDSHIP
REINFORCEMENT, on the one hand, and RESPECT AND HOSPITALITY, on the other hand,
are among the predominant cultural schemas underpinning the cultural subschema
of tea drinking in Vietnam. By contrast, predominant cultural schemas underpin-
ning the Anglo-English subschema of TEA DRINKING are DAILY DOMESTIC REFRESHMENT
and COMFORT, COMPOSURE, AND RELATIONSHIP REINFORCEMENT. Adopting a novel
methodology for analysing texts, which includes an analysis of visual materials,
Dinh shows how the Vietnamese text and picture in a locally produced textbook
accurately reflect the cultural schema of NEIGHBOURHOOD AND FRIENDSHIP
REINFORCEMENT. Her analysis also demonstrates that the material faithfully reflects
the Vietnamese subschema of FRESH TEA DRINKING, which involves drinking tea,
smoking local tobacco, savouring local products such as sweet potato, and chatting
about crops and village life. Similarly, the analysis of the internationally developed
Anglo-based textbook shows that it accurately reflects Anglo-English cultural
schemas such as DAILY DOMESTIC REFRESHMENT, and COMFORT, COMPOSURE, AND
RELATIONSHIP REINFORCEMENT. In sum, Dinh notes that each textbook only reflects
one set of cultural (sub)schemas and lacks a cross-cultural component. She also
observes that the textbooks analysed for this study do not provide learners with the
opportunity to develop their meta-cultural competence, a pivotal notion in Cultural
Linguistics (see Xu, this volume). This chapter once again demonstrates the
effectiveness of Cultural Linguistics for examining various aspects of language
teaching.
1.5 Concluding Remarks
Globalisation has brought the notion of ‘culture’ to the forefront of human con-
sciousness. It has provided a space where cultures ‘meet’, blend, amalgamate and
sometimes clash. In the face of other cultures, we become conscious of our own
culture, and how it is different from or similar to other cultures in new ways. The
proliferation of cross-cultural contacts calls for new forms of scholarly work in the
humanities and social sciences. In particular, there is a heightened need for inter-
disciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches that examine the impact of culture on
the changing realities of human life. Cultural Linguistics has been developed as a
response to this need. It offers a multidisciplinary approach that examines the
relationship between cultural conceptualisations and language. Collectively, the
chapters presented in this volume demonstrate how cultural conceptualisations
encoded in language are relevant to all aspects of human life, from the very con-
ceptualisation of life and death, to conceptualisations of emotion, body, humour,
religion, gender, kinship, ageing, marriage and politics. It is hoped that this volume
will generate an ever-increasing interest in Cultural Linguistics and promote its
adoption as a vehicle for exploring many other topics. Clearly, the studies included
in this volume give testimony to the great potential that Cultural Linguistics has to
contribute to a better understanding of humanity.
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28 F. Sharifian
Author Biography
Farzad Sharifian is Professor and holds the Chair in Cultural Linguistics at Monash University.
He has made significant contributions to the development of Cultural Linguistics as a
multidisciplinary area of research. He is the author of Cultural Conceptualisations and
Language (John Benjamins 2011), the author of Cultural Linguistics (John Benjamins 2017).
Amsterdam, PA: John Benjamins, the founding Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of
Language and Culture (IJoLC) [John Benjamins] and the founding Editor of the Cultural
Linguistics book series [Springer].
Chapter 2
Cultural Conceptualisations in Humorous
Discourse in English and Serbian
Diana Prodanović Stankić
2.1 Introduction
The last decades of the twentieth century have seen a revived interest in the phe-
nomenon of verbal humour, which has been explored from different perspectives.
Of course, this growing interest in humour is not new—humour has been studied by
philosophers and later, psychologists and sociologists since ancient times. Humour
is part and parcel of everyday language use in any linguistic community, and
certainly one of prime examples of imagery, in terms of Palmer (1996, p. 3). The
way people use humour reflects not only their ability to play with language but it
also mirrors the shared beliefs and culture common to the speakers of a language,
their communicative practices and style.
The main idea behind this chapter was to deal with the under-researched
interrelationship between verbal humour and culture in a selected corpus of scripted
dialogues taken from several films and television series in English and Serbian.
Within the linguistic approach to humour studies, little attention, if any, has been
paid to extralinguistic aspects of verbal humour, which undoubtedly represent an
inseparable part of production, recognition and appreciation of verbal humour in
conversation. As Goddard (2006, p. 2) aptly remarked, “the field of pragmatics as a
whole still suffers from a remarkable degree of culture blindness”. This blunt but
clear statement can also be applied to pragmatic theories of verbal humour, which
were constructed so as to be encompassing and systematic, yet culture is con-
spicuous by its absence from these theories, even in the broadest sense of this
concept.
On the other hand, cognitive linguistic approaches to verbal humour integrate
cultural categories in Lakoff’s (1987, p. 68) sense, but usually as a background to
D. Prodanović Stankić (&)

Department of English Studies, Faculty of Philosophy,
University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia
e-mail: diana.prodanovic.stankic@ff.uns.ac.rs

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_2
30 D. Prodanović Stankić
explain some more salient cognitive processes, such as cognitive metaphors

(Kyratzis 2003) and metonymies (Barcelona 2003; Brône and Feyaerts 2003) and
their interplay with different humorous forms. Brône et al. (2015, p. 6) plausibly
argue that humorous language can avail to different cognitive mechanisms, as can
be seen in studies that use cognitive linguistics as a theoretical framework for
dynamic meaning construction (Brône 2010) or comprehension of verbal humour
(Coulson 2001, 2003; Giora 2003; Wu 2005). The concept of a cultural model and
cultural scripts is well defined and applied to a plethora of case studies within
cognitive approaches, cognitive anthropology in particular (Holland and Quinn
1987; Strauss and Quinn 1997). Nevertheless, in reference to linguistic analyses, it
seems that the concept of culture remains elusive and certainly restricted to the
ground against which some other figures are highlighted, and in that respect,
cognitive studies of humour are no exception. Despite Langacker’s (1994, p. 31)
often cited statement that “the advent of cognitive linguistics can also be heralded
as a return to cultural linguistics”, cognitive linguistics still struggles with the
somehow elusive concept of culture. This can to some extent be attributed to the
imprecise use of the very term, since most authors in the field of cognitive lin-
guistics tend to use different terms, such as cultural model/cognitive
model/script/scheme/frame/domain etc., sometimes interchangeably, (see
Kövecses 2006, p. 64), more often than not to denote the same concept. Yet,
regardless of the term that is used, it is beyond doubt that an adequate under-
standing of the language and culture relationship requires a dynamic, develop-
mental perspective, as Langacker (1994, p. 32) claims.
In that sense, the theoretical framework of Cultural Linguistics proves to be quite
useful for this study since it “explores conceptualisations that have a cultural basis
and are encoded in and communicated through features of human language”
(Sharifian 2015, p. 473). Since it studies language “in its social and cultural con-
text” (Yu 2007, p. 65), it can offer an insight into the way cultural models shape
language use or speech practice of one community. Another important issue per-
tinent to this study is the fact that cultural conceptualisations subsume both cultural
schemas and cultural categories as Sharifian (2011, p. 5) argues, which leads to the
fact they are shared collectively by members of a cultural group. This is highly
relevant to this research because conversational humour does not exist without
social interaction (see Chapman 1983; Hay 2000; Holmes and Marra 2002) and
both the production, perception and appreciation of humour are closely related not
only to the individual dynamic meaning construction in the cognitive linguistic
sense, but cultural conceptualisations of a particular cultural group.
Specifically, the main aim of this study was to focus on linguistic and
extralinguistic aspects that underpin verbal humour in telecinematic discourse, in
two languages, English and Serbian. By extralinguistic aspects in this context,
primarily global and culture-specific elements in multimodal verbal humour are
implied. The contrastive analysis was needed in order to pinpoint the preferred
types of verbal humour and cultural conceptualisations behind the speech practices
of both the British and American variety of English on the one hand and Serbian on
the other. Following Wierzbicka’s (2006, p. 8) argument that different varieties of
2 Cultural Conceptualisations in Humorous Discourse … 31
Anglo English may have significantly different cultural scripts in certain respects, in
particular when it comes to communicative styles, the corpus in English was taken
from both British and American films and television series.
In this chapter, humorous telecinematic discourse was used for selecting the
corpus due to several reasons. Drawing on Piazza et al. (2011, pp. 2–9) telecine-
matic discourse will be defined here as discourse that is part of a broadcast film or
television series created for the viewers. Both are regulated by “a double plane of
communication that characterises any screen discourse between the subjects in the
story and the external viewers” (Piazza et al. 2011, p. 1). As much as telecinematic
discourse is characterised by the interaction between the represented and external
participants and the interface of linguistic and audio-visual features, it still repre-
sents a communicative event and a specific form of human communication that
lends itself for linguistic analysis. Specifically, it can be used to offer better insight
into real-life conversation (Dynel 2011; Janney 2012; Norrick 2003; Wardhaugh
1992), based on the underlying assumption that dialogues in such discourse
resemble real-life dialogues to a great extent. Even more so given the fact that this
type of discourse typically reflects contemporary communication practices and
cultural values highlighted in the given culture. In addition to this, it seems that
humorous telecinematic discourse can provide a deeper insight into shared expe-
rience, since, in general, laughter fosters sharing bonds and mediates various social
networks (Hay 2000; Knight 2010; Meyer 2000). Bearing in mind that “cultural
cognition draws on a multidisciplinary understanding of the collective cognition
that characterises a cultural group”, as Sharifian (2015, p. 476) has it, it is exactly
the shared cultural conceptualisation as reflected in this particular discourse that is
needed to grasp the complex phenomenon of verbal humour.
In the sections that follow, a brief overview of the most relevant aspects of the
theoretical background will be given and then the focus will be shifted towards the
methodology of the research conducted, corpus and the results of the analysis that
were obtained.
2.2 Theoretical Framework
2.2.1 Humour Research Within Linguistics
The linguistic studies of verbal humour owe a great deal to Raskin’s (1985) and
Attardo’s attempts to explain the humorous mechanism from the semantic (Raskin
1985), and then later on the pragmatic perspective as well (Attardo and Raskin
1991; Attardo 1994, 2001). By formulating and developing the General Theory of
Verbal Humour (GTVH) (Attardo 2001), based on the analysis of canned jokes,
these scholars tried to create a metatheory of verbal humour that would account for
all instances of it. Within GTVH, verbal humour is defined in the sense that it
always implies a semantic-pragmatic process activated by a (fragment of a) text and
a violation of Grice’s maxims of the principle of cooperation” (Attardo 2003

p. 1287). The text of a joke is always fully or in part compatible with two distinct
scripts and the two scripts are opposed to each other in a special way” (Attardo and
Raskin 1991, p. 308). Raskin (1985, pp. 80–85) used the term ‘script’ to denote a
cognitive structure that included semantic information related to the structure,
components and functions of the given lexeme, or the concept denoted by it, as well
as to denote the speaker’s encyclopaedic knowledge associated with the lexeme.
According to Raskin (1985, p. 117) some words in the text may serve as triggers for
the activation of a certain script in the process of meaning construction, and hence,
a script is a part of lexical meaning, even though there may exist individual dif-
ferences related to scripts. This reference to the speaker’s encyclopaedic knowledge
is the only reference to any kind of extralinguistic aspects within the GTVH, and
neither Raskin (1985) nor Attardo (1994, 2001) delve into the concept of culture in
relation to verbal humour.
Nevertheless, moving away from the concept of script and script opposition as
the only mechanism on which verbal humour is based, Attardo and Raskin (1991,
pp. 297–303) define a list of different parameters, called Knowledge Resources (see
also Attardo 2001, p. 29) that affect the humorous effect. In order to analyse any
instance of verbal humour, Attardo (2001, pp. 1–28) suggests that this hierarchical
list of six parameters be used, each of which contributes to the humorous effect:
1. Script opposition (SO): the central requirement for humour production that
accounts for the opposition between different and opposed scripts;
2. Logical mechanism (LM): accounts for the resolution of the incongruity caused
by SO; it can be of different kinds (e.g. figure-ground reversal, juxtaposition,
parallelism, etc. see Attardo et al. 2002, p. 18);
3. Situation (SI): includes characters, objects, places, etc. presented in the
humorous text;
4. Target (TA): the aim of the humour; a person, people, institutions ridiculed by a
particular instance of humour;
5. Narrative structure (NS): genre and/or text organisation;
6. Language (LA): the verbalisation of the given text (word choice, placement of
functional elements, etc.
These parameters are applied in an algorithmic fashion to an instance of humour
that is to be analysed, as can be seen in many studies that deal with the application
of GTVH to different kinds of humour (Attardo 2001; Paolillo 1998; Tsakona
2009). And indeed, if a given instance of humour is a canned joke, especially in the
written form, this theory is quite coherent.
Yet, conversational humour, as the most prevalent type of verbal humour found
in everyday use of language represents a significant challenge for both SSTH and
GTVH as it involves both linguistic and extralinguistic aspects. Dynel (2011, p. 4)
defines conversational humour as relevantly interwoven into conversation, both
spoken and written, whether private, institutional or mediated. Hence, conversa-
tional humour can be regarded as an umbrella term that covers a whole range of
various specific humorous forms that can be found in a conversation, such as

banters, witticisms, puns, wordplays, allusions, jokes, etc. Also, conversational
humour often implies references and allusions not only to the previously mentioned
utterances, but to referents beyond the very conversation, and very often, for
example, to elements of culture that the participants of the conversation are familiar
with. It is important to stress that conversational humour depends heavily not only
on the meaning of the lexemes and the cooperation between the participants in the
conversation, but on the context as well.
In his dynamic model of meaning, Kecskes (2008, p. 388) defines context as “a
dynamic construct that captures both prior contexts of experience and the actual
situational contexts”, which proves to be perfectly adequate in the analysis of
conversational humour, most notably telecinematic discourse as well. In this way,
the knowledge the speaker has in his/her mind (prior context) and the information
he/she has about the actual situation related to the communicative event (actual
situational context) are part of the context. In that way, context and language use are
anchored in culture.
Cognitive approaches to dynamic meaning construction, such as Coulson’s
(2001) frame-shifting process, or the process of conceptual blending (Fauconnier
and Turner 2002), are rather general models of meaning construction and as such
quite applicable to explaining humour production/comprehension as well, as
Coulson and her colleagues (Coulson and Oakley 2000; Coulson 2001, 2003) have
successfully shown. These models account for the on-line meaning construction
which is the result of the activation of appropriate mental spaces triggered by the
language use (see, for example, Fauconnier and Turner 2002, p. 25, or Coulson
2001, p. 32) in the given situation.
Nevertheless, as Kecskes (2008, p. 386) plausibly argues, lexical units encode
the contexts of their prior use and this prior experience is another facet of the
context. Thus, meaning construction certainly depends on the interplay of prior and
current experience. Palmer (1996, p. 6) relates the concept of context to the concept
of imagery, since “in the flux of context, it is the culturally constructed, conven-
tional and mutually presupposed imagery of world view that provides the stable
points of reference for the interpretation of discourse”. Hence, culturally con-
structed knowledge, or cultural knowledge provides the shared context for the
speakers of a language, which is particularly relevant when it comes to verbal
humour, especially when found in telecinematic discourse.
2.2.2 Cultural Conceptualisations and Verbal Humour
The advent of multidisciplinary language and culture studies in the form of Cultural
Linguistics (Sharifian 2011, 2015, 2017) has shifted focus from the relationship of
individual cognition and language as highlighted in the cognitive approaches to
language, to the relationship between language, conceptualisation and culture
(Sharifian 2011, p. 3). Cultural Linguistics maintains that “language is a cultural
form, and that conceptualisations underlying language and language use are largely
formed by cultural systems” (Yu 2007, p. 65). Cultural conceptualisation as a key
concept is used in this chapter to denote “patterns of distributed knowledge across
the cultural group” (Sharifian 2011, p. 3), which covers both schematisation and
cultural schemas as in Strauss and Quinn (1997), and cultural categories (Lakoff
1987). Culture will be defined here as “shared presuppositions about the world
familiar to the given community” (Holland and Quinn 1987, p. vii). It is well
known that humour is deeply embedded in culture and different types of cultural
presuppositions are needed in understanding humorous discourse (Prodanović
Stankić 2016), regardless of the fact that verbal humour is prototypically based on
ambiguity and playing with different levels of language structure (Chiaro 1992).
In other words, in order to understand a particular joke, one needs to know both
the language and the cultural context to which the particular joke refers. What is
important, though, is the fact that this cultural context is shared among the members
of one linguistic community and that within one community, there are preferred
ways of saying things (Kecskes 2015, p. 114), or, taking humour into consideration,
it is evident that the perception of humour depends heavily on its cultural specificity
[in the sense of what is humorous inside a certain culture (Antonopoulou 2004,
p. 224)]. The reasons for this are closely related to the fact that language is firmly
grounded in a group-level cognition that emerges from the interactions between
members of a cultural group (Sharifian 2011, p. 5). As language and culture are in a
dialectical relationship, it is clear that language is one of the tools, yet not the only
one, for maintaining and indicating cultural conceptualisations through time.
Taking into account verbal humour, it should be stressed that cultural conceptu-
alisations mark not only humorous discourse itself, in terms of different levels and
units of language (e.g. speech acts, idioms, metaphors, grammar, etc.), but also
language use and community practices (e.g. when it is (in)appropriate to joke and
which form of humour to use in the given situation).
Considering verbal humour as exemplified by film and television dialogues, it
should be mentioned that this type of humour is created to amuse different target
groups, which do not necessarily belong to the same linguistic and/or cultural
community, as, for example, in case of Hollywood films made for the global
audience. Therefore, the creators of this kind of humour need to have in mind not
just the perception of humour by individual viewers but by the audience as a
group. And this collective conceptualisation is something that can be accounted for
in Cultural Linguistics. As Sharifian (2011, p. 5) argues, even though the focal point
of human conceptualisation is on the individual level, it is also to be found on the
level of the culture group and cultural conceptualisations tend to emerge as cultural
cognitions. This characteristic of conceptualisation is highly relevant for humour
studies, and often neglected in cognitive approaches that tend to highlight just the
individual level. Namely, in order to account for different types of humour—for
example, ethnic humour or register humour—it is essential to take into account not
only the individual level of conceptualisations, but also the level that is common to
a cultural group.
Sharifian (2015, p. 475) defines cultural conceptualisations as conceptual

structures, such as ‘schemas’, ‘categories’ and ‘conceptual metaphors’, which not
only exist at the individual level of cognition but which are renegotiated through
generations of speakers within a cultural group, across time and space. As such,
they do not have to be uniformly distributed across members of a cultural group;
rather they represent “networks of distributed representations across the minds in
cultural groups” (Sharifian 2011, p. 6). In addition to this, Sharifian (2011, p. 4)
notes that physical proximity of individuals is not the only precondition for
establishing cultural groups. To that end, relative participation of individuals in
each other’s conceptual world can also be another determinant of cultural groups.
A case in point for this claim is verbal humour in telecinematic discourse in
Serbian. Due to the fact that the process of globalisation in the modern world is
characterised by limitless exchange of information, knowledge and consequently
given cultural models, the English language and, most notably, Anglo-American
cultural conceptualisations have easily found their way among the speakers of
Serbian, as will be shown in the examples in Sect. 2.4. However, before proceeding
to the results of this study, the methodology of the analysis and the structure of the
corpus used for the analysis will be explained.
2.3 Methodology
2.3.1 The Data
The corpus of the study contains scripted dialogues taken from several comedies
and sitcoms in English and Serbian. The following comedies and sitcoms1 were
used in the study:
• Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), written and directed by Guy
Ritchie;
• Only Fools and Horses, Season 9: If they could see us now (2001), Strangers on
the shore (2002), Sleepless in Peckham (2003), written by John Sullivan,
directed by Tony Dow;
• Hangover (2009), written by John Lucas and Scott Moore, directed by Todd
Phillips;
• The Simpsons, Season 8, episode 14, Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show (1997),
directed by Steven Dean Moore, episode 23, Homer’s Enemy (1997), directed
by Jim Reardon and Season 9, episode 14, Das Bus (1998), directed by Pete
Michels, all three episodes were written by Matt Groening and James L. Brooks;
• Mrtav ‘ladan [Frozen Stiff] (2002), written and directed by Milorad Milinković;
More information on these films and television series can be found at http://www.imdb.com.
1
• Sedam i po [Seven and a Half] (2006), written and directed by Miroslav

Momčilović;
• Bela lađa [A White Boat] (2006–2012), directed by Mihailo Vukobratović and
Ivan Stefanović, written by Siniša and Ljiljana Pavić;
• Crni Gruja i kamen mudrosti [Black Gruya and the Stone of Wisdom] (2007),
directed by Marko Marinković, written by Aleksandar Lazić, Rade Marković
and Jovan Popović.
The above-mentioned comedies and television series were selected based on
several criteria. First of all, they were all made in the last 20 years, which enabled a
synchronic insight into the language analysed. This was important for both the
linguistic and cultural aspects of the analysis as the focus was on the contemporary
conceptualisations. Furthermore, all of these films and sitcoms were made for
different target viewers which ensured a variety of mechanisms used to create the
humorous effect. Basically they were aimed at people from all walks of life, so none
is too specific or complicated in terms of the plot, characterisation or techniques
used. Moreover, all of them were very popular and widely watched after they were
released, and some were awarded on various festivals.
2.3.2 Method of Analysis
The main assumption behind this study was that telecinematic discourse is to a large
extent similar to authentic language use in real-life conversations (Piazza et al.
2011) and for that reason, it will display the typical features of conversational
humour, only much more, due to genre characteristics (Dynel 2011; Norrick 2003;
Wardhaugh 1992). The basic unit for analysis was a single conversational turn, as
the smallest dialogical unit. Following Dynel (2011, p. 1633), a conversational turn
will be defined as an analytical unit that can vary in size and that contains the flow
of speech of one speaker, followed by a pause and the next speaker’s turn. In this
corpus, the conversational turn is equal to an utterance—however, not always, since
in some cases it is not verbalised, but found in the form of a non-verbal sign, facial
expression, etc. Using Attardo’s KRs (2001, p. 29), as described above in Sect. 2.1,
the total of 1230 units were selected, 652 in English and 578 in Serbian. Both UK
and USA films and sitcoms were selected for the research, in order to get a better
insight into any differences related to two varieties of Anglo English culture in
terms of Wierzbicka (2006). The analysis was both quantitative and qualitative, yet
the focus in this chapter is first and foremost on the findings obtained by a quali-
tative analysis—that is why only a brief overview of quantitative findings will be
given at the beginning of the next section. The findings that will be presented in this
chapter are obtained as a result of another research into verbal humour in English
and Serbian (Prodanović Stankić 2016).
2.4 Findings and Discussion
2.4.1 An Overview of Quantitative Data
After calculating means of conversational turns that contained any form of humour
that was created either by using linguistic or extralinguistic ways or the interplay of
both, using a descriptive statistics method based on percentage share within the
structures of the categories, it turned out that scriptwriters in Serbian and British
films and television series resorted more to playing with language to create the
intended humorous effect than the American ones, as can be seen in Fig. 2.1.
The analysis of conversational turns that contained exclusively playing with
language indicated that in both languages language play used to create the
humorous effect was based on all levels of language structure (lexicon, morphol-
ogy, phonology, syntax and pragmatics). However, it is interesting that the British
and Serbian discourses are quite similar in that respect, as opposed to the American.
These findings are to some extent supported by some previous research into British
humour (Alexander 1997; Brock 2006; Chiaro 1992) that indicated the overall
tendency of British people to have a penchant for word play and puns. Conversely,
the Americans valued slapstick and other forms of non-verbal humour more
(Boskin 1997; Walker 1998). Specifically, in terms of playing with different levels
of language structure, both the British and the American variant of English display
similar characteristics: playing with the pragmatic level (e.g. violating the coop-
erative principle) was more frequent than playing with grammar, which was typical
of Serbian humorous discourse. Resorting only to linguistic elements of verbal
humour can be illustrated with Del’s malapropism in example (01), taken from the
British sitcom Only Fools and Horses:
(01) Rodney: How do you know what I think?

Del: You know I’ve always been a bit telescopic!
When it comes to the combination of linguistic and extralinguistic aspects that is

used to create a specific perlocutionary effect, it seems to be the dominant feature of
the British telecinematic discourse, as can be seen in Fig. 2.1. It is interesting
though, that the most prevalent way of combining these aspects is by the means of
conceptual metaphors and metonymies and conceptual blending. This can be
illustrated with the following witticism, taken from the film Lock, Stock and Two
Smoking Barrels:
(02) Dog: Golf—the best way to spoil a good walk. Winston Churchill said that. I say it’s
a dog-eat-dog world. And I got bigger teeth than you two.
Dog is the nickname of one of the characters in the film who skilfully uses the
idiomatic expression dog-eat-dog, which is based on the conceptual metaphor
PEOPLE ARE ANIMALS to introduce this face-threatening act. This reference to
extralinguistic aspects of knowledge, activated by the means of a metaphor, com-
plements the verbal instance of humour in the form of a funny definition. This
In % British (UK) American Serbian

(USA)
Linguistic 38 24 39
Extralinguistic 15 45 32
The interplay 47 31 29
of both
linguistic and
extralinguistic
Fig. 2.1 Linguistic and extralinguistic elements of humour in the data
combination usually serves either as a source of humour in dialogues or to enhance

the intended humorous effect. By activating specific elements in the conceptual
domains involved in metaphoric/metonymic mapping during the on-line dynamic
meaning construction the effect is heightened. Namely, in humorous discourse, less
salient elements are more highlighted than the salient ones, and they contribute to
the unexpected resolution of the given incongruity involved in the specific
humorous form. It is important to mention that TV viewers use metaphors and
metonymies to construct the meaning and arrive at the interpretation that leads them
to humour (Prodanović Stankić 2015).
Considering the creation of verbal humour that was based only on activating
specific extralinguistic elements, and by that, reference to different elements of
encyclopaedic knowledge and culture in general is meant, it is interesting that the
range of the percentage share is from 15 in the British telecinematic discourse, 32 in
the Serbian, and 45% in the American. It should be also stressed that the common
and most highlighted feature of all three types of conceptualisations is the tendency
to laugh at the expense of the other, which is supported by the Superiority Theories
of Humour (see Attardo 1994, p. 50; Bergson 2002). That is the reason why this
particular cultural scheme will be discussed further. Nevertheless, there are some
differences in the ways “the other” is perceived and laughed at in the selected
corpus of this study.
2.4.2 Cultural Conceptualisations in English
The analysis of cultural conceptualisations in humorous telecinematic discourse in

English, specifically in films and television series made in the UK and USA, reveals
that there are some differences regarding the prominence of the most salient cultural
schemas that can be delineated in this type of discourse. First of all, in films and
television series made in the UK, judging by the selected corpus of this study,
different social classes and immigrants are more frequently found as the target of
humour. Also, what is interesting, as opposed to the conceptualisations in the

American and Serbian films, rarely do the British make jokes at their own expense;
rather, it is always the others that the ridicule is aimed at.
An interesting example of this can be found in the conversation between Del and
Rodney, the main characters of the sitcom Only Fools and Horses, in the episode
Strangers on the Shore, at the moment when they are going to France to represent
the late Uncle Albert at a reunion in Normandy:
(03) (1) Del: One of my most favourite meals is Duck à l’Orange, but I don’t know how to
say that in French.
(2) Rodney: It’s canard.
(3) Del: You can say that again, bruv!
(4) Rodney: No, the French word for duck is canard.
(5) Del: Is it? I thought that was something to do with the QE2?
(6) Rodney: No that’s Cunard. They’re the ones with the boats and what have you.
The French for duck is canard.
(7) Del: Right, lovely jubbly! Right, so how do the French say à l’Orange then?
(8) Rodney: À l’Orange!
(9) Del: What, the same as we do?
(10) Rodney: Yes.
(11) Del: Oh dear, it’s a pity they don’t use more of our words innit, eh?
This example is a case in point in terms of indicating how both encyclopaedic

knowledge and knowledge about a language are at work to activate the
salient conceptualisation that is shared among the speakers of British English, and
which is the result of the interactions of the British and the French as members of
two different cultural groups across time and space. This in fact illustrates
Sharifian’s (2011, p. 21) concept of emergent cultural cognition, which is negoti-
ated in different kinds of contexts.
In some examples, reference to ethnic groups that are the targets is quite explicit,
as in the following example taken from the film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking
Barrels:
(04) (1) Rory Breaker: Your stupidity may be your one saving grace.
(2) Nick the Greek: Uuugh?
(3) Rory Breaker: Don’t uuugh me, Greek boy!
In the above-mentioned example, it can be argued to what extent this cultural

script would be endorsed by all the members of the given cultural group. However,
As Goddard (2006, p. 5) states, even if all the members of a cultural group do not
identify themselves with a cultural script or a part of it, it still indicates certain
aspects of thinking, acting and behaving in the given society. This can also be
related to Kecskes’s (2013, p. 74) argument that individual prior knowledge also
plays an important role in the interplay of social and cultural models in the dynamic
process of communication in which “individuals are not only constrained by
societal conditions but they also shape them at the same time”.
It is worth mentioning that in the films and series produced in the USA which
were selected for this study, ethnic humour is most of the time created by activating
conceptualisations based on referential metonymy, (e.g. Joe Camel, Arthur

Fonzarelli):
(05) (1) Scratchy: What’s that name again? I forgot.

(2) Poochie: (rapping)
The name’s Poochie D, and I rock
the telly I’m half Joe Camel,
and a third Fonzarelli.
I’m the kung fu hippie, from gangsta city.
I’m a rappin’ surfer, you the fool I pity.
The scriptwriters of this particular episode of The Simpsons obviously resorted to

the elements of popular culture that is known to the average USA viewer, though
not necessarily known to those outside the USA. While creating a new character in
the cartoon, they try to make Poochie a proper representative of the heterogeneous
national identity which is based on the melting pot metaphor. However, in situa-
tions when humour is created by the means of an ironic statement that highlights the
perception of USA foreign policy by the rest of the world, the conceptualisation of
the heterogeneous national identity is discarded:
(06) Marge: Have a great weekend kids. Be nice to the underprivileged countries.
In the episode Das Bus (The Simpsons), the children are playing the model of the
UN as part of a school project, and each child is given a role of one country to play.
They are going on a school trip, and Marge, the mother, knows that her children,
Bart and Lisa, do not get on well with some of the children, most of whom got to
represent the underdeveloped countries. In the same episode, while practising the
presentations of the countries they represent, Ralph starts singing the Canadian
national anthem while all the other children are messing around. At that moment,
Principal Skinner utters the following:
(07) (1) Ralph (singing): Oh, Canada!

(2) Principal Skinner (hitting the desk with his shoe): Order, order!
Do you kids wanna be like the real UN, or do you just wanna squabble and
waste time?
Even though his question is addressed to the children, obviously the irony is
addressed at the target that is outside the conversation going on the screen. It seems
that the scriptwriters, especially those who write for globally popular and widely
watched programmes, are well aware of the fact that the potential viewers, even
when they belong to the same cultural group, activate both their common collective
knowledge as members of a given group, as well as the instances of individual
extralinguistic knowledge they possess, while dynamically constructing the
appropriate meaning of the utterance they hear. In that sense, on the one hand, some
or all of the viewers will recognise the allusion to the assumed rivalry between the
USA and Canada, which is activated by the other children ignoring Ralph’s singing.
On the other hand, Principal Skinner’s non-verbal act of hitting the desk with his
shoe can by analogy be compared to the same iconic symbol of the Russian
President Khrushchev during the Cold War (Taubman 2003), which is an element
of encyclopaedic knowledge that is widely known to the members of different
cultural groups all over the world. It is clear that the interplay of non-verbal and
extralinguistic aspects of an utterance increases the intended humorous effect. This
is in line with Manteli’s (2011) study on humour in theatre performances, who
(Manteli 2011, p. 257) claims that humorous mechanism in the performance is
activated due to the co-occurrence of opposed codes, both linguistic and paralin-
guistic ones.
To sum up, in can be said that there are different elements of encyclopaedic
knowledge that are used to create or enhance the humorous effect in Anglophone
cultures. In the British variant of the English language, judging by the data obtained
in this study, the most prominent is activating cultural schemas related to the social
classes and ethnic groups, popular stereotypes and beliefs. In the American variant
more widespread are scripts related to popular culture, and representatives of
popular culture and politics.
2.4.3 Cultural Conceptualisations in Serbian
The universal script of laughing at the other can be outlined in the humorous
telecinematic discourse in Serbian, as well as in English. Accordingly, the most
frequent targets in the selected corpus of Serbian comedies are ethnic groups that
live in Serbia or in some of the neighbouring countries around Serbia, politicians or
political parties and women and/or the gay population. The cultural conceptuali-
sations that are known to the members of the given cultural groups are usually
based on popular beliefs and stereotypes, and universal scripts related to stupidity
and sexuality, which is, generally speaking, typical of any ethnic humour (Raskin
1985, pp. 191–194).
The elements of cultural scripts are usually referred to metonymically. A case in
point is the following example, taken from the film Seven and a Half. The main
character, Tadija, a big bully who terrorises his neighbours, lives in a suburb in
Belgrade, in which there are two boulevards, one named after the famous Russian
astronaut, and the other after Mahatma Ghandi. In his world view, people who live
in the Ghandi Boulevard are inferior to those living in Yuri Gagarin. Due to this,
Tadija addresses Samir and everyone else with Krishna:
(08) (1) Tadija: Dođi, Hari Krišna! [Come here, Hare Krishna!]
(2) Samir: Nisam ja Hari Krišna. [I’m not Hare Krishna.]
(3) Tadija: Vi svi iz Gandijeve ulice ste Indijanci. Ko je bio Gandi? Ko je bio Gandi?
Indijanac. [All of you guys from Ghandi’s Street are Indians. Who was Ghandi?
Who was Ghandi? An Indian] (sings along) Hare Hare, Krishna Krishna, Ghandi,
Ghandi, Hare Hare, Krishna Krishna, Ghandi, Ghandi…
(4) Samir: A vi iz Jurija Gagarina ste šmekeri, šta? [And you from Yuri Gagarin are
pretty boys, aren’t you?]
(5) Tadija: Gagarin, prvi čovek u kosmosu, Rus pravoslavac, kenjao je iz kosmosa i na
Gandija i na sve te indijanske sekte. Zdrastvujte patuljci, prihajt vam jedno govno
iz kosmosa. [Gagarin, the first man in space, Russian orthodox, he had a shit from
outer space on Ghandi and all these Indian sects. Здpacтвyйтe (Hello there) you
dwarfs, дoxoдит here comes a shit from space.]
(6) Samir: Pa ni Jurij Gagarin nije bio pravoslavac. [Well, Yuri Gagarin was not an
orthodox Christian either.]
(7) Tadija: Šta je bio, Hari Krišna? [What was he, Hare Krishna?]
(8) Samir: Komunista. [A communist.]
By using the name of the Hindu deity, Tadija metonymically activates the
conceptualisation that is shared by speakers of Serbian. In this conversation, several
scripts are activated. First of all, Tadija’s faulty reasoning and his superior attitude
reflect the widely spread conceptualisation that exists in Serbian society, and that is
the rather inferior position of the Romani people, who are known to be of Indian
descent. In addition to this, in line (03) there is a pun which is quite frequent in
Serbian, using a word to denote a Native American (in Serbian Indijanac) instead of
the one for an Indian (Indijac or Indus).
There is another cultural script that can be delineated in this dialogue, which is
related to politics: the political and historical relations of Serbia and Russia. First of
all, part of this script is based on the common religious and ethnic background the
Serbian and Russian people share. Tadija draws attention to this bond by turning to
broken Russian in line (05). Yet, the most salient element in this script is the topical
debate related to the political relations of Serbia and Russia, which, beside the
attitudes of the people towards religion, have been one of the reasons for divisions
in Serbian society throughout history, till the present day. So the whole conceptual
network of meaning based on referential metonymy, is activated during the process
of dynamic meaning construction, which serves to achieve a specific humorous
effect.
Another typical feature of humorous mechanisms used to create verbal humour
in the given corpus is the use of specific dialects as implicit use of reference and
using English, as a foreign language to activate a specific schema. Namely, using
dialects of Serbian, most notably those that are spoken in the southern and
south-eastern parts of Serbia, seems to be quite a common method the scriptwriters
resort to so as to create register humour. At the same time, the use of these dialects
serves as an implicit way to create ethnic humour, i.e. to highlight the salient
elements of knowledge that are common to speakers of Serbian and which are
closely related to typical stereotypes one can find in any country.
The results of this study in terms of ethnic humour are in line with some previous
research (Davies 1990, p. 40; Laineste 2005, pp. 11–12) in the sense that ethnic
humour is always asymmetrical, directed from the centre of the country to the
more/most peripheral regions. These conceptualisations are, of course, based on
stereotypes, such as PEOPLE LIVING IN THE SOUTH/EAST ARE PEASANTS (used deroga-
torily), PEOPLE LIVING IN THE SOUTH/EAST ARE UNEDUCATED/LESS INTELLIGENT/STINGY,
etc. Though it is difficult to illustrate this with specific examples, as dialects in
Serbian differ from the standard in paralinguistic features and specific

grammatical/lexical forms, using a dialect to create register and ethnic humour was
present and quite frequent in all films and television series analysed. In most cases,
it was accompanied by verbal humour based on playing with non standard use of
grammatical forms.
Another finding that emerged from this analysis is the fact that English was used
in all films and series in Serbian either to create or to enhance the given humours
effect. It goes without saying that English has the status of a global language
(Crystal 2003, 2012; Sharifian 2011; Wierzbicka 2006) and it has a special role in
all countries in which it is spoken (Crystal 2003, p. 6). In that respect, Serbia is no
exception: even though English is not an official second language in Serbia, it
certainly has the status of the nativised foreign language (Prćić 2003, 2014a, b).
Due to its three defining properties, as described by Prćić (2014b, p. 144), ready
audio-visual availability, dual acquisition and supplementary language function,
English acquired its specific role in the Serbian language community, as in any
other all over the world, for that matter. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to deal
with the specific effects of this influence, yet, in reference to humorous discourse, it
is evident that English is frequently used either to produce or to enhance humorous
effect. In the corpus analysed for this study, English was consistently used in all
films and series.
The most typical examples are those similar to the slogan taken from the film
Black Gruya and the Stone of Wisdom, which one of the characters, a local village
fool, uses to give a toast:
(09) Rakija connecting people (Slivovitz connecting people)
Rakija is a type of brandy made from plums, typical of Serbia, and needless to
say, extremely popular. In the film that is set in the eighteenth century, the very
allusion to the global slogan that is used to advertise an international company
represents an anachronism based on a pun that is intended to be humorous to the
viewers in the modern age. The fact that the speaker utters this slogan in English is
incongruous with the rest of the conversation, and of course, comes as quite a
surprise to the viewers, which leads to the intended effect. In order to construct the
appropriate meaning, the viewers need to have both global and culture-specific
elements of knowledge, and to know English to understand the meaning of the
utterance on the linguistic level.
Another representative example is the use of English by the main character in the
television series The White Ship. As an upstart businessman and dilettante politi-
cian, Srećko Šojić represents a parody of a political figure in a transition country.
As such, he has problems with using English even in simple situations. In example
(10) given below, he tried to invite the attractive personal assistant of the USA
ambassador for a drink, yet he did not know that she is actually Serbian:
(10) Well, well, good morning lady! Eeeh, how are you? Eh, ah, eh, oh, pićance, eh,
something to drinkić? How is his ekselencija?
In the interlingual utterance of this character, it can be seen that he starts con-
fidently by addressing the girl in English, however, when he runs out of stock
phrases and should find an equivalent for the Serbian pićance/piće (Engl. drink) or
ekselencija (Engl. Excellency), he firstly uses a non-existent Serbian word
(pićance), as part of his funny idiolect, and then creates a new hybrid lexeme, DRINK
+IĆ, by adding a Serbian suffix for creating a diminutive noun. This hybrid lexeme
is also a good example that is a result of an intralingual blend created both on the
conceptual and formal level (Rasulić 2008).
However, in this speech act, the speaker is not just activating conceptualisations
related to the formal level (lexical/morphological/semantic), but pragmatic as well.
In the wider context of this episode, and the whole series, the viewers got to know
the behaviour of the main character, Šojić, and his attempts to lobby for his party’s
political influence and bribe people in order to extend his power. His character is
actually built on the cultural belief that is shared among the speakers of Serbian,
which implies that politicians are dishonest, shrewd and mercenary, and accord-
ingly, this invitation is actually based on this belief. What remains is a question—to
what extent does English affect, change or modify cultural conceptualisations
shared by the speakers of Serbian? However, in order to answer this question, more
synchronic and diachronic studies in the field of Cultural Linguistics are needed.
The analysis of verbal humour in telecinematic discourse from the perspective of

Cultural Linguistics, as shown in the preceding sections, can offer a deeper insight
into several pertinent issues. First of all, humorous discourse, as any other type of
language use, embodies and reflects cultural cognition of a particular linguistic
community. The fact that cultural cognition emerges from the cultural conceptu-
alisations shared by the members of a linguistic community as a group is highly
relevant, especially to telecinematic discourse. Namely, humour found in telecin-
ematic discourse depends on this collective aspect to a great extent in terms of what
is perceived as humorous within a particular linguistic community. In that way
collective cultural conceptualisations affect the extralinguisitc elements that will be
highlighted in verbal humour.
As the results of the analysis indicate, the speakers of two languages, English
and Serbian, differ more in respect to their preferences to specific types of humour
when they are regarded as members of three cultural groups. In that sense, British
and Serbian telecinematic humorous discourse is more based on word play of
different kinds, as opposed to American, which features more verbal humour based
on extralinguistic elements. Specifically, judging by the results of this study, col-
lective cultural conceptualisations that are reflected in British and Serbian
telecinematic discourse give rise to ethnic humour and the ridicule of social classes,
as opposed to American discourse, were the mockery of popular culture is more
highlighted. This comes as no surprise, given the fact that the American films are
usually made for the global market, and the humour that they feature should be
perceived and possibly appreciated by different kinds of audiences all over the
world, hence it contains more global than culture-specific elements. It is interesting,
though, on the linguistic level, that English, as a global language, has found its way
in Serbian telecinematic discourse. In that way, it serves as a basis for a whole range
of interlingual and sometimes intercultural amalgams that are created to achieve the
intended humorous effect.
To sum up, Cultural Linguistics provides an adequate framework to account for
extralinguistic aspects of verbal humour, which play a significant role in creating
verbal humour. These aspects either serve as a basis for verbal humour on their
own, or they accompany the linguistic ones in order to enhance the intended
humorous effect. As much as verbal humour has recently become quite a popular
topic for research, studies dealing with extralinguistic aspects of verbal humour are
really scarce and much needed, especially those carried out within a multidisci-
plinary approach, if we want to learn more about cultural conceptualisations of a
given linguistic community, and their interrelationship with language.
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Author Biography
Diana Prodanović Stankić is an Associate Professor of English and Linguistics at the Department
of English Studies, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad, Serbia. Her research interests
include humorous and multimodal discourse, cognitive and cultural linguistics, pragmatics and
translation, as well as contrastive linguistic studies of English and Serbian. She is the author and
co-author of three monographs and dozens of papers in her field of research.
Chapter 3
Cultural Conceptualisations of DEATH
in Taiwanese Buddhist and Christian
Eulogistic Idioms
Wei-lun Lu
3.1 Introduction: Why and How the Language of Death

Matters
Death is a central issue that all human beings in all cultures have to deal with, as
sooner or later one perishes, and in the course of one’s life, relatives and friends
pass away. In such devastating situations, it is natural that people need to provide
solace to each other, which has put the issue of death at the centre of attention in
religious, philosophical and psychological research for centuries. However, the
issue has been relatively underexplored from the perspective of linguistics, with
only very few exceptions (Capone 2010; Lu 2017; Shurma and Lu 2016). In view
of the need for further research, the present chapter intends to present findings based
on what people actually do with language around an event of death and a Cultural
Linguistic analysis of the findings.
Capone’s (2010) study is a pioneer linguistic inquiry into the language of death,
which investigates the role of social intentionality in ritual contexts, using Catholic
sermons given in southern Italy as data. In that paper, the author argues that in
mourning events, order is paramount, and that rituals serve as powerful transfor-
mative devices that repair interpersonal relations between the mourner and the
family of the deceased. At a funeral, the function of a priest is to vocalise the
family’s feelings and to try to present the deceased to the mourners from God’s
point of view. The paper discusses the interaction of religion with verbal exchanges
at a funeral, and this content may serve as a useful starting point for studying the
language of death. However, a limitation of Capone’s research is that it was con-
ducted in a European context, and the data gathered was solely from a Catholic
source. Another issue lies in the scope of the paper. It is certainly valuable research,
W. Lu (&)
Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
e-mail: wllu@phil.muni.cz

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_3
50 W. Lu
but given its pragmatics-oriented nature, important analytical tools in Cultural

Linguistics (Sharifian 2011, 2017) such as cultural metaphor and distributed cog-
nition are certainly not its focus. Another linguistic investigation by Shurma and Lu
(2016) into the Shakespearean language of death, discusses how the language of
death is translated from one language to another (English to Ukrainian). The
cross-linguistic mismatch of conceptualisation in translation is the main issue of the
paper, however, so once again, rather limited attention is given to the notions of
cultural metaphor and distributed cognition.
In the above two studies, a look at the interplay of metaphors that takes place
when people discuss death in a cultural community is missing. A Cultural
Linguistic analysis is needed to address this aspect. In addition, I believe that a
study of the metaphors of death in an Asian context will help deepen our under-
standing of how people from different cultures (especially one that is distant from
southern Italy) conceptualise death and use cultural conceptualisations as a con-
ceptual tool to construct their worldview of certain types of cultural events.
To this end, the present chapter analyses data from the contemporary East Asian
culture of Taiwan, taking a Cultural Linguistic perspective. The data comes from
the language of funerals in Taiwan, which constitute a distinctive cultural event
category. At a Taiwanese funeral, eulogistic idioms are an integral part of the
ceremony with idioms written and displayed on white cloth banners on the walls of
the funeral hall where the ceremony takes place. The idioms are highly conven-
tionalised and allow no creativity, as they always appear in the form of
four-character idioms, which indicate how deeply rooted they are in local cultural
conceptualisations. The practice is so frequent and culturally significant that the
Taipei City Government has set up an official online system for requesting eulo-
gistic idioms, to be shown on electronic banners at public funeral halls. In the
system, various parameters may affect how people use the idioms, including the
occupation of the deceased, as discussed in Lu (submitted), or the religion of the
deceased, addressed in detail in the present chapter. Interested readers are referred
to Lu (2017) for a detailed description of the eulogy request system and the social
context of its use.
The design of the eulogy request system further provides a convenient platform
for examining the interaction between religion, language and cultural thinking.
When one requests a eulogy, the system asks the mourner to select the religious
belief of the deceased, and accordingly turns up appropriate idioms for selection.
There are two main categories in the system: Buddhist and Christian.1 This chapter
1
In the system, there are actually three options available, including Buddhist, Catholic and
Protestant. However, all the seven idioms in the Catholic category also appear in the Protestant
category (eight idioms), so because of the almost complete overlap and for the convenience of
presentation, I have amalgamated the two categories into the category of Christian. Another
practical reason for this amalgamation is the relatively small population of the two religious groups
in Taiwan, as Catholic and Protestant believers account for only 5% of the Taiwanese population
altogether (Chiu 1988).
3 Cultural Conceptualisations of DEATH in Taiwanese Buddhist … 51
discusses the eulogistic idioms within these two categories and the cultural con-
ceptualisations that underlie the use of their idioms.
3.2 Background and Review: Language and Culture

of Contemporary Taiwan and Previous Studies
of Chinese Cultural Conceptualisations
Taiwan is a multi-ethnic society that consists of various sub-cultural groups,

including the Han Chinese people, which are in the majority, and a number of
Austronesian tribes. Given the predominance of the Han Chinese in Taiwan and the
shared historical heritage, Taiwanese culture is generally believed to be relatively
close to that of the Chinese. The official language used in Taiwan is also Mandarin
Chinese, although the Taiwanese variety is significantly different from the mainland
Chinese variety in terms of its pronunciation and lexical choice.
Given the common use of Mandarin Chinese and the cultural heritage shared
between Taiwan and mainland China, it is important to review relevant Chinese
cultural linguistic studies in general, to see the status of research into the language
of death in Chinese.
Yu’s (1998, 2009) pioneer series of studies address Chinese language and cul-
ture from a cultural-cognitive linguistic perspective. In the two monographs, the
author discusses various cultural symbols based on the Contemporary Theory of
Metaphor (Kövecses 2005, 2006; Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1990, 1993,
1994), including the use of body organs in Chinese idioms, elements of Chinese
medicine and relevant cultural models, etc. Yu (this volume) discusses how the
Chinese language conceptualises the concept of LIFE. However, Yu does not address
the way the Chinese people see death and further religious elements in the Chinese
language are not the concern of Yu’s various studies. From an alternate viewpoint,
Lu and Chiang (2007) in their study approach the Chinese language using the
Contemporary Theory of Metaphor, especially as related to the religious domain.
The authors analyse The Heart Sutra, a major Buddhist canon, and uncover a list of
metaphorical conceptualisations that predominate Buddhist discourse in Chinese.
Once again, the issue of life and death is not a concern of their paper either.
In sum, a Cultural Linguistics discussion about how the Chinese language
conceptualises death and how religion interacts with cultural conceptualisations to
shape the Chinese people’s worldview is still lacking. This chapter offers a pre-
liminary attempt to meet this need.
(Footnote 1 continued)
Daoism is another major religion of Taiwan, but in actual practice, Daoism and Buddhism are
not at all mutually exclusive and even reported to overlap significantly (Chiu 1988). I believe that
is why Daoist is not listed as a separate entry in the eulogy request system.
52 W. Lu
3.3 Findings
In this section, a selection of idioms from the Buddhist and the Christian category
and the cultural conceptual metaphors that are generalised from the entire set of
idioms are presented. In the eulogy request system, 59 eulogistic expressions for
Buddhists and eight for Christians are identified. Each category can be captured by
a highly distinct set of metaphors, or proposition schemas in Quinn’s (1987) term,
which reflect the view of life and death of the two sub-groups (Taiwanese Buddhist
and Taiwanese Christian). I present the groups of cultural metaphors below.
3.3.1 Cultural Conceptualisations Relating to Death

in Taiwanese Buddhist Eulogistic Idioms
The system contains 59 Buddhist eulogistic idioms. At least six major cultural
metaphors can be generalised from the idioms, including DEATH IS REBIRTH, DEATH IS
A JOURNEY TOWARDS REBIRTH, REBIRTH IS WEST, LIFE IS A CIRCLE, A PERSON IS A LOTUS,
HEAVEN IS (A POND/SEA) FULL OF LOTUSES.
3.3.1.1 DEATH IS REBIRTH
The first major cultural metaphor is DEATH IS REBIRTH, which is instantiated by five
idioms. This cultural conceptualisation involves the underlying cultural concept of
REINCARNATION. According to that, life and death form a never-ending cycle, where
death in one life is not only the end of that particular life but also the beginning of
the next. Typical examples from the repertoire are seen in (1)–(3).
(1) 往生淨土
wǎng shēng jìng tǔ
towards life pure land
“(This person has gone) towards life in the pure land”.
(2) 往生極樂
wǎng shēng jí lè
towards life extreme happy
“(This person has gone) towards life in the bliss”.
In (1) and (2), there is a compound wǎngshēng, formed by putting together wǎng
‘towards’ and shēng ‘life’, which is used in contemporary Taiwanese Mandarin as a
euphemism for ‘die’. According to Buddhist belief, after one dies, the soul goes to
heaven, or the pure land or the bliss in (1) and (2), where the soul is ready for
rebirth. The compound wǎngshēng is a linguistic manifestation of the cultural
conceptualisation of DEATH IS REBIRTH in the Taiwanese Buddhist mind, which
underpins the use of various eulogistic idioms.
The existence of the conceptualisation of DEATH IS REBIRTH is further supported by
the existence of another idiom about reincarnation in (3).
(3) 乘願再來
chéng yuàn zài lái
ride wish again come
“(This person will) come again with (great) wishes (of helping the world)”.
In (3), we see that when a person dies, it is believed that they may come to this
world again if they have a great desire to help the world. This matches the Buddhist
belief of existence being a never-ending cycle of life, death and rebirth.
3.3.1.2 DEATH IS A JOURNEY TOWARDS REBIRTH
Note that the MOTION schema is common to and linguistically elaborated in both
(1) and (2) by wǎng ‘towards’ and in (3) by the motion verb lái ‘come’. Therefore,
if one takes into account the motion schema in the above examples, the concep-
tualisation of DEATH IS REBIRTH can have a lower-level instantiation specified as
DEATH IS A JOURNEY TOWARDS REBIRTH. Based on these expressions, it is evident that
in the Taiwanese Buddhist mind, not only does LIFE IS A JOURNEY hold true (cf.
Kövecses 2010: 50; Lakoff 1994: 62–63; Yu 1998: 17–19), but what is significant
in Taiwanese Buddhist culture is that DEATH IS A JOURNEY TOWARDS LIFE. I will come
back to this issue in the Discussion.
3.3.1.3 DEATH/REBIRTH IS WEST
The third cultural conceptualisation identified in the data is DEATH/REBIRTH IS WEST,

which is a culture-specific orientational metaphor. Examples (4) and (5) illustrate
this conceptualisation.
(4) 化滿西歸
huà mǎn xī guī
die complete west return
“(This person) has died; (his life is) complete (and he has) returned
to the west”.
54 W. Lu
(5) 如來西望
rúlái xī wàng
Tathagata west look
“Tathagata/Buddha is looking westward (to bless the deceased)”.
It is clear from the examples that in Taiwanese Buddhist culture, DEATH or

REBIRTH is closely associated with WEST, which is a typical Buddhist belief.
Therefore, after one’s current life reaches the end point, the soul returns to heaven
in the west, as shown in (4), and the Buddha looks westward to bless this person’s
soul, as in (5).
3.3.1.4 LIFE IS A CIRCLE
Another conceptualisation identified in the data is LIFE IS A CIRCLE. Relevant

examples include (6)–(8).
(6) 功德圓滿
gōng dé yuán mǎn
feat virtue circle full
“(This person led a) full (life like a) circle, having had various
achievements”.
(7) 福慧圓滿
fú huì yuán mǎn
blessing wisdom circle full
“(This person led a) full (life like a circle, as he enjoyed all) blessings
(and had all) wisdoms”.
(8) 圓滿菩提
yuán mǎn pútí
circle full bodhi/wisdom
“(This person led a) full (life like a) circle, (as he had) the
wisdom”.
From (6)–(8), one sees that CIRCLE is an important cultural symbol in Taiwanese
Buddhist culture, as it occurs with all sorts of positive attributes to describe a
human in the eulogistic idioms, including achievements, virtue, blessing and wis-
dom. Note also that yuánmǎn is a compound in Mandarin, meaning
‘perfect/perfection’. The common cultural meaning of CIRCLE in Taiwanese culture
and in all the Mandarin speaking, pan-Chinese cultures again testifies to the shared
socio-cultural substrate between these cultures.
In addition, understanding life in terms of a circle is certainly analogous to DEATH

IS REBIRTH. When one draws a circle, the end is the beginning. The adjacent nature
of the beginning and the end provides the conceptual analogical basis for life and
death forming a never-ending cycle. Therefore, the Taiwanese Buddhist use of
CIRCLE as a cultural symbol is in a highly schematic sense connected to the cultural
conceptualisation of DEATH IS REBIRTH.
3.3.1.5 A PERSON IS A LOTUS
The fifth conceptualisation that one may extrapolate from the eulogistic idioms is A
PERSON IS A LOTUS.Example (9) is an illustration.
(9) 蓮華化生
lián huá huà shēng
lotus flower become life
“(This person) turned into being (from a) lotus”.
In (9), a person is conceptualised as a lotus, which embodies the positive

qualities of the lotus plant. In Chinese culture, the lotus symbolises a person of
noble character. The lotus, according to Mr. Zhōu Liánxī, a famous scholar of the
Song Dynasty, has its roots in the mud at the bottom of a pond, but the flower
emerges from the water, untouched by the slime (Zhang 1968). This idea, along
with Mr. Zhou’s writing, has been extensively disseminated in Chinese culture in
various ways, including use of the lotus symbol in eulogistic idioms that we see
here. In Buddhism, the lotus is similarly conceptualised as a symbol for purity and
holiness (Ward 1952). According to the Chinese cultural reasoning that involves
LOTUS, when a person is born into the world, the mind is contaminated by worldly
things so that the soul cannot attain a state of pure wisdom. By comparing a person
to a lotus, their life can be seen as spotless like the lotus flower that radiates purity,
untouched by the filthy world.2 Examples (10) and (11) are further evidence, of the
same cultural metaphor at work, though there are different tropes of speech that
highlight the positive connotation in both examples.
(10) 高登蓮品
gāo dēng lián pǐn
high climb lotus class
“This person has climbed to the top class of lotus”.
2
PURITY is another important cultural concept in Buddhism. For details, see Lu and Chiang (2007:
344).
56 W. Lu
(11) 九品蓮花
jiǔ pǐn lián huā
nine class lotus flower
“This person was a lotus of top quality”.
In (10), an orientational metaphor of GOOD IS UP is at work along with the

conceptualisation of A PERSON IS A LOTUS, thus accentuating the positive connotation
invoked by the lotus symbol. The orientational metaphor is linguistically elaborated
by the characters gāo ‘high’ and dēng ‘climb’. In (11), another cultural symbol
comes into play, which is the number ‘9’, a favourable prophetic sign in Chinese
culture.3 With these textual prompts (Lu 2008), one may be assured that the con-
ceptualisation of A PERSON IS A LOTUS is loaded with positive evaluations in
Taiwanese Buddhist eulogistic idioms.
3.3.1.6 HEAVEN IS (A POND/SEA) FULL OF LOTUSES
A sixth conceptualisation relevant to A PERSON IS A LOTUS is HEAVEN IS (A POND/SEA)

FULL OF LOTUSES. An example of this conceptualisation is seen in (12).
(12) 蓮池海會
lián chí hǎi huì
lotus pond sea gathering
“(The heaven is a) pond of lotuses, (a huge) gathering like the sea”.
Not only is (12) an example based on the A PERSON IS A LOTUS conceptualisation,

but it further involves the conceptualisation of HEAVEN IS A POND FULL OF LOTUSES.
The reasoning is straightforward. A person’s soul goes to heaven after they die, so if
a person is a lotus, it follows that according to Ahrens’ (2010) mapping principle,
because many people die, lotuses that represent their souls all go to heaven, so
heaven is like a pond that hosts a collection of lotuses. These (of course, good)
people’s souls meet in heaven in the way that lotuses gather together in a pond.
Therefore, A PERSON IS A LOTUS, HEAVEN IS A POND FULL OF LOTUSES is a consequential
conceptualisation. But note that the concept SEA is also involved here, which
slightly complicates the story. According to the Taiwanese Buddhist line of
3
For the culture-specificity of orientational metaphors even as basic as GOOD IS UP, see the dis-
cussion in Lu (2016: 572–573, submitted).
thinking, the number of souls is so great that one might lose count, which is akin to
measuring the volume of water in the sea, hence the use of the character hǎi ‘sea’.4
Below are the eulogistic idioms for the other sub-cultural group considered,
which is Taiwanese Christians. These present a completely different worldview of
what death is like.
3.3.2 Cultural Conceptualisations Relating to Death in

Taiwanese Christian Eulogistic Idioms
In the eulogy request system, there are eight idioms for Christians.5 Three con-
ceptualisations have been generalised from these idioms, including DEATH IS REST,
6
HEAVEN IS AN ETERNAL HOME and DEATH IS A RETURN JOURNEY.
3.3.2.1 DEATH IS REST
The first major conceptualisation identified is DEATH IS REST, instantiated by (13) and
(14).7
(13) 安息主懷
ān xí zhǔ huái
peace rest Lord bosom
“(This person is now) resting in the Lord’s bosom”.
(14) 息勞歸主
xí láo guī zhǔ
rest toil return Lord
“(This person has) put down (his) hard work (and has) returned to
the Lord”.
4
In Mandarin Chinese, using SEA to mean an extremely large number is frequent. There are
lexicalised expressions such as rén-shān-rén-hǎi ‘man-mountain-man-sea’, meaning a lot of
people, huā-hǎi ‘flower-sea’, meaning a sea of flowers, among numerous others.
5
I believe that the results presented here should be compatible with Christian metaphors presented
elsewhere (e.g. Charteris-Black 2004; Kövecses 2011), although the metaphorical conceptualisa-
tions presented therein have not been mentioned due to the difference in research method and
genre.
6
DEATH IS REST has been mentioned in the context of poetic language analysis (Kövecses 2010: 50)
but no detailed account was given there.
7
DEATH IS REST is a major conceptualisation in the Christian category but much less so in the
Buddhist category, which will be elaborated further in the Discussion.
58 W. Lu
In (13), death is conceptualised as peaceful rest, evidenced by the use of ān

‘peace’ and xí ‘rest’. In (14), a further observation can be made that in contrast to
death as peaceful rest, life is conceptualised as labourious effort, evidenced by the
use of láo ‘toil’. Therefore, the conceptualisation can be further developed in full as
LIFE IS LABOUR; DEATH IS REST.
In addition to (13) and (14), the metaphor also has a slightly different instanti-
ation, as in (15).
(15) 主內安睡
zhǔ nèi ān shuì
Lord in peace sleep
“(This person is now) sleeping in the Lord peacefully”.
In (15), the metaphorical keyword is shuì, which does not directly invoke REST
but a closely related concept of SLEEP. Therefore, this idiom can be analysed as a
slight variation on the other two in the REST category.
3.3.2.2 HEAVEN IS AN ETERNAL HOME
The second conceptualisation that can be generalised from the Christian eulogistic
idioms is HEAVEN IS AN ETERNAL HOME, illustrated by (16) and (17).
(16) 永住天家
yǒng zhù tiān jiā
forever live heaven home
“(This person is now) living in (his) home in heaven”.
(17) 樂園安家
lèyuán ān jiā
paradise settle home
“(This person has now) settled (his) home in
the paradise”.
In these two examples, we see that the concept of ETERNAL is invoked by the use of
yǒng ‘forever’ in (16) and of ān ‘settle’ in (17).8 If one settles in their home
8
The word ān is polysemous—when used as an adjective, it means ‘peaceful’, but when used as a
verb, it has the meaning of ‘to settle’.
somewhere, one stays there for a long time, even if it is not forever, it is at least related
to the concept of ETERNAL. We also see that the character jiā ‘home’ appears in both
idioms, so that it unequivocally invokes the concept of HOME in both the instances.
3.3.2.3 DEATH IS A RETURN JOURNEY
The third Taiwanese Christian conceptualisation identified in the database is DEATH

IS A RETURN JOURNEY,illustrated by (14) and (18).
(18) 榮歸天家
róng guī tiān jiā
glory return heaven home
“(This person has) returned to his home in heaven with glory”.
In both the examples, the keyword is guī ‘return’. We see that in (14), the
destination of the return journey is the Lord, and that in (18) it is the person’s home
in heaven, which is deeply rooted in Christian belief. But in either case, and without
doubt, DEATH is conceptualised as a return journey in the Taiwanese Christian
culture given the supporting linguistic evidence.
3.4 Discussion
In this section, the theoretical and methodological significance of the findings are
considered. Section 3.4.1 introduces the co-occurrence of conceptualisations in the
idioms, and in Sect. 3.4.2 the conceptualisations shared by the sub-cultures, i.e.
DEATH IS REST and DEATH IS A JOURNEY, are discussed. In Sect. 3.4.2, the cultural
conceptualisation of DEATH IS A JOURNEY, which has not been found in any previous
studies, is also discussed.
3.4.1 Co-occurrence of Metaphors in the Eulogistic Idioms
First of all, it can be seen that more than one conceptualisation may co-exist in one
single idiom in both the idioms for Buddhists and Christians.
Examples (19)–(21) are illustrations from the Buddhist category.
60 W. Lu
(19) 往生西方
wǎng shēng xī fāng
towards life west side
“(This person has) gone for (another) life in the west”.
(20) 往生蓮邦
wǎng shēng lián bāng
towards life lotus country
“(This person has) gone for (another) life in the lotus country”.
(21) 駕返蓮邦
jià fǎn lián bāng
ride return lotus country
“(This person has) gone back to the lotus country on a vehicle”.
The co-existence of multiple conceptualisations can be seen in all these examples.

In (19), there are DEATH IS REBIRTH and DEATH IS WEST, linguistically elaborated by
wǎngshēng ‘towards life’ and xī ‘west’. In (20), the co-occurring conceptualisations
are DEATH IS REBIRTH and HEAVEN IS FULL OF LOTUSES. The metaphors found in (21) are
LIFE IS A RETURN JOURNEY and HEAVEN IS FULL OF LOTUSES. However, note that (21) is
slightly difficult to categorise, as it involves a verb of transportation jià ‘to ride on (a
traffic vehicle, such as a car, plane or an animal)’ so that might involve still another
sub-conceptualisation that has not been discussed above. In particular, the vehicle
for transportation of the deceased is left unspecified, or left outside of the conceptual
profile, in Langacker’s (1987) words, and will have to be investigated further via a
large-scale analysis of the entire database. In any case, the co-existence of multiple
conceptualisations in one single eulogistic idiom is evident in the three examples.
The same observation of conceptualisation co-occurrence also holds for the
Christian category, which can be illustrated by (18). In (18), we see not only DEATH
IS A RETURN JOURNEY but also HEAVEN IS HOME, instantiated respectively by guī
‘return’ and by jiā ‘home’.
From the above discussion and findings, it is evident there is a relationship
between multiple couplings of cultural conceptualisations and linguistic forms and
also that multiple cultural conceptualisations may exist in one single eulogistic
idiom, which is valid for language use by both sub-cultural groups in Taiwanese
society.9
9
For a similar discussion of the multiple coupling between linguistic form and concept, see Lu’s
(2015: 175–176) discussion of Chinese lexical semantics.
3.4.2 Shared Conceptualisations: DEATH IS REST and DEATH IS

A JOURNEY
Another theoretically relevant finding is that two conceptualisations are shared by

the Taiwanese Buddhist and the Taiwanese Christian community, which arguably
testifies to the distributed nature of cultural cognition.
The first conceptualisation that exists in both sub-groups is DEATH IS REST. In
addition to what we saw in the Christian group, Example (22) is an instantiation
from the Buddhist category.
(22) 歇即菩提
xiē jí pútí
rest be bodhi/wisdom
“Rest is the ultimate wisdom”.
Taking (22) along with (13)–(15) into consideration allows one to generalise across
both the sub-groups and to claim that DEATH IS REST is a conceptualisation that exists
across the entire cultural community of Taiwan. However, the fact that this conceptu-
alisation has only one instantiation (out of the total 59) in the Buddhist category, as
opposed to three in the Christian community (out of eight), indicates that this particular
cultural conceptualisation is apparently more cohesive in the Christian community than
in the Buddhist community in the Taiwanese context. On the other hand, although DEATH
IS REST is not a prevalent way of viewing death in the Taiwanese Buddhist community, the
conceptualisation still exists in at least part of the community, evidenced by the existence
of idiom (22). Here, we witness individual variation as a factor that explains the distri-
bution of the idioms—although DEATH IS REST is not a frequent way of verbalising and
conceptualising death by the Taiwanese Buddhist community, the conceptualisation
does exist in a sub-group and is still used by a small number of people within it.10
The second conceptualisation that is shared by both the sub-groups is DEATH IS A
JOURNEY. The conceptualisation is evidenced in various examples, including (1)–(4)
and (19)–(21) in the Buddhist category and (14) and (18) in the Christian category.
Given the high type frequency of the conceptualisation in both groups (6/59 and
2/8), DEATH IS A JOURNEY can be considered a widespread cultural conceptualisation
across both the religious groups in Taiwan.
However, what is theoretically interesting is how death has been discussed in
cognitive linguistics. In the field, it has been extensively reported and agreed upon
that LIFE IS A JOURNEY, where DEATH is conceptualised as THE END OF THE JOURNEY
(Kövecses 2010: 50; Lakoff 1994: 62–63; Yu 1998: 17–19). The discrepancy
between the findings in previous literature and this study’s findings is due to the
10
Interested readers are referred to Sharifian (2011: 4–8) and Frank (2015: 501–502) for a detailed
account of the distributed nature of cultural cognition.
62 W. Lu
difference in the type of data used. The observations made in the previous literature
are based on intuition, and can be seen as highly general cultural conceptualisations
that a language user abstracts from the full repertoire of the usage events (in the
sense of Langacker 1987) that one has encountered over the course of their life.
A direct consequence is that for the purpose of intuition-based research, the user (or
the researcher) is able to come up with only the schema that is instantiated in most
types of cultural events. In contrast, if one takes eulogistic idioms as a specialised
genre, the use of which is highly restricted to a cultural event category (i.e.
funerals), then that provides a very different result, with empirical evidence to
substantiate how metaphorical conceptualisations work within a certain culture and
its sub-groups, especially in a specific type of cultural event.11
Therefore, given the empirical nature of the data present in the eulogy request
system and the vast difference between the conceptualisations found from that data
and what was deduced in previous intuition-based studies, the use of the eulogy
request system constitutes a great research opportunity for investigating how people
in a certain culture (and its sub-cultures) verbalise and conceptualise death.
Therefore, I believe Cultural Linguistics (and general cultural linguistics) research
may benefit from using specialised databases (in this case, the eulogy request system)
for various reasons. First, as has already been shown, the results gained from analysing
authentic language data are very different from those based on intuition only, and
authentic language data certainly provides more contextualised, accurate and useful
insights into the cultural issues being investigated. This methodological issue has been
extensively discussed in corpus linguistics and other fields (for a similar proposal, see
Lucy 1992 or Jensen, this volume). Second, using a specialised database can be fruitful,
as this allows the actual dynamics between sub-cultures within the entire cultural group
to be identified. In the case of this study, the design of the specialised database provided
easily available eulogistic idioms used exclusively by certain sub-groups of a cultural
community, so the cohesiveness within each group and the extent to which the cultural
conceptualisations of the two groups overlapped could be measured.
In this chapter, a selection of eulogistic idioms has been presented from two dif-
ferent cultural sub-groups in Taiwan using the official online eulogy request system
as a specialised database. The comprehensiveness of the database and its special
design allows the dynamic interaction between religion and language use to be
identified and sheds light on how cultural conceptualisations are at work and shape
the worldview in each of the groups.
Six conceptualisations are reflected in the Buddhist idioms in Mandarin Chinese,
including DEATH IS REBIRTH, DEATH IS A JOURNEY TOWARDS REBIRTH, REBIRTH IS WEST, LIFE IS
Shurma and Lu (2016: 20) have a similar finding using authentic data from literary language.
11
A CIRCLE, A PERSON IS A LOTUS, HEAVEN IS (A POND/SEA) FULL OF LOTUSES. There are three
conceptualisations generalised from the Christian idioms, including DEATH IS REST,
HEAVEN IS AN ETERNAL HOME and DEATH IS A RETURN JOURNEY. Within these findings, the
co-occurrence of conceptualisations in one single eulogistic idiom are identified and
the conceptualisation of DEATH IS A JOURNEY was identified as an interesting deviation
of use of the JOURNEY metaphor that has escaped the attention of most scholars. The use
of specialised databases as a contextualised research resource for certain cultural
issues in Cultural Linguistics (or general cultural linguistics) is suggested.
It is hoped that this chapter demonstrates how Cultural Linguistics can shed light
on the ways in which religion, as a cultural factor, contributes to variations in
people’s use of metaphors when verbalising and conceptualising death in a
multi-religious society, in an East Asian (Taiwanese) context. Also it is hoped that
through a study such as this one, more about the nature of human beings can be
revealed by observing their language use, when talking about the end of life, when
what is at stake is a world which is relatively unknown.
Acknowledgements The completion of this chapter was supported by the research grant “The
Language of Death in Taiwan: Evidence from Condolatory Idioms, Presidential Eulogies and the
Self-introductions of Undertakers” (RG002-N-15), awarded by Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for
Scholarly Exchange. I thank Farzad Sharifian and Susanna Carter for valuable comments, with the
typical disclaimer that applies.
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Chapter 4
LIFE AS OPERA: A Cultural Metaphor
in Chinese
Ning Yu
4.1 Introduction
As a multidisciplinary area of research, Cultural Linguistics explores the relation-

ship between language and cultural conceptualization (Palmer 1996; Sharifian
2011, 2015, 2017). It studies the cultural grounding of language and the linguistic
encoding of culture, focusing on cultural conceptualizations, as manifested in lin-
guistic expressions and cultural artefacts, which constitute collective cognition at
the cultural level, namely “cultural cognition” as associated with a cultural group
and distributed heterogeneously across its members (Frank 2015; Sharifian 2008,
2011, 2015, 2017). In examining aspects of cultural cognition, three theoretical
constructs, which fall under the rubric of cultural conceptualizations, have proved
particularly useful; these are cultural schema, cultural category and cultural meta-
phor (Sharifian 2011, 2015, 2017). As an analytical framework with a multidisci-
plinary origin, Cultural Linguistics has drawn upon various disciplines in cognitive
science, among them being cognitive linguistics. In this chapter, I apply some of the
insights of conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) of cognitive linguistics (see, e.g.,
Fusaroli and Morgagni 2013; Gibbs 1994, 2014; Kövecses 2005, 2010, 2015;
Lakoff 1993; Lakoff and Johnson 1980/2003, 1999; Lakoff and Turner 1989) to the
study of a cultural metaphor. I will focus on the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS AN
OPERA as is manifested in Chinese language and culture. This metaphor, as I will
show with some examples, is especially salient in Chinese culture, richly instan-
tiated both linguistically and multimodally. As such, it represents a salient case of
metaphorical conceptualization of life, characterising cultural cognition of the
Chinese as a cultural group.
N. Yu (&)
Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
e-mail: ningyu@psu.edu

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_4
66 N. Yu
4.2 Life as a Show: Play and Opera
As a reference point, I set out with the LIFE IS A PLAY metaphor, which Lakoff and
Turner (1989) suggest is an extraordinarily productive basic metaphor for life in
English. For example, the following everyday expressions from Lakoff and Turner
(1989) each instantiate this conceptual metaphor in one way or another:
(1) a. This is just a rehearsal.
b. She’s my leading lady.
c. He plays an important role in the process.
d. He’s waiting in the wings.
e. Act one was when we met.
f. I’ve been in the spotlight.
g. That’s not in the script.
h. He blew his lines.
i. She brought the house down.
j. And now I face the final curtain.
That is, these linguistic expressions reflect a link in our conceptual system that
connects our schematic knowledge about a form of performing arts, the source
domain of theatric performance, with a mental perspective on life in general, the
target domain here. This makes perfect sense in English-speaking culture, or
Western culture in general, where play has been a major form of performing arts, as
represented and highlighted by the Shakespearean tradition, through its history of
civilisation. For instance, the following famous lines, which are based on the LIFE IS
A PLAY metaphor, are from the scripts of Shakespeare’s own plays:
(2) a. All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.
(As You Like It 2.7)
b. Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more.
(Macbeth 5.5)
In English-speaking culture, as Lakoff and Turner (1989) suggest, the ways in

which a play can be made to correspond to life are extensively developed and
conventionalised. Thus, the schema for a play is very rich. A play performance
involves many essential elements, including actors, make-up, costume, a stage,
scenery, setting and lighting, audiences, scripts, parts, roles, cues, prompts, direc-
tors, casting, playwrights, applause, bowing, and so on. Plays have a formal
structure, typically consisting of prologue, acts and scenes, intermission, epilogue,
and so on. Plays also have a narrative structure, which typically comprises intro-
duction, complication, climax, resolution, etc. Many of these components of the
play schema have a function in the LIFE IS A PLAY metaphor as is manifested in the
English language.
4 LIFE AS OPERA: A Cultural Metaphor in Chinese 67
In studying metaphor in culture, Kövecses (2005) proposes another conceptual

metaphor, LIFE IS A SHOW, which is located at one level higher than that of LIFE IS A
PLAY and LIFE IS A MOVIE in the cluster of conceptual metaphors organised in a
hierarchical structure. It is a higher mapping in the sense that its source concept
SHOW, which can be seen as representing performing arts for the purpose of
entertainment in general, is the superordinate category of PLAY and MOVIE, which can
be seen as its subordinate-level categories, or basic-level concepts in a three-level
hierarchical system (Lakoff 1987). Kövecses (2005) argues that LIFE IS A SHOW is a
central or foundational metaphor that lies at the heart of American culture. While
cultures are characterised by certain central metaphors, the study of such metaphors
and their lower-level versions can help us gain insights into a particular culture.
Along this line, Yu and Jia (2016) argue that, while LIFE IS A PLAY and LIFE IS A
MOVIE also exist as sister subversions in Chinese, the most salient instantiation of
LIFE IS A SHOW as a superordinate-level metaphor in Chinese culture is its basic-level
instance LIFE IS AN OPERA, where “OPERA” refers to Chinese opera, with Beijing opera
as its prototype. This metaphor plays a central role in the Chinese conceptualization
of events and phenomena in various domains of life, constituting a core component
of the Chinese cultural model of life.
As the source domain of the SHOW metaphor, the PERFORMING ARTS frame is
summarised in Table 4.1. As a generic or superordinate category, PERFORMING ARTS
evokes in our conceptual system a complex frame consisting of three aspects:
PEOPLE, PERFORMANCE, and VENUE. It is worth noting that, in the context of Chinese
culture, the three elements highlighted by italics, i.e. PERFORMER, OPERA and STAGE,
are the most salient conceptual elements in their respective aspects. They are
therefore three “focal points” among all elements in the frame. It is perhaps true of
all cultures where the performing arts exist that PERFORMER and STAGE (or its
equivalent) are the two most salient elements in the PERFORMING ARTS frame.
However, it must be stressed that the selection of OPERA as the prototype among
various types of PERFORMING ARTS as a superordinate category is unique to Chinese
culture because by “opera” we really mean all the traditional varieties of Chinese
folk opera, or “Chinese opera” (戏剧 xìjù or 戏曲 xìqŭ) as a cover term, with
Beijing opera as its prototype.
Yu and Jia (2016) argue that OPERA (i.e. Chinese opera) is the central element that
dominates the PERFORMING ARTS frame as the source domain of the LIFE IS A SHOW
metaphor in the Chinese context. Therefore, it has the privilege and priority in
setting “Chinese opera” as the default performance type in a neutral context.
Following on Tables 4.1, 4.2 summarises the opera-centred PERFORMING ARTS frame
in Chinese culture, focusing on PERFORMANCE, i.e. PERFORMER in PEOPLE and STAGE in
VENUE. As shown in Table 4.2, the role types in Chinese opera have their special
names. Each type is also classified into subtypes according to the roles’ gender, age
and character, as is characterised by their special facial makeups and costumes. The
68 N. Yu
stage, as in Table 4.2, consists of a few components: an elevated platform, curtains,

backgrounds, props, etc., of which the first two are more salient.
Yu and Jia (2016) show with ample linguistic data, both qualitative and quan-
titative, collected from real-life discourses and the CCL corpus (Center for Chinese
Linguistics, Peking University) that the LIFE IS AN OPERA metaphor is an extremely
salient one in Chinese culture and that it is systematically and widely manifested in
the Chinese language (see also Yu 2011). They suggest that the Chinese word 戏 xì
‘opera’ should be regarded as one of those cultural keywords, through which
cultures can be studied and understood (Wierzbicka 1992, 1997). Such keywords
offer invaluable insights into cultures because they embody and manifest core
cultural values and serve as “clues to the different cultural universes associated with
different languages” and as “significant evidence for cultural history” (Wierzbicka
1992: 63). In this chapter, I will further the argument with a shifted focus on the
evidence from cultural texts and cultural artefacts. Specifically, my argument here,
in light of Cultural Linguistics (Sharifian 2011, 2015, 2017), is that in the context of
Chinese the LIFE IS AN OPERA metaphor is a cultural metaphor on the basis of its
source concept OPERA being a cultural category with a rich cultural schema. To that
end, I will focus in this chapter on song lyrics as cultural texts and articles of visual
Table 4.1 Major components of the PERFORMING ARTS frame (Yu and Jia 2016)
Performing arts
People Performance Venue
Producer ReceiveR TypeS Acts Performing Viewing
Performer Audience Opera Body Stage Audience’s seats
Director Play Voice Backstage
Playwright Dance Instrument Lighting Control
… Music …
…
Table 4.2 Chinese opera-centred PERFORMING ARTS frame focused on PERFORMANCE (Yu and Jia
2016)
Chinese Opera-Centred PERFORMING ARTS frame
Performer Opera Stage
Role prominence Role type Opera variety Stage component
Leading role Male role (生 shēng) Beijing opera (jīngjù) Platform
Supporting role Female role (旦 dàn) Henan opera (yùjù) Curtain
Painted-face role (净 jìng) Shaoxing opera Background
Middle-aged man role (末 (yuèjù) Prop
mò) Cantonese opera Lighting
Clown role (丑 chŏu) (yuèjù) …
Kun opera (kūnqŭ)
Sichuan opera
(chuānjù)
…
arts (photographs, paintings and calligraphies) as cultural artefacts. My goal here is

to show that LIFE IS AN OPERA as a cultural metaphor is a central theme in Chinese
culture that crystalises and highlights the Chinese cultural values and philosophical
views of life and, as such, is represented and manifested richly and extensively in
varied forms of cultural artefacts. It is hoped that the study will lead to more
insights into the role of culture in shaping metaphorical conceptualization in par-
ticular, and into the relationship between language, culture and cognition in general.
4.3 Evidence from Cultural Texts and Artefacts
In this section I intend to illustrate the salience of the LIFE IS AN OPERA metaphor by
citing examples of cultural texts and artefacts. By “cultural texts and artefacts” here,
I specifically refer to texts of Chinese song lyrics and articles of Chinese visual arts
such as photographs, paintings and calligraphies. In Chinese, the conceptual
metaphor LIFE IS AN OPERA is prototypically instantiated by a four-character idiomatic
expression: 人生如戏 rénshēng rú xì ‘life is (like) an opera’. In fact, this idiom is a
motto-like expression of Chinese views of life, filled with cultural values that are, it
is interesting to note, not necessarily consistent with, and sometimes contradictory
to, each other when applied in different Chinese cultural contexts. As an expression
of the Chinese philosophical stances on or attitudes toward life, it is therefore a
popular theme in Chinese literary, musical and visual arts. Thus, Google searches
by 人生如戏 ‘life is an opera’ led to various songs by that name or some similar
names. The same keyword searches in Google Images (https://images.google.com/)
also led to a large collection of images of visual arts with 人生如戏 ‘life is an
opera’ as their central theme. This collection of images also includes some images
of printed songs with both music and lyrics. Appendix contains five such images of
songs.
4.3.1 Song Lyrics
In this subsection, I cite and discuss the lyrics of seven songs, of which five have
their images provided in Appendix. The Chinese texts are accompanied by their
more literal English translations to their right. Of the seven songs to be discussed,
three have the title 人生如戏 ‘Life Is an Opera’, three are titled 人生大舞台 ‘The
Big Stage of Life’, and one is entitled 人生舞台 ‘The Stage of Life’. My purpose
here is limited to showing the salience of the LIFE IS AN OPERA metaphor in real-life
Chinese discourses, so my discussion of each song is minimal. For a more sys-
tematic analysis of linguistic expressions that manifest this conceptual metaphor in
Chinese see Yu and Jia (2016).
70 N. Yu
(1) Song (a): Life Is An Opera

(Accessed 3/2/2016 at http://www.zhaogepu.com/jianpu/131199.html)
人生如戏 Life Is An Opera
人生就是戏, 演不完的戏, 有的时候悲, 有 Life is just an opera, an opera in which people
的时候喜, 看戏的人儿最呀最稀奇, 最呀最 will forever perform; sometimes it’s tragic,
稀奇。 and sometimes it’s comic; those who watch
陪着流眼泪, 陪着笑嘻嘻, 随着剧中人, 忽 the opera are most strange.
悲又忽喜, 完全完全忘了他自己, 他呀他自 They would burst into tears or giggles, with
己。 the roles inside the opera, becoming sad or
要是你比一比, 谁演的最卖力, 只怕那演员 happy instantly, having completely forgotten
反而不如你, 看戏的人儿个个是戏迷。 themselves.
人生就是戏, 演不完的戏, 有的时候爱, 有 If you make a comparison, to find out who
的时候气, 看戏的人儿个个是戏迷, 个个是 are performing with one’s uttermost effort,
戏迷。 (I’m) afraid the actors would be outperformed
by you, unexpectedly; those who watch the
opera are all theatre buffs.
Life is just an opera, an opera in which people
will forever perform; sometimes they love,
and sometimes they anger; those who watch
the opera are all theatre buffs.
Here, we have a narrator who is a detached, independent observer of the “opera

of life”. According to this narrator, “life is just an opera”, an opera that will never
end and that is full of unpredictable turns and twists. However, people living in this
life are not all actors playing on the stage; instead, some of them should play the
“role” of audience. The narrator is addressing one of the audiences as “you”. If the
audiences are essential and indispensable for the life-opera to carry on, they should
not be so engaged, neither physically nor emotionally, i.e. be so “into it”. Instead,
they should remain “cool” and be detached as much as is the narrator. The general
message is: Don’t take it too seriously with life because, after all, “life is just an
opera”.
(2) Song (b): Life Is An Opera
走过了人生的弯弯曲曲, 岁月啊不曾洗 After we’ve walked over the zigzags of life,
褪珍藏的记忆。 years and months haven’t washed away the
人生就像一场戏, 我方唱罢你登场永远 memories we’ve collected.
不停息。 Life is just like an opera, where I’ve just
人生如戏, 人生如戏, 我们还在忙忙碌碌 finished singing and you would immediately
追逐名利。 step onto the stage, which will never end.
人生如戏, 人生如戏, 我们还在苦苦寻觅 Life is an opera, and life is an opera; we’re still
不能放弃。 very busy chasing fame and profit.
走过了人生的高高低低, 经过了许多许 Life is an opera, and life is an opera; we’re still
多酸甜和悲喜。 seeking toilsomely and would not quit.
(continued)
(continued)
人生就像一场戏, 落幕后我和你都要离 Having walked over the ups and downs of life,
去。 we’ve experienced lots of sweet and sour, and
人生如戏, 人生如戏, 平平淡淡从从容容 lots of happiness and sadness.
是人生真谛。 Life is just like an opera; after the curtain falls,
人生如戏, 人生如戏, 最终一切都像云烟 you and I will both have to leave.
随风而去。最终一切都像云烟随风而 Life is an opera, and life is an opera; plainness
去。 and calmness are the true meaning of life.
Life is an opera, and life is an opera; eventually
everything would be gone with the wind like
clouds and smokes, like clouds and smokes.
Like song (a), this song again comments on the meaninglessness of chasing fame
and profit in life, which after all is only an “opera” and therefore is not real.
Although the life-opera would never end, everyone’s turn for performance on the
stage is limited, and the curtain would fall on everyone, who would then have to
step down from the life-stage. To have a plain and calm life is the true meaning of
life since everything would eventually be gone with the wind like clouds and
smokes. The general message is again: Don’t take it too seriously with life because,
after all, “life is just an opera”. Apparently, the narrator is able to “see” the true
meaning of life by watching the life-opera on a philosophical height (i.e. KNOWING/
UNDERSTANDING IS SEEING). This is because the narrator is also a laborious “traveller”
who has actually undergone the twisted process of life-journey (i.e. LIFE IS A
JOURNEY).
(3) Song (c): Life Is An Opera

(Accessed 3/2/2016 at http://ox8289.blog.163.com/blog/static/1681836732012
1018113822105)
你已经离我而去, 再不能与你相聚, 我的眼 You’ve left me and gone, and I could never
里, 是想你的泪滴, 我的心里, 是难言的悲 be with you again; in my eyes are the tears of
凄。 missing you, and in my heart is the sadness
为什么你要与我分离?不知道我是错在哪 beyond words.
里, 感动的誓言依然牢记, 结成的果实悄然 Why did you want to break up with me?
变异。 Don’t know where I did wrong; the touching
莫非是人生如戏, 这一幕已经完毕, 戏中话 oath is still fastened in my heart, but its fruits
语, 不应该属于你, 剧中情意, 是虚假的演 have gone bad quietly.
技。 It may be because life is an opera and this act
你的演技却把我感激, 我已经被你深深沉 is already over; the lines in the opera should
迷, 曲终人散呆呆的伫立, 角落里孤独伤心 not have been yours, and the affection in the
自己。 opera was fake from acting skills.
(continued)
72 N. Yu
(continued)
人生如戏, 真真假假的演义, 我无法分析; Your acting skills nonetheless made me feel
人生如戏, 虚虚实实的传奇, 我不能洞悉。 grateful, and I was already profoundly
charmed by you; after the music ended and
the audiences dispersed, I stood stupefied in a
corner, feeling saddened for myself in
loneliness.
Life is an opera, with true and false romance,
which I am unable to analyse; life is an opera,
with fake and real legend, which I am unable
to understand.
This is a love song in which the first-person narrator, having been abandoned by
her lover, is expressing her feelings of sadness, loneliness and confusion, directed
to her ex-lover as the second-person addressee “you”. Here, the overall message is
negative and cynic: Life is an opera in which nothing is real and everything is
playacting. On the webpage, the lyrics of the song are accompanied by the image in
Fig. 4.1. The image features a young lady, with tattoos or paintings on her body
that appears to be naked. On her head, however, the young lady wears typical
makeups and decorations of a young “female role” (旦角 dànjué) in Beijing opera.
She appears quite sad, her left hand seemingly wiping off tears on her face. On the
top of the image is the title of the song “Life Is an Opera”, followed by two stanzas
(the third and fourth ones; see above) of the lyrics of the song. The verbal message
on the image appears to be written with a brush pen, displaying the characteristics
of Chinese calligraphy. As such, the image appears to be a visual instantiation of a
conceptual blend in which “real life” and “fake opera” (as well as the traditional and
the current) are mixed together. A naked young lady with tattoos or paintings on her
body is unlikely to be found as a character in Chinese opera; this narrator is a
human person in “real life”. However, the person in “real life” is wearing the mask
of a prototypical dàn role that can be found only in a “fake opera”. This is because,
to this young lady, the first-person narrator, “life is an opera” in a “real” sense.
The next three songs are titled人生大舞台, which I translated into English as
“The Big State of Life”. The Chinese title, however, can be translated as “Life Is a
Big Stage”, too (see the first line of Song d below). As such, it can be seen as a
linguistic instantiation of the underlying conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A STAGE,
which, as I suggested elsewhere (Yu 2011), is a variant of LIFE IS A SHOW or LIFE IS AN
OPERA, with the source domain containing a within-domain mapping, namely, a
metonymy: STAGE FOR OPERA or LOCATION FOR ACTIVITY. So interpreted, we can
formulate a conceptual metaphor that explicitly includes this metonymy in the
expression: LIFE IS A STAGE FOR AN OPERA.
Fig. 4.1 The image that

accompanies the lyrics of
Song (c) on the webpage
(4) Song (d): The Big Stage of Life

人生大舞台 The Big Stage of Life
都说人生是舞台, 生旦净末 Everyone says life is a stage, dominated by (all five types of
丑主宰。 roles) sheng, dan, jing, mo, and chou (see Table 4.2).
有人扮得好辛苦, 投入进去 Some people act so hard, having gotten themselves into their
出不来。 roles but unable to get out.
有人游刃又有余, 为什么下 Some of them act so skillfully, but why their endings are so
场很悲哀。 tragic.
匆匆人生数十载, 本色出演 During the hurried span of several decades of life, it is most
最可爱。 lovely for people to play the roles of themselves.
用情入戏戏自真, 掌声如雷 Being passionate and getting into your role, your
传天外。 performance will naturally look real, and the applause should
嬉戏人生巧用尽, 风烛明灭 be like thunder soaring into the space.
冷戏台。 Once cleverness is exhausted in a playful opera of life, the
人生大舞台, 都盼花满怀。 stage would become cold like a candle guttering and going
心正身正台风正, 生旦净末 out in the wind.
丑, 样样都精彩。 Life is a big stage, and everyone hopes one’s bosom will be
filled with flowers.
If one’s heart and body are straight, one’s stage demeanour
will be straight as well; one’s performance should be brilliant
no matter which type of role one plays among sheng, dan,
jing, mo, or chou.
While life is a big stage, everyone plays one or another type of role on this stage.
Perhaps everyone on this life-stage expects to play a leading role, a role that is
ideally one’s own choice, and hopes to put on an outstanding performance, a great
showing. In reality, however, no matter which type of role one plays, it is important
that one play one’s own role, namely be one’s true self. This is because, in the
source domain of OPERA, every actor plays a role that is not oneself; in the target
domain of LIFE, however, it is not so desirable for one to “act” and pretend to be
74 N. Yu
someone else. “Playacting” in real life is pretentious. What is even more important
is that one should be morally straight on the stage of life. In that case, one’s stage
demeanour will be straight as well. It follows that one’s performance should be
brilliant regardless of the type of role one plays on this stage. This song promotes
moral uprightness and encourages the best performance of one’s true self on the big
stage of life.
(5) Song (e): The Big Stage of Life
人生大舞台, 每天都开拍, 时光不剪彩, 岁 Life is a big stage, where the camera is
月不彩排。 shooting every day; time will not do ribbon
你热血澎湃, 我激情满怀, 风流撒世界, 无 cutting, and years and months will not do
处不精彩。 rehearsals.
日出日落, 花谢花开, 春华秋实, 多少兴衰, Your hot blood’s surging, and my bosom’s
美好时代, 时不我待, 潇洒美丽就是现在。 filled with passion; unrestrained spirit and
人生大舞台, 每天都实拍, 开心不竞猜, 微 behaviour are scattered all over the world, in
笑不做派。你为我加油, 我为你喝彩, 人 which splendidness spreads everywhere.
人献真情, 处处充满爱。 The sun rises and sets; the flowers blossom
风舞九州, 龙腾四海, 花好月圆, 幸福天籁, and whither; the prosperity of spring and the
梦想不败, 青春常在, 放飞未来, 快乐豪 harvest of autumn alternate with cycles of
迈。 wax and wane; in this age of excellence, time
will await nobody; be brilliant and beautiful
here and now.
Life is a big stage, where the camera is rolling
every day; happiness doesn’t come from
chances, and smiles don’t come from acting.
You root for me, and I cheer for you;
everyone displays real affection, and it’s filled
with love everywhere.
The phoenix flying over China and the dragon
rising above the four seas; the flowers
blooming and the moon waxing; the sounds
of nature pleasantly appealing, the dreams
always coming true, the youth constantly
lasting; let the future fly, and be happy and be
proud.
In this song the first-person narrator, being one of those performing on the
life-stage, conveys a positive message of a didactic nature: It is show time here and
now on the big stage of life, and let us all do our best of acting and enjoy our time.
Although life is an opera on this big stage of life, there is nonetheless no rehearsal
possible for the life-opera. Every moment of it is being live televised with cameras
rolling on and on. Due to the cooperative nature of opera performance, the best
show is produced when all the performers, in both leading and supporting roles, act
well in collaboration and coordination. This is also true on any scale of social life.
Ideally, the world would be a much better place for all if people could help one
another and treat each other with true love and affection, that is, “rooting and
cheering” for others for the betterment of life in general.
(6) Song (f): The Big Stage of Life
(Accessed 2/2/2015 at http://video.sina.com.cn/v/b/124547694-2492417584.
html)
人生大舞台, 百花争艳, 戏剧人生天天 On the big stage of life, a hundred flowers vie for
演。 glamour; the opera of life is performed everyday.
有导演, 有演员, 叱咤风云起烽烟。 There are directors, and there are performers, all
走上大舞台, 演就认真演, 争取满堂彩, commanding wind and storm and lighting flames
不枉演一遍。 of excitement.
虽想扮演帝王将相, 却演的是走卒马 Walking onto the big stage, one should perform
弁, 芸芸众生万万千, 岂能人人都如 seriously, trying to bring the house down, so that
愿。 one has not performed in vain.
人生大舞台, 百花争艳, 戏剧人生人人 Although one wants to play emperor, king,
演。 general, or prime minister, one actually plays,
有主角, 有配角, 轻歌曼曲舞翩跹。 however, a soldier or a bodyguard; there are
走上大舞台, 只能演一遍, 后退已无路, millions and billions of people, how can
步步走向前。 everyone fulfil one’s wishes.
虽想扮演凤凰展翅, 却演的是龙落浅 On the big stage of life, a hundred flowers vie for
滩, 天时地利多变幻, 问心无愧我心 glamour; the opera of life is performed by
安。 everyone.
人生大舞台, 百花争艳, 你演我演大家 There are leading roles, and there are supporting
演。 roles, all presenting lovely songs and elegant
虽非太阳普天照, 繁星点点也灿烂。 music, and graceful dance.
Walking onto the big stage of life, one can only
perform once; there is no way back, and one can
only go forward step by step.
Although one wants to play phoenix flying high
with spreading wings, one actually plays a
dragon stuck in a shoal; while the circumstances
change so quickly, I have a clear conscience and
my mind is at peace.
On the big stage of life, a hundred flowers vie for
glamour; you perform, I perform, and everyone
performs.
Although it’s not the sun shining all over, the
array of stars flashing here and there is also
brilliant.
As can be seen, song (f), to some extent, repeat the main themes of both song
(d) and song (e). On the big stage of life, people perform everyday. Everyone wants
to play important, leading roles, but very often they are actually playing a sup-
porting role that is insignificant at all. While everyone wants to succeed on the big
stage of life, some of them end up in failure. No matter what role one plays, one
should take it seriously and perform with full effort, because everyone, with no
exception, can perform on this life-stage only once. If everyone puts on the best
performance possible, the opera on the big stage will be a brilliant show. The song
76 N. Yu
contains quite a few idiomatic expressions that are filled with cultural meanings and
values.
(7) Song (g): The Stage of Life
人生舞台 The Stage of Life
人生的舞台, 大幕已拉开; 啊年轻的朋 On the stage of life, the grand curtains have been
友, 在生活之中, 你展示什么姿态? drawn apart; ah, my young friends, what stance
是演喜剧, 欢笑中藏着多少苦楚?是演 do you want to present in life?
悲剧, 落泪中包含多少期待? If you are playing in a comedy, how much
人生的舞台, 这一出戏里, 啊年轻的朋 suffering is hidden in your laughter? If you are
友, 你塑造的形象, 是否可敬可爱? playing in a tragedy, how much hope is
朋友, 你快快挺起胸怀, 你莫徘徊, 你要 contained in your falling tears?
自信自爱, 登上人生这座舞台! On the stage of life, in this opera, ah my young
即使在戏中你扮演小小配角, 啊年轻的 friends, is the image that you are shaping
朋友, 你也要叫它焕发出迷人的色彩。 respectable and lovable?
My friends, please throw out your chest, and
don’t hesitate; you should have self-confidence
and self-respect, and mount this stage of life!
Even if you play a tiny supporting role in the
opera, ah my young friends, you should make it
glow with charming brilliance.
The last song, song (g), is titled “The Stage of Life”. In this song, the narrator
calls upon the “young friends” to mount the stage of life, on which the curtains are
already apart and the opera has started. This life-opera could be a comedy or a
tragedy, in which happy laughs wrap sufferings and miseries contain hopes.
Although the young friends may be playing the “tiny supporting role” in the
life-opera, it is up to them, the actors and actresses, to make the roles they are
playing “glow with charming brilliance”. It is the posture and image that they shape
and present on the stage of life that are essential and crucial.
4.3.2 Visual Arts
In this subsection, I present some images of visual arts as multimodal evidence for
the salience of the LIFE IS AN OPERA metaphor in Chinese culture. It is worth noting at
this point that the Chinese word 戏 xì ‘opera’, which originally refers to any variety
of Chinese folk opera with Beijing opera as its prototype, has undergone meaning
expansion, which has given rise to various metonymic and metaphoric extensions.
In Chinese, thus, xì can refer broadly to any performance or acting in the per-
forming arts, in plays or movies, for instance. However, Chinese opera is a pro-
totypical type of performing arts in traditional Chinese culture, and because of
prototype effect, it has the privilege to be the default mental images evoked when
triggered by the use of xì in a neutral context (Yu and Jia 2016). Thus, for instance,
Fig. 4.2 Images of Chinese calligraphies with the theme of “Life is an opera”
xì in song (c) is neutral between Beijing opera and play (both consisting of a certain
number of acts) in surface, but as evidenced by Fig. 4.1, xì indeed invokes the
mental images of Beijing (or Chinese) opera, which are externalised and visualised
by the illustration in that figure. Such visual and multimodal evidence is of special
significance in the study of conceptual metaphors (see, e.g., Forceville and
Urios-Aparisi 2009; Forceville and Renckens 2013). In the following, I present
more cultural artefacts as multimodal evidence. The evidence comes from three
categories: calligraphy, painting and photography.
Figure 4.2 is comprised of four images of calligraphic writings. The significance
of such writings as visual arts in Chinese culture lies in the fact that oftentimes
Chinese calligraphers express philosophical-sounding mottos or maxims, which are
filled with cultural meanings and values, with this artistic form. The four images in
Fig. 4.2, which display some variations in style, serve as examples that highlight
the motto expression of a Chinese cultural conceptualization of life. They frame a
prototypical Chinese worldview of life in a metaphorical mould. As such, images
(a) and (b) are calligraphic presentations of the four-character motto: 人生如戏
‘Life is an opera’. In images (c) and (d) the motto expression is extended and
elaborated a little as follows:
(8) a. 人生如戏, 全靠演技。你是自己生命的作者, 何必写这么难演的剧本。
Life is an opera, in which one relies entirely on one’s acting skills. You are the
playwright of your own life, so why should you write a script for yourself that is
so hard for you to act out?
b. 人生如戏, 真实但却虚幻; 戏如人生, 虚幻但却真实。

Life is an opera, and it is real but illusive; an opera is life, and it is illusive but real.
As in (8a), if “life is an opera”, then people leading that life as an opera are
actors and actresses whose acting skills are of utter importance for their success or
78 N. Yu
survival in this show business. Further, it is suggested that, since everyone is the
playwright of one’s own life (i.e. one can actually decide which path of life one
wants to take), so why should one write a script so hard for oneself to act out (i.e.
why should one be so hard on oneself)? The message conveyed is that: Life is an
opera, and everything in it is fake, coming from acting skills; one should take it
easy in life and not make it so hard for oneself. This is a quite cynical view of life,
but it is of some positive value to people who are “too hard” on themselves in life.
Example (8b) characterises the correspondence between life and opera—the
latter being a dramatised epitome of the former—with a mirror-like expression of
parallel structure and of paradoxical or oxymoronic nature. It is an extension and
elaboration of人生如戏, 戏如人生 ‘Life is an opera; an opera is life’, which is an
old saying in Chinese culture. A synonymous couplet in the profession of opera
performing art is: 戏台小天地, 天地大戏台 ‘The opera stage is small heaven and
earth; heaven and earth are a big opera stage’. Of this couplet the second half is a
metonymic extension of 人生如戏 ‘Life is an opera’. In traditional Chinese culture,
the “heaven and earth” metonymically stand for the “world”, and for “life” that
unfolds between them. In a similar vein, the “opera stage” as venue or location
metonymically stands for “opera” itself as activity. Thus, “heaven and earth are a
big opera stage” is a linguistic instantiation of a conceptual metaphor that involves a
metonymic mapping in both the source and the target domain: HEAVEN AND EARTH
FOR LIFE ARE A STAGE FOR OPERA.
Figure 4.3 comprises seven images of Chinese paintings on the theme of “Life is
an opera”. They feature various role types in Chinese opera. Typically characteristic
of this type of Chinese fine arts, drawn with the Chinese brush pen, all the paintings
have calligraphic writings on them as well. Since their theme is “Life is an opera”,
all of them have at least人生如戏 ‘Life is an opera’ as the caption. For instance,
image (e) has the following line written by the artist: 人生如戏, 戏亦人生; 个中情
节何必认真 ‘Life is an opera, and an opera is life, too; why one should take its plot
so seriously’.
Finally, I turn to some examples of photography with the theme of “Life is an
opera”. First, look at the examples in Fig. 4.4.
As two photographs of the same set, each of them features two face images of
the same actress in Chinese opera makeups. The two face images, one bigger and
one smaller, are overlapped with each other, with neither one so clearly delineated
or presented. Both photographs are accompanied with captions to the right, as
rendered in (9).
(9) a. 人生如戏: 人生就象一场戏, 戏里戏外我们都扮演着主角, 演绎着世间悲喜离

合…
Life is an opera: Life is just like an opera; we are playing a leading role within or
beyond opera, performing sorrows and joys, partings and reunions, in life…
b. 人生如戏: 从哇哇坠地, 每一个人就都是戏子, 不管你是否愿意接受命运安排的

角色。
Life is an opera: Ever since the time of birth, everyone is an opera performer,
regardless of whether you are willing to accept the role arranged by the fate.
(a) (b) (c)
(d) (e) (f) (g)

Fig. 4.3 Images of Chinese paintings with the theme of “Life is an opera”
(a) (b)
Fig. 4.4 Two images of photographs with captions on “Life is an opera”
In (9a), life is said to be “just like an opera”, which is a clear case of simile. We
are all “playing a leading role” in our own life regardless of whether or not our life
is conceived of as an opera. In any event, we simultaneously performing and
experiencing our role of various kinds in the world no matter whether or not it is
conceived of as a stage. As in (9b), since life is an opera, each of us becomes an
opera performer ever since our births and starts playing our roles as arranged by the
fate, willingly or unwillingly.
The last set of photographs, provided in Fig. 4.5, is from an online photography
collection entitled 唯美中国风: 人生如戏 ‘The Chinese Wind of Aestheticism:
80 N. Yu
Life Is an Opera’ (Accessed 3/20/2016 at http://www.manshijian.com/articles/

article_detail/159534.html). It is called “Chinese Wind” because it is perceived as
being uniquely and characteristically Chinese and as being extremely popular like a
“wave” in fashion. As shown in the collection, all the photographs highlight 旦角
dànjué ‘female role’ of Beijing opera as the prototype of Chinese opera. This is
because this type of role embodies the traditional Chinese aesthetic view of beauty.
This collection and some similar online photograph collections (as well as a large
number of multimodal presentations available online) with the theme of “Life is an
opera” mark “a draft of wind” to restore the old customs or traditions and to return
to the ancients (复古风 fùgǔ fēng) in aesthetics as well as in popular culture.
4.3.3 Summary
In this section, I presented some cultural artefacts as multimodal evidence in sup-

port of the argument that the LIFE IS AN OPERA metaphor is a central one in Chinese
(a) (b) (c) (d)
(e) (f) (g)
(h) (i) (j) (k) (l)

Fig. 4.5 Images of a collection of photographs with the theme on “Life is an opera”
culture in contrast to, for instance, the LIFE IS A PLAY metaphor in the West. More
specifically, I presented first the lyrics of seven songs and then four images of
Chinese calligraphies, seven images of Chinese paintings, and 14 images of pho-
tographs, all centering on the theme of “Life Is an Opera”. That is, LIFE IS AN OPERA,
as a cultural metaphor based on a dominant cultural category (OPERA) and a rich
cultural schema for Chinese opera, serves as a core component of the Chinese
cultural conceptualization of life. In the next section, I will zoom into the role of
culture in the shaping of this metaphorical conceptualization of life as opera.
4.4 The Role of Culture in Metaphorical

Conceptualization of Life as Opera
As shown in the preceding sections, the LIFE IS AN OPERA metaphor is by nature a

culture-specific metaphor because “opera” really refers to Chinese or Beijing opera.
Yu and Jia (2016) presented linguistic evidence for the salience of this metaphor in
Chinese culture, suggesting that the Chinese word 戏 xì be regarded as a cultural
keyword (Wierzbicka 1992, 1997) and that this metaphor with the source concept
encoded by xì be seen as a central metaphor characteristic of Chinese culture
(Kövecses 2005). In Sect. 3, I presented further evidence with examples of cultural
artefacts, both lyrical and visual (fine-artistic, calligraphic and photographic). My
point is, again, that the LIFE IS AN OPERA metaphor is so salient in Chinese culture that
it is a cultural metaphor located at the core of the Chinese cultural model of life,
serving as a lens through which life is viewed and conceptualised in a way that is
specifically Chinese. At the same time, however, the cultural metaphor is shaped by
this cultural model. In this section, I would like to focus on the role of culture in
shaping this conceptual metaphor.
According to CMT, metaphor involves three levels of phenomena. At the level
of linguistic usage, which is the surface that is perceptible, is what is known as
“linguistic metaphor”. Linguistic metaphor is said to consist in a particular lin-
guistic pattern that manifests the underlying “conceptual metaphor” which, in turn,
is grounded in a special experiential basis which can be defined broadly as the
interaction between cultural experience and bodily experience (Maalej and Yu
2011; Sharifian et al. 2008; Yu 1998, 2008, 2009a, b). All three levels of phe-
nomena, however, exist in the sphere of culture, as shown in Fig. 4.6.
Specifically, at the conceptual level, metaphor involves a mapping from the
source domain to the target domain. In the case of LIFE IS AN OPERA, the target
domain is LIFE and the source domain is the conceptual frame of CHINESE OPERA (see
Table 4.2), which inherits the properties and elements in the PERFORMING ARTS frame
in general (see Table 4.1). If a conceptual metaphor is shared by the members of a
cultural group, it is then part of cultural conceptualization, which is the focus of
Cultural Linguistics studies (Sharifian 2003, 2011, 2015, 2017; see also Musolff
2015, this volume).
82 N. Yu
As mentioned recurrently, Beijing opera is the prototype of Chinese opera as a

cultural category. As such, it is the best and most widely known variety of Chinese
opera, with an extremely rich cultural schema among the Chinese, and has the
privilege and priority in representing Chinese opera as a whole. Note that, as the
source domain of the LIFE IS AN OPERA metaphor, the conceptual frame of BEIJING
OPERA as a cultural category is extremely rich and complex, organising and struc-
turing our rich knowledge about Beijing opera, characterised saliently by its set yet
varied patterns in PEOPLE, PERFORMANCE and VENUE. The aspect of PEOPLE includes the
special role types and their characteristic makeups, masks, decorations and cos-
tumes, and the special ways of interaction between performers and audiences
throughout the process. The aspect of PERFORMANCE includes the roles’ special ways
of singing, speaking and acting with particular patterns of bodily acts and moves, as
well as musical and percussive accompaniment performed with specific instruments
as prelude to the opera and links between its acts and throughout the opera per se.
The aspect of VENUE includes the special use of lighting, and of setting such as
particular decorations of the stage with background and props. Thus, this concep-
tual frame of BEIJING OPERA, exceptionally rich and complex, is part of our cultural
knowledge that the Chinese people have gained through their frequent contacts with
Beijing opera while being raised and immersed in Chinese culture. It is because this
conceptual frame is complex with a large number of components well patterned in a
Source expression Target expression

Linguistic experience
Linguistic metaphor
Source domain Target domain
Conceptual metaphor
Cultural experience Bodily experience
Experiential basis
Culture
Fig. 4.6 Three levels of phenomena for metaphor in culture

systematic way that this conceptual metaphor as a cultural metaphor rooted in it is a

typical case of “structural metaphor” (Lakoff and Johnson 1980) that maps rich
inference structures from the source domain onto the target domain.
As indicated in Fig. 4.6, conceptual metaphor is not arbitrary, but grounded in its
experiential basis. This experiential basis, however, emerges from the interaction
between bodily and cultural experience. There are various kinds of bodily experi-
ence but only some of them can emerge through the “cultural filter” and participate
in metaphorical mappings (Yu 2008). Bodily experience refers to the fundamental
lived experience and operating activity with and from the sensorimotor system of
the human person as an embodied being functioning in the physical world. This
physical world, however, can never be void of culture; instead, physical environ-
ment has always been affected and constructed by the changing culture in and over
it. Thus, people who live in a particular physical environment simultaneously
experience the culture coupled with it. This is what I refer to as “cultural experi-
ence”, which includes, in Chinese culture, watching Beijing opera in a theatre, in a
film, on TV, on a computer, or on a iPad, or listening to it on a radio or on another
kind of mobile device like a iPhone, or appreciating it on Chinese paintings, in
Chinese calligraphies or photographs, or reading about it in literary or nonliterary
texts, or singing songs concerning it or containing its characteristic elements, and so
on and so forth. As a cultural icon, indeed, Beijing opera has penetrated Chinese
people into their inner world long before they can actually realise it. Because
Beijing opera is such a salient and iconic aspect of traditional Chinese culture, the
Chinese experience with it is profound and the conceptual metaphor that is based on
it is also salient in this culture, hence, a cultural metaphor. Because Beijing opera is
a unique form of performing arts in traditional Chinese culture, hence, a cultural
category with a rich cultural schema, the conceptual metaphor that deploys it as the
source domain should be culture-specific, even though it also shares many elements
and components, at a more abstract level of PEOPLE, PERFORMANCE and VENUE, with
many other forms of performing arts found in various cultures.
According to CMT, linguistic metaphors manifest underlying conceptual
metaphors. Language itself is a mirror and carrier of culture. How conceptual
metaphors are manifested in a particular language has a great deal to do with the
culture with which the language is coupled, as the result of the interaction between
language and culture. Linguistic instantiations of the same conceptual metaphor can
be similar or different in various languages. Such similarities and differences across
languages are analysable in terms of a set of contextual factors—situational, dis-
course, conceptual-cognitive and bodily—at a more specific level (Kövecses 2015).
At a generic level, contextual factors arise from the interaction between culture,
body and language (Maalej and Yu 2011; Sharifian et al. 2008; Yu 2009a, b). As
shown in Fig. 4.6, there is a line pointing from linguistic metaphor to conceptual
metaphor. This line represents the possibility and potential of the former exerting an
influence on the latter (see, e.g. Casasanto 2016; Gibbs 2014). That is, people using
different metaphors in their respective languages conceptualise the target the way
they talk about it (Casasanto 2016). Through their repeated use, linguistic
84 N. Yu
metaphors can possibly or potentially reinforce, modify, or even produce (espe-

cially through linguistic inheritance) conceptual metaphors. Yu and Jia (2016: 177)
suggest that:
linguistic manifestations of conceptual metaphors in characteristic patterns in languages are
not just a simple consequence of conceptual mappings in thought. Instead, characteristic
linguistic patterns in a language influence its speakers’ way of viewing the world and their
experience in it. They constitute whole-sale packages that the speakers of the language
inherit as part of their cultural and cognitive heritage. For that matter, they carry special
weight on and for those who carry them.
As outlined in Fig. 4.6, there exist three kinds of experience that work and
mingle together to shape the formation of conceptual metaphors in particular, and
human cognition in general. First, there is bodily experience that contributes to it as
the result of human embodiment (Gibbs 2006). This bodily experience, however,
always interacts with cultural experience in a specific environment or situation.
That is, embodiment is forever socioculturally situated (Frank et al. 2008). Finally,
there is also linguistic experience inherited by its speakers as part of their cultural
and cognitive heritage. All three kinds of experience, nevertheless, are situated in
the sphere of culture. Culture is a superior force that permeates human conceptu-
alization and cognition. That is why it is of utter importance to study cultural
conceptualization and cultural cognition, on which Cultural Linguistics focuses.
4.5 Conclusion
In this chapter, I set out to examine a culture-specific conceptual metaphor LIFE IS AN

OPERA by focusing on its salience in various cultural artefacts in the forms of lyrics,
Chinese calligraphies, Chinese paintings and Chinese-style photographs. This
cultural metaphor plays an important role in the Chinese cultural model of life,
framing Chinese attitudes toward life and characterising a Chinese worldview on
life. I then moved on to discuss the role of culture in shaping conceptual metaphors.
It was noted that there are three kinds of experience at work: bodily experience,
cultural experience and linguistic experience. While the first two constitute the
experiential basis from which conceptual metaphors emerge as a result of human
cognition being embodied in sociocultural situation, the third kind, linguistic
experience, manifests conceptual metaphors in human communication according to
the definition of culture. In doing so, linguistic experience either reinforces
underlying conceptual metaphors, or modifies them with the change of culture and
language. Since linguistic experience is whole-sale packages inherited by the
speakers of the language as their cultural and cognitive heritage, it in this sense also
produces conceptual metaphors in the minds of each new generation.
Appendix
Images of the songs under study collected through Google searches
(a) (b) (c)
(d) (e)
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Author Biography
Ning Yu is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Asian Studies at The Pennsylvania State
University. His areas of research include the relationship between language, culture and cognition
and cognitive approach to metaphor studies. He is the author of The Contemporary Theory of
Metaphor: A Perspective from Chinese (John Benjamins 1998), The Chinese HEART in a
Cognitive Perspective: Culture, Body and Language (Mouton de Gruyter 2009) and From Body to
Meaning in Culture: Papers on Cognitive Semantic Studies of Chinese (John Benjamins 2009).
Chapter 5
Cultural Conceptualisations of Collective
Self-representation Among Chinese
Immigrants
Yanying Lu
5.1 Introduction
This chapter focuses on the linguistic features found in speaking about ‘oneself’ in
Chinese to explore the cultural meanings of the speakers’ identities as immigrant
Chinese. The tools of Cultural Linguistics can be usefully applied to the exploration
of cultural conceptualisations reflected in the language of migration and people’s
narrative accounts of being a Chinese person in Australia. It is hoped that the study
will contribute to scholarship by analysing the cultural schemas that play a sig-
nificant role in conceptualising immigration and immigrant identity among con-
temporary Chinese in the cross-cultural context.
Recent years have seen China as the largest single contributor to the international
student population in Australia. The latest Australian Social Trends report shows
that one-fifth of all student visa applications lodged and granted were from China in
2010–2011 (18 and 20% respectively) (ABS 2011). An increasing number of young
Chinese who were born and raised in Mainland China come to Australia to better
their education. Many of them decide to stay in Australia and enter the Australian
labour force.
The study uses a sample of 25 university-educated Mainland-born Chinese
immigrants in Australia. These participants are first-generation immigrants who
were born in the 1980s or 1990s and received formal education in China. Some are
studying in Australian universities with the intention of permanent migration, while
others have lived in Australia for several years upon receiving tertiary education in
Australia.
The participants exchanged their opinions about China and China-related issues
from a cross-cultural comparative perspective during focus group discussions. In
Y. Lu (&)
e-mail: yanyinglu88@gmail.com

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_5
90 Y. Lu
their interactions with one another, they drew on their cross-cultural experiences to
co-construct their collective sense of self. Participants in this study spoke positively
of immigration as having equipped them with the ability to adopt different points of
view or to come to an understanding from a culturally different perspective from
Chinese in Mainland China. They can negotiate and consolidate meanings asso-
ciated with their Chinese immigrant identity drawing upon their cross-cultural
experience.
It was found that Chineseness and Chinese identity, as a result of collective
self-representation, were produced to establish a sense of epistemic authenticity and
moral conviction. The participants were found to exercise a great deal of moral
reasoning about what they perceived as ‘correct’ behaviour in the
Australian-Chinese cross-cultural context. Their stylistic ways of representing the
collective sense of self indicate cultural conceptualisations that are intimately
associated with their worldviews and values.
5.2 The Conceptualisation of Social Experience
The conceptualisation of social experiences has been studied in cognitive seman-

tics. Cognition is said to occupy the crucial interface between the personal and the
social, and hence between individual discourse and social structure (Van Dijk
2001). Forms of knowledge, ideologies, attitudes, emotions, norms and values
are said to be stored in various shared mental representations which operate on a
group level. In order to expand cognitive semantics as an analytical tool suitable for
dealing with social representations, critical discourse analysts incorporate cognitive
linguistics in critical metaphor analysis (e.g. Dirven et al. 2003; Goatly 2007; Hart
2011), while Cultural Linguistic researchers draw on cognitive anthropology and
take an ethnographic approach (e.g. Sharifian 2003; Sharifian et al. 2008).
Scholars in the field of critical metaphor studies have applied cognitive linguistic
analytical methods to reveal the ideological functions of conceptual categories. For
example, they have shown that construal operations can act as a narrative technique
(Hart 2011) and metaphors play a significant part in ideological communication and
persuasion in discourse on immigration (Charteris-Black 2016; Koller 2004). The
CONTAINER schema, which is found in many metaphorical constructions of the nation
can invoke two contrasting perspectives (Charteris-Black 2016; Chilton 1996; Hart
2008). Deixis can prompt distance and difference between the in-group and the
out-group. Positioning is said to be a pragmatic-cognitive strategy that is cogni-
tively based on how conceptual categories are indexed in text to realise discursive
strategies. The key claim that critical metaphor analysts makes is that discourse
producers make ideological evaluations of other actors and actions relative to
themselves by drawing on spatial experiences (Chilton 1996; Hart 2011, 2013,
2015).
The culturally produced shared knowledge about self and other, which is
encoded in language, thus reflects a certain cognitive reality. However, it should be
5 Cultural Conceptualisations of Collective Self-representation … 91
noted that marrying cognitive universalism with the study of social discourse on the
account of partial mapping or conceptual integration should be treated with caution.
As Goatly (2007) argues, the experiential and universalistic explanation of meta-
phoric themes based on metonymies of bodily experience seems particularly
powerful in target domain concepts, such as emotions (e.g. Kövecses 2005).
However, some of the metaphoric themes in which socio-cultural influences are
apparent might be culturally specific.
The central argument for Cultural Linguistics (Sharifian 2003, 2011, 2017) is
that cultural conceptualisations gather cultural knowledge and understandings that
are heterogeneously distributed across the minds of individuals in a cultural
group. Cultural conceptualisation shares the symbolic anthropological definition of
culture as an intersubjectively shared, often implicit matrix of meanings structuring
the perception of oneself and the world (Geertz 1973; Schneider 1976). According
to Palmer (1996), cultural models are strongly influenced by their historical and
socio-cultural context. They are therefore relatively independent of the more basic
human cognitive processes which can be categorised in terms of Idealised
Cognitive Models (Lakoff 1987).
Based on this view, cultural diversity in the conceptualisation of the self results
not only from differences in cognitive skills or environmental complexity, but also
from the predisposing and constitutive effects of divergent cultural premises. Such
premises are historically transmitted and ideologically formed products of the
collective imagination (Sahlins 1976; Shweder and Bourne 1982) and can shape
people’s understanding of their relationship with the world in culturally specific
ways.
Sharifian (2003, 2009, 2011, 2017) explores the notion of the cultural schema as
an example of group-level cognition. In his view, cultural schemas are constantly
being negotiated and renegotiated across members of the relevant cultural group as
well as through contact with other cultures. The collective identity of the individ-
uals shows how they perceive themselves as belonging to social groups; the
recognition of group membership carries with it some knowledge of the values,
positive or negative, that are attached to these groups (Liebkind 1999).
Accordingly, social phenomena including collective self-representation and immi-
gration, in the minds of the immigrants, are likely to have more than one possible
conceptual representation, as disparate cultural meanings may have been brought to
bear in their interpretation (Cousins 1989).
The primary concern for Cultural Linguistics is to explore how people use
language to express the way they conceptualise their various experiences. This
concern applies to the current study which treats the interviewed Chinese immi-
grants as culturally subject to their socio-cultural environment. In the context of the
present study, it is hypothesised that the narratives produced by the participants
reflect culturally constructed ways of viewing themselves. As members of the same
generation (a generation which will be discussed in greater detail in the next sec-
tion), the participants, (born in the 1980s and 1990s), have a common under-
standing of the history of China in the twentieth century due to the education they
received in Mainland China. The linguistic features that characterise speaking about
92 Y. Lu
their collective sense of self in Chinese, as seen in the research data, appear to
reflect their re-imagination of traditional Chinese values in contemporary Chinese
discourse. It can be argued that older cultural ideas have been reinterpreted to
produce new cultural meanings among contemporary Chinese individuals living in
Australia.
5.3 Participants and Focus Group Interview
The participants for the present study were 25 Mainland Chinese first-generation
immigrants living in Australia. They were allocated into five groups. Two of the
groups were students, who were studying in Australia with an intention to apply for
permanent residency upon obtaining an Australian higher education degree. The
other three groups consisted of young professionals who had studied at an
Australian higher education provider and had completed the process for perma-
nently immigrating to Australia. The selected participants were aged between 20
and 35 at the time of data collection.
In the main, the study collected qualitative data from focus group interviews.
The strength of focus group interviews lies in the production of data and insights
that would be less accessible without the interaction in the group discussion, and
this approach accords with the purpose of this study which was to open up the topic
range and to allow popular themes to emerge naturally in group contexts.
The participants conversed about the ways of life in different cultural environ-
ments and settings, and their cross-cultural experiences, which included things or
situations that they appreciated or found challenging, their expectations of life as an
immigrant and reflections on worldviews and values. They were also invited to
discuss their understanding of various regional and ethnic cultures. The interviews
were not rigidly held to a theme-based structure. Instead, the participants were
encouraged to elaborate on their initial responses and to challenge each other’s
opinions. As a result, the discussions constantly moved between themes.
5.4 The Study
The analysis probes into the knowledge structure people draw upon in construing
specific self-perceived positions in cultural collectives. A number of participants
indicate that they see themselves as not only responsible for their individual image,
but also for a collective image, the image of Chinese people. What it means to be
Chinese is inseparable from their sense of self.
First, metaphorical expressions were identified in those utterances where
speakers were negotiating appropriate collective self-representations with one
another. Apart from metaphors, collective references signalling collective
self-representation were also identified, especially those that were used together
with multiple affixes or modifiers, such as spatial deixis and spatial verbs.
A cognitive semantic analysis of these linguistic constructions reveals the underling
conceptual structure of collective self-representation. The impermeability of the

CONTAINER schema can address one dimension of the cultural conceptualisation of
social group membership among the Chinese-speaking participants which on the
other hand also reflects a culturally specific perspective. The conceptualisation of
the participants’ Chinese identity can be an instantiation of of their SINO-CENTRIC
WORLDVIEW. The SINO-CENTRIC WORLDVIEW is a pervasive cultural schema reflected in
the participants’ metaphorical descriptions of their self-perceived positions in the
imagination they share with regard to their Chinese identity. The implications of the
SINO-CENTRIC WORLDVIEW will be discussed with regard to the cultural metaphor of
the CONTAINER FOR CORRECT OPINIONS.
The results from the analysis reveal that participants conceptualise their Chinese
immigrant identity as a cultural role they play in the host society. Their comments
show that they perceive themselves as, and constantly act as and the spokespersons
of their cultural groups. The participants’ understanding of their self-perceived
positions in the Chinese community in Australia embodies the prominent status of
the role schema of CULTURAL EXEMPLAR in their thought and behaviour. After
exploring the conceptual process involved in how they collectively position
themselves and other Chinese immigrants, the CULTURAL EXEMPLAR role will be
interpreted by relating it to the moral teachings the participants received in China,
such as the Confucian idea of self-cultivation and the nation-building ideology of
modern China.
5.4.1 The Conceptualisation of Being Chinese
Previous studies have shown that social groups in English and Chinese are often
conceptualised as occupying a BOUNDED REGION in space, and individuals are con-
ceptualised as either INSIDE or OUTSIDE of these spaces (Charteris-Black 2006, 2016;
Chen 2002). Immigration can also be conceptualised as EXITING one cultural space
and ENTERING another (Chilton 1996; Hart 2006).
The Chinese-speaking participants talk about 过来 guolai ‘com[ing]’ from an
ethnic background as if their collective identity is a BOUNDED AREA. The CONTAINER
image schema can also be detected in the participants’ descriptions of two or more
cultural groups with distinct cultural values they had encountered in the
cross-cultural context. Based on these metaphorical expressions found in the data,
the different sets of cultural values that each group holds can be conceptualised as a
SUBSTANCE contained in the two or more mutually exclusive and closed spatial areas.
In the Examples 5.1 and 5.2 that follow, both speakers use the verb 过来 guolai
‘come’, indicating a sense of relocating in space. The spatial verb 过来 guolai
‘come’ can be interpreted as encoding a social anchor in a communication act
which draws on spatial cognition (Fillmore 1983). The proposition 从 cong ‘from’
(in 5.1) also suggests a deictic centre that is grounded in the current discursive
context, in other words, both the speaker and the hearers are conceptualised as
sharing the socio–spatio–temporal anchoring:
94 Y. Lu
Example 5.1
P15 所以他是很难去理解我们的这种从中国背景过来的这种忧患意识哪里
来的
So it is very hard for him to understand the awareness of potential danger (people
like) we who come from (lit. come out of) Chinese backgrounds have.
Example 5.2
P10 可能不会刻意的去把我我们的文化弄过来
(We) probably won’t deliberately apply (lit. move) our culture here.
According to Zhou and Fu (1996), the spatial deictic verb 来 lai ‘come’, is
extensively used in Chinese for conceptualising social relationships in terms of
space. In particular, 来 lai ‘come’ in these two examples indexes a common goal for
the speakers and the addressees. Indeed, both speakers, structure what they regard
as shared experience in spatial terms. The inclusive collective self-reference我们
women ‘we’, which is frequently used by Participants 15 and 10 and other par-
ticipants, foregrounds a Chinese cultural space which is shared by the speaker and
the addressees. This cultural location is invoked by positioning all those people who
share values and a similar life experience in the centre of a BOUNDED AREA through
collective self-representation.
The conceptualisation of Chinese identity in terms of a BOUNDED AREA excludes
non-Chinese Australians. Thus, this collective identity can be understood as an
impermeable CONTAINER. The metaphor CULTURAL GROUP AS BOUNDED AREA implies
only certain people are allowed to share the same collective identity or able to
understand meanings associated with this alleged collective cultural identity.
Barring Westerners from their collective positioning, the Chinese in-group creates a
safe zone for the Chinese participants to express their personal views and obser-
vations about Chinese people:
Example 5.3
1 P20 鬼佬1啊就跟你没有相关的人老说中国不好你就不爱听特别不爱听
Westerners, people who have nothing to do with you, always say China is
bad. You especially hate hearing that,
2 他没有从那个背景出来不是中国人他不了解他没有权
He did not come out of that background, are not Chinese. He doesn’t
understand. He has no right.
Participant 20 in Example 5.3 finds that the judgements expressed about con-
troversial issues on the subject of China by Western people can hurt her feelings, as
if her own identity is under threat. In the context of cross-cultural comparison, a lot
1
Westerners have been depicted as foreign aggressors for Chinese people since the Opium War
(1840–1860). This stance was further intensified in Maoist China. Derogatory terms, such as 鬼佬
guilao, meaning foreign devil, and terms denoting alienation, such as 老外 laowai, remain in use
in contemporary China.
of participants are of the belief that disparities in social values are closely tied in
with different social situations. The exclusiveness of the metaphorical structure of a
BOUNDED AREA was often invoked in their discussion. Evoking group distinctions as
they took up epistemic stances, the participants seemed to assume that people from
different cultural backgrounds naturally cannot share the same beliefs and values.
As seen in Example 5.3, a non-member’s judgment acquires the metaphorical
meaning of trespassing into the BOUNDED AREA. If an ‘outsider’ trespasses into this
zone by criticising the characteristics of the entire group of Chinese people, those
who share the collective identity perceive their comments as a personal threat.
Example 5.4 presents another instance of the CULTURAL GROUP AS BOUNDED AREA
metaphor which emerges during the process of rationalising intra-group misun-
derstandings as the result of having different cultural backgrounds and responding
to the immigrant experience:
Example 5.4
1 P11 我们不会不会在他那个文化范畴里面去考虑
We won’t put ourselves in their cultural context (lit. bounded area) to
consider,
2 … 本身的文化范围内有很多人这样的
A lot of people within that cultural context (lit. bounded area) itself are
like that.
Participant 11 in Example 5.4 recalls her initial cultural shock in Japan due to her
lack of knowledge of the foreign cultural space (Line 1). After gaining sufficient
experience to make a judgment, she concluded that the lack of respect shown to
women which she did not like is the norm in that foreign cultural space (Line 2).
She makes repeated reference to a BOUNDED AREA to highlight two perspectives,
namely the INSIDER perspective and the OUTSIDER perspective. Each represents a
body of knowledge that contrasts the other. As far as her own collective positioning
is concerned, she persists in viewing the Japanese cultural space a foreign space to
which she remains an observer.
The terms 老外 laowai ‘foreigner (literally old outsider)’, 外国人 waiguoren
‘foreigner (literally outside country people)’ and 国外人 guowairen ‘foreigner
(literally country outsider)’, are used 38 times in my data to describe people who do
not share the same geographic origin as the speaker. Each of these terms for
foreigners may encode different pragmatic meanings in different contexts. The
current study will focus on the metaphorical sense implied by the word 外 wai ‘out’
in all these references. Participants, who are immigrants themselves, habitually refer
to non-Chinese Australians as ‘outsiders’ even when speaking within Australia.
Some participants, such as Participant 5 in Example 5.5 below, call Australian
people 本地的老外 bendide laowai ‘local foreigners’:
96 Y. Lu
Example 5.5
1 P5 但是可能本地的老外他们会觉得中国更封锁或者是更加传统或陈旧
But perhaps the local foreigners, they would perhaps still think that China is
more closed or more traditional and outdated.
2 只是有一些客户因为跟我们做了生意然后有时候他不得不去中国看一
些产品啊或什么
Only a few customers, after doing business with us, have to go to China to
see products.
3 他们偶尔的机会去了以后他们才知道其实中国已经很发达了不是他们
心里想象的那样
After they went by chance, they finally realised that China in fact is already
very developed, (China) is not what they had imagined in their mind.
The compound 本地的老外 bendide laowai ‘local foreigner’ refers to
non-Chinese Western people in Australia. The term 老外 laowai ‘foreigner (liter-
ally old outsider)’ is an informal slang which is used relatively frequently by
Chinese people. In doing so, the speaker positions those who do not share his ethnic
and national background as outsiders who are barred from the cultural space he
shares with those included in the collective reference 我们 women ‘we’. The term
本地 bendi ‘local’ is based on a categorisation that refers to country of origin,
which is not that of the speaker. The compound 本地的老外 ‘local foreigner’ thus
reinforces social dis-alignment. On the conceptual level, this other-referencing
category depicts out-groups and their perspectives as positioned within a space that
is quite separate from the metaphorical central space occupied by the speaker and
their in-group members. In this way, the speaker categorises people who are per-
ceived as biased against China as a group that is completely unreachable and whose
opinions are therefore of no concern to the Chinese. This strategy is commonly used
in cases where others express criticisms or addressing cultural differences.
From a cultural point of view, the term 中国 Zhongguo, the present-day term for
China, meant the central territory in Imperial China. Before the nineteenth century,
this term was never used to define a sovereign country, nor was it assigned a
specific geographical location (Zhao 2006). The term is said to have originated from
the Zhou Dynasty (1046–256 BC) and was used to refer to the administered area
(Hu 2000; Luo 1998; Wang 1977; Yu 1981). After overthrowing the Mongol Yuan
Dynasty (1271–1368), the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) envisioned 中国 Zhongguo
‘China’ for the first time as a distinctive domain for 汉人 Hanren ‘Han people’, the
ethnic group that forms the majority of the Chinese population today. This domain
was located at the centre of the Ming empire and included the domain for inner 蛮
夷 manyi ‘barbarians’ as being in the outskirts of the Ming realm, however, the area
for outer 蛮夷 manyi ‘barbarians’ was excluded from the Ming realm (Jiang 2011).
With the rise of nationalism as a modern idea during the late Qing period (1901–
1911), the Han literati advocated a strong national identity extending to the name of
大中国 da Zhongguo ‘greater China’ (Tao 1995).
In the present-day discourse of university-educated Chinese, a very similar SINO-
CENTRIC perspective can be inferred from the INSIDER viewpoint shown above. This
SINO-CENTRIC perspective can be understood as a cultural schema which mediates

the participants’ conceptualisation of Chinese identity in terms of a BOUNDED AREA.
Positioning oneself within an exclusive cultural space, in the cross-cultural sce-
nario, evokes a sense of personal pride and a feeling of superiority.
When the participants talk about their Chinese cultural identity within the
Australian society, this INSIDER perspective gains a nationalistic ideological value. It
will be argued that the SINO-CENTRIC WORLDVIEW is a deep-rooted cultural concep-
tualisation that not only shapes the participants’ collective self-representation but
produces the cultural metaphor: CONTAINER FOR CORRECT OPINIONS. I will illustrate this
point with the following analysis of inclusive collective self-reference in the par-
ticipants’ assertive evaluations.
The INSIDER perspective not only involves the speaker, but also other inter-
locutors. Collective self-reference, from the perspective of cognition, prompts an
imagined shared space (Fauconnier and Turner 2002) which excludes
non-members. Labelled 我们 women ‘we’ with other co-present Chinese immi-
grants, this collective identity provides an anchor for critiquing norms that sup-
posedly originate from the non-Chinese Australians, to which neither the individual
speakers themselves nor their interlocutors belong. Positioning non-Chinese
Australians as remote from the deictic centre of the Chinese space, they position
what they perceive to be Australian values as being in sharp contrast to their own.
As shown above, positioning an imagined cultural area as remote from the deictic
centre can be a metaphorical way of rejecting its values and beliefs.
Using inclusive collective self-reference, speakers invoke a collective identity
which excludes others with whom they do not identify, keeping the ‘incorrect’
opinions on the OUTSIDE. The collective that is metaphorically represented by the
BOUNDED AREA thus embodies an increased sense of epistemic value for shared
beliefs. Therefore, it is not surprising to find that participants take a collective
stance by homogenising all their interlocutors as members of this common col-
lective: 我们华人 women huaren ‘we ethnic Chinese’ when they talk about
cross-cultural differences:
Example 5.6
1 P11 像这种 communication 也是很重要像澳洲学生跟老师关系就是 friend
经常visiting
like this kind of communication is also very important like the relationship
between Australian students and teachers like friendship (students) often
visit (teachers),
2 我们华人学生都不会去的他们这种 build up 问老师问题啊
We ethnic Chinese students wouldn’t go (like) them or build up
(relationship by) asking teachers questions,
3 就是跟他 talking 我们也是因为我们文化不一样
(like) talking to him this is also because our culture is different.
98 Y. Lu
Example 5.7
1 P2 哦哦我觉得就是饮食方面也有很多不一样的呵呵
oh oh I think (there are) lots of differences in food haha,
2 像比方说你说喝水像我们华人比较喜欢喝温水啊或喝茶啊这些
for example, about drinking (habit) we ethnic Chinese prefer warm water or
tea as such,
3 他们就喜欢喝那个冰水然后我就搞不懂那个
they like drinking icy water then I can’t understand that.
In the interactional frame, participants tend to pragmatically invoke an inclusive
cultural group whenever they talk about intra-cultural comparisons. It is a strategy
to keep all the interlocutors within the same collective through collective
self-representation. By using this form of collective self-reference or creating an
imagined social space which is exclusive of non-Chinese, both speakers seek
affective resonance with the rest of the discussion group. Each individual con-
ceptualises oneself as well as other group members as situating in this imagined
social space. This imagined social space can absorb the characteristics that indi-
vidual members believe to be distinctive and unique to the group. These charac-
teristics can be granted a group-based value by invoking this INSIDER perspective in
the interactions with other in-group members.
The shared physical location is likely to be associated with ownership of the
cultural traits so that some participants claim Chinese cultural characteristics as
something 自己的 zijide ‘of their own’. This can be seen in the following two
excerpts:
Example 5.8
P11 首先我们不能否定自己的文化首先你不能否定这张脸走到哪里都是一
张中国脸
At first, we cannot negate our own culture, at first we (lit. you) cannot negate
this face, a Chinese face, wherever we (lit. you) go.
Example 5.9
1 P21 而且就像她之前讲的说可能会有一种责任感就是你的说的时候
Also like what she said before, (we) might have a sense of responsibility. It
means when you are speaking,
2 你应该怎么跟人家体现我们自己国家的优势就是会注意一点这方面
you should show others the strength of our own country, and pay attention
to this aspect.
Participant 11 argues that the so-called 自己的文化 zijide wenhua ‘own culture’
belongs to every affective party of the cultural collective represented by 我们
women ‘we’, saying ‘no’ to such a collective enterprise is to show disrespect to the
collective. In these participants’ imaginations, non-Chinese are likely to ignore
these cultural characteristics and often do not show due respect to the Chinese
people. Self-respect, in this context, includes respecting and valuing what they
perceive to be ‘Chinese’. In these examples, the speakers present themselves as well

as their hearers purposefully, as authentic members of their country of origin.
Drawing on the CONTAINER image-schematic model, this could be read as a means of
performing their authentic membership by demonstrating qualities which cannot be
easily replicated by 人家 renjia ‘others’, or people who are construed as OUTSIDE the
Chinese group.
To sum up, the analysis so far has shown that the participants’ conceptualisation
of their collective self-representation is culturally significant. The conceptualisation
of the Chinese cultural identity reflects the deeply rooted cultural schema of the
SINO-CENTRIC WORLDVIEW. It is reflected in the production of metaphorical expres-
sions in which non-members are construed as located OUTSIDE a BOUNDED AREA.
Moreover, the INSIDER perspective is often constructed in discourse to endorse
certain socio-cultural beliefs and values which are intimately related to the cultural
origin of the participants. The next section will explore another prominent cultural
schema, namely the CULTURAL EXEMPLAR, which is arguably instantiated in repre-
sentations of being an appropriate Chinese immigrant.
5.4.2 The Role Schema of CULTURAL EXEMPLAR
This subsection will focus on the conceptualisation of the Chinese immigrant

identity or the conceptualisation of the group which consists of immigrants from
China who are living in Australia. Chinese people from China, by contrast, are
construed as belonging to a separate category. I will start by analysing the cognitive
process involved in forming these construals. The notions of mental space
(Fauconnier and Turner 1998, 2002) and viewpoint (Dancygier 2008; Sweetser
2012; Verhagen 2005) will aid the interpretation of co-occurrences of collective
self-reference (and other-reference) with demonstratives in forming demographic
categories. I will then explain the implications of the CULTURAL EXEMPLAR role
schema in the conceptualisation of collective self-representation as it is reflected in
participants’ narrative of their cross-cultural experiences in Australia.
A key term that is found to index the conceptualisation of the participants’
immigrant identity is 我们这边 women zhebian ‘we here’. From the speaker’s point
of view, 我们这边 women zhebian ‘we here’ constitutes a currently active mental
space that invokes all the discourse co-participants’ immigration experience.
这 Zhe ‘This’ or ‘here’ and 那 na ‘that’ or ‘there’ are common Chinese
demonstratives that speakers use in metaphors and pronouns to indicate social
relationship and differentiation. The meaning construction of self and other often
indexes spatial relations to the self (e.g. Dancygier 2008; Langacker 2007).
Proximity can be mapped on to distance in space. For example, the use of 这 zhe
‘this’ and 那 na ‘that’ in Example 5.10 clearly demonstrates that the speaker
evaluates the different groups that endorse different values either positively or
negatively:
100 Y. Lu
Example 5.10
1 P10 像我们这边都是按照很严格很严谨的规则办事的国内就没有这种意
识
We here follow strict rules, but (people) in China (lit. within the country)
do not have this kind of awareness.
2 而且国内也没有国内那些人就不会也没有那种责任
Also (people) in China (lit. within the country) do not, those people in
China (lit. within the country), don’t have that sense of responsibility.
The current speaker construes a new mental space represented by ‘国内那些人
guonei naxieren ‘those people from China (literally within the country)’. People
from China are perceived as remote from the speaker’s deictic centre. The distance
of the two mental spaces represents a difference in knowledge and allows the
speaker to set the stage for comparing people in China and Chinese immigrants in
Australia. From the speaker’s viewpoint, 那些人 naxieren ‘those people’ show a
lack of 这种意识 zhezhong yishi ‘this awareness’ which is anchored to the
speaker’s deictic centre, indicating a metaphorical distance between the self and
what is positioned as the ‘other’. The speaker’s observation that certain regulations
are not followed properly by people in China then constitutes a criticism of people
in China for their lack of law-abiding values.
In the current data set, demonstrative determiners, such as 这 zhe ‘this’ and 那
na ‘that’ are found to cue contrasting viewpoints which correspond to the posi-
tioning of different groups. In a context where collective identity is invoked, the 这
zhe ‘this’ and 那 na ‘that’ distinction embeds self-other differentiation and appears
to naturalise the distance between us and them (Hart 2011, 2015) and can thus enact
a negative-other presentation (Van Dijk 1995a, b). For instance, Participant 9 in
Example 5.11 positions herself and the other Chinese immigrants who are living in
Australia within an inclusive cultural space represented by 我们这边 women zhe-
bian ‘we here’:
Example 5.11
1 P9 和我们这边买东西的需求不一样而且你回去之后就问买房子了吗
(Their needs are) different from the needs we here (have) to purchase, also
(people over there) would ask you when you go back “have you bought a
house?”
2 我说没买还没买什么时候买啊我说不知道正攒钱然后就说那你回来
吧
(If) I said I haven’t bought yet (they would ask) “Haven’t! When?” I said I
don’t know and I am still saving up, then (people over there) would say “just
come back.”
In Example 5.12, Participant 9 conceptualises Chinese people in China as
belonging to another cultural collective which is indexed by 他们那边 tamen
nabian ‘they there’:
Example 5.12
1 P9 因为就是他那边生活的环境被渲染了他就觉得你的人生混到这个年龄
Because he is simply infected by the living environment over there, and
he thinks that if one (lit. you) have come to this age of one’s (lit. your) life,
2 就是应该有这个有那个你没有的那你就是有问题的活着就是混得不
好
(One) should have this and that. (If) one (lit. you) hasn’t got these, one (lit.
you) has a problem, one’s life is bad.
In Examples 5.11 and 5.12, 这 zhe ‘this’ and 那 na ‘that’ facilitate
socio-culturally driven comparative evaluation of in-group and out-group. As
shown in Example 5.12, 那 na ‘that’ or ‘there’ is employed as distal deixis for the
people in an out-group. Mental space building (Fauconnier 1997; Fauconnier and
Turner 2002) is said to be essential in the construction of multiple viewpoints
(Verhagen 2016). The construction of a Chinese immigrant space that is contrasted
with that of the Mainland Chinese space can be identified as a viewpoint phe-
nomenon (Dancygier 2008; Sweetser 2012; Verhagen 2005). It can be argued that
the use of these spatial references signals the distance between the two mental
spaces (Fauconnier 1997) from which contrasting viewpoints originate.
The establishment of the mental spaces implied by 我们这边 women zhebian
‘we here’ and 他们那边 tamen nabian ‘they there’ is a result of conceptual inte-
gration (Fauconnier and Turner 1998, 2002). Take 我们这边 women zhebian ‘we
here’ as an example, the two input spaces are one deictic coordination space
anchored by 这边 zhebian ‘here’ and the interlocutors’ common identity indexed
by 我们 women ‘we’. Both mental spaces recruit inclusiveness. Information from
the two input spaces is selectively projected onto the newly blended space, a
collective imagination of 我们这边 women zhebian ‘we here’ that presupposes
discourse alignment. Following these line of thought, the imagination of 他们那边
tamen nabian ‘they there’ is a result of a conceptual integration that recruits
dis-alignment.
One implication of viewpoint construction in the discourse transaction is that the
speaker can present their own observation or criticism as though it comes from the
imagined us or them. The observation of Chinese people’s characteristics and
lifestyles can be inferred in juxtaposition within the cross-cultural context, and can
now be presented as the reality and thus available as a target of criticism. The
activation of this spatial representation marks a socially oriented effort on the
speaker’s part to align and dis-align with certain beliefs and values.
Moreover, corresponding to the use of distal 那 na ‘that’ as a distancing strategy,
the proximal 这 zhe ‘this’ in 我们这边 women zhebian ‘we here’ can bring the
speaker and hearers into the same spatio-temporal location and set up their similar
experience as a basis for cross-cultural comparisons. It also allows speakers to
further define the characteristics of the cultural group represented by 我们这边
women zhebian ‘we here’. By establishing this newly blended mental space, this
102 Y. Lu
speaker presents herself as well as others in-group members as discerning members

of this collective. In the context of the present study, her purpose appears to be to
invoke a sense of responsibility that would motivate each member to act as an
EXEMPLAR of the cultural group they stand for, that is Chinese immigrants in
Australia.
One can exercise shared cultural norms, so long as one perceives oneself as an
appropriate member of that cultural group. These shared cultural norms are con-
stantly being negotiated by the in-group members. The participants of the present
study were noticeably sensitive to the stereotyped flaws attributed to Chinese
people. In the cross-cultural comparative context, the heightened self-consciousness
of the participants may well result from the process of reflecting upon the ‘weak
points’ that the imagined ‘them’ (non-Chinese Australians) can utilise to criticise
them. Some actually proposed the counter measure of ‘acting well’:
Example 5.13
P21 你可能自己做的比较好他也会有一些改观
If you act very well on your part, he can change his opinion (about Chinese
people).
This counter measure relies on self-perfection. Confucian and other traditional
Chinese teachings emphasise self-cultivation, through which one can develop into a
person worthy of respect. This process is called 修身 xiushen ‘self-cultivation’.
Confucian self-cultivation is a process in which a person becomes a 君子 junzi
‘exemplary individual’. While becoming an exemplary individual is a self-directed
search for one’s sense of worth (Brindley 2009), it is not deemed possible that the
individual could seek to achieve perfection or hope to realise their full value or
cultivate their own moral self alone. Within the Confucian worldview, such a
pursuit has to fit into the bigger picture of humanity as a whole and into the
universal cultivation of individual moral behaviour according to different social
roles (Brindley 2009). The product of this process is thought to be persons of moral
and cultural distinction who act as moral exemplars and fulfil their societal func-
tions (Raphals 2014).
Example 5.14 explains how a CULTURAL EXEMPLAR can deflect criticism. From this
short extract, we can see that the speaker calls on all fellow Mainland Chinese
immigrants to occupy the role of CULTURAL EXEMPLAR:
Example 5.14
1 P12 我觉得这取决于就是我们这边留下的人努力
I think it is up to our effort, we who are here (to change the bad impression
of Chinese people), who stay.
2 就是素质是不是有提高会不会就是让人
Whether (we) can improve their public awareness.
3 因为说实在的我们身上的陋习难免都会有
Because honestly speaking, we unavoidably have bad habits.
4 外国人我们眼中的外国人看的不习惯或者是觉得我们真的是很差的
地方
(Things that make) foreigners, people we regard as foreigners uncomfort-
able and (make them) think that we are really bad in some respects.
5 确实我们要承认就是有很多我们没有做的很好的
We should indeed admit that there are lots that we haven’t done very well.
6 有一些我们一些传统不好的习惯是需要就是去改的
Some of our traditions and bad habits need to change.
The value placed on self-cultivation by Confucianism is still important for many
Chinese immigrants. As mentioned earlier, they see themselves as not only
responsible for their image as an individual, but also to their contribution to a
collective image of the Chinese as a whole. If self-image is particularly important,
since by being an exemplar self, achieved from self-cultivation, one can win respect
from others, it is more appropriate to say that acting as a CULTURAL EXEMPLAR is
integral to each individual’s sense of collective cultural being. The participant in
Example 5.14 positions herself as a member of 我们这边 women zhebian ‘we here’
(Line 1), who are able to see the flaws of the Chinese people. As discussed pre-
viously, 我们这边 women zhebian ‘we here’ represents a newly evoked mental
space. The speaker and the addressees are represented as the CULTURAL EXEMPLAR of
their cultural collective represented by the term 我们这边 women zhebian ‘we
here’. The activation of this spatial representation serves the speaker’s need for
social alignment. The blending process can also give rise to new lines of reasoning,
such as Chinese immigrants are better representatives of the Chinese than the
people in China. The social meanings for this CULTURAL EXEMPLAR role converge
with the attitudes, beliefs and values that are perceived as characteristic of the
invoked collective.
The participants stressed the need for correcting one’s faults and shortcomings in
order to be worthy of respect. As well as conceptualising their self-refinement in a
Confucian sense, they may be re-imagining the narrative of the negative Chinese 国
民性 guominxing ‘national character’ to reflect how they fear non-Chinese view
them. They worry that non-Chinese might have the reason to disrespect them or
show prejudice towards them because of the negative characteristics they can see in
their fellow Chinese. Self-cultivation, a Confucian term, is used as a counter
measure to offset the detrimental effect this perceived cultural bias can have on their
survival in Australia.
The idea of 国民 guomin ‘national people’ dates back to the twentieth century.
Liang Qichao (1873–1929), a leading reformist of late Qing and early Republic
China, has played a crucial role in formulating a modern view of selfhood in the
Chinese cultural context (Sun 1992). According to Sun (1992), Liang regarded
personal experience, conduct, habits and traits as a transmissible totality of modern
selfhood. Liang’s concept of 国民 guomin ‘national people’ endorses the principle
of the struggle for existence (Schwarcz 1986). The underlying argument is that an
autonomous individual should take full responsibility for their own wellness.
104 Y. Lu
Liang’s conception was influential throughout the modern period of China.

Scholars have noted that it served as a point of reference for other scholars and for
politicians during the Republican decade (1910s), perhaps also inspiring the
modern Chinese intellectuals’ conception of themselves as the awakened individ-
uals after 1919 (Liu 1993). When the May Fourth Movement2 unfolded a decade
later, the May Fourth intellectuals promoted what they viewed as the qualities of a
modern Chinese individual and criticised so-called negative Chinese characteristics
which they argued lay at the core of China’s backwardness. The May Fourth
intellectuals used the term 遗传性 yichuanxing ‘heredity’ to refer to the trans-
mission of negative 国民性 guominxing ‘national character’ that was deeply
ingrained among Chinese people. The term 国民性 guominxing ‘national character’
was widely used in Chinese literature of the May Fourth period to point to the
fundamental faults in the Chinese self and psyche and this term has also persisted
into the present day.
As part of the process of narrating their cultural identity in Australia, guided by
the CULTURAL EXEMPLAR role schema, the participants exercised a great deal of moral
reasoning about what they perceived to be the ‘correct’ thing to do. The participants
readily adopted a moral attitude in front of other Chinese immigrants, or people
who are perceived as sharing the same socio-cultural background and under-
standing and, hopefully, supportive to the moral stance taken. Several comments
from the participants’ reveals 客观 keguan ‘objectivity’ as their preferred moral
attitude. This word literally means ‘see[ing] from the other side’. Both forming
what they perceive to be a correct appraisal of China and Chinese people that is 客
观 keguan ‘objective’, along with reacting to their perceived misunderstandings
about China from non-Chinese people, contributes to the construction of the col-
lective cultural identity of Chinese immigrants in Australia. Example 5.15 illus-
trates this point:
Example 5.15
1 P24 哪边对就支持哪边呗就不可以中国做错了什么就不可以说我们对的
Support the correct side, cannot think we are correct when China does
wrongly,
2 就是比较客观还是
Should be (quite) objective.
Participants make some comments about the need for themselves to see from
various perspectives, which on the conceptual level corresponds to having different
viewpoints (Dancygier 2008; Hart 2015; Verhagen 2016). These viewpoints reflect
the conceptualisation of several groups. Using inclusive collective self-reference,
the interlocutors are idealised and perceived as belonging to the same Chinese
2
The May Fourth Movement, also called Chinese Enlightenment or New Culture Movement,
refers to the anti-Confucian revolt led by intellectuals and scholars in the mid-1910s and 1920s.
group and sharing the same INSIDER perspective. The ‘other’ perspective towards
China is also presumably shared by non-Chinese people in Australia.
Attempting to form a correct opinion is a way of processing the contrasting
views and opinions that an immigrant is necessarily exposed to. In the next two
examples, the speakers express personal opinions that do not collectively position
themselves or the addressees. However, it can be inferred that the conceptual
integration process that allows them to construe the newly blended idealised
Australian space is activated by the addressees’ immigration experience and their
exposure to contrasting views and opinions in the cross-cultural context:
Example 5.16
P21 一边旅游着一边换一个视角去看看你觉得好的话那你就留下来
As one travels, one sees from another viewing angle, “if you like it you just
stay”.
Example 5.17
P4 就让别人从从另外一个角度去理解这件事情
Let other people understand from another perspective.
In Example 5.16, Participant 21 explains that the enrichment of knowledge that
is gained from being exposed to contrasting perceptions of one’s culture and
country is her motivation to study abroad. In Example 5.17, Participant 4 says she
would encourage non-Chinese who are overtly critical of China to adopt a Chinese
perspective. From these two examples, it can be seen that the act of comprehending
the ‘other’ viewpoint acquires the metaphorical meaning of having novel or priv-
ileged knowledge. From the perspective of the newly blended mental space, the
non-Chinese people in Australia are imagined as having the viewpoints that
Chinese people in China lack.
Taking into account the socio-cultural aspect of the positioning of Mainland
Chinese people as a distinct group perceived as ‘other’, it can be argued that the
view of themselves as a collective carrying with it elements of contemporary
Chinese people’s moral reasoning which transcend the current discursive context.
Since they are tertiary-educated Chinese who have had a range of cross-cultural
experiences and therefore consider themselves to be more knowledgeable than the
mass of people in China, it can be argued that their being critical towards China and
their comprehension of alternative perspectives signals an act of seeking moral
rectitude.
As Davies (2007) has written, an integral part of the rhetoric used by
university-educated Chinese today is the presentation of a moral attitude of wor-
rying about the country and the people. She traces this rhetorical repertoire to the
stylised language of the premodern dynastic intellectual tradition, often captured in
the four characters 忧国忧民 youguo youmin which literally means ‘worry about
the country and worry about its people’ (Davies 2007). 忧国忧民 youguo youmin
reflects the moral attitude of Chinese intellectuals who engage in political move-
ments in modern and contemporary China (Cheek 1992; Davies 2007; Schwarcz
106 Y. Lu
1986; Tu 1991). It is also a reoccurring theme overtly encouraged by the con-

temporary state education. The role of CULTURAL EXEMPLAR, in this light, has a
cultural heritage which is embedded in the well-established discourse on fulfilling a
modern Chinese individual’s moral responsibility. The idea of CULTURAL EXEMPLAR
is indeed a group-level conceptualisation, or an instance of cultural schema
(Sharifian 2003, 2011), a synthesis of individual members’ language production,
which also displays the cultural cognition that characterises the cultural group(s) an
individual identifies with.
Several of the participants say they are worried that the bad behaviours of other
ethnic Chinese might cause non-Chinese people to stereotype them or disrespect
them. However, these same participants also stress the importance of self-respect as
a Chinese trait, noting that having self-respect does not mean that the Chinese
consider they are better than other people. The participants might have re-imagined
these negative characteristics in the process of forming a new discourse in the
Australian-Chinese cross-cultural context. Making distinctions between an ideal
Chinese self and the flawed Chinese selves they see around them, they can prove to
the ‘outsider’ that either the negative stereotypes they hold about China and
Chinese people are wrong or that certain Chinese people, like themselves, do not
have those negative cultural characteristics.
In summary, as the participants negotiate the meanings of being a Chinese
immigrant in the Australian society, the CULTURAL EXEMPLAR role schema motivates
them to be critical of certain cultural and social behaviours among Chinese people
in Mainland China. Some of these critical views are put forward as the wisdom
gained from living in Australia. Cross-cultural comparison in this context has
enables the participants to gain new perspectives on life in China. Criticism in the
cross-cultural comparative scenarios seems to constitute a body of privileged
knowledge they have acquired through living overseas that they want to pass on for
educational purposes, either to their own descendants, to their fellow Chinese
people or to the wider Australian community.
5.5 Conclusion
The collective self-representation of Chinese immigrants has been explored as an

instantiation of certain cultural conceptualisations in the current chapter, and is
shown to be constructed by and negotiated between members of the same cultural
group. This chapter has presented a discussion on the implications of some of the
cultural conceptualisations that underscore Chinese immigrants’ ways of thinking
about themselves and their collective identities in Australia. It has been argued that
the cultural conceptualisation of collective self-representation among the inter-
viewed Chinese immigrants evinces a continuation of Confucian virtue ethics and
modern Chinese nation-building ideology.
The current study found that the participants position themselves as self-aware
discerning members of the group of Chinese immigrants to Australia through
spatial representations. These spatial representations invoke the CULTURAL GROUP AS

BOUNDED AREA metaphor which should be understood as a cultural metaphor, an
instantiation of cultural conceptualisation which has been shown to be shaped by
the SINO-CENTRIC WORLDVIEW cultural schema. This cultural schema also produces
the CONTAINER FOR CORRECT OPINIONS cultural metaphor.
Invoking multiple viewpoint spaces, as the participants negotiate what the
Chinese immigrant identity means to them, the role schema of CULTURAL EXEMPLAR
is found to occupy the core. It can be argued that the role schema of CULTURAL
EXEMPLAR facilitates active engagement in a form of moral reasoning which aims to
demonstrate epistemic authenticity and moral conviction. That effort is manifested
in the numerous critical comments made about various cultural and social beha-
viours of the Chinese people in Mainland China. Construing multiple viewpoints,
the participants engage in changing their perspectives in order to process con-
trasting views and opinions. In addition to the function of discourse alignment and
dis-alignment, the conceptualisation of these multiple viewpoints constitutes a
social act of gathering novel or privileged knowledge, which is understood as
fulfilling the societal function of being a proper Chinese person in the cross-cultural
context.
Having explored collective self-representation as the product of cultural con-
ceptualisation, it is argued that what we, as social beings, experience as meaningful
and how we reason about selfhood, are dependent on the cultural conceptualisations
of many aspects of the self. The analysis of category-bound linguistic expressions
used as individuals represent themselves as members of a group is only a prelim-
inary analysis in uncovering these aspects. This Australian study offers a starting
point for investigating the cultural conceptualisations of personhood in contem-
porary Chinese communities.
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Acessed April 03, 2016.
Author Biography
Yanying Lu has recently completed her Ph.D. research exploring how self is conceptualised
among Chinese immigrants and how this conceptualisation interacts with their cross-cultural
experiences in Australia at Monash University. Prior to this, she obtained a Master of Arts in
Linguistics at Monash University in 2012, exploring conceptual metaphors in the Daodejing, an
ancient Chinese philosophical text. Her research interests are Cultural Linguistics, cognitive
linguistics, sociolinguistics, semantics and the relationship between language and social cognition.
Chapter 6
Cultural Conceptualisations of IRONY
in Greek
Angeliki Athanasiadou
6.1 Introduction
Irony, as a broad and multi-faceted device, has been approached from every pos-
sible point of view: philosophical, psychological, linguistic. The origin of the term
“irony” is rooted in Ancient Greek Philosophy and Drama. Eironeia, according to
Oxford English Dictionary, means “dissimulation, ignorance purposely affected”.
A type of irony has been called Socratic irony from Socrates who pretended to be
ignorant, by the use of questions, in order to reveal either someone else’s ignorance
or the truth she was hiding. In either of the two cases Socrates had full knowledge
of the issues being dealt, thus we can make reference to irony. In Greek tragedies,
irony lies in the incongruity between what is already known in the audience and
what the character knows. One of the most prominent examples is Sophocles’
Oedipus the King.1 Here the words and the behaviour of the characters contradict
the real course of events, known by the audience, thus the irony. Another type of
irony met in Greek mythology is irony of fate or later called cosmic irony: the idea
that Fates or destiny or a god controls and toys with human minds, their hopes and
expectations, with deliberate ironic intent. The individuals become thus victims to
extrinsic forces facing either a positive or a negative outcome. A combination of
positive and negative outcome can be seen in the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea2:
1
In this tragedy Sophocles points to the irony of a man, Oedipus, who is determined to reveal and
punish an assassin who, in the end, proves to be himself.
2
Pygmalion, a Greek sculptor, losing interest in women, dedicates himself to creating a statue of a
woman out of ivory. The statue was so absolutely perfect that he fell deeply in love with it. The
irony is that he who had scorned women was now in love with a woman who could not love him
back in return (negative). The goddess of love, Aphrodite, gave life to the statue, named Galatea
and the two of them, Pygmalion and Galatea, got married and lived happily together (positive).
A. Athanasiadou (&)
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
e-mail: angath@enl.auth.gr

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_6
112 A. Athanasiadou
falling in love with one’s counterfeit creation, first imaginary and artificial but
ultimately actually existing.
These three types of irony, deeply rooted in Ancient Greek culture have spread
and been distributed through time. The aim of this chapter is to discuss the influence
of Ancient Greek view of irony on its contemporary theory and expression.
The questions to be searched as to how the use of the device of irony has been
transferred through time to refer to contemporary instances of irony are:
(a) Which aspects of the rhetorical device of irony in Ancient Greece are being
employed by recent linguistic approaches to the study of irony?
(b) What is the impact of the rhetorical device of irony originating from Ancient
Greek philology on the way irony is being expressed and interpreted in
everyday conversations taken from real corpus examples?
(c) If cognitive processes are cultural as well, will, then, the entrenchment of irony
in speakers’ conceptualizations be reflected not only linguistically but culturally
as well? Can this be effected through ironic figurative language?
6.2 Cognition and Culture
I start from the assumption that culture shapes human cognition. Cultural
Linguistics (Sharifian 2011, 2015) “explores conceptualizations that have a cultural
basis and are encoded in and communicated through features of human language”
(2015: 473). “Meaning is equated with conceptualization” (Langacker 1990: 2) and
knowledge of culture constitutes the basis of facets of grammar (Langacker 1994:
31). Both cognitive and cultural models are intertwined and provide the ground for
linguistic and nonlinguistic behaviour. One cannot study a particular phenomenon
separately from specific interactions with the cultural world. Thus, when we employ
the term cognitive for a figurative process we should not exclude its cultural aspect.
As all figures, after all, irony, as well, is a cognitive mechanism. People have
always been employing irony for different purposes, such as to reveal one’s
ignorance, to criticise, to ridicule, to rebuke, among many others. Irony is employed
by speakers for all kinds of different purposes; this entails that it is not a unified
concept and moreover it is understood in different ways across different cultural
groups. Indeed, the ironic expressions are not always possible to be interpreted by
speakers of a language and a culture let alone by speakers of different languages and
cultures. This brings us to the debate between universality and culture specificity of
human language and cognition. To what extent is our language and cognition
universal and to what extent culturally dependent? The very term “cognitive” in the
Cognitive Linguistics framework refers to the use of language as one part of the
knowledge of a single individual, therefore culturally independent. We, speakers,
however, share common embodied experience and thus cognitive patterns are
expected to be common for all of us. For figurative language, metaphor, metonymy,
irony, there have been numerous discussions concerning their universal and their
6 Cultural Conceptualisations of IRONY in Greek 113
culture specific characterisation. In metaphor and metonymy for Kövecses (2002:

183–195) “in addition to universality, there will also be cultural variation”.
Especially for metaphor there have been studies that focus on the universality or the
culture specificity of metaphoric expressions.
Following Gibbs (1999) and Geeraerts (2006), I will try to show that both the
cultural and the historical ‘setting’ of human experience are crucial factors likely to
influence our conceptualizations. This issue will be investigated via the figurative
process of irony.
Gibbs (1999: 153) clearly states that universal bodily experience is not inter-
preted identically across cultures: “One cannot talk about, or study, cognition apart
from our specific embodied interactions with the cultural world, (and this includes
the physical world, which is not separable from the cultural world in the important
sense that what we see as meaningful in the physical world is highly constrained by
our cultural beliefs and values)”. For Gibbs, conceptual metaphor involves aspects
of cultural experience: “cultural representations of conceptual metaphors have an
indispensable cognitive function that allows people to carry less of a mental bur-
den” (1999: 146). In other words, cognition arises and is re-experienced when
people interact with the cultural world. I find Gibbs’ contribution on culturally
embodied cognition important and I will take it into account for the study of irony.
For Geeraerts (2006: 250), “an adequate analysis of the motivation behind
cultural phenomena in general and language in particular has to take into account
the diachronic dimension” and “if cognitive models are cultural models, they are
also cultural institutions, and as such, they carry their history along with them: their
institutional nature implies their historical continuity. It is only by investigating
their historical origins and their gradual transformation that their contemporary
form can be properly understood” (ibid: 251). The two theses above are indis-
pensable for me in order to appreciate the cultural model of irony historically
situated in order to see how it developed.
6.3 Irony
Irony, whether verbal or situational, reflects speakers’ conceptualizations of the

world of their experiences. Speakers of particular cultures, sharing common con-
ceptualizations, produce ironic utterances. In verbal irony speakers say the opposite
of what is meant and what is literal whereas in situational irony they are faced with
a situation that is contradictory. These definitions are too general; the opposite of
literal meaning is not always clear, and situations may not be contradictory but may
deviate from a norm or may be counter to expectation.
In contemporary linguistic research, irony is a cognitive process which expresses
the opposite of what a speaker intends to communicate, “a speaker contextually
implies, at least seemingly, the opposite of what was literally said” (Gibbs and
Colston 2007: ix). There have been studies that discuss the nature of the oppo-
siteness, extending it to a negative evaluation on the part of the speaker (What a fine
114 A. Athanasiadou
day when it is raining heavily), to contrastive, to contradictory (You are not a fine
friend for someone who is a good friend) or to untrue meaning of an utterance
(Colston 2000; Giora 1995; Giora et al. 2005; Kumon-Nakamura et al. 1995, cited
in Gibbs and Colston 2007; among others).
Irony has been linked to several issues of social interaction such as face-saving,
disapproval, criticism in a humorous or a sarcastic way, aggression or avoidance of
conflict, control of emotions, to name few of the situations in which it is met.
This multi-faceted characteristic of irony led scholars to discuss it either from the
philosophical or the psychological point of view, the latter mainly involving irony
interpretation.
In this chapter, an attempt will be made to see the motivation of irony behind
culture and due to culture. Culture structures our experience which is transmitted
from one generation to the next. A cognitive device/phenomenon like irony is not
re-invented as new but it draws from its source meaning. Through time this central
source meaning may of course be affected. Still, certain basic facets of its core
meaning remain permanent and gradually become rooted in speakers’
conceptualizations.
In order to see which facets of the meaning of irony have remained and how the
concept developed, we can only go back to the original source domain meaning.
The concept of irony involves a clash, a discrepancy, an incongruity between
two parts: the ironist and her victim. In fact, the interlocutor of the ironist is a
victim; she is a toy. This can be better illustrated in the Table below:
Ironist Victim
Socratic irony Socrates Another person
Dramatic irony Playwright/audience Character in drama
Irony of fate Fate Reality/actual results
In Socratic irony, the philosopher had full knowledge of an issue but pretended
ignorance in order to extract answers or direct his interlocutors towards answers.
The interlocutors are the victims, they are in an inferior position in the sense of
knowing less than the philosopher. In the theatre, the playwright and/or the audi-
ence know the real state of affairs although this does not derive from the charac-
ter’(s)’ speeches. Yet, the audience attends the performance pretending ignorance.
Now the characters are presented as victims since they appear not to know the real
situation. Both the philosopher and the playwright/audience are in a superior
position and a step ahead of the interlocutors and the characters respectively. The
fact that the attribute of pretence is involved, both on the part of the philosopher and
on the part of the playwright/audience who write/attend a drama, led scholars like
Clark and Gerrig (1984) (in Gibbs and Colston 2007), Kreuz and Glucksberg
(1989), among others, to account for irony, and particularly verbal irony, as pre-
tence. “In being ironic, a speaker is pretending to be an injudicious person speaking
to an uninitiated audience; the speaker intends the addressees of the irony to
discover the pretence and thereby see his or her attitude toward the speaker, the
audience, and the utterance” (Clark and Gerrig 2007: 25). Other scholars like
Sperber and Wilson (1981), Wilson and Sperber (1992) account for irony as a kind
of echoic mention. They are based on the distinction between use and mention; the
mention or the echo of predicted events within unexpected reality. The ironist does
not literally use but mentions a proposition to people in general, reflecting hopes,
wishes, general cultural norms. The victim implicates that the intended meaning is
the opposite from the literal. Both approaches, pretence and echoic mention, have
restricted their accounts of irony to verbal irony. By themselves they do not arrive
at satisfactory interpretations of irony as they focus on one aspect of this
multi-faceted device. They, however, have advanced the study of verbal irony
focusing on the mechanisms that allow speakers to interpret ironic construals.
In the Cognitive Linguistics framework, irony has been discussed in the
framework of Conceptual Integration Theory (Coulson 2005; Kihara 2005; Palinkas
2014; among others). Mental spaces constitute their cognitive tool for an account of
ironic language; and a useful one, not only for figurative processes like metaphor
and metonymy, but for irony as well. The literal meaning of an utterance and its
intended opposite represent two different mental spaces. Such scholars claim that
the conflicting blend gives rise to ironic interpretations. It certainly holds true that
there is a clash involved between what is stated and what is intended and that there
is a distance between the two parts or the two spaces, which creates an incongruity
between them or even a conflict. Irony on the basis of mental spaces has, fur-
thermore, been interpreted as a viewpoint phenomenon (Tobin and Israel 2012).
The authors advance the mental spaces theory by delving into the nature of the
contrast between the literal and the intended meaning. The parameter of viewpoint
is useful in that it complements theories of irony by not only focusing on the facts
intended but by additionally representing viewpoint. It should be noticed, however,
that the term “viewpoint” refers to a special mechanism in Tobin and Israel’s work
and does not concern cases of informal and everyday usage.
It needs to be said that in this chapter I will not go into the discussion of the
linguistic expression of irony. The tools employed (processes and operations) for
the treatment of ironic figurative language are discussed in Athanasiadou (2015)
(paper presented in ICLC 13).
6.4 Situational Irony
Situational irony is not as widely studied in contemporary research as compared

with verbal irony. A rather general remark is that it involves irony in situations.
Situational irony concerns opposite and contradictory events to what is normally
expected. In what follows focus will be assigned to instances of situational irony
and I will propose an interpretation of situational irony relying on conceptual
frames, based on the dense definition formulated by Radden and Dirven (2007: 9–
10): “package of knowledge that surrounds a category and is activated when we use
116 A. Athanasiadou
or hear a word”. Speakers have cultural knowledge of whole events and scenes.
This knowledge is structured in terms of frames. Speakers of a particular culture
share knowledge of what is to be expected in an event or a situation. When
divergence or violation of this knowledge, of norms or expected behaviours occurs,
such events or situations are ironic. This, of course, by no means implies that
cultural aspects cannot be detected in the shaping of verbal irony. My decision to
focus on situational irony lies on the fact that a series of routine situations, whole
cultural frames with their roles, are challenged, and not just an utterance in spite of
the fact that a frame lies behind it.
According to Lucariello (1994) (in Gibbs and Colston 2007), situational irony
includes features like unexpectedness, human fragility, opposition and outcome.
Unexpectedness is a feature present in all ironic situations. The victim faces
unexpected and unsettling situations between facts presented by the ironist at a
lower level, that of the utterance, and conventions at a higher level, that of a
conceptual frame. The primary role of the feature of unexpectedness in situational
irony will be discussed extensively further below. Human fragility is linked to the
role of the victim in an ironic situation. It reflects the powerlessness of human
nature. People are fragile when they feel unable to act and achieve a desired
outcome. They are led by external forces conceivable as fate, destiny, God, life or
chance. This kind of irony, called irony of fate, may lead to two different situations:
people may face a positive outcome, a win, or a negative one, a loss. In both cases
they have no control of the outcome, whether positive or negative. They are victims
of external, unintended actions. There may also be combinations of positive and
negative outcomes either on the part of the ironist or on the part of the victim.
Lucariello’s paper also contends that situational irony can be humorous. But the
relevance of this paper with my work is that especially the unexpectedness feature
is drawn from a “culturally recognized way, making them [ironic events] pur-
portedly events for which a general knowledge structure is formed” (2007: 483).
Speakers, then, led by cultural knowledge, violate the typical state of affairs and go
against frames.
I will take into account Lucariello’s features of situational irony to see how they
work in instances of real situations, those of the Greek taxi-driving frame.3
But before going into the discussion of the examples, an explanation of the
cultural frame of taxi-drivers in Greece needs to be provided. This will familiarise
readers with background and cultural knowledge shared by speakers of Greek. In
particular, taxi-drivers belong to an idiosyncratic group as they think highly of
themselves. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that most of them own their taxis
and they try very hard to keep them clean and they don’t like their customers to
mess with their own property. According to their mentality, it is customers that
should feel obliged to them because they will take them to their destination. In other
3
All examples are my translations from excerpts from the Corpus of Spoken Greek of the Institute
of Modern Greek Studies. I am grateful to Prof. Theodossia-Soula Pavlidou for granting me access
to the Corpus and to Dr. L. Gialabouki for some tips on the data.
words, it is not customers that employ them; they feel like the boss in the taxi-driver
and customer relationship. Their radio is on and they listen to their own songs, and
it is only very recently that they stopped smoking in the taxi. Some of them still do,
though. Many times, their way of driving is very aggressive, they stop wherever
they want as if traffic laws do not apply to them. Therefore, if a destination is short
or difficult to reach or they won’t make enough money, they are not happy at all.
(1) Once, in a Greek cab a girl sitting in the back fastens her seatbelt.
The taxi-driver turns, looks at her and says:
δen empistevese to oδiγ ima mou?

not trust-you the driving mine
‘Don’t you trust my driving?’
And he was ready to throw her out because she had dared to fasten her seatbelt.
This is an instance of situational irony in which the ironist is the taxi-driver and
the passenger is the victim. The driver’s utterance reflects an irregularity of a
practice met in Greek culture. The natural frame would be for the taxi-driver either
to praise the girl for fastening the seatbelt or simply to say nothing as this is part of
the frame of safety during a drive; this would be the positive social norm. Instead,
the taxi-driver scolds her, interpreting her move as a threat to his face. This reversal
of frame is normally unexpected, it opposes the natural flow of events and,
moreover, it actually “ridicules” the natural state of affairs.
(2) Three of us are in a taxi in Aristotelous square and we tell the taxi-driver to take
us to Tsinari (an area in the old part of the city).
Taxi-driver: δen pao

not go
‘I don’t go there’
Interlocutors: ti δ en pas?
what not go-you
‘What you mean you don’t go?’
Taxi-driver: kses kses ti kinisi exei kei
know-you know-you what traffic has there
pano?
up
‘Do you know the traffic up there?’
Interlocutors: θ a to plirosoume
will it pay-we
‘We will pay it.’
Taxi-driver: δen pao, ego efθ ia pao, ama θ elete
not go-I, I straight go, if want-you
‘No, I don’t go, I go straight on, if you want….’
118 A. Athanasiadou
This is another instance of situational irony reflecting the idiosyncratic behaviour

of taxi-drivers in Greece, which is quite peculiar especially for foreigners visiting
Greece [as is also the case in example (1)]. The natural situation would be for the
taxi-driver to take them to the place they had asked for. Instead, he informs them he
goes to a particular direction only, and they can stay in if they wish. This is against
the frame of asking a taxi-driver to take you where you need to go.
(3) In a taxi rank outside Thessaloniki airport. My taxi-driver overhears two pas-
sengers hiring a taxi to Drama (this is quite a distance and a good fare) whereas
my destination was the Thessaloniki city center.
The taxi-driver starts uttering offensive words to my despair.
Interlocutor: ti na kano ki eγ o na min pao?

what to do and me to not go
‘What can I do? I need to go.’
Taxi-driver: na pas me alon emena vrikes?
to go with another me found
You can go with another one, you found ME?’
Interlocutor: malon δ en θ es na me pareis
probably not want-you to me get
‘You probably don’t want to take this drive.’
Taxi-driver: oxi bes tora
no get in now
‘No, it’s OK, come in’ (and starts swearing again).
In (3) the taxi-driver shows extreme discomfort because the drive from the
airport to Thessaloniki city center won’t be profitable compared with a drive from
Thessaloniki to a town 150 km away. And he curses his bad luck for being hired by
the particular passenger going to the center and not the other ones going to Drama.4
In all three examples of the taxi-driving frame we find a violation of norms and
of expected behaviour. If the specific frame is not shared by speakers of other
languages and cultures, these examples may not sound ironic. Instead, they may be
thought of as absurd situations, against reason, or they could be taken as humoristic.
All three examples of situational irony of the taxi-driving frame constitute states
of affairs opposite to convention. They are characterised by unexpectedness and
incongruity between what is normally expected and the outcome. The ironist
appears to be in a superior position while the victim is extremely fragile, faces loss
and experiences negative downgrading emotions. The behaviour of both parties is
the opposite of a typical situation. In all three cases we find the violation of
relevance, manner and appropriateness in the way utterances are made; what
Attardo calls “relevant inappropriateness”. According to Attardo (2001: 794),
4
One should take into consideration, though, that they might have been waiting for their next
customer, particularly in an airport taxi stand, sometimes, for more than two or three hours.
situational irony is multi-modal revealing “a state of world which is perceived as

ironical”.
Situational irony does not only feature losses; it may also feature wins, positive
outcomes. In example (4) two friends discuss their experience of a tavern on the
Greek island of Ikaria during the summer. This island is known for a very high life
expectancy rate. They attribute this to their Mediterranean eating habits on one hand
and on their easy-going way of life along with sharing goods with one another due
to their particular political ideology:
(4) In Ikaria I have heard stories. There are some small stores where you can go for
a coffee or an omelet. First of all the owner is absent or, if he is somewhere
around, he is just sitting outside and he says:
Shop owner: kane oti θ es moni sou ase

do-you what want-you alone your leave-you
ta lefta ston pango kai fiγ e
the money on the counter and go
‘Do what you want on your own, leave the money on the
counter and go.’
Again the features of the reversal of normal and typical situations and unex-
pectedness of the natural state of affairs are obvious: the standard frame is that
taverna owners are in their stores in front of the counter, they serve their goods and
they are paid. In this case of situational irony, the individual is not a “victim”; win
comes unexpectedly as a result of unintended and unplanned actions. Here we have
a reversal of the role of the victim. Now the shop owner is the victim though on his
own will.
In a different frame, according to the tradition of the sea, a captain is accused of
having abandoned his ship before the safe evacuation of the people on board5:
(5) “When I order abandon ship, it doesn’t matter what time I leave,” he said last
week. “Abandon is for everybody. If some people like to stay, they can stay”.
Abandoning a ship, according to the frame of an unwritten law of the sea,
implies that women and children leave first, then all the others, and the captain is
the last to leave. Here the captain argues against this tradition of the sea. Again such
a behaviour is totally unexpected. The captain employs the device of irony to argue
in favour of his action, which is the reverse of the standard situation. Now the win is
an outcome to the benefit of the ironist.
Situational irony is met everywhere, in daily routine conversations as in the
examples above, on TV and radio, in Facebook and Twitter talk exchanges. The
pervasive feature in all of them is the atypical states and events. Lucariello
5
TIME magazine, August 19, 1991.
120 A. Athanasiadou
considers these as an irregular human activity. In addition to this, it is “discordance

among goals and actions and outcomes, inconsistency in actions and states across
spatiotemporal contexts” (ibid: 469).
Situational irony reveals that one cannot depend on oneself, on others or on
assumed standard frame events. Our actions can be overridden at any time as we are
victims of an abstract power. This aspect of situational irony is called irony of fate.
Now it is not the philosopher who guides the interlocutor nor the dramatic play-
wright who “plays” with the characters. It is some supernatural power, called fate,
which brings about a situation in contrast to people’s intentions and wishes. Unlike
other types of irony (the philosopher or the playwright in cases of verbal irony, and
everyday people taking part in daily events and situations), in irony of fate an
unknown force, God, Fate, the Universe, is working against the person. Such a
situation is so contrary to what is expected that it actually mocks and ridicules
human plans and predictions about the future. A classic example of situational irony
(irony of Fate) is found in the myth of King Midas. He was a greedy king who
wished whatever he touched to turn into gold. His wish was granted, but this was
disastrous because his touching of even simple things like food turned into gold. So
Midas could not even eat. The golden touch brought him not only riches, but
misery, even death. In this case, situational irony leads the victim to a loss, a
negative outcome. But it can also lead the victim to a happy outcome (or a com-
bination of win and loss). Irony of Fate has inspired writers or filmmakers; their
plots6 typically show the impotency of human intentionality and actions.
6
Following their annual tradition, a group of friends meet at a traditional public bath in Moscow to
celebrate New Year’s Eve. The friends all get very drunk toasting the upcoming marriage of the
central male character, Zhenya to Galya. After the bath, one of the friends, Pavlik, has to catch a
plane to Leningrad; Zhenya, on the other hand, is supposed to go home to celebrate New Year’s
Eve with his fiancée. Both Zhenya and Pavlik pass out. The others cannot remember which of their
unconscious friends is supposed to be catching the plane; eventually they mistakenly decide that it
is Zhenya and put him on a plane instead of Pavlik. On the plane, he collapses onto the shoulder of
his annoyed seatmate. The seatmate helps Zhenya get off the plane in Leningrad. He wakes up in
Leningrad airport, believing he is still in Moscow. He stumbles into a taxi and, still quite drunk,
gives the driver his address. It turns out that in Leningrad there is a street with the same name (3rd
Builders’ street), with a building at his address which looks exactly like Zhenya’s. The key fits in
the door of the apartment. Inside, even the furniture is nearly identical to that of Zhenya’s
apartment. Zhenya is too drunk to notice the differences, and goes to sleep.
Later, the real tenant, Nadya arrives home to find a strange man sleeping in her bed. To make
matters worse, Nadya’s fiancé, Ippolit, arrives before Nadya can convince Zhenya to get up and
leave. Ippolit becomes furious, refuses to believe Zhenya and Nadya’s explanations, and storms
out. Zhenya leaves to get back to Moscow but circumstances make him return repeatedly. Nadya
wants to get rid of him as soon as possible, but there are no flights to Moscow until the next
morning. Additionally, Zhenya tries repeatedly to call Moscow and explain to Galya what has
happened. Eventually he does contact her, but she is furious over what he has done and hangs up
on his call. Ippolit also calls to Nadya’s apartment and when he hears Zhenya answer, who is
trying to be available to receive the call from Moscow, Ippolit also refuses to accept the truth of the
situation. It seems more and more clear that the only two people who understand the circumstances
are then Zhenya and Nadya. Thus the two are compelled to spend New Year’s Eve together. At
first they continue to treat each other with animosity, but gradually their behaviour softens and the
6.5 Discussion
Which traces are then left from Ancient Greek philology and culture to the con-
temporary use of irony? How has irony developed from a rhetorical device or irony
of fate to irony in situations?
The first commonality concerns the incongruous situation between the ironist
and her victim: the ironist is in a superior position having control of the victim. This
is present in Socratic and dramatic irony and also in irony of fate. The difference lies
in that in Socratic and dramatic irony this is intentional whereas in situational irony
this may also be hidden, implied or unspecified. Human fragility is present in all
kinds of irony: the victim undergoes the guidance and the power of the ironist.
Inherent in the guidance of the victim is the mockery or the ridicule. The ironist
may additionally ridicule the natural state of affairs. In example (5) the captain
ridicules the tradition in the sea by saying that the ship’s evacuation is best directed
from shore; so he should be among the first ones to leave the ship.
Pretence of ignorance, though present in Socratic and dramatic irony, may not
seem to exist in situational irony (example (3)), at least in the form of conscious
ignorance. And vice versa, irregularity of a typical practice, though the feature par
excellence present in situational irony (examples (1) and (2)), is not treated as an
irregularity in Socratic and dramatic irony. On the contrary it is a strategy.
Opposition, contradiction or incongruity between what is expected and its out-
come is always present between the ironist and her victim. The difference lies in the
gradation of conflict which in the case of situational irony is extremely intensified.
What seems to unite the instances of irony above is the feature of unexpected-
ness. This is present in all cases of irony and it has been shown in the few cases of
situational irony discussed in the present work. It comes to unsettle what occurs
typically. Overemphasising the feature of opposition (contrary, contradictory,
negated) in irony, namely the contrary of the expressed meaning or an indirect
negation of it may be the case in verbal irony but in situational irony a lot more is at
stake: it is a mismatch between facts and beliefs on events and situations of entire
conceptual frames. This aspect strongly draws on dramatic irony taking place in
theatres in Ancient Greece. And in fact all the instances above are very theatrical:
speakers are characters, playing their role in frame situations, against the real state
of affairs. Victims are observers unable to react. This is due to the striking unex-
pectedness of the situation: the inconsistency in human behaviour (of the taxi-driver
two fall in love. Comedic moments punctuated by unexpected guests, the repeated returns of the
jealous Ippolit, the buzzing of the doorbell, and the ringing of the phone are interwoven with the
slowly developing love story; melancholic songs illustrate key moments. In the morning, they feel
that everything that has happened to them was a delusion, and they make the difficult decision to
part. With a heavy heart, Zhenya returns to Moscow. Meanwhile, Nadya reconsiders everything
and, deciding that she might have let her chance at happiness slip away, takes a plane to Moscow
following Zhenya, easily finding him in Moscow, since their addresses are the same. (en.
wikipedia.org: irony of fate).
122 A. Athanasiadou
who refuses to take passengers where they wish to go), the fact that victims face a
loss (passengers have very poor control on the taxi-driver) or a win (in Ikaria they
can eat what they want from the store and pay what they wish).
The feature of unexpectedness is a kind of “paradox”. It is characterised by
novelty, imaginativeness and ingenuity. But simultaneously it is pervasive and
common to people since it is culturally rooted. This is due to the fact that all the
features that characterise a situation ironic, and particularly the feature of unex-
pectedness, are deeply rooted in the historical background. The commonalities in
human cognition, reflected in language, seem to draw on the historical dimension.
The concept of irony and its features through utterances show that there is conti-
nuity from the diachronic cultural frames. This continuity is traced in every single
individual and it is distributed in cultural groups. This is what Sharifian calls
“emergent cultural cognition” (2011: 21); it is entertained in the mind of every
individual and through interactions among many other individuals, members of
communities, it is spread into the cultural framework, it is shared, and distributed
collectively. As there may exist differences among members of communities on the
way they conceptualise and express ironic utterances, Sharifian additionally
employs the term “heterogeneously distributed cultural cognition” (ibid: 22).
Therefore, cognition is unquestionably affected by culture in every single individual
during the course of time. The feature of pretence, for instance, though strategic in
Socratic irony, it is not so primary in situational irony and now follows the feature
of unexpectedness.
In fact, the feature of unexpectedness seems to be dominant especially in situa-
tional irony. Gods, Chance, Fate, the Universe have always been powers “playing”
with the fate of common mortals. It is so natural that they shape the life of linguistic
communities. The contemporary theory of situational irony has much to gain from
dramatic irony coming from historical associations.
What has been attempted in the present work is to view ironic expressions and
their relation to thought as forming a network. This network is deeply rooted in the
history of a culture and shapes the development of a community. It emerges more or
less modified but it is still there with its solid schematic structure. Cultural con-
ceptualizations of historical origin have been shown to be central in the production
and the interpretation of how irony rises in our knowledge structure.
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124 A. Athanasiadou
Author Biography
Angeliki Athanasiadou is Professor at the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics of

the School of English at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece. Her main research interests
are in the framework of Cognitive Linguistics and, in particular, the relation of areas of grammar
with cognition; the study of Figurative language (metaphor, metonymy, irony); the language of
Emotions; Cultural Linguistics. She is a partner in international research projects, co-editor
(Figurative Thought and Language, J. Benjamins Book Series), member of editorial boards and
board of referees.
Chapter 7
The Interface Between Language
and Cultural Conceptualisations
of Gender in Interaction: The Case
of Greek
Angeliki Alvanoudi
Abbreviations
1 First person
2 Second person
3 Third person
ACC Accusative
CONJ Conjunction
COP Copula
F Feminine
FUT Future
GEN Genitive
IMPER Imperfect
M Masculine
NEG Negation
NEUT Neuter
NOM Nominative
PART Particle
PFV Perfective
PL Plural
PREP Preposition
PRS Present
PST Past
SBJV Subjunctive
SG Singular
VOC Vocative
A. Alvanoudi (&)
Adjunct Lecturer in Linguistics, James Cook University, Cairns, Australia
e-mail: Angeliki.Alvanoudi@jcu.edu.au

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_7
126 A. Alvanoudi
7.1 Introduction
7.1.1 Cognition as a Puzzle for Language

and Gender Research
The role of language in the construction of gender identities has been the topic of
long-standing research in sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and conversa-
tion analysis. In the early writings of feminist linguists in the 1970s and the
beginning of the 1980s (Lakoff 1975; Spender 1980), language is understood as a
system reflecting gender stereotypes and maintaining men’s domination and
women’s subordination. Within the ‘discourse’ and ‘performance’ turn in the study
of language and gender (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2003: 4), focus has shifted on
language use and its role in the construction of gender at the micro-level of
interaction. More specifically, attention is given to the “linguistic resources”
deployed by speakers to “present themselves as certain kinds of women or men”
(Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2003: 5) and “make a world of two sexes appear
natural and inevitable” (Speer and Stokoe 2011: 14).
Overall, studies on language and gender seem to share the assumption that
language mediates speakers’ cognition. In claiming that gender is constructed
through linguistic practices and language maintains gender inequality, feminist
linguists imply or presuppose that language has a cognitive role, namely, that it
‘affects’ or guides the way in which speakers interpret experience. However, the
relation between language and cognition is not addressed by studies on language
and gender in an articulate or concrete manner. The chapter aims at filling this gap,
by exploring the language, gender and cognition interface through the lens of an
intersection approach that relies heavily on the principles and analytical tools of
Cultural Linguistics.
7.1.2 The Challenge of Cultural Linguistics
Cultural Linguistics provides an interdisciplinary framework for the investigation of

the language, culture and cognition interface (cf. Frank 2015; Sharifian 2011,
2015). Within this framework, features of human languages such as lexical items,
pragmatic devices, and morpho-syntactic features, are taken to encode and com-
municate culturally constructed conceptualisations. These conceptualisations
involve the dynamic cultural knowledge that emerges from the interactions between
members of a cultural group across time and space, and is constantly being
negotiated (Sharifian 2011: 21). Cultural conceptualisations encoded by language
come in the form of cultural schemas, cultural categories, and cultural metaphors.
They consist of encyclopaedic meaning that is culturally constructed, based on
shared experiences, and heterogeneously distributed across members of a
7 The Interface Between Language and Cultural Conceptualisations … 127
group. This non-formalist approach captures the relation between language, culture
and cognition through the concept of cultural cognition that cuts across boundaries
between language and culture, language and cognition, and culture and cognition,
and constitutes a linguistic-cultural-cognitive ‘hybrid’ network (cf. Latour 1993).
The perspective of Cultural Linguistics sheds light into the cognitive dimension
of the relation between language and gender. Research on language and gender has
shown that language indexes sociocultural gender and encodes meanings related to
gender. Following Cultural Linguistics, these meanings are defined as cultural
conceptualisations of gender, prompted by the use of language. The empirical
investigation of the relation between language and cultural conceptualisations of
gender is the topic of this chapter.
The chapter is structured as follows. Section 7.2 maps out the links between
language and cultural conceptualisations of gender, focusing on the Greek lan-
guage. Section 7.2.1 examines the relation between the cultural category of gender
and referential indexing of gender. Section 7.2.2 discusses two cultural schemas
encoded by referential indexes of gender, (i) MAN AS NORM and
(ii) HETERONORMATIVITY, and addresses the relation of these schemas to speakers’
inferences or covert assumptions about the social gender order. Section 7.3
examines how MAN AS NORM and HETERONORMATIVITY are enacted via the use of
gendered terms in the course of social actions in Greek conversation. As the
analysis demonstrates, these cultural schemas, which usually remain at the back-
ground of interaction, are brought to the surface of the talk in cases of repair
(Sect. 7.3.1) and gendered noticing (Sect. 7.3.2). Section 7.4 contains a summary
and discussion.
7.2 Language and Cultural Conceptualisations of Gender
7.2.1 Language and the Cultural Category of Gender
In broad terms, the cultural category of gender refers to the social, cultural and
psychological attributes and behaviours taken to be associated with the female and
male sex. According to the feminist philosopher Braidotti (2000: 189), sociocultural
gender is about “the many and complex ways in which social differences between
the sexes acquire a meaning and become structural factors in the organization of
social life”. Gender is understood as a mixed cultural/natural phenomenon and a
historical and cultural construct, that derives from reiterated performative practices,
and is linked intersectionally to other cultural categories, such as class or ethnicity
(e.g. Braidotti 1994, 2002; Butler 1999, 1993; Haraway 1991). As Butler (1999)
argues, the sex/gender binary is based on the metaphysics of substance, that is, the
belief of a pre-social biological essence that preexists and determines social rela-
tions. This belief legitimises the economy of compulsory heterosexuality (see Rubin
1975 and Rich 1980 for the term) that connects sex with gender, sexual practice and
128 A. Alvanoudi
desire, and produces a matrix of intelligible, proper and non-intelligible, inappro-

priate subjects.
Gender is something that we learn to enact as we socialise. According to Eckert
and McConnell-Ginet (2003: 15, 17), learning to be “gendered”, that is, learning to
be a boy or a girl, a man or a woman, is “a collaborative affair” that connects the
individual to the social order, and involves learning gender asymmetry and seg-
regation, and developing heterosexual desire. Gender is embedded in every aspect
of social life. Women and men are assigned different rights and obligations, free-
doms and constraints in the way they participate in institutions, experience public
spaces, desire and relate with other people. Gender order is understood as “a system
of allocation, based on sex-class assignments”, which is supported by structures of
power and subordination (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2003: 34). These structures
involve the dominant gender ideology, which naturalises and enforces differences
between women and men. For example, women are perceived as weak, passive,
relationship driven, emotional, irrational, cooperative and nurturing, while men are
perceived as strong, aggressive, sex-driven, rational, competitive and practical
(Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2003: 35). Consequently, women are usually allo-
cated to the private domestic sphere or tend to do jobs that involve nurturing and
emotional labour, while men are usually allocated to the public sphere or tend to do
jobs that require managerial work. Gender ideology is taken for granted and sets
norms and constraints in social life which are taken as given by members of a
cultural group.
Language plays a major role in sustaining speakers’ cultural knowledge of
gender, because it categorises the world on the basis of an asymmetrical gender
binary. This categorisation is primarily done via grammatical or lexical gender.
Grammatical gender is a noun class system of two or three distinctions, which
always include the feminine and the masculine. It is an inherent property of the
noun, which controls grammatical agreement between the noun and other elements
in the noun phrase or the predicate (Aikhenvald 2000; Corbett 1991; Hellinger and
Bussmann 2001). In Modern Greek, nouns are divided into three classes: mascu-
line, feminine and neuter. All nouns, adjectives, articles and passive participles, and
certain pronouns and numerals inflect for gender. Gender is marked in singular and
plural number, in all cases, that is, in the nominative, genitive, accusative and
vocative. In Greek, gender assignment of nouns denoting inanimate referents is
semantically arbitrary. Yet, in reference to humans there is a semantic basis,
because in general, nouns denoting male humans are grammatically masculine
(mahitís1 ‘student.M.NOM.SG’, male student) and nouns denoting female humans are
grammatically feminine (mahítria ‘student.F.NOM.SG’ female student). The match
between grammatical gender and referent’s sex in person reference is almost perfect
(Pavlidou et al. 2004). Therefore, in Greek there is a relation between grammatical
gender and the semantic distinction of sex.
1
Greek examples have been transliterated according to broad International Phonetic Alphabet
conventions.
Referent’s sex can also be marked lexically. Lexical gender refers to the lexical
marking of nouns as female or male-specific. In Greek, the feminine or masculine
gender of the noun usually corresponds to the lexical marking of the noun as female
or male. The grammatically feminine noun ʝinéka ‘woman’ and the grammatically
masculine noun ándras ‘man’ are also lexically marked as female and male
respectively. Yet, the nouns korítsi ‘girl’ and aɣóri ‘boy’, which are lexically
marked as female and male respectively, are assigned to neuter gender.
Linguistic items that are marked as female or male grammatically or lexically are
indexing gender referentially, directly and exclusively (Ochs 1992: 338–339).
Referential indexes of gender “ascribe” female or male sex to referents (Eckert and
McConnell-Ginet 2003: 65) in an obligatory way and guide speakers to interpret
referent’s sex as female or male at least at the time of speaking. According to
Slobin’s (1996, 2003) ‘thinking for speaking’ hypothesis, language guides speakers
to attend to those aspects of experience that are grammaticised. Referent’s sex is
grammaticised in languages with grammatical gender and, therefore, is expected to
be conceptually salient for speakers of these languages (Alvanoudi 2014: 59–65). In
“gendering” self and other(s) in conversation (cf. McConnell-Ginet 2003: 90;
Pavlidou 2015), speakers tacitly presuppose or presume that the referent is a woman
or a man (Alvanoudi 2015).
In conversation, the use of gendered terms encodes “gendered messages of
various types” (Hellinger and Bussmann 2001: 19), such as gender asymmetry and
the norm of compulsory heterosexuality. Within the framework of Cultural
Linguistics, these gendered messages can be conceptualised as cultural schemas
that capture speakers’ cultural knowledge and constitute the common ground based
on which interlocutors make assumptions and produce inferences in conversation.
In the following section, I focus on two cultural schemas that are encoded by
gendered terms in various languages, including Greek: MAN AS NORM and
HETERONORMATIVITY.
7.2.2 Language and Cultural Schemas of Gender
Language organises reality into oppositions: male/female, man/woman. The terms

of the oppositions are not equivalent and form a hierarchy. Man is the privileged,
higher and unmarked category, and the universal subject or norm, while woman is
the marked, secondary and negative category, the deviant and subordinate ‘other’.
This gender hierarchy at the social level is reflected in the generic use of the
masculine. In many Indo-European languages (Hellinger and Bussmann 2001–
2002–2003), including Greek (Pavlidou 2003), the masculine gender is functionally
unmarked (Dixon 2010: 237) and, thus, used to refer to both female and male
referents, or referents whose sex is unknown. Example 1 illustrates generic use of
the masculine for third person reference in Greek.
130 A. Alvanoudi
The noun phrase i fitités (‘male students’) that is marked by the masculine
gender is used to refer to all university students, either female or male. Feminist
sociolinguists consider this usage a sexist and exclusionary practice that guides
speakers to understand, in Engelberg’s (2002: 114) words, “people as male (or male
as people)”.
In Alvanoudi (2014: 56–58), I suggested that the generic use of the masculine is
based on the metonymic association of man with the norm. The stereotype of man
as the norm or universal subject forms a metonymic cognitive model in which the
concept of male sex operates as the vehicle through which the concept of
human/universal (target) is accessed and understood. Generic reference in example
1 is achieved metonymically. Male sex, which is morphologically codified, acti-
vates metonymically the category of human/universal and guides speakers to
interpret referents as not exclusively male. The category of human/universal is a
default inference (cf. Levinson 2000) produced in interaction when the masculine
gender is used for generic reference (Alvanoudi 2014: 81–83).
Moreover, the use of gendered terms contributes to the maintenance of
heteronormativity. Institutionalised heterosexuality or heteronormativity establishes
heterosexual desire as the norm in all realms of social life. Heteronormativity
consists of thinking of heterosexuality as a natural and universal category that is
practiced across cultures. Kitzinger (2005) shows that the heterosexual identity of
speakers, recipients and others is routinely displayed and produced in the course of
social actions in English conversation through the deployment of gendered terms,
such as the nouns husband and wife, and the pronouns she and he. The use of these
linguistic items makes the inference of heterosexuality available in interaction
through topic talk about heterosexual relationships, such as weddings or marital
troubles, or in the course of activities that do not explicitly index heterosexual
relationships. In the latter case, according to Kitzinger (2005: 232), “heterosexuality
is deployed, indexed, alluded to, or relied on as a taken-for-granted commonplace”.
In this way, heteronormativity is produced and sustained in everyday conversation
as an unquestioned presupposition about the sociocultural world, and part of what is
‘seen’ but remains ‘unnoticed’ (cf. Garfinkel 1967).
To sum up, the cultural schemas of MAN AS NORM and HETERONORMATIVITY are
grounded in linguistic practices that consist of the use of referential indexes of
gender. Moreover, these cultural schemas are linked with inferences or covert
assumptions about the social gender order, which are routinely displayed in the
course of various social actions in interaction. For conversation analysis, interaction
is the “fundamental or primordial scene of social life” in which “the work of the
constitutive institutions of societies gets done” (Schegloff 1996a: 4). Based on this
view, one can argue that interaction is the ‘natural habitat’ of cultural conceptu-
alisations of gender, that is, the environment in which cultural conceptualisations
emerge and are negotiated in daily life. As is shown in Sect. 7.3, aspects of cultural
cognition can be investigated empirically in interaction through conversation
analysis.
7.3 Referential Indexing of Gender and Cultural

Conceptualisations in Greek Conversation
Conversation analysis is a useful tool for exploring cultural conceptualisations in

interaction, because it analyses what interaction actually means “for the parties
involved in it, in its course, as embodied and displayed in the very details of its
realization” (Schegloff 1997: 168), rather than what participants “hypothetically or
imaginably understood” (Heritage and Atkinson 1984: 1). Speakers’ next turns
publicly display their understandings of social actions of just-prior-turns (Sacks
et al. 1974) and embody an action responsive to the just-prior turn so understood
(Schegloff 2007: 15). Thus, the organisation of talk-in-interaction allows partici-
pants to build intersubjective or joint understandings, which can be maintained,
monitored and repaired, if necessary (Sidnell 2010: 12). Analysts have access to
this “context of publicly displayed and continuously up-dated intersubjective
understandings” (Heritage 1984: 259), and thus are closer to speakers’ “mental
world”, in Levinson’s (2006: 86) words.
In Sects. 7.3.1 and 7.3.2, the relation of referential indexing of gender to cultural
conceptualisations of gender in Greek conversation is examined through conver-
sation analysis. The data analysed originate from 22 h and 43 min of
audio-recorded naturally occurring informal face-to-face conversations among
friends and relatives from the Corpus of Spoken Greek (Institute of Modern Greek
Studies), and about 23 h of audio-recorded conversations with first-generation and
second-generation Greek immigrants that I collected during fieldwork in Far North
Queensland, Australia, in 2013.
7.3.1 Cultural Schema I: MAN AS NORM
A first attempt to address the interface between grammar, gender and speakers’
cognition in Greek was undertaken by Alvanoudi (2014). In Sect. 7.3.1, I build on
my previous work and take it a step forward, drawing on the framework of Cultural
Linguistics. My aim is not to simply repeat findings of previous research but to
critically re-approach them, via the analytical tools of Cultural Linguistics.
132 A. Alvanoudi
In Greek conversation, the generic use of the masculine gender (see Sect. 7.2.2)
is also extended to reference female persons only. Greek speakers utilise the
inference of human/universal associated with the generic use of the masculine to
refer to more than one female referent in cases of collective self-reference or
reference to recipients. This pattern is found in Excerpt 1 [first analysed in
Alvanoudi (2014: 123–124)].
In the lines preceding this excerpt, Dimitris asks his female co-participants, Zoi,
Evagelia and Melita, about the profession they would choose if they were about to
finish high school now. In lines 2–3, Dimitris summarises the answers delivered by
his co-participants. He refers to the female co-participants via the second person
plural verb ha sineçízate (‘you would continue’) and describes them via the mas-
culine adjective óli: (‘all’). That is, he uses the masculine grammatical gender for
reference to female persons only, based on the inference of human/universal
associated with the masculine gender. This inference is a routine meaning produced
in the course of the action accomplished by the speaker.
Excerpt 12
In this excerpt, the cultural schema of MAN AS NORM is enacted via the use of a
grammatically masculine linguistic item. The schema remains at the background of
interaction, as part of what is seen (codified) but not noticed by participants.
However, this is not always the case in Greek conversation. As the analysis of the
next excerpt shows, the cultural schema of MAN AS NORM is uncovered when the use
of the masculine grammatical gender for reference to female referents only creates
trouble in the interpretation of referents’ sex that is resolved through repair.
2
The conversations have been fully transcribed according to conversation analysis conventions.
Repair refers to a set of systematically organised practices through which par-

ticipants manage trouble in speaking, hearing and understanding (Kitzinger 2012).
The particular segment of talk, to which the repair is addressed, is called the
trouble-source or the repairable. A repair may be self-initiated or other-initiated,
depending on whether it is initiated by the speaker of the trouble-source or by
someone other than the speaker of the trouble-source. It is divided into self-repair
and other-repair, depending on whether it is carried through by the speaker of the
trouble-source or by someone other than the speaker of the trouble-source. In
Excerpt 2, I examine a self-initiated self-repair in which the masculine grammatical
gender is the repairable item (for a detailed analysis of repairs of grammatical
gender in Greek conversation see Alvanoudi 2014: 129–154).
Self-repair may occur in the same turn-constructional-unit (TCU) as the
trouble-source or later than the same TCU, in the transition space after the possible
completion of a turn. In self-repairs speakers perform some operation upon the
repairable item, such as replacing an item by another, inserting an item into the
prior talk, deleting an item from the prior talk, or re-ordering words or phrases
(Schegloff 2013). According to Drew et al. (2013: 93), self-repairs give analysts
“access to the work of constructing a turn” by bringing “to the interactional surface
the work in which speakers engage in order to construct the action”. As the analysis
of the following excerpt shows, the underlying work of constructing a turn
involves, among other things, the negotiation of cultural conceptualisations.
In the lines preceding Excerpt 2, three female participants, Vaso, Yana and
Katerina, talk about whether they used to go to children’s camp when they were
young. Yana and her sister, Katerina, who used to go, assess their experience as a
good one.
Excerpt 2
134 A. Alvanoudi
Yana’s negative assessment of Katerina’s competence in staying at a children’s

camp for a long period (lines 1–2) invokes Katerina’s disagreement (óçi ðen íme,
‘It’s not that I’m not’, line 3). In the next TCU, Katerina initiates a story telling
(lines 3–4, 6), treating Yana’s first pair part as a story provocation (Lerner 1992:
250). This is an assisted story telling (Lerner 1992) that establishes both Yana and
Katerina as story consociates who share common knowledge about the story events
and are able to jointly deliver the story. The common knowledge that interlocutors
share is based on their sister relation.
Yana’s first positioned assessment in lines 1–2 makes the ‘sister’ identity
interactionally relevant. As Heritage and Raymond (2005: 16) show, first positioned
assessments “carry an implied claim that the speaker has primary rights to evaluate
the matter assessed” and can be used as resources for indexing speakers’ epistemic
rights. More specifically, Yana’s assessment is an unmarked first positioned
assessment that consists of a declarative utterance that does not strengthen or
weaken the evaluation and claims “unmediated access to the assessable” (Heritage
and Raymond 2005: 19), i.e. Katerina’s behaviour. This epistemic right that Yana
claims for herself is associated with her identity as Katerina’s sister. According to
Raymond and Heritage (2006: 680), “the management of rights to knowledge and,
relatedly, rights to describe or evaluate states of affairs can be a resource for
invoking identity in interaction”. Yana’s unmarked first positioned assessment
evokes the relevance of her identity as Katerina’s sister.
In lines 5, 7–8, and 19–20, Yana participates in the course of story delivery
through story consociate initiated entries (Lerner 1992). She repairs trouble in story
elaboration by giving more information about the exact age that she and Katerina
had at the time of the story events (lines 5, 7–8). She also repairs trouble in the facts
of the story (lines 19–20), by correcting both her and Katerina’s age again. Yana’s
turn in lines 19–20 consists of a TCU (Imastan pço meɣáli tóte. ‘we were older.
M then.’), and an increment (pço meɣáles ‘older.F’), that delivers the self-repair. In
the TCU, Yana refers to herself and her sister via a first person plural verb. She
describes the female referents via the masculine adjective meɣáli (‘old’), presup-
posing the inference of human/universal associated with the masculine gender. In
the transition space after the possible completion of the TCU, Yana does a
self-repair: she replaces the masculine adjective with the feminine one (meɣáles)
that ascribes female sex to referents, and pre-frames the repairable item by repeating
the adverb pço (‘more’).
The self-repair of grammatical gender is triggered by the interactional relevan-
cies associated with the action accomplished. As was shown before, Yana’s
assessment introduced the sister-identity as a relevant aspect of context. The rele-
vance of the sister-identity was maintained throughout the sequence due to the
assisted storytelling that established Yana and Katerina as story consociates with
common knowledge of the story events. In lines 19–20, Yana delivers a story
136 A. Alvanoudi
consociate initiated entry to repair trouble in story elaboration, that is, she delivers
an action related to the relevance of the speaker’s identity as Katerina’s sister. Yana
is entitled to repair trouble in story elaboration, because she shares common
knowledge with her sister Katerina. However, the deployment of a grammatically
masculine item that categorises Yana and Katerina as male does not align with the
relevance of the referents’ sister-identity, which is conceptually marked for female
sex. Yana’s selection of a grammatically feminine item that ascribes female sex to
referents aims at incorporating the relevance of female sex in interaction.
In Alvanoudi (2014), I argued that this self-repair can be interpreted by the
analyst as an indication of the role of the masculine grammatical gender in inter-
preting referents as male at the time of thinking for speaking (cf. Slobin 1996).
Looking at the data through the lens of Cultural Linguistics, this argument can be
extended as follows. The self-repair uncovers the role of the masculine grammatical
gender in the interpretation of referent’s sex and the cultural schema of MAN AS
NORM, associated with the masculine grammatical gender. As was mentioned in
Sect. 7.2.2, the masculine gender categorises the referent as male and, thus, acti-
vates metonymically the cultural stereotype of man as norm. This stereotype is a
cultural schema produced in interaction as a default inference. In the repair analysed
above, this inference comes to the surface of the talk and the cultural schema is
uncovered.
7.3.2 Cultural Schema II: HETERONORMATIVITY
The next topic to be examined is the cultural schema of HETERONORMATIVITY in

Greek conversation. As the analysis of Excerpt 3 shows, HETERONORMATIVITY is
routinely displayed in the course of social actions, as a tacit assumption that par-
ticipants share about the sociocultural world. The excerpt comes from a conver-
sation between Minas, a first-generation male Greek,3 and the researcher.
3
Minas’s speech consists of code mixed utterances in which most of the lexicon and
morpho-syntax come from Greek and single words or phrases are inserted from English. Insertions
from English constitute momentary switches that do not change the language of interaction and do
not carry any conversational functions (cf. Auer 1995).
Excerpt 3
In lines 1–2, Minas announces that his son will get engaged in the end of
August. He refers to his son via the noun phrase o ʝos mu (‘my son’) that is marked
for referent’s male sex. The gendered term is associated with engagement, that is, a
form of conduct that usually involves a male and a female person, and is based on
HETERONORMATIVITY. The researcher delivers a response to the status of the news as
“tellable” (Schegloff 2007: 74) in lines 4 and 6, and Minas closes the sequence in
line 8 with an alignment token. The researcher expands the sequence in line 10. The
speaker treats Minas’s announcement as worthy of further on-topic talk: she asserts
that Minas’s son will get engaged to an Australian woman, and seeks confirmation.
She introduces his son’s future fiancée via the indefinite referring expressions
138 A. Alvanoudi
Afstrali: and Afstraléza (‘Australian’), which consist of grammatically feminine

adjectives (the speaker repeats the same adjective with a different feminine ending).
In presuming that the referent is a woman, the speaker presupposes the cultural
schema of HETERONORMATIVITY. In lines 12–13, Minas refers to the ethnicity of the
fiancée. In this excerpt, HETERONORMATIVITY is embedded in speakers’ actions as a
tacit assumption that passes unnoticed. Yet, as we will see below, this assumption is
uncovered when speakers deliver gendered noticings.
Hopper and LeBaron (1998) show that in English conversation gender can be
advanced from “background to focal status” (cf. Hopper and LeBaron 1998: 60;
Goodwin and Duranti 1992) and can become a relevant feature of the context.
English speakers can enhance gender’s contextual relevance through a noticing
series whereby gender creeps into talk and is brought to “focused attention” (Hopper
and LeBaron 1998: 61). The noticing series consists of peripheral gendered activity,
gendered noticing, and extending of gender’s relevance. Gendered noticing is the
discursive attending to gender, whereby speakers index gender explicitly and ref-
erentially. This noticing is preceded by peripheral gender activities in which gender
is implicitly indexed as a relevant part of the context. Gender relevance may be
extended in the aftermath of the noticing and become a resource for subsequent talk.
In the following two excerpts, I analyse gendered noticing in Greek conversation,
through which the cultural schema of HETERONORMATIVITY creeps into talk.
Excerpt 4
In line 4, Tania nominates a topic (Button and Casey 1985) by employing an

itemised news inquiry that takes the form of a question. Itemised news inquiries are
oriented to a recipient-related newsworthy item for which current speaker has some
knowledge (Button and Casey 1985). Tania employs an initial recognitional ref-
erence form (Schegloff 1996b), i.e. the male proper name Christos, which indicates
that both speaker and recipients know the referent’s identity. In delivering an
itemised news inquiry about Christos, Tania orients to Christos’s activities as
possibly news generational. Zoi provides a ‘no new response’ in line 7. In over-
lapping talk, Evagelia initiates a repair sequence to resolve trouble in recognising
the referent (lines 8–9) and Zoi delivers the repair (line 10). In lines 11–12, Melita
summons Tania and Zoi via the vocative korítsça and requests information about
Christos’s identity. She implements the request via an assertion uttered with
emphasis (hélume plíri enimérosi. ‘we want a full update’) and a content
wh-question (#pços ín o Xrístos. ‘who is Christos.’). In requesting information
about Christos, Melita orients to Christos’s identity as a newsworthy item. She
employs a first person plural verb to refer to self as part of a group of people who do
not share knowledge about Christos’s identity. This group includes Evagelia and
Dimitris. Tania’s itemised news inquiry and Melita’s question implicitly index
HETERONORMATIVITY, according to which women are interested in men. These actions
constitute a peripheral gendered activity, or a pre-noticing, that prepares the ground
for the gendered noticing in line 14.
140 A. Alvanoudi
Dimitris notices that Christos is a boy (line 14). His turn is a declarative assertion
that consists of a copula clause (=>Íne ci< aɣόri e?= ‘He is a boy ah?’), that is
delivered with emphasis and rising intonation and seeks confirmation from
co-participants. The speaker ascribes male sex to the third person via the noun aɣόri
(‘boy’) that is lexically marked for male sex. The use of the gendered term indicates
that gender is a feature of context that has become interactionally relevant. The
speaker attends to referent’s masculine gender and brings HETERONORMATIVITY to
focused attention. As the next turns show, co-participants understand Dimitris’s
turn as a complaint that he should not be included in the collectivity of
co-participants interested in Christos. Evagelia suggests that Dimitris can talk about
girls (line 15), Zoi confirms that Christos is a boy (line 16), and Melita apologises to
Dimitris (line 17). Thus, the gendered noticing is extended into a series of responses
by Evagelia and Melita that acknowledge that the topic of talk is not newsworthy
for Dimitris who is a man, and, therefore, he is expected to have a special interest in
women and not in men.
In this excerpt, gendered noticing does not “pop up out at random”, in Hopper
and LeBaron (1998: 66) words. Gender creeps into the talk through a peripheral
gendered activity in which gender is implicitly indexed. The gendered noticing
delivered by the speaker explicitly indexes gender as a relevant part of context.
Gender’s relevance is maintained in the next turns. In this three-phase action series,
participants position themselves and other as heterosexual women and men, pre-
suppose the cultural schema of HETERONORMATIVITY in the peripheral gendered
activity, and bring the schema to focused attention via the gendered noticing and in
the aftermath of the noticing.
In Excerpt 5, Petros talks about a film starring Antonio Banderas and Angelina
Jolie (lines 1–2). Vera, who hasn’t watched the film, asks Petros if he watched it
(line 3). Petros replies with an emphatic positive token (line 5). After a gap, he
explains that he watched the film because Angelina was starring (line 7), uttering
the actress’s name with emphasis. The account operates as a pre-noticing that
indexes HETERONORMATIVITY implicitly: the speaker displays his preference for the
actress, tacitly presupposing the cultural norm according to which men like/desire
women.
Excerpt 5
In line 9, Vera asks Petros if he likes Angelina that much. Vera’s question has
the form of an assertion that challenges Petros’s prior claim. The particle ʝatí
prefacing the turn indexes disagreement with the claim made by the previous
speaker (cf. Pavlidou and Karafoti 2016). Instead of confirming that he likes
Angelina, Petros claims that Vera knows his preference for women (Afú to kséris όti
mu arésun i ʝinéces. ‘[Why do you ask] since you know that I like women.’). His
turn expresses opposition with Vera via the conjunction afú (‘since’), targets the
142 A. Alvanoudi
lack of knowledge that Vera’s question seems to presuppose, and delivers a gen-
dered noticing. The use of the gendered term ʝinéces (‘women’) makes Angelina
Jolie’s feminine gender and Petros’s masculine gender interactionally relevant.
Petros positions himself as a man in the heterosexual order who desires women and,
thus, attends to the cultural schema of HETERONORMATIVITY that was tacitly pre-
supposed in his prior turn. Gender’s relevance is extended in the next turns. Vera
accepts Petros’s claim with irony (line 12) and Petros challenges Vera’s response
(line 13). Vera re-accepts Petros’s claim with irony (lines 15–16) and Petros
explains that he likes pretty women (i.e. not any women) (line 17).
To summarise, in Excerpts 4 and 5, speakers use referential indexing of gender
as a practice to notice gender and orient to the cultural schema of
HETERONORMATIVITY. The schema is tacitly presupposed and displayed in the course
of various social actions in Greek conversation. Yet, it pops up to the surface of the
talk on particular occasions.
7.4 Conclusion and Discussion
Overall, the analysis presented in this chapter demonstrates the relationship between
referential indexing of gender and cultural conceptualisations of gender in Greek
conversation. More specifically, the analysis shows that the cultural schemas of MAN
AS NORM and HETERONORMATIVITY are associated with inferences or covert assump-
tions routinely displayed in the course of social actions. These schemas are
uncovered in cases of repair and gendered noticing. Based on the analysis, cultural
cognition is shown to be a socially situated phenomenon, which is embedded in
social action, and can be examined empirically in interaction.
The study employs an intersection approach that draws on the frameworks of
Cultural Linguistics, language and gender research and conversation analysis. The
advantages of employing such an interdisciplinary approach are twofold.
First, Cultural Linguistics provides researchers working on language and gender
with the analytical tools for the investigation of the interface between language,
gender and cognition. This chapter is a case study for how Cultural Linguistics can
be applied to the analysis of language and gender. Future research on language and
gender that adopts the framework of Cultural Linguistics can target indexical
processes through which gender identity is discursively produced (Bucholtz and
Hall 2005: 594) and their relation to cultural cognition. These processes include the
grammatical and lexical means of marking gender, the deployment of linguistic
structures ideologically associated with femininity or masculinity, gendered meta-
phors and gender stereotypes, across various languages and cultural groups.
Second, bringing Cultural Linguistics into dialogue with interactional approa-
ches to gender paves the way for an interactional perspective on the study of
language and cultural conceptualisations (see Palmer 1996: 170–221 for a discus-
sion on discourse scenarios through a cultural linguistic perspective). According to
Cultural Linguistics, cultural cognition is emergent rather than static and fixed, and
arises from the interaction between members of a cultural group. As the analysis in
this chapter shows, it is possible for analysts to examine the emergence and
negotiation of cultural conceptualisations in real conversational time. This ‘time’
has been defined by Enfield (2013) as ‘enchrony’ and concerns the level of “se-
quences of interlocking or interdependent communicative moves that are taken to
be co-relevant, and causally-conditionally related” (Enfield 2013: 287). In my
opinion, the idea that cultural conceptualisations emerge at the level of enchrony in
interaction is a theoretical challenge for Cultural Linguistics and requires further
elaboration that goes beyond the scope of the present chapter.
Transcription Conventions
1. Temporal and Sequential Relationships
[ left brackets: point of overlap onset between two or more

[ utterances (or segments of them)
] right brackets: point of overlap end between two or more
] utterances (or segments of them)
= The symbol is used either in pairs or on its own.
A pair of equals signs is used to indicate the following:
1. If the lines connected by the equals signs contain utterances (or segments
of them) by different speakers, then the signs denote ‘latching’ (that is, the
absence of discernible silence between the utterances).
2. If the lines connected by the equals signs are by the same speaker, then
there was a single, continuous utterance with no break or pause, which was
broken up in two lines only in order to accommodate the placement of
overlapping talk.
The single equals sign is used to indicate latching between two parts of the
same speaker’s talk, where one might otherwise expect a micro-pause, as, for
instance, after a turn-constructional unit with a falling intonation contour.
(0.8) Numbers in parentheses indicate silence, represented in tenths of a second.
Silences may be marked either within the utterance or between utterances.
(.) micro-pause (less than 0.5 s)
2. Symbols and Combinations of Symbols for Representing Various Aspects

of Speech Delivery
punctuation marks Indication of intonation, more specifically,

. the period indicates falling/final intonation,
? the question mark indicates rising intonation,
, the comma indicates continuing/non-final intonation,
¿ the inverted question mark indicates a rise stronger than a
comma but weaker than a question mark,
: colons are used to indicate the prolongation or stretching of
the sound just preceding them. The more colons, the longer
the stretching.
144 A. Alvanoudi
word Underlining is used to indicate some form of emphasis,

either by increased loudness or higher pitch.
° The degree sign is used to indicate the onset of talk that is
markedly quiet or soft. When the end of such talk does not
coincide with the end of a line, then the symbol is used again
to mark its end.
- A hyphen after a word or part of a word indicates a cut-off or
interruption.
_: Combinations of underlining and colons are used to indicate
intonation contours. If the letter(s) preceding a colon is
underlined, then there is prolongation of the sound preceding
it and, at the same time, a falling intonation contour.
: If the colon itself is underlined, then there is prolongation of
the sound preceding it and, at the same time, a rising
intonation contour.
"# The arrows mark sharp intonation contours. The upper arrow
indicates sharp intonation rises, whereas the down arrow
indicates sharp intonation falls.
>word< The combination of ‘more than’ and ‘less than’ symbols
indicates that the talk between them is compressed or rushed.
<word> The combination of ‘less than’ and ‘more than’ symbols
indicates that the talk between them is markedly slowed or
drawn out.
h Hearable aspiration is shown with the Latin letter h. Its
repetition indicates longer duration. The aspiration may
represent inhaling, exhaling, laughter, etc.
.h If the aspiration is an inhalation, then it is indicated with a
period before the letter h.
3. Other Markings
((laughs)) Double parentheses and italics are used to mark meta-linguistic,

para-linguistic and non-conversational descriptions of events by the
transcriber.
(word) Words in parentheses represent a likely possibility of what was said.
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Author Biography
Angeliki Alvanoudi is an Adjunct Lecturer in Linguistics at James Cook University, Australia.

Her main interests are language and gender, language and cognition, and grammar and interaction.
Her recent publications include Grammatical gender in interaction: Cultural and cognitive aspects
(Brill 2014) and “The routine achievement of gender in Greek conversation” (Gender and
Language 9/1: 2015). She is the editor of the special section on “Aspects of the meaning of
gender” (International Journal of Language and Culture 3/1: 2016).
Chapter 8
Grounding and Relational Schemas
in Managalase, Papua New Guinea
William H. McKellin
8.1 Introduction
This chapter focuses on several cultural schemas of the Managalase of Papua New
Guinea that are primarily concerned with kinship or relatedness. These schemas
also expand to encompass personhood and Managalase folk psychology or schemas
of learning or EPISTEMOLOGY. RELATEDNESS, PERSONHOOD and EPISTEMOLOGY delineate
individuals’ unique perspectives or viewpoints in social and linguistic interaction.
The significant role given to individuals’ actions reflects two concurrent starting
points. Frank (2014) argues that for language “… global order derives from local
interactions. Language agents are carriers of individual linguistic knowledge which
becomes overt behaviour in local interactions between agents” (Frank 2014: 495).
This echoes Bourdieu’s (1977a) contention that intergenerational patterns of
interaction and social practice by individuals in a community are transformed over
time into personal bodily dispositions and social habitus. Thus, repeated social and
linguistic processes accrue into dynamic, regenerating linguistic and cultural
schemas.
Managalase cultural schemas of relatedness are linguistically expressed in kin
terms or terms of social relatedness; cognitive processes of perception, conception
and recall; discourse structure; and in social and political negotiations that employ
an allegorical genre of discourse.
In this chapter I will contend that to understand “Common Ground” (Clark 1996)
in language use, it is necessary to take into account cultural schemas, particularly
the schemas of social relatedness that ground the social distribution of schemas
within a community, to appreciate language use as a social, communicative action.
W.H. McKellin (&)

Department of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
e-mail: mcke@mail.ubc.ca

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_8
150 W.H. McKellin
8.2 Grounding in Cognitive Linguistics

and Cultural Linguistics
Grounding and ground are used in complex, and at times confusing ways in
Cognitive Linguistics. Grounding, according to Barsalou (2008), involves two
different, but related process. The first, “perceptual grounding” involves relating
language to the world around us through our senses (including perception of one’s
own body) to generate conceptions (Barsalou 2010). Cognitive Linguistics has paid
considerable attention to this type of grounding, primarily as embodiment (Lakoff
and Johnson 1999).
The second form of grounding is “social symbol grounding”—a “shared set of
symbolic conventions, the agents have to learn from each other” (Vogt and Divina
2007, p. 32) that applies specifically to “language acquisition and learning social
conventions” (Vogt and Divina 2007, p. 34). This form of grounding has received
limited explicit attention, but it is consistent with Croft’s (2009) recognition of the
central role of the social, conventional nature of language. Sharifian’s (2014)
assertion that cultural schemas provide grounding in Farsi serves as an example.
In linguistic analyses, Cognitive Linguists have used the concept of Ground in
several ways: by appealing to the Gestalt psychology’s distinction between
Figure and Ground (Talmy 2000), and in Langacker’s definition of Ground as the
“actual speech event, its participants, and its immediate circumstances” (Langacker
1999).
Oakley and his Cognitive Linguistic colleagues (Oakley and Coulson 2008;
Oakley and Kaufer 2008) develop a related, but different concept—Grounding Space
(similar to Brandt and Brandt’s (2005) Semiotic Space) within the Blending and
Conceptual Integration Model. They explain that “Grounding involves specifying
(l) the discourse participants and their roles, (2) the rhetorical situation that serves as
the immediate local context for the current communicative act, (3) the situational and
(4) argumentative relevance of the mental spaces network” (Oakley and Coulson
2008). In their analyses, the Grounding Space represents the speaker and hearers’, or
writer and readers’ shared assumptions about roles, the situation, setting and
assessment of the relevance of knowledge. Thus, in their model, grounding is an
additional type of mental space that incorporates the conventional, situationally rel-
evant social, cultural and sociolinguistic knowledge that, from their analytical vantage
point, is assumed to be shared by the speaker and his or her audience.
However, this treatment of Grounding Space, when applied to social interaction,
ignores the fundamental Cognitive Linguistic assumption that particular construals
always incorporate perspectives and viewpoints (Dancygier and Sweetser 2012;
Dancygier et al. 2016). The distinctive perspectives and viewpoints of speakers and
audience members are linguistically expressed through indications of time, distance
and place, as well as by pronouns, address forms, deictics, connectives, evidentiary
markers and constructions, and evaluative statements (Dancygier 2005; Dancygier
and Sweetser 2012).
8 Grounding and Relational Schemas in Managalase, Papua New Guinea 151
Thus, all of these treatments of Ground and Grounding that involve schemati-
cally organised knowledge or information are social conventions employed by
individuals in language use.
8.2.1 Language Use in Cognitive Linguistics Cultural

Linguistics and Social Action
Both Cultural Linguistics and Cognitive Linguistics approach language as a social

act of communication rather than as a form of mental calculus. Communicationally
oriented Cognitive Linguists who have examined language in social interactions
(Oakley and Kaufer 2008; Oakley and Hougaard 2008; Oakley and Crisp 2011;
Oakley and Tobin 2014) have appealed to Tomasello’s (1999, 2008) evolutionary
and developmentally oriented contention that language has its roots in social
interaction and communication rather than abstract cognition. They also employ
Clark’s (1996) approach to language use in which language is a social activity.
8.2.2 Grounding of Common Ground
Based on his examination of two-party English conversations, Clark asserts that

language use is constituted by joint attention, Common Ground and joint action, in
which language serves as a mediating or coordinating device. Clark’s analysis focuses
on the development of Common Ground, assumptions of shared beliefs, shared
knowledge and shared assumptions that emerge during his hypothetical two-party
conversations. Clark considers his analysis as a development of several related con-
cepts including mutual knowledge (Smith 1982; Sperber and Wilson 1982) and shared
intentions (Grice 1975, 1978). Clark asserts that in specified contexts where the social
roles are clear, “Common Ground is a form of self-awareness—self-knowledge,
self-belief, self-assumption—in which there is at least one other person with the
analogous self-awareness” (Clark 1996: 94). He continues by asserting a social
dimension to Common Ground by stating:
Common Ground isn’t information that I have by myself, or that my son has by himself.
Only an omniscient being can say, ‘It is Common Ground for the two of them’…. When he
and I act ‘on the basis of our common ground,’ we are in fact acting on our individual
beliefs or assumptions about what is in our common ground (Clark 1996, p. 96).
Clark contends that Common Ground has two sources: “communal common
ground” that arises from the cultural communities that individuals belong to and
“personal common ground”, which is based on participants’ own direct personal
experiences with each other (Clark 1996). The belief in shared Common Ground
arises from individuals’ assumptions that they are members of the same community.
Clark also recognises that, “Common ground isn’t just there, ready to be exploited.
152 W.H. McKellin
We have to establish it with each person we interact with. Communal common

ground, as we have seen, is based on two people’s mutual belief that one or both are
members of a particular community” (Clark 1996, p. 116).
He describes communities in terms of the types of information and expertise they
presumably share ranging from his own folk psychological beliefs about humans
and the world, to nationalities, regional affiliations and professions. Significantly,
Clark assumes that members of a community recognise a consensus that contributes
to a definition of the community, which provides the basis for norms, roles,
institutions and the culture itself. Nonetheless, he recognises that the assumption of
Common Ground may be misplaced and that participants may disagree on the
evidence of Common Ground, though they may not be aware of their differences.
Personal Common Ground emerges from each individual’s own experiences—
their own physical perceptions, their perceptions of others in the community and the
perceptions that are shaped by their previous experiences of communal Common
Ground. Significantly, he contends that individuals’ Common Ground is not
dependent on each person’s viewpoint: “this representation doesn’t change when
my son and I switch places. So long as I assume he is like me in his awareness of
the situation, his and my self-awareness are exact analogs” (Clark 1996, p. 95). In
this way, his approach is also similar to some formulations of intersubjectivity
(Duranti 2010; Schutz 1962; Schutz and Weber 1967; Verhagen 2005).
8.2.3 Cultural Schemas and Grounding
The shared knowledge, beliefs and the Common Ground that Clark and others treat
as the basis for language use in social interaction are captured by the analytical
concept of cultural model or cultural schema in Cultural Linguistics and anthro-
pology. Information in cultural schemas is a pattern or network of interdependent
inferences, distributed among members of a community with properties similar to
those of psychological schemas and cognitive linguistic frames and scenarios
(D’Andrade and Strauss 1992; Holland and Quinn 1987; Quinn 2011; Shore 1995,
2012; Strauss and Quinn 1997).
Shore (2012), writing about cultural models (or cultural schemas), provides
some conceptual clarity by distinguishing between two types of models or schemas:
allocentric and egocentric. Allocentric models or schemas are an outside observer’s
identification of schemas. Allocentric schemas stand in contrast to each individual’s
more restricted insider’s knowledge consisting of his or her repertoire of egocentric
models that provide his or her particular viewpoint, which is established by the
frames and scenarios potentially available to an individual while acting, speaking or
listening. Shore further distinguishes between conventional models, shared patterns
of inference and practice that are not usually identified by members of the com-
munity but identifiable by an observer, and institutionalised models, which are
socially recognised, publically objectified and named.
Though cultural schemas may be thought of as shared among members of a

society, they are variably distributed within a community, resulting from, and
contributing to differential access that is shaped by age, gender, kin affiliation or
relatedness, class and other social and political factors. Sperber (1985) represented
this distributed conceptualisation of cultural as an “epidemiology of symbols” and
Hutchins (1995) as “distributed cognition”. Culture conceptualised in these models
or schemas is a dynamic, distributed representation system, in which members of
the communities do not necessarily share the same knowledge or attributes.
Thus, culture, rather than a monolithic set of commonly shared norms, values
and roles within a community, as envisioned by Clark, is a dynamic, reproductive
intersection of social practices that can be represented in a distributed array of
sub-symbolic representations (Sun and Alexandre 1997), or represented using
models of Parallel Distributed Processing (Hutchins 1995; Sharifian and Jamarani
2011; McKellin 1995; Strauss and Quinn 1997).
This distributed model is further elaborated by Strauss and Quinn (1997) who
developed the association between the dynamics of distributed representations with
Bourdieu’s (1977a; Bourdieu and Thompson 1991) Practice Theory, in which the
accretion of individuals’ social and linguistic practices coalesce into a constantly
regenerating habitus of social activities and bodily dispositions. This interactive
model of society and of social and linguistic practices provides insights into the
problems that anthropologists have had in explaining the fluid nature of social
groups, relational notions of self and the apparent naturalness of everyday routines.
Describing societies and their cultures as dynamic distributed systems of practice
effectively captures the social flow in societies in Papua New Guinea (Watson
1970), where complex networks of social relationships are based on the tension
between social affiliations and differentiation. Anthropologists have disputed
whether social groups actually existed or were simply aggregations of networks
(Wagner 1974). The complexity of social group membership is consequential for
our understanding of Common Ground, if Common Ground is rooted in group
membership and the social assumptions and beliefs that flow from membership.
8.2.4 Grounding Kinship and Relatedness
For decades, anthropologists have debated the grounding of kinship terms. While
some assume that kinship is primarily grounded in biological relations, others have
given priority to social RELATEDNESS. The 1960s and 1970s generated considerable
debate about the very nature of kinship and kinship studies. Scheffler and
Loundsbury (1971) and many anthropologists, including cognitive anthropologists,
maintained the classic position that kinship should be treated as its own separate
and distinct domain grounded in biologically based genealogical relationships. In
contrast, two alternative critiques emerged. Schneider (1968, 1984) questioned the
genealogical bias of kinship studies and openly wondered if what anthropologists
called “kinship” simply reflected our own Western biases while kinship concepts in
154 W.H. McKellin
other culture encompassed a wider range of concepts and values. This approach that
came to be called symbolic anthropology, resulted in a flurry of studies, particularly
in Papua New Guinea, which examined indigenous kinship idioms (e.g. Strathern
1972, 1973; Wagner 1967), and presaged Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) analysis of
metaphors.
Needham (1971, 1975) posed a somewhat different critique that questioned the
very nature of categories and the analytical category “kinship.” He contending that
kinship is not a discrete cultural and semantic domain, but constituted a polythetic
category, much like Lakoff’s (1987) radial categories, based on perceived family
resemblances in which different combinations of features coalesced in different
societies under the anthropological analytical rubric of kinship.
More recently, the focus on indigenous groundings has transformed into studies
of “relatedness” (Carsten 1997, 2000). Emerging from her research in Langkawi
Malaysia, where sharing food creates shared substance relationships—an extension
of, or complement to procreation, Carsten established a new way of conceptualising
the social symbolic grounding of kinship research as “relatedness”—kinship with-
out its dichotomous biological/social Western intellectual baggage (Carsten 2013).
8.3 Managalase Cultural Schemas of Relatedness
Managalase treatment of language as a form of social action is embedded in their

cultural schemas of RELATEDNESs. This is abundantly evident in prohibitions against
using words that are phonologically similar to the names of one’s in-laws,
restrictions on the use of names of mythological ancestors, and caution in whis-
pering the magical spells used in gardening and hunting. It is also exemplified by
their fluid applications of kinship or relational terminology, the evidentiary limi-
tations of speakers to retell accounts of events reflected in the use of reported
speech in discourse, and the management of intention in speakers’ use of an alle-
gorical form of political rhetoric employed in negotiations. The fluidity of
Managalase ‘group’ membership and social identities challenges Clark’s assump-
tion that Common Ground may be clearly identified by appealing to shared group
identity, and the group’s shared beliefs, assumptions and knowledge.
8.3.1 Ethnographic Background
The approximately 25,000 Managalase speakers of Oro Province, Papua New

Guinea have experienced considerable change during the course of the last 40 years
since independence in 1976. On the surface, the most visible evidence of changes
are the presence of metal roofs on houses and schools, a road that is occasionally
passable to the coast, a growing number of cell phones, and the declining number of
men, now elderly, who participated in initiation rituals that involved full body
tattooing which last took place in 1950.
Managalase remain primarily subsistence horticulturalists, who cultivate yams,

taro, bananas and sugar cane as their staples. Nut and fruit trees (including pan-
danus, coconut, breadfruit, mango, papaya) stand adjacent to houses in the villages
and in gardens. Men, women and children also catch small fish and fresh water
prawns. In the past men hunted and trapped small marsupials, wild pig, eels, snake,
cassowary and small birds that supplemented their supply of domestic pigs.
8.3.2 Cultural Schemas of Relatedness
As in many of the societies of Melanesia, and in Papua New Guinea in particular,

there is considerable debate concerning the nature of social groups in which ties
though descent and through land create complex social affiliations (Strathern 1973).
The complex networks of genealogical affiliations, ties to land and separations that
emerge from marriage and exchange relationships together create complex inter-
woven ties of affiliation and exchange that raise questions about the criteria for
group membership and the stability of social groups.
Managalase social relatedness has changed considerably over past 30 years. The
data included here on social relationships was gathered at the beginning of a
decade’s long shift in Managalase conceptualisations of kinship relatedness from a
cognatic system of social organisation, that traces relationships genealogically
through both the mothers’ and fathers’ lines, into one of the current forms of social
organisation that is in many ways patrilineal (McKellin 1991). The more traditional
patterns of social organisation, which still exist in a modified form, are built upon
complex networks of relatedness.
I elicited, during interviews with every adult in Jinebuina village where I lived,
kinship terms and descriptive metaphors and idioms that they used to explain their
relationships with each of the other inhabitants. Two cultural schemas were based
on notions of shared bodily substance—one cultural schema—LINEALITY, based on
procreation, and the other—TERRITORIALITY based on shared land and its products.
A third schema, EXCHANGE is not based on shared substance, but on engagement as
exchange partners—counterparties in reciprocal marriage and feasting exchanges.
While LINEAL and TERRITORIAL schemas express affiliation though shared substance,
exchange relationships separate individuals into in competing parties of opposing
sets of in-laws, hosts and guests, givers and recipients. On occasion, exchange
relationships also brought together individuals as counterparties to a common third
person or group.
8.3.2.1 LINEALITY
LINEALITY is expressed by a number of metaphorical idioms including osia niguinan

“one digging stick” for children of the same father and de niguinan, “one abdomen”
for people with the same mother. Kaa niguinan, “one blood” can also represent
156 W.H. McKellin
both maternal blood and father’s semen. These can also be applied to trace
LINEALITY to the grandparental generation.
These LINEAL relational terms based on procreative lineal ties are complemented
by relations based on nurture, musa niguinan “one breast,” which is used to refer to
individuals who were nursed by the same woman. This often occurs when a mother
is unable to suckle her child as the result of illness or death. Importantly this
highlights the underlying principle that joins these idioms, shared substance. Thus,
the cultural schema for LINEALITY is not strictly genealogical but is based on notions
of shared bodily substance through procreation and nurture.
8.3.2.2 TERRITORIALITY
TERRITORIALITY is expressed by the metaphorical idiom mua nigunan or kuu

niguaina, “one ground” which encompasses joint rights to gardening land and
hunting grounds, rivers and pools for fishing, as well as named trees that were the
sites of encounters between humans and supernatural beings or spirits.
TERRITORIALITY is a schema in which places mediate among people through the food
that they share. Each year when a new garden is cleared, burned and planted, the
people who are gardening together share a small meal including yams and some
type of meat. They share a portion of this small feast with the spirits of those who
have gardened there previously. Similarly, a hunter’s first expedition is completed
by a small feast of his first game, which is eaten by the hunting party and shared
with the ancestral spirits of the territory, who oversee the game. Shared food, like
procreative substances contributes to the person’s ajide “strength” and to growth
and affiliation. Claims to these sites are perpetuated by aza “markers”—betelnut,
coconut and other trees planted at garden sites. Larger, more durable trees, marura
are named trees that mark the places where people have encountered spirits or
spirits in the forms of animals. Both types of tress form cultural mnemonics or
material anchors (Hutchins 2005) that mediate social relationships across genera-
tions. TERRITORIALITY does not simply capture a relationship to places, but
schematically invokes the site and all of the people—contemporaries and prede-
cessors who have grown, gathered or caught food in these places.
The association between LINEALITY and TERRITORIALITY is found in the use of kin
terms. The kinship or relationship term vue, “same-sex sibling” serves as the pro-
totype for close social relationships of shared LINEAL and or TERRITORIAL substance.
Siblings of the same parents share the same procreative substance and over the
course of their childhood years, they share the same food. The term vuearavor
—“sibling-reciprocal” is used to denote collaboration and mutual support among
those who share substance. Procreation and nurture through shared food, together
with a series of maturation rituals to support children’s development are seen as
social processes, rather than states or static statuses. As they mature, marry and
have children, individuals’ social relations and sources of food become increasingly
differentiated.
8.3.2.3 EXCHANGE
EXCHANGE complements the schemas of LINEALITY and TERRITORIALITY. While

LINEALITY and TERRITORIALITY provide the basic shared substances of affiliation and
the trajectory for individuals’ personal social identities, EXCHANGE is a process that
separates individuals and situationally differentiates people into givers and recipi-
ents in social activities such as marriages and feasting. Almost every aspect of
Managalase life is touched by the EXCHANGE schema. Exchange relationships are
primarily established though marriages, which ideally should occur between
members of different clans, and should over time achieve reciprocity. Marriages are
marked by large feasts and gifts of game, pigs and garden produce, as well as shells,
mats and other valuables, which also include money from the groom and his kin to
the wife and her relatives. Because individuals may be intricately related to both
groom and bride though LINEAL and/or TERRITORIAL ties, marriages force individuals
to declare their allegiances. Thus, where LINEALITY and TERRITORIALITY join people,
marriage and EXCHANGE separate them.
These marital relationships serve as the bases for reciprocal exchanges of food.
Every prize yam, pig raised, animal caught in a trap or killed hunting should be
given to one’s affines or exchange partners, with the expectation of reciprocity.
Failure to do so is identified as the cause of social strife, illness and infertility.
This ongoing process of procreation, nurture and separation, found among the
Managalase, and common throughout Papua New Guinea, gives these societies
fluidity. The flux of social identities and the negotiation of relationships provides an
unstable foundation for Common Ground and joint action.
8.3.2.4 PERSONHOOD
As is common throughout Melanesia and elsewhere in Pacific societies (White and

Kirkpatrick 1985), Managalase notions of self or personhood are not simply defined
by an individual’s attributes. Instead, they are created by their web of relationships
to others that constitute a persons’ agan “family” or “lineage”. Identity is situa-
tionally construed during interactions with others as participants vie to prioritise one
schema, LINEALITY, TERRITORIALITY or EXCHANGE, over another, giving situational
prominence to a particular facet of identity. Additionally, participants in an inter-
action do not necessarily assume that they each employ the same schemas to ground
their identities during the activity, because individuals rarely have the same social
and historical information about the basis of their relationships. Each person’s
assessment of the schema(s) that ground the interaction goes unchallenged and
unassessed if joint action results.
LINEALITY and TERRITORIALITY provide the grounding of schemas of PERSONHOOD,
which in turn contributes to EPISTEMOLOGY. Territorial ties to the present owners and
the kaven “spirits” of past owners, of gardens and hunting lands as well as rivers
and pools, together with the songs, stories and magic that recount events that
occurred at these places constitute a person’s tin “estate”. These networks of
158 W.H. McKellin
relationships provide individuals with their unique social identities. Rights to the
myths, legends, clan histories, magic and songs, associated with each place give
their rightful owners the prerogative to learn, perform and teach these oral legacies
to their successors. Furthermore, telling these stories, singing these songs and
preserving them in the oral tradition are the responsibilities of these owners who
collaborate in their performance. Ancestral spirits recognise the shared substance of
their kin, while those whom they do not recognise are at risk. Misuse and attempts
to illegitimately appropriate territory and these rights to other properties result in
attacks by ancestral spirits that can cause illness and death. The Managalase schema
of PERSONHOOD assumes that individuals are distinct combinations of shared sub-
stances and ajide “strength”. This is evidenced in Managalase attribution of many
illnesses to the intrusion of a magician’s power or position by the spirits of kin or
non-kin.
8.3.2.5 Cultural Schemas of PERSONHOOD, LEARNING and EPISTEMOLOGY
Both LINEALITY and TERRITORIALITY provide the foundation for Managalase

assumptions about ro’ajihan “learning” or EPISTEMOLOGY. Just as procreation and
nurturance contribute to social relatedness they also establish access to intangible
estates, including rights to, and the ability to learn myths, family histories through
which people lay claim to territory, and the songs that accompany claims to ter-
ritory. Just as bodies are nurtured by food, oral traditions are embodied through
rehearsal and performances. Learning the myths, stories of supernatural beings who
are associated with specific places, various genres of songs and even accounts of
everyday activities requires socially legitimate access to these forms of knowledge.
Legitimate access is defined by RELATEDNESS to others who can serve as mentors.
Though I encountered disputes about the rights to songs and stories early in my
research, ownership was profoundly demonstrated when I tried to conduct a simple
experiment similar to Bartlett’s (1932) classic study of remembering. My goal was
to determine if the same narrative plot structure presented in a variety of genres
was recalled differently. After composing stories in several genres with the assis-
tance of my research assistant Neil, we recorded them and played them for my
research participants. The experiment was a revealing failure. None of my initial
participants even attempted to learn the story. Much like children claiming that they
are constitutionally incapable to learn math, they replied that they could not learn
these stories because they belonged to my assistant Neil.
Nevertheless, my last participant Kivide, a renowned storyteller did not disap-
point. He was able to recall and tell each of the recorded stories. However, he began
by reciting his amuj “family history” that explained his relationship to Neil and his
legitimate access to Neil’s’ stories. Thus, the cognitive processes of perception,
conceptualisation and recall that are central to learning stories proved to be rooted
in individuals’ networks of social relationships that shaped their egocentric cultural
schemas of EPISTEMOLOGY. Managalase cultural schemas of LINEALITY and
TERRITORIALITY provided the grounding for PERSONHOOD and EPISTEMOLOGY.
Thus, individuals’ social identities and knowledge are grounded in their unique
relationships with others. Each individual’s access to, and knowledge of a particular
repertoire of egocentric cultural schemas, reflects their social relationships. Thus,
grounding is differentially distributed throughout the community in accordance with
the cultural schemas of PERSONHOOD and EPISTEMOLOGY. Since each individual
occupies a different social position in relationship to others—past and present, and
brings a distinct repertoire of schemas, each individual also has a distinctive per-
spective or viewpoint in social interactions. The consequence is a belief that
challenges western notions of meaning—a denial that meaning or knowledge and
the intentions of others can be shared. Managalase contend that it is impossible to
know another’s intentions—what is in another’s mind (McKellin 1990).
8.3.3 Cultural Schemas and Language Use and Practices
Managalase schemas of RELATEDNESS pervade everyday activities and language use.

Every offer of food may create an obligation of exchange and every conversation
may highlight the distinction between in-laws who must avoid words phonologi-
cally similar to the names of affines.
In addition to the pervasiveness of affine-related word taboos, this chapter will
examine the instantiation of Managalase relational schemas in language in three addi-
tional ways: (1) the use of kin terms to express forms of relatedness, (2) constructions that
represent the speech of other which employs reported speech, and (3) the negotiation of
social relationships through the use of allegorical rhetoric in which the intentions of the
speaker are not authoritative.
8.3.3.1 Kin Terms and Social Representation
The complex semantics of Managalase relational terms demonstrate that meaning is

instantiated in communication in social settings. Not surprisingly, kinship or rela-
tionship terms are grounded in shared substance though LINEALITY, TERRITORIALITY
and less commonly, EXCHANGE. Rather than representing defining features, kin terms
are distributed representations in which the three relatedness schemas can be
weighted differently or given varying prominence depending on the social context.
For example, the term vue, can be interpreted LINEALLY as “same-sex sibling” and
“parallel cousins”. It may also refer to people related TERRITORIALLY as people who
have the same gardening and hunting land. It is common to have participants at the
same event, who refer to each other as vue, but who are affiliated though different
schemas: some LINEALLY affiliated, while others related TERRITORIALLY. Alternatively,
people can be termed vue based on EXCHANGE if they have marriage relationships
with the same family and consequently collaborate in feasts and other exchanges
with the in-laws that they have in common.
160 W.H. McKellin
Furthermore, changes in individuals’ social relationships can shift the weight of

the relatedness schema in applying relational terms. Managalase marriages are
ideally reciprocal relationships between sets of people. When a man marries, his
kinspeople should provide a wife, for his wife’s brother’s family. This should be
someone who is his makine, “opposite-sex sibling”. Demographics make this an
ideal rather than a necessary occurrence. However, if his vuine, female
“cross-cousins” based on lineality, is able to fill this role, she is transformed by her
role in the exchange from his vuine to his makine. In this instance, EXCHANGE takes
precedence over LINEALITY and TERRITORIALITY. These kinds of relationships are
complex for members of the community to keep straight, and consequently,
members of the community may have different understandings of the grounding of
the use of each of the kin terms.
8.3.3.2 Reported Speech
Concerns about evidentiary claims are not restricted to the ownership of songs and
stories. They extend to claims of the legitimacy of knowledge in everyday con-
versations. Individuals can only attest to that which they have personally experi-
enced. In disputes, speakers will claim, “I have seen it with my own eyes,” Na ni
gavun, and challenge others to make the same claim. These evidentiary claims
asserted by speakers also carry over into reporting events that they are not directly
parties to. Rather than providing second-hand accounts in their own words,
Managalase speakers identify and quote their source, using reported speech to
attribute the statements and descriptions to those with first-hand knowledge. For
example:
Ege’e Stepenome’e Arahasome kuavejahe, “Mista Madorrere ro ben-
abaruke’enainie,” ijire kuameme.
Stephen’s father Arahasome said to them, “Mister Madoro is coming, arriving
quickly (at the village) and then he came in,” that he said to them.
8.3.3.3 Political Negotiations—Ha’a “Allegory”
The interplay of LINEALITY, TERRITORIALITY, EXCHANGE, PERSONHOOD and EPISTEMOLOGY

is also seen in a Managalase genre of discourse used to negotiate social relation-
ships, particularly marriages, feasting relationships, and when negotiating the end
of disputes.
Negotiations, almost by definition assume that the parties have a limited
appreciation of the assumptions, intentions and knowledge of their counterparties.
This is particularly the case between exchange partners, who either are not related
by LINEALITY or TERRITORIALITY, or who are severing or suspending their mutual
affiliations for the exchange. On a small scale, each time a man is successful
hunting and every year when he harvests his yams and taro, he must decide which
of his various in-laws should receive the game or the prize crops. He must invite
them, and make certain they will accept the food as part of an exchange without
alienating his other in-laws who do not receive the same offer.
On a larger scale, arranging marriages and complex multiparty, inter-village
feasts force individuals to declare their affiliations—to take sides. Potential par-
ticipants who may have complex multigenerational relational ties to a variety of
potential participants must assess the significance and permanence of existing ties
and weigh these against the impact of a new marriage or exchange
relationship. Rather than making clear public invitations and statements of intent,
with the possibility of being rebuffed, speakers employ a surreptitious genre of
allegorical rhetoric, ha’a. Ha’a “allegory” is a genre of indirect speech that employs
metaphors to negotiate these complex and tenuous ties, without making public
commitments that, if unsuccessful, might cause political strife (McKellin 1990,
2014, 2016).
Ha’a employs conventionalised motif-schemas, motif-frames and
motif-scenarios that are learned by politically active men and women through their
engagement in negotiations. Some motif-schemas are widely known, such as those
that employ the betelnut, a small palm nut frequently given to guests to chew.
Betelnut ha’a are often used when negotiating a pig exchange. Since people do not
eat the pigs that they raise, but exchange them with others, the person who initiates
the exchange may offer a betelnut to a prospective exchange partner. If the partner
either takes it or says that he wants it, this would usually indicate the acceptance of
the initial prestation in the exchange. If the recipient does not want to engage in the
exchange, he may make some excuse for refusing the betelnut. Socially, he has only
rejected the betelnut, whether or not this was only a betelnut, rather than a pig, is
left to the initiator and his audience.
While this seems straight forward, it is complicated by the possibility that, rather
than representing a pig for an exchange, the betelnut might also be the initial move
in negotiating a marriage. Acceptance or rejection of the betelnut in this instance is
both the negotiation of the marriage and a new social relationship, as well as the
negotiation of the genre and construal of the betelnut ha’a. If the apparent marriage
offer is accepted, this will be taken as a ha’a; if it is rejected it was just another
betelnut or just another story.
In addition to the more common motif-schemas, many ha’a are less accessible,
and based on proprietary stories and the lyrics of songs. Some clans also have
distinctive motif-schema that participants learned through their engagement in this
form of rhetoric with members of the group.
Speeches using any of these motif-schemas do not present authoritative inten-
tions of the speaker, instead, meaning is constructed through the simultaneous
negotiation of the social relationship between the participants’ and the construal of
the ha’a. The following is an example of a special form of ha’a used by villagers
from Uganomo, the Mejekan and their Mejekan vu’.
162 W.H. McKellin
Mejekan Vu’
The following story was told to me by Nicodemus, when I went to Uganomo to

learn about their own particular variety of ha’a. After some discussion and some
historical examples, I was told to record the following story and play it that evening
for the people of Jinebuina, where I lived:
I took daris root (a poison used to stun fish). I took daris root and went down to the Natuhe
River. I smashed the root and stayed there. Then I went to Sirore River and again (used the
root) and looked for fish, but I didn’t see any. I looked upstream and downstream but didn’t
see any fish. So what will I tell my children who are up at home sitting at the fire? They are
waiting there. What will I tell them? I went down to Uimeme River to look for fish. I took
the path to Uhihere so I could get fish to take back to give to my children to cook in a
bamboo.
After I returned to Jinebuina and played the tape, there was a general discussion
about the possible interpretations. It centred around the timing of two large feasts
that people from Jinebuina and Uganomo were invited to—one feast at Tabuena
and another at Natanga, a village in the opposite direction. Both were apparently
planned for the same night. The following morning, several young men from
Uganomo came down the path to Jinebuina covered in white clay, with headdresses
made of fern leaves and carrying spears. They called on people from Jinebuina to
join them in going to Natanga to inspect the yams and other food that was on
display for the feast.
The ha’a that Nicodemus told was taken as a call to join him and others to
survey the food at Natanga and decide which of the competing feasts we should
attend—Tabuena on one ridge, or Natanga on another. After climbing the walking
track to Natanga, the men dressed in fern headdresses ran in unison from one end of
Natanga to the other challenging the Natanga people about the size of their yams.
During the course of one sortie, someone hit and broke a yam with a quarterstaff.
Then, a man from Uganomo was stabbed in the leg by a spear. As the riot broke
out, the relationships of in-laws and exchange partners also broke down and they
became mortal adversaries. It was readily apparent that there would be no feast in
Natanga for the people of Uganomo and Jinebuina. Several days later, we made our
way at twilight to dance at the feast given by a different set of affines and exchange
partners in Tabuena.
Interpreting Nicodemus’ ha’a required a knowledge of the particular Mejekan
ha’a motif-scenario and the current political activities that it might address. It was
unclear what the speaker’s intentions were—to disrupt the feast at Natanga or just
to tell me a story about catching fishing. His precise meaning was secondary to the
response that he elicited when he arrived in Jinebuina the morning after his story.
Even then, however, the outcome was unclear until we arrived at Natanga. Rather
than offering an explanation and attempting to establish Common Ground for
action, the ha’a elicited action without revealing his intentions; it produced joint
action with the people of Jinebuina. Ha’a is precisely designed to elicit the audience
members’ response without the speaker taking a public stand.
8.4 Discussion—Grounding and Cultural Schema
Managalase assume that language is a form of social action. The Managalase data
provide insights into the relationships among social organisation, the ways that this
is conceptualised by members of the community, its social representation as
metaphors that invoke cultural schemas of relatedness, and the ways that these
cultural schemas are evidenced in language use. Of particular interest is the rela-
tionship between the role of cultural schemas in social symbol grounding and their
contribution to ground and Common Ground in language use.
8.4.1 Social Organisation and Language Use and Practices
The Managalase examples demonstrate that to understand language use, or

appropriately interpret social and cultural practices, it is essential to understanding
the social dynamics of the community and the cultural schemas of the participants.
As we have seen, it is difficult to talk about membership in Managalase social or kin
groups, because their composition is not clearly defined by a shared set of attributes.
Instead “clans” or “lineages” identified by their “big names” are actually the con-
fluence of individuals’ patterns of social interaction over time with those who share
a variety of affiliations though shared procreative substance and shared food.
These affiliations are flexible and respond to the ongoing social demands of
exchange relationships.
8.4.2 Cultural Schemas, Grounding and Ground
The examples of Managalase cultural schema demonstrate their significant roles in

shaping both the structure of language and patterns of use. As we have seen,
RELATIONAL schemas of LINEALITY, TERRITORIALITY, PERSONHOOD and EPISTEMOLOGY
contribute to the semantics and pragmatics of relational or kin term construal, the
structure of evidentiary statements, learning, and recall of narratives, and the
attribution of intentions in allegorical rhetoric.
As presented here, the cultural schemas are examples of Shore’s (2012) allo-
centric cultural models or schemas—those described by an analyst, rather than
those experienced and used by members of the society. The allocentric perspective
transcends that of the members of society making it possible to observe the full
range and repertoire of cultural schemas and observe the epidemiological distri-
bution that has been described as distributed culture or cognition (Hutchins 1995,
2006; Sharifian 2012; Sperber 1985).
This perspective is distinct from the egocentric cultural schemas that constitute
the repertoires of individuals; their access is determined by patterns of social
164 W.H. McKellin
organisation and the cultural schemas themselves as they are performed during
social and linguistic interaction as the habitus and bodily dispositions of individuals.
They may be experienced as the daily routines of feeding children or the seemingly
physical internal resistance to learning stories to which a person lacks rights.
These cultural schemas may be institutionalised, recognised and named by
members of the community like genres and motif-frames and motif-scenarios
(McKellin 2016) or metaphors like “one digging stick”, “one blood”, and “one
belly” that represent LINEALITY. They stand in contrast to the unnamed frames and
scenarios of conventional cultural schemas—frames and scenarios that are unnamed
and perhaps unrecognised, but are routinely employed as the habitus for individ-
uals’ everyday activities.
8.4.2.1 PERSONHOOD
Managalase PERSONHOOD provides an excellent example of the relational concep-

tualisations of personhood found throughout Melanesia and elsewhere (White and
Kirkpatrick 1985), in which social identity is shaped by the intersection of a per-
son’s social relationships. Relational social identities stand in contrast with Western
individualised notions of role-based personhood. Affiliation in communities in these
societies is considerably more complex than the communities Clark refers to when
he asserts that community membership provides a basis for shared identity, roles
and norms for Common Ground.
The theoretical concept of egocentric schemas preserves the notion of individual
perspectives and viewpoints of speakers and listeners in social interaction and
linguistic construal, and makes it possible to discuss the social distribution of
schemas within a community. The ways that particular people used these metaphors
to explain their particular social relationships with other individuals demonstrated
that, with the RELATIONAL schemas, individuals may use the same kin term, but use
different egocentric relational schemas to construe it. While the participants may not
realise that they are employing different schemas and appear to lack shared
knowledge, beliefs or Common Ground about the relationship—as researchers
however we can identify these cases from our allocentric (or as Clark would put it,
omniscient) viewpoint.
8.4.2.2 EPISTEMOLOGY
The Managalase schema of EPISTEMOLOGY is significant in our discussion for three

reasons. First, the failed memory experiment demonstrated that EPISTEMOLOGY
affects cognitive processing. Second, it establishes canons for evidentiary claims
that are reflected in the use of reported speech, and it is also demonstrated in the
inability or unwillingness to make inferences about speakers’ intentions, or con-
structing Common Ground in allegorical rhetoric.
As we have seen with the ability to learn stories, social identity and socially
legitimate access to information and forms of culturally valuable oral traditions
constrain individuals’ abilities to remember stories that they have no right to. The
cultural schema of EPISTEMOLOGY, a form of social symbolic grounding, affects an
individual’s perception of stories and the cognitive processes involved in learning.
Rather than treating perception as a unidirectional process, Managalase episte-
mology reaffirms Bartlett’s (1932) initial insight, which was later developed by
McClelland and Rumelhart (1985), Rumelhart et al. (1986), that schemas operate as
complex bi- and multidimensional processes for perception, conception and
representation.
EPISTEMOLOGY, and each individual’s legitimate access to everyday information,
as well as genres of oral traditions is rooted in their unique network of social
relationships. Managalase men, woman and children, each possesses their own
egocentric repertoire of cultural schema, and consequently, have their own view-
points which contribute to construal and conceptualisation in social interaction.
8.4.3 Schemas and Language Practices
The cultural schemas of PERSONHOOD and EPISTEMOLOGY provide individuals with

situationally malleable perspectives and viewpoints that are expressed linguistically
in kin terms or terms of relatedness, speaker’s evidentiary expressions, and socially
positioning in negotiations using allegorical rhetoric.
First, Managalase schemas are evident in language practices in a variety of
ways. Relational or kin terms provide a clear example of the impact of cultural
schemas on the semantics and pragmatics of relational terms. Because individuals’
networks of relationship are unique and change over time, making them socially
distinct from each other, each person brings a distinct perspective to social and
linguistic interactions. This, as we have seen is the case with terms of social
relationships, or kin terms, where two different people may have different
grounding, LINEALITY or TERRITORIALITY for using the same kinship term for a third
person. Similarly, a kin term for an individual may change due to a change in their
role in marital exchanges. Thus, kin terms are representations of the distributed,
schematic nature of cultural schemas of RELATEDNESS.
Second, the constraints placed on claims to information or knowledge by the
EPISTEMOLOGY schema are also found in the evidentiary constructions of the
speaker’s authority in reported speech. Because the speaker only makes claims for
events that he or she can attest to, quoted speech preserves the identity, authority
and perspective of the person with first-hand knowledge. In a community in which
virtually all communication is oral, the veracity of a statement rests with the ability
to identify and trust, the person making a report. This evidentiary syntactic and
discourse strategy is common in oral societies where the credence of the statement
is assessed by the social identity of the source (Hill and Irvine 1993).
166 W.H. McKellin
The allegorical genre ha’a provides a third opportunity to explore the expression
of the EPISTEMOLOGY schema in language use in more detail. In practice, ha’a serve
as a coordinating or mediating device between the speaker and his or her audience.
While in many situations, Managalase are hesitant to make epistemological claims
about others, ha’a provides institutionalised motif-frames and motif-scenarios that
create joint attention for the interaction between speaker and audience, without the
assumption that there is Common Ground. In fact, ha’a are most frequently used in
marriage or feasting negotiations where participants are, as we have seen in the
discussion of RELATIONAL cultural models, members of different social groups,
separated by exchange—an absence of shared substance, shared knowledge,
and Common Ground is assumed. Contrary to the assertions of Clark, Managalase
identities in the interaction are based on the fact that they do not share membership
in the same role or community-based groups. If they do share Common Ground, it
is not communal Common Ground; but personal Common Ground, based on their
previous intersection as participants in exchanges that were mediated by ha’a.
Where Clark and others assume that shared Common Ground, including roles,
norms and beliefs, or mutual knowledge and shared intentions are the by-product of
group membership, Managalase assume that if there is any shared knowledge, it is
by virtue of shared substance through LINEALITY and TERRITORIALITY. EXCHANGE
precludes the assumption of shared knowledge, and challenges the notion of
communal Common Ground based on its shared content. Furthermore, Managalase
individuals’ group memberships are not stable but in flux, always negotiable and
only recognised in the confluence of affiliations for a given event, such as marriage
and feasting exchanges like the one attempted in Natanga.
Consequently, since group membership and shared substance cannot be the basis
for Common Ground, this only leaves assumptions about practices and processes as
a possible basis of Common Ground—a possibility that is consistent with the
Managalase EXCHANGE schema.
In summary, the picture that this creates is of participants, whose language
practices and whose social activities intersect in public exchanges like marriage and
feasts. Exchange requires two distinct perspectives—hosts and recipients in feasts.
As a result a language performance, mediated by ha’a in a negotiation creates a
parallax view, in which the ha’a, serves as a boundary object, enabling the host and
recipient to each maintain their distinct configurations of ground and their
respective viewpoints. The mediation of ha’a and the shared scenario of EXCHANGE
obviate the need for Common Ground framed as shared roles, norms, beliefs,
knowledge and intentions.
8.5 Conclusion
Cultural Linguistics and Cognitive Linguistics share many assumptions. Both

recognise that knowledge—linguistic and non-modular, socially available ency-
clopaedic knowledge, are necessary for communication. They share the assumption
that knowledge is schematically structured. Croft (2009), recognising the inade-

quacies of a purely cognitive approach to language use, augmented his list of basic
Cognitive Linguistics assumptions with social attributes. He also recognised that
conventions—particularly in the form of language, are crucial coordinating devices
in communication and social interaction.
As we have seen, convention is another way of describing social symbolic
grounding that can take the form of cultural schemas. Cultural schemas and their
distribution and enactment in society are core concepts in Cultural Linguistics
(Sharifian 2011). Cultural schemas have the same dynamic properties as the psy-
chological and conceptual integration and blending schemas used by Cognitive
Linguistics to explain cognitive processes and language construal. However, where
Cognitive Linguistics focuses on the role of universal cognitive capacities in
construal and language processing, Cultural Linguistics explores the distinctive
social and cultural configurations of these cognitive processes as they are activated
and articulate with cultural schemas during social interaction and conceptualisation.
It is also important to remember that language plays a dominant, but not
exclusive role as a coordinating device in interactions. Material representations such
as books or the named trees of the Managalase that serve as social mnemonics,
mediate between their creators and audiences across time, representing compressed
schemas of meanings by serving as material anchors (Hutchins 2005) or boundary
objects (Star 2010; Star and Griesemer 1989).
Cultural schemas and the processes of cultural conceptualisation and cultural
cognition are emergent systems generated by collective, group activities. If applied
to a society as a whole these cultural schemas serve as analytical allocentric cultural
schemas. However, from the perspective presented by Frank (2014), Bourdieu
(1977a, b) and Bourdieu and Thompson (1991), in which the actions of individual
actors coalesce into complex networks of social habitus, and individual bodily
dispositions, cultural cognition and cultural conceptualisations might be understood
as dynamic emergent systems regenerating habitus as members of the community
interact over time in social activities such as language practices. Thus, the essential
nature of language as social communication cannot simply be deduced from the
commonness of one-to-one conversations, as Clark presents, but its diverse char-
acteristics must be sought in a range of complex multiparty interactions, and in the
varied genres of individual traditions (McKellin 2016), each with their own social
dynamics (McFeat 1974).
This dynamic interpretation of culture’s role in language practices is, I believe,
what Sinha had in mind when he asserted that meanings are actions not objects
“concepts, or schemata, or any kind of mental representation”, but instead the
“processes of conceptualization, schematization and perspectivization [that] form
the psychological basis for discursive acts of speaking and understanding (Sinha
1999). Thus, cultural conceptualisations and meaning should be thought of as
“energetic,” much like electricity, which can only be observed during transmission
and discharge.
Our examination of Managalase social relationships and relational cultural
schemas has demonstrated that it is necessary to examine each society’s social
168 W.H. McKellin
organisation to appreciate the distribution of schemas within the community. By

recognising the distributed nature of cultural representations it is possible to
appreciate the interplay of participants who employ their own repertoires of ego-
centric cultural schemas in social interaction.
Furthermore, attention to the distribution of cultural schemas within a commu-
nity and the viewpoints of participants can also provide valuable insights into
the social interactions that Cognitive Linguistics has attempted to address with its
assumption that a speaker and his or her audience share the same Common Ground
and perspective. Our examination of the cultural schemas of relatedness demon-
strates how egocentric schemas converge for construal and conceptualization, and
become observable social processes during interaction.
Finally, while Clark contends that Common Ground is dependent on group
membership, and the roles, norms and beliefs that follow, as well as personal
experiences, our examination of Managalase language use and cultural schemas of
RELATEDNESS demonstrates that cultural differences in social group affiliation and
cultural schemas of PERSONHOOD cannot be ignored. Recognising the distinctive
perspectives of speakers and their audiences, as demonstrated in Managalase
PERSONHOOD, and the impact that this has on learning and EPISTEMOLOGY, raise
questions about the development of Common Ground based on Western notions of
social groups that share communal norms, beliefs and values. In contrast to Clark’s
assumptions based on sharing, Managalase EPISTEMOLOGY emphasises the distinctive
viewpoints that speakers and audiences occupy.
Among Managalase, and in other societies in the Pacific, people make state-
ments to the effect that it is impossible to read another’s mind—a position that has
been referred to as the “Opacity of Mind” (Danziger 2013; Duranti 2006; Robbins
2008, 2011; Rumsey 2013; Schieffelin 2008). This introduces the question about
the role of cultural schemas of EPISTEMOLOGY, or local Theories of Mind. This is
particularly interesting when discussing meaning as the intentions of the speaker
(McKellin 1990) and examining the nature and role of intersubjectivity (Duranti
2010), which is a topic of growing interest and importance in Cognitive Linguistics
(Verhagen 2005). If we see intersubjectivity as “trading places,” (Duranti 2010)
following Husserl’s explanation of intersubjectivity as “the possibility of
exchanging places, of seeing the world from the point of view of the Other” [Husserl
(1989) quoted in Duranti (2010:21)], we can see the difficulty of applying this
viewpoint to the Managalase context where schemas of LINEALITY, TERRITORIALITY
and PERSONHOOD make trading places to create intersubjectivity dependant on
intercorporality.
Cognitive Linguistics and Cultural Linguistics offer two perspectives on lan-
guage practices. This chapter hopes to advance our Cultural Linguistic under-
standing of language by focusing on socially relevant language practices by
demonstrating the significance of cultural schemas as conventional, social symbolic
ground rather than fixating on asocial language use. We have also found that
schematically organised, socially distributed cultural representations complement
and affect psychological and linguistic schematic processes. This argues that
Cognitive Linguistics should attend to the diversifying pressures of culture on
cognitive processes. This chapter has also explored the crucial role that social
organisation and cultural schemas of RELATEDNESS, and more elaborated cultural
schemas such as PERSONHOOD and EPISTEMOLOGY, play in establishing the perspec-
tives and viewpoints of speakers and their audiences. As we have seen, attention to
cultural schemas of relatedness is fundamental to our understanding of construal
and conceptualisation in social interaction and social communication. Language
practices are fundamentally social action. As Bourdieu has reminded us: “Language
is a praxis: it is made for saying” (Bourdieu 1977a, p. 646).
Acknowledgements I would like to thank Wolfgang Schulze and Farzad Sharifian for their
comments on an earlier version of this chapter. The remaining deficiencies are mine.
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Author Biography
William H. McKellin is a professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of British

Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He has conducted long-term research on kinship, social
organisation and discourse analysis in Papua New Guinea. His research in Canada has focused
on the interpretation of complex medical information, such as genetic testing results and intensive
care procedures, by patients, their family members and medical professionals. His publications
include: 1991. Hegemony and the language of change: The pidginisation of land tenure among the
Managalase of Papua New Guinea; 1995. Cognition, meaning and kinship: Connectionist models
of cultural representation; 2014. Conceptual blending in allegorical political rhetoric: Creativity in
Managalase (Papua New Guinea) Oral Tradition; 2016. Negotiating genres in Managalase
(PNG) political discourse.
Chapter 9
Kinship Semantics: Culture in the Lexicon
Alice Gaby
9.1 Introduction
9.1.1 A Cultural Linguistic Approach to Kinship
A linguistic system must not only be located within the mind of each individual
speaker, but also coordinated and negotiated between these speakers, such that their
individual systems converge sufficiently for their utterances to be mutually intel-
ligible. This distribution of convergent categories operates at the levels of
phonology, grammar, lexicon and also ‘cultural cognition’ (Sharifian 2011, 2015,
2017). This chapter explores the nexus between lexical categories and cultural
conceptualisations. In particular, it argues that the semantic analysis of lexical items
is enriched by an understanding of the cultural context in which the items are used.
This is nowhere more evident than among kin terms. The network of meanings each
individual speaker associates with a particular kin term is extrapolated over indi-
vidual relationships and family networks—a cultural schema par excellence.
Anthropologists have long recognised the polysemous nature of kin terms, and the
meaningful differences between the ‘close’ and ‘distant’ members of a kin category
(e.g., Scheffler 1978: 58; Kronenfeld 2009). The task of modelling this semantic
structure, meanwhile, has been tackled from the perspective of, e.g. Cognitive
Linguistics (e.g. by Lakoff 1987; Kronenfeld 2009) and Natural Semantic
Metalanguage (e.g. by Wierzbicka 1992, 2010, 2013, 2016).
This chapter takes a Cultural Linguistic approach, applying the notion of ‘cul-
tural category’ to the semantic structure of kin terms in Kuuk Thaayorre, an
Australian Aboriginal language. Kinship is of central cultural importance in
Australian Aboriginal communities. Australian languages have already provided
A. Gaby (&)
School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University, 3800
Melbourne, Australia
e-mail: Alice.Gaby@monash.edu

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_9
174 A. Gaby
striking evidence of kinship structuring grammatical paradigms (e.g. pronouns, cf.

Evans 2003). Moreover, the structure of the Kuuk Thaayorre lexicon is particularly
well suited to investigating the relationship between culture and semantic structure.
Its more than six dozen kin terms offer ample scope to explore the syntagmatic
relationships between members of a lexical subsystem. But of particular utility is
the fact that these terms fall into four distinct lexical systems (‘sublexica’), as
detailed in Sects. 9.1.2 and 9.2.1–9.2.4 below. This allows for the exploration of the
semantic relationships that hold between (partially co-extensive) words from dif-
ferent subsystems of the language (an avenue of study that has already provided
considerable semantic insights, Dixon 1971; Hale 1982). The value of the exten-
sionist approach taken here (which recognises important differences between focal
kin and those categorised with them) over a componential approach (which captures
other important facts about the logic of the system, cf. Gaby 2016) has been
persuasively argued for by Kronenfeld (2009).
9.1.2 Kuuk Thaayorre
Kuuk Thaayorre is spoken in and around the community of Pormpuraaw, on the

west coast of Cape York Peninsula (Australia). Though the last century has seen
rapid cultural and linguistic change in the area, over 200 people continue to use
Kuuk Thaayorre on a daily basis. These people also remain strongly connected to
their land and culture, even as they engage with cultures and languages beyond their
community and beyond Australia. This section will lay out the key facts about the
Kuuk Thaayorre repertoire of kin terms. Readers interested in the details of the
Kuuk Thaayorre kinship system are directed to Taylor’s (1984) ethnography, which
includes a detailed consideration of the roles and behaviours associated with each
kin category. Readers interested in questions relating to the grammar of Kuuk
Thaayorre are directed to the grammatical descriptions of Hall (1972) and Gaby
(Forthcoming).
The inventory of Kuuk Thaayorre kin terms can be divided into four distinct
sublexica, each of which is used in different contexts (the full list of terms is given
in Table 9.1). The most specific terms are found in the referential sublexicon
(described in Sect. 9.2.1). These terms are used to describe kin when talking to a
third party, as in my sister saw Peter’s father at the market. The sublexicon of
vocative forms (described in Sect. 9.2.2) is used to address kin directly, as in come
over here, Dad! The 21 vocative terms exhaustively express the set of relationships
encoded by the 34 referential terms by systematically merging the referential cat-
egories, conflating referents of different sexes or generations. Moreover, the
vocative terms may be used to ‘classificatorily’ (cf. Sect. 9.2.2) address anybody
integrated within Kuuk Thaayorre society, whether they are related to the speaker or
not. Each vocative term is thus considerably broader in its extension than the
corresponding referential term(s).
9 Kinship Semantics: Culture in the Lexicon 175
The third sublexicon comprises terms used to refer to people following the death
of a family member (akin to English widow). These 16 ‘bereavement terms’
exhaustively cover all kin relationships by conflating categories distinguished in the
vocative sublexicon (e.g. according to the sex, generation or relative age of ego1
and referent). This sublexicon is described in detail in Sect. 9.2.3.
The fourth sublexicon comprises hand signs rather than spoken vocabulary items
(see Sect. 9.2.4). Each of these seven signs can be defined in terms of three
semantic features: (1) whether the ego is in the same patriline (father–child descent
line) as the referent; (2) whether the ego is in the same matriline (mother–child
descent line) as the referent; and (3) the number of generations separating the ego
and referent. The sublexicon of kin signs is described in more detail in Green et al.
(Forthcoming).
Table 9.1 presents a comparison of the four sublexica according to their focal
extensions. It can be seen from this table—and the discussion above—that a
broadly hyponymic relationship exists between the four sublexica, such that the
vocative terms systematically conflate distinctions made in the referential sublexi-
con (e.g. the sex of the referent and their generation), the bereavement terms
likewise conflate distinctions made in the vocative sublexicon (e.g. the relative age
of ego and referent), and the hand signs conflate distinctions made in the
bereavement sublexicon (of the kinds already identified). A hyponymic analysis of
these kin terms does not fully capture their respective extensions (as explored in
Gaby 2016, as well as the following sections), but it is clearly the case that each
subclass other than the referential set involves the naming of higher order kinship
categories (cf. Keen’s 2014: 7 ‘meta-categories’ and Scheffler’s 1978: 60 ‘super-
classes’, as well as Gould and Kronenfeld 2000: 220–221).
9.2 The Semantic Structure of Cultural Categories
The following sections sketch the structures of the words relating to the ‘father’
category in each of the kinship sublexica; referential (Sect. 9.2.1), vocative
(Sect. 9.2.2), bereavement (Sect. 9.2.3), and hand sign (Sect. 9.2.4). Together,
these sections ask the question: what does it look like, in practical terms, if we take
seriously the role played by culture in structuring lexical semantics.
1
The person the kinship relationship is calculated with respect to. In the sentence my sister saw
Peter’s father at the market, the speaker serves as ego in the expression my sister, while Peter
serves as ego in the expression Peter’s father.
176 A. Gaby
Table 9.1 Inventory of Kuuk Thaayorre kin terms (adapted from Taylor 1984: 121)
Relationship* Referential (ego’s X) Vocative Bereavement terms Hand
(X) (X!) (one bereaved signs (X)
of X)
B+ (pam) kanam waanhn piluump Shin
♂SS, BSS parr_r punth-waanha
Z+ yapa yapn
♂SD, BSD parr_r punth-yapa
B- puumi puumn yangkar-kaar
FF punth-puumi
Z- wiila wiiln kumuniya
FFZ punth-wiila
F, FB nganip nganin kaal-mangk Biceps
FZ ngan pinhirr pinharr
♂S, BS pam nherngk ngothon thanakunm
♂D, BD paanth nherngk
MF, MFZ paanth ngan-ngethe ngethin yuumanthaar Shoulder
FM, FMB pam ngan-ngethe
♀SS, ZSS pam nhemthinthin ngethe thaa-ngethe-kaar
♀SD, ZSD paanth menthinthin
M, MZ (nha)nganam kalin kuukum Breast
MB- ngan kaala, pam kaal-mele kaaln raprrm
MB+ ngan mokr mokr
♀S, ZS pam rothom thuuwn ngamkaar
♀D, ZD paanth rothom
MBD, W rorko, paanth paathum rorko yuk-waarr-mungkm Thigh
MBS, WB ngan kuth, pam muth kuthn thaknham
FZD, HZ paanth meer-mele maarn muthyurum
FZS, H pam meer-mele
MM paanth kamthil-mele kaman thaa-keme-kaar Ribs
MMB pam meer-mele
♀DS, ZDS pam ngan-keme kemeth
♀DD, ZDD paanth ngan-keme
MMBS ngan thaam thaaman yencil Buttock
MMBD ngan mayath mayath
FZDS pam parr_r punth-wayump paangun yangan-waarra
FZDD paanth parr_r punth-wayump
*The following abbreviations are used (often in concatenation) to represent kin relationships:
M ‘mother’, F ‘father’, S ‘son’, D ‘daughter’, B ‘brother’, Z ‘sister’, H ‘husband’, W ‘wife’,
+/- ‘elder/younger’ (e.g. B- ‘younger brother’), ♀/♂ ‘female/ male ego’ (e.g. ♀SD ‘a woman’s son’s
daughter).
9.2.1 The Referential Category
In Kuuk Thaayorre, the sublexicon of referential kin terms is used to describe

individuals in terms of how they are related to a particular ego. This ego may be the
speaker, addressee or some other party, hence the referential form nganam ‘(a)
mother’ combines with genitive pronouns to describe: nganam ngathan ‘my
mother’, nganam nhangkn ‘your mother’, nganam nhangn ‘his/her mother’. Unlike
most other languages of Australia and elsewhere, the Kuuk Thaayorre referential
kin terms are not used to address a relative directly. That is to say, one cannot
address one’s mother as nganam! ‘mother!’; this function is reserved for the
vocative forms described in Sect. 9.2.2.
The referential term nganip ‘(a) father’ may be used to refer to an ego’s genitor
(i.e. the man who biologically begat that person), or to their genitor’s elder or
younger brother. The father/father’s brother of a male ego is not terminologically
distinguished from the father/father’s brother of a female ego, though this difference
is of considerable cultural importance (cf. Sect. 3.2 for further discussion). The
traditionally relaxed, familiar and indulgent relationship between a father and his
sons was in stark contrast with the constrained and distant relationship he had with
his daughters. Moreover, fathers and their brothers were responsible for providing
various kinds of instruction, support and decision-making for their (brothers’) sons,
but not daughters (see, e.g., Taylor 1984: 153). For these reasons, Fig. 9.1 presents
a male ego’s father and female ego’s father as distinct alternative foci for the
cultural category of nganip ‘father’ (each enclosed within a circle to designate its
focal status). Extending from each focal member are the father’s elder and younger
brothers. Again, these may be differentiated from the two foci on cultural grounds.
For instance, a father, but not his brothers, must observe the various food taboos
during his wife’s pregnancy and post-partum period to ensure the health of the baby
ego.
At the bottom of Fig. 9.1, a surrogate category extends from the focal category
of male ego’s father. Following the death of a man’s own father, a close relative
(ideally the father’s own brother) would be recruited to perform the important
duties and rites associated with the father role. Since these included burial rites, it
was common for individuals to accrue multiple surrogate fathers over the course of
their lifetimes, as they outlived the prior occupants of the role. Although this
surrogate role was frequently performed by a father’s brother, the distinction
between these two categories is of both cultural and linguistic importance.
A surrogate father, but not (other) father’s brothers, would observe food taboos
following the death of his surrogate son, for example. Conversely, an individual
would be referred to as kaal-mangk following the death of his surrogate father, but
not his father’s (other) brothers (cf. Sect. 9.2.3).
178 A. Gaby
Fig. 9.1 Referential category

structure; nganip
9.2.2 Vocative Categories
The Kuuk Thaayorre vocative terms are used to invoke the kin relationship between
speaker and addressee. A speaker will thus address his/her mother as Kalin!
‘Mum!’, rather than nganam (ngathan) ‘(my) mother’ (the form by which that
speaker would refer to his/her mother when speaking to a third party, cf.
Sect. 9.2.1). These vocative forms may not be used with reference to a third party;
that is to say, one cannot say Kalin ngathn yat (Mum my went) ‘my Mum went’. As
mentioned in Sect. 9.1.2, the sublexicon of vocative kin terms, unlike their refer-
ential counterparts, may be characterised as classificatory. That is to say, they may
be used to address any individual within the speaker’s social universe, whether
related to the speaker through blood, marriage, or neither. Thus, as a researcher
living among Kuuk Thaayorre speakers (and friend to many of them), I came to be
addressed as Wiiln ‘Little sister’, Thuuwn ‘(female speaker’s) Daughter’, Pinarr
‘(paternal) Aunt’ and so on, according to which cultural metaphors people invoked
in classifying their relationship to me. This process of classification involves some
creative freedom in the first instance; one of my principal informants made a
conscious decision that our relationship was best characterised as that between
mother and daughter. The fact that she addressed me as Thuuwn ‘Daughter’ then
obliged her own daughters to address me as Wiiln ‘Little sister’ and her many
grandchildren to address me as Kalin ‘Mother(’s sister)’. This network of rela-
tionships allows a single designation to ripple outwards such that the newcomer is
integrated into the kinship system of the community as a whole. This extends even
beyond the immediate community; when someone from Pormpuraaw meets a
stranger from HopeVale (on the other side of Cape York), for instance, their first
task will usually be to identify some third party known to both, so that the inter-
locutors can establish how to address one another in accordance with how they
address that third party (i.e. ‘if you call John ‘Son’ and I call John ‘Father’, I must
call you ‘Paternal Grandfather’’).
Another well-exploited mechanism for extending kin terms to a wider network
of individuals is the set of merging rules which establish systematic equivalencies
between particular kin categories (Lounsbury 1956, 1964; Scheffler 1978: 101,
115). The first of these stipulates the equivalency of same sex siblings. By this rule,
a father’s brother is equivalent to a father. Likewise, a mother’s father’s mother’s

sister is equivalent to a mother’s father’s mother. The second such rule stipulates
that the offspring of either parent is equivalent to a full sibling. Thus a father’s
daughter is equivalent to a sister, and a mother’s mother’s son is equivalent to a
mother’s brother. Taken together, these rules produce a kinship algebra whereby a
relation like mother’s mother’s sister’s daughter’s brother is reduced to its
equivalent, brother.
As a consequence of their classificatory nature, the Kuuk Thaayorre vocative kin
terms are significantly more extensive in denotation than their referential counter-
parts. They are also more complex in semantic structure. Beyond the father, his
brothers and surrogates, the network of kin types denoted by Nganin ‘Father’
extends according to the two principles of equivalency explained above. Taken
together, these principles result in the extension of Nganin not only to one’s father’s
brothers, but also to one’s father’s father’s sons (by other mothers), one’s father’s
mother’s sons (by other fathers), one’s father’s father’s brothers’ sons, and
one’s father’s mother’s sisters’ sons. Moreover, a speaker will use the same term to
address others who are in the same structural position in the family tree as their
father, such as their mother’s sister’s husband and his brothers (since one’s
mother’s sister is obliged to marry someone in the same kin category as the person
one’s mother marries, i.e. one’s father). At the bottom left and bottom right of
Fig. 9.2 can be seen the radial extensions from the focal category that result from
the principled application of these rules of equivalency. Each of the radia terminates
in an ellipsis (‘…’) to indicate that the rules of equivalency continue to apply,
extending to ever more distant kin.
Located in the upper left and upper right corners of Fig. 9.2 are four categories
of individual who are classified as Nganin ‘Dad’ despite being unrelated to the
speaker by blood or marriage. These categories are established through the tran-
sitivity of kin relationships; if the speaker calls some individual (a) Nganin ‘Dad’,
and that individual calls the addressee Wanhn ‘Older brother’, this entitles the
speaker to call the addressee Nganin ‘Dad’ (since Nganin is the form of address for
a father’s brother). These four categories of classificatory kin are distinguished from
one another according to the combination of: (1) the speaker’s sex; and (2) the
particular term of address used by the linking relative (a). Specifically, a speaker
can use the form Nganin ‘Dad’ to address anyone their father calls either Wanhn
‘Older brother’ or Puumn ‘Younger brother’. The sex of the speaker is relevant to
how s/he may interact with the addressee; a woman would exercise restraint in
interacting with anyone she addresses as Nganin ‘Dad’, even if they were unrelated
(cf. Sect. 9.3.2).
Figure 9.2 suggests that the choice of which vocative term to apply to an
unrelated addressee depends upon the vocative term employed by the speaker’s
father. It frequently happens that a speaker will perform this calculus on the basis of
the term used by their mother, however. In some case, still other community
members will serve as linking relative, as noted above. For readability, the form of
address used by the speaker’s father serves as placeholder for all such classificatory
extensions in both this Figure and Fig. 9.4.
180 A. Gaby
Fig. 9.2 Vocative category structure; Nganin!
9.2.3 Bereavement Categories
Kuuk Thaayorre bereavement terms are used to refer to individuals following the death
of a close relative or surrogate. They are similar to the English terms widower and
orphan in that regard, but unlike English, Kuuk Thaayorre allows its speakers to refer to
kin of all relationship types by means of its 16 bereavement terms. Each of these
bereavement terms is broader in intension than its referential equivalents, inasmuch as it
encodes a larger number of kin relation types. This can be seen in Fig. 9.3; the
bereavement term kaalmangk ‘one bereaved of a father/father’s sister’ subsumes the kin
relationships between a (male or female) ego and their father (relationships expressed by
the referential term nganip ‘father’) and between an ego and their father’s sister (ex-
pressed by the referential term pinhirr ‘father’s sister’). In this respect, the bereavement
terms are likewise semantically broader than their vocative counterparts. However, the
bereavement terms are more limited in their denotation than either their referential or
vocative counterparts. Whereas the referential term nganip ‘father’ includes ego’s
father’s brothers in its extension (and vocative Nganin ‘Father’ includes anyone who is
classified as a father according to the rules of equivalency and merger, cf. Sect. 9.2.2),
the bereavement term is restricted to just focal kin and their surrogates. In the case of the
bereavement term kaalmangk, this includes just ego’s biological father (genitor), this
father’s sisters, and any individuals who serve as surrogate father/father’s sister
following the death or prolonged absence of the original members of this category.
(The selection of a surrogate and its implication for the intra-categorial structure of the
relevant terms is considered further in Sect. 9.3.2.)
The relationships between the extension of the bereavement term kaalmangk
‘one bereaved of a father/father’s sister’ and the corresponding vocative terms and
hand sign can be seen in Fig. 9.4 in Sect. 9.2.4 below.
Fig. 9.3 Bereavement

category structure: kaalmangk
9.2.4 Hand Sign Categories
In Indigenous communities all around Australia, sign languages exist alongside the
spoken varieties for use in particular communicative settings (e.g. while hunting or
during mourning seclusion) and/or in conjunction with speech. These sign lan-
guages generally comprise a more limited vocabulary than their spoken counter-
parts. This is evident among Kuuk Thaayorre kin terms; the full set of kin
relationships encoded by the referential and other kin terms are divided between
just seven hand signs. Each of these hand signs is a hypernym of each of the
corresponding terms in the oral subsystems, the relationship between their
respective denotations one of proper inclusion. Thus, anyone who may be referred
to as nganip ‘(a) father’, Nganin ‘Father’, or kaalmangk ‘one bereaved of a father(’s
sister)’ can also be referred to by a hand sign articulated at the biceps. These hand
signs are classificatory, like their vocative counterparts. They are also
auto-converses, such that if one individual (a) refers to another individual (b) using
sign (r), b will also use r to refer to a.
The semantic structure of the cultural category corresponding to the biceps hand
sign is detailed in Fig. 9.4. This figure also includes the various spoken terms that
express subsets of the kin relationships expressed by the biceps sign. Further to the
terms detailed in Sects. 9.2.1–9.2.3 above, this includes terms referring to a man’s
own son and daughter, their surrogates (in the case of the bereavement term tha-
nakunm), as well as a male or female ego’s brother’s children (in the case of the
referential terms pam nherngk and paanth nherngk) and additionally all those
classified with them (in the case of the vocative term Ngothon).
182 A. Gaby
Fig. 9.4 Composite cultural categories: ‘father’
While Fig. 9.4 demonstrates the points of intersection and differentiation

between the father terms of the four sublexica, the limitations of print restrict it to
two dimensions. To fully capture the structure of this cultural category would
require a multidimensional space. In such a space, the various categories generated
through the principle of same sex sibling equivalence might be represented along
one axis, and those generated through parent’s child = sibling equivalence along
another axis. Extension through classificatory principles could then be represented
along a third axis. A fourth axis would allow for mappings to be made between the
categories of the four sublexica. Such a multidimensional space would show the
bereavement term, kaalmangk, to be more extensive than each of the individual
vocative terms Nganin ‘Father’ or Pinharr ‘Father’s sister’ along the fourth axis
(inasmuch as it intersects with the focal categories of both these terms), but less
extensive than either of them along the other axes, since the vocative categories
include the relationship types generated by the rules of equivalency and classifi-
cation. This multidimensional space would further represent the preferred order of
selection of surrogates in terms of the proximity of the categories they are drawn
from to the focal member.
9.3 Culture in the Lexicon
The previous sections have laid out the systematic mappings of kin categories
across the four lexical subsystems. This section will argue that these mappings
reflect culturally meaningful commonalities and distinctions between the various
types of relationship that hold between members of a tight knit community.
Evidence for the internal structure of these lexical categories comes from two kinds
of source, language and culture. Section 9.3.1 summarises the linguistic evidence
for the complex category structures proposed in Sects. 9.2.1–9.2.4. Section 9.3.2,
meanwhile, considers behavioural correlates of these category structures.
9.3.1 Evidence of Covert Category Structure
Whorf’s (1945) original formulation of the cyptotype (later referred to as ‘covert

categories’) describes categories that lack explicit marking but which are never-
theless of grammatical significance in the relevant language. He gives the example
of grammatical gender in English; nouns like aunt and boy lack the morphological
gender marking of their equivalents in languages like Spanish or German, yet their
inherent membership of the covert categories ‘female/feminine’ and
‘male/masculine’ is revealed by their selecting for female and male gender ana-
phoric pronouns, she and he, respectively. Whatever the merits of this particular
example, subsequent researchers saw utility in the concept of a covert category, the
notion gaining currency with studies such as Berlin et al. (1968) and Fillmore
(1968). Berlin et al.’s formulation of covert categories is most directly applicable to
the case at their hand. Their study described the often unnamed subcategories of
plants and animals which may nevertheless be revealed by their combinatoric and
other morphosyntactic patterns. In the case of Kuuk Thaayorre kin terms, it is their
paradigmatic relationships with other kin terms that are most revealing of
intra-categorial structure.
First of all, the hyponymic relationships between equivalent terms in the four
different subsystems illuminate certain unnamed categories of cultural significance.
For instance, there is no dedicated term that expresses the kin relation of a father
184 A. Gaby
(i.e. genitor) as distinct from that father’s own brothers (who are co-lexified by the
referential term nganip ‘(a) father’, as well as the corresponding vocative term and
hand sign) and sisters (who are co-lexified by the bereavement term kaalmangk
‘one bereaved of a father(’s) sister’, as well as the corresponding hand sign).
However, if we consider how the extensions of these terms map onto one another,
the father relation is precisely the intersection between the referential and
bereavement terms, as shown in Fig. 9.3. Any competent speaker must be able to
distinguish a biological father from his siblings in order to use these terms correctly.
Dozens such covert (sub)categories arise out of the areas of intersection and
non-intersection between the four kinship sublexica described in Sects. 9.2.1–9.2.4.
A second class of covert (sub)categories arises out of the antonymic oppositions
between kin terms within the same sublexicon. At the heart of Fig. 9.1, for instance,
are two core relation types, ‘female ego’s father’ and ‘male ego’s father’. The sex of
the ego has no impact upon the term applied to the relation (nganip ‘father’, in both
cases). It does, however, become relevant when we consider the lexical sense
relations obtaining between this term and other referential kin terms. Nganip ‘fa-
ther’ has not one but two converses (or ‘relational opposites’); pam nherngk ‘son’
and paanth nherngk ‘daughter’. These terms express the same father–child rela-
tionship as nganip ‘father’, but do so by referring to the younger member of the
relationship.2 Significantly, these converse terms specify the sex of this younger
member, suggesting that this is a feature of (covert) significance to the
macro-categorial structure depicted in Fig. 9.4 above. Each of the cultural cate-
gories represented by the figures in the preceding sections has at its core two focal
meanings differentiated by the sex of the ego, or, in the case of the Ngothon ‘man’s
child’ category, the sex of the referent.
9.3.2 Cultural Correlates of Category Structure
The intra-categorial structures proposed above are not of purely linguistic interest,
but have deep cultural and personal ramifications. In this section, we consider
behavioural evidence that the two pairs of contrasting categories focused upon in
the previous section (i.e. father versus father’s brother; and father of a female ego
versus father of a male ego) are culturally if not lexically distinct.
2
Note that these terms explicitly express the father–child relationship as distinct from the mother–
child relationship. As can be seen in Table 9.1, Kuuk Thaayorre lexically distinguishes mother and
father categories across all sublexica. From the reciprocal point of view, the terms used by men to
refer to their children differ from the terms used by women to refer to their own children. Thus, a
man uses the vocative form Ngothon to address his children, but also the children of his brothers.
(Women also use Ngothon to address their brothers’ children). Women, meanwhile, address their
own and their sisters’ children as Thuuwn, this term also being used by men to address their sisters’
children.
While a man may not make a terminological distinction in addressing his father
and his father’s brother, the difference between the two relationship types can be
witnessed in the way these individuals relate to one another as well as to other
members of society. To take an extreme example, Sharp (1952: 108; cf. Taylor
1984: 269) describes a father who was speared to death as a substitute for his son.3
By contrast, the brother of this father would not have been expected to pay such a
price for his nephew’s deeds. Less dramatically, fathers observe food taboos during
and immediately after their partners’ pregnancy, while fathers’ brothers do not.
Fathers, but not fathers’ brothers, are responsible for their sons’ mythic, ritual and
practical (e.g. hunting) education. Conversely, adults are expected to support their
ageing fathers (both materially and physically, in the event of quarrels) but not their
paternal uncles (cf. Taylor 1984: 153). Kronenfeld (1973) likewise observes
divergent terminological and behavioural extensions of Fanti kin categories. While
the focal members of Fanti kin categories align with respect to both language and
behaviour, “the linguistic categories and the behaviour related to them extend from
this focal area by means of different mechanisms, and so produce behavioural
categories which are related to but non-isomorphic with terminological categories”,
with the result that “there no case of a one-to-one relationship between behaviour
patterns among kinsmen and the categories into which kinsmen are divided by the
Fanti kinship terminology” (Kronenfeld 1973: 1577).
The father–son and father–daughter relationships are likewise associated with
clearly different cultural schemas. While fathers traditionally treat their sons with
indulgent familiarity, they are required to observe a “restrained and distant rela-
tionship” towards both their own and their brothers’ daughters (Taylor 1984: 153).
This restraint was reciprocal, with daughters modifying their behaviour in the
presence of their father (and his brothers) even in childhood.
Finally, cultural evidence of intra-categorial structure is provided by the selec-
tion of surrogate focal kin. When the focal member of a category is unable to
perform the roles and duties incumbent upon them, the first choice for surrogate
would be the other members of the category denoted by the relevant referential
term. In this case, a surrogate nganip ‘father’ would ideally selected from the pool
of ego’s biological father’s brothers. In the event that no such biological father’s
brother is available for this purpose, a surrogate would be selected from the wider
pool of individuals addressed by the vocative term Nganin ‘Father’ (see
Sect. 9.2.2). Among these individuals, the preferred candidates would be those
genealogically connected to the ego as closely as possible. Thus, a father’s father’s
son would be preferred as surrogate to a father’s mother’s sister’s husband, though
the latter would also be a potential surrogate if no better candidates emerged. This
ranking of potential candidates for surrogacy is reflected in the radial semantic
3
The spearing was reportedly a response to a sexual relationship between the spearer’s wife and
the son of the man speared. The father was chosen as a target because the spearer feared the son’s
powers of sorcery.
186 A. Gaby
Fig. 9.5 Vocative category structure; Nganin!
structure of, e.g. Fig. 9.2 (repeated as Fig. 9.5). The relation types positioned
closest to the focal category member are also those preferred as surrogate.
Not only is the category of surrogate father located within the Nganin ‘Father’
category, but the latter category itself defines the pool of individuals eligible to
become surrogate. As Taylor (1984: 125) explains:
When such surrogates could not be found among those who had a genealogical claim to
membership in the person’s kindred [i.e. those related to the person directly by blood or
marriage], then some other principle was invoked (such as shared clanship, shared totemic
emblems, length of association or friendship) to elevate a person identified by an appro-
priate kinship term to the role.
[emphasis the present author’s]
The crucial point here is that any potential surrogate—even those who bear no
genealogical connection to the ego—must be a member of the class of people that
the ego addresses by the relevant vocative kin term.
9.4 Conclusion
This chapter has presented a detailed representation of the internal structure of the
Kuuk Thaayorre cultural category built around the core kin relationship of father.
This internal structure is principally informed by three things:
(1) The broadly hyponymic sense relations that hold between partially co-extensive
words of different sublexica (the extensions of which were more precisely
found to overlap and nest);
(2) The converse sense relations that hold between words within a sublexicon,
which are revealing of covert subcategories;
(3) Cultural evidence (e.g. from norms of interaction or the selection of surrogates)
that the proposed structural categories are meaningful;
Researchers such as Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk (2007) and Kleiber (1990) have

shown that the meanings of polysemous words can be integrated within the same
prototype category structure. This study proposes that the meanings of distinct
lexemes likewise can be integrated within—and inform the structure of—cultural
categories. Moreover, this study demonstrates the value of culture as a tool in
investigating the semantic structure of these lexical categories. Such an approach
implicitly assumes culture to—at least sometimes—permeate word meaning (se-
mantics) and not just word use (pragmatics). By virtue of its four subsystems—each
of which exhaustively carves up the same semantic space, but at different levels of
granularity—the Kuuk Thaayorre kin lexicon offers an ideal opportunity to explore
the vast semantic web that connects words to one another and to the world they are
spoken within.
Acknowledgements This chapter is based on knowledge shared with me by members of the

Thaayorre community, in particular Mrs. Myrtle Foote, Mr. Alfred Charlie, Mrs. Molly Edwards,
Mr. Gilbert Jack, Mr. Albert Jack and Mr. Freddy Tyore; I express my heartfelt thanks for their
generosity. The language itself of course remains the intellectual property of the speech com-
munity. Thanks also to Farzad Sharifian and David Kronenfeld for extensive and enlightening
discussion of the analysis presented here.
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687360
Author Biography
Alice Gaby is Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at Monash University, Australia. Her research
interests lie in three intersecting domains: semantic and structural typology; the relationship
between language, culture and cognition; and the documentation and analysis of endangered
languages, especially those of the Australian continent. Much of her research focuses on the
Paman languages spoken in and around the community of Pormpuraaw (Cape York Peninsula,
Australia). Underlying this research programme is the belief that linguistic analysis can be
enriched by viewing grammatical structures as part of a larger communicative system,
encompassing multiple languages, registers and modalities.
Chapter 10
Cultural Conceptualisations of MOUTH,
LIPS, TONGUE and TEETH in Bulgarian
and English
Alexandra Bagasheva
The human body is the best picture of the human soul.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
10.1 Introduction
The body has been at the focus of attention in various fields of science since the
dawn of research into the human condition in the world. It has been the bone of
contention in a sustained philosophical rift relating to its substantive difference from
and untranslatability into the mind.
An attempt to bridge the body–mind dichotomy has been recently offered via the
concept of embodiment which has received divergent interpretations in various
branches of the human search for knowledge. Without forays in the history of the
problem or in the controversies involved in the contemporary debate ranging from
downright reductionism to postulates about ‘body-snatchers’ (Gallagher 2005), in
the exposition developed in the current chapter, the term ‘embodiment’ is under-
stood in a way subservient to two paradigms of research that have convergent but
distinct research agendas, namely Cultural Linguistics and Cognitive Linguistics.
The term is taken to refer to “understanding the role of an agent’s own body in its
everyday, situated cognition” (Gibbs 2006: 1), or to put it differently, the ways in
which the human body influences our thinking and speaking.
Against this background the current chapter is intended as a contribution to
Cultural Linguistics by enriching the empirical data that have been analysed and
demonstrating its fruitful wide application, together with an emphasis on the sig-
nificance of metonymy for engendering cultural conceptualisations. It steps along a
trodden path of studying “embodiment via body parts” (Maalej and Yu 2011) in an
attempt to shed some light on the peculiarities of embodiment in two typologically
different and genealogically very distantly related languages, Bulgarian and
English.
A. Bagasheva (&)
Sofia University, Sofia, Bulgaria
e-mail: a.bagasheva@uni-sofia.bg

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_10
190 A. Bagasheva
The umbrella term embodiment is taken to cover the following: “the body in the
mind” (Johnson 1987), “the culture in the mind” (Shore 1996), “the culture in the
body” (Maalej 2008) and “the culture in language and conceptualisation” (Frank
2015a, b; Sharifian 2011a, b). “Cultural formulas” (Peters 1983), i.e. figurative
expressions containing body part terms and the cultural conceptualisations engen-
dered in and by them, are the units of analysis. The data are lexicographic (all the
sources are listed before the references as primary sources) and the approach
qualitative.
Dictionaries are considered culture mines. As Facchinetti (2012: 1) puts it,
“dictionaries are mines whose word-gems encapsulate centuries of language history
and cultural traditions; they are store-houses of meanings and uses, ‘lamp genies’ to
be set free at the very moment readers set their eyes on their entries”. On the basis
of what are considered representative cultural formulas (shared to a great extent by
a large number of the members of the respective cultural groups) cultural meto-
nymies and metaphors as significant types of cultural conceptualisations are
analysed.
To achieve the specified objective, the following research questions are
addressed: (1) What abstract conceptualisations (relations, cultural values, emo-
tions, etc.) is the mouth deployed to construe in two cultures—Bulgarian and
English? (2) What is the contribution of the meronymy of mouth (lips, tongue and
teeth) and its specific role in embodiment in two cultures as manifested in the
respective languages? and (3) What imaginative structures and figuration mecha-
nisms (e.g. metaphor, metonymy, blends, etc.) and scenes are implemented in
these conceptualisations?
The answers provided are organised in the following manner: part two presents
the interdisciplinary framework of Cultural Linguistics within which the analysis is
cast; part three is devoted to a discussion of figurativity and cultural conceptuali-
sations; part four summarises the results of the analyses of the contribution of
mouth and its meronymy for conceptualising various domains in the respective
cultures and their representations in the two languages; part five contains a brief
general discussion of the nature of the emergent results from the interactions
between embodiment and cultural conceptualisations and in the last part a brief
blueprint for future research is presented.
10.2 Languages and Embodiment—A View from Cultural

Linguistics
Cultural Linguistics as the “emerging multidisciplinary field of research that

explores the relationship between language, conceptualisation, and culture”
(Sharifian 2011a: 1) provides the framework within which the emergent complexity
of language as a locus of heterogeneously distributed representations of cultural
conceptualisations can be discussed in an informed and revealing manner.
10 Cultural Conceptualisations of MOUTH, LIPS, TONGUE and TEETH … 191
A central tenet of Cultural Linguistics is that language is a subsystem of culture

and that various language features reflect and embody culture (Sharifian 2011a).
Even though the relationship between language and culture has been of research
interest for ages, there is still a missing link—the mediating human mind and how
the former are projected in and from it. What Cultural Linguistics contributes to this
venerable tradition is its desire to uncover “how language as a subsystem of culture
transformatively interacts with cognition and how cognition at a cultural level is
manifested in language” (Sharifian 2011b: viii). The value of Cultural Linguistics as
a research framework lies in the fact that it draws on cutting-edge theoretical
concepts in several disciplines and builds a model that successfully moulds together
various complementary approaches such as “language as a complex adaptive sys-
tem” (LCAS), distributed cognition, and multi-agent systems theory. This broad
interdisciplinary scope contributes to the depth of understanding of the involved
emergent nature of cultural conceptualisations, their heterogeneously distributed
representations and the role of language as “a memory bank” (Sharifian 2011b: 39)
for cultural conceptualisations and as an emergent, complex adaptive, semiotic
system where cultural conceptualisations are constantly dynamically (re)negotiated.
Within this research context, the chapter seeks to discuss cultural conceptuali-
sations, which can be gleaned from their linguistic representations, and to establish
language-specific perspectives from which the body is projected as salient and
meaningful for figuratively understanding abstract concepts (Gibbs 1999; Yu
2009).
Among recurrent cultural conceptualisations one finds cultural schemas, cultural
categorisations, cultural metaphors (Sharifian 2015) and much more rarely cultural
metonymies (Frank 2015a). An important distinction is drawn in Cultural
Linguistics between cultural schemas and image schemas. The former are “con-
sidered more broadly as building blocks of cognition used for storing, organising
and interpreting information” (Sharifian 2011a: 4), while the latter are “recurring
cognitive structures which establish patterns of understanding and reasoning, and
are often formed from our knowledge of our body as well as social interactions”
(Sharifian 2011a: 4). Via cultural schemas image schemas surface in language
metamorphosed. It is the study of these metamorphoses that can reveal the inter-
pretative power of cultural conceptualisations in projecting the body as an anchor
for grounding metaphors and metonymies underscoring abstract categorisation. The
nature of these metamorphoses and their mapping in language are culture specific
and constitute the immediate object of analyses in the remainder of the chapter.
Cultural conceptualisations are differentially distributed tacit templates of thinking
about the world that facilitate its understanding and valuation and guide the
behaviours of a cultural group.
The appeal of Cultural Linguistics as a comprehensive analytical framework lies
in the fact that in its attempts to analyse the complexity of grounding of concep-
tualisations at the language–culture interface it promotes a view of culture and
cognition which emphasises the emergent, multi-agent nature of embodied culture
and the complex role of the individual as the internalising and producing agent
simultaneously in incessant contextualised interactions. The individual agent is not
192 A. Bagasheva
at the receiving end of the enculturation or socialisation conduit in which external

values, schemas and patterns of typifying are internalised and thus change the
cognising individual. In traditional approaches to individual cognition, the use of
cultural symbols is seen as the exploitation of external forms for purposes of
forming individual cognitive patterns. Within Cultural Linguistics, the various
symbolic systems that actualise or externalise cultural conceptualisations evoke and
provide access to the rich semantic potential of the perceptual symbols constitutive
of mental experience, which in their turn give substance to cultural conceptuali-
sations, with constant feedback loops between the two. In this analytical frame-
work, cultural conceptualisations are engendered by first-hand interactions between
active agents, have an emergent nature and are dynamic and flexible as the result of
the agency of members of the cultural group both as their originators and as their
consumers. Panzarasa and Jennings (2006: 402) maintain that “individual cognition
is necessary for collective cognition to come into existence: thus the latter is
nomologically dependent on the former”. Subsequently, collective/cultural cogni-
tion is described as ontologically independent. The mediator between the two are
cultural conceptualisations, which are dynamic in that they are constantly being
negotiated and renegotiated across generations, and across time and space by
members of a cultural group. In this sense, the actions of individual members of a
group constitute a micro-cognitive network that functions as the base for the
emergent macro-network of heterogeneously distributed cognition.
These micro-processes of immediate interaction between members of a cultural
group lead to, among many other things, the establishment of emergent, formulaic
sequences in languages which in an epidemiological manner (Sperber 1996) spread
among members of the cultural group and lead in a feedback loop to ‘cultural
formulas’ (Peters 1983) that are recycled again in numerous micro-interactions,
with this dynamics providing for the emergence of cultural conceptualisations. As
one of the numerous systems through which cultural conceptualisations are nego-
tiated and externalised, language provides an ideal ground for the routinisation,
propagation and nourishment of cultural conceptualisations. Routinisation is sus-
tained via the precipitation of cultural formulas in the semiotic inventory of lan-
guage. Many of these formulaic sequences are figurative, resulting from and
substantiating specific cultural conceptualisations encompassing different patterns
of figurativity spanning from metonymies to complex double-scope blends.
Among the readily identifiable cultural conceptualisations are also cultural
schemas. A substantial number of these, relating to abstract concepts, are estab-
lished on the basis of the culture-specific patterns of figurativity. Some of these
cultural schemas are ultimately extensions of image schemas central for which is
the functioning human body. In these complex processes figurative expressions
with body parts occupy a special place as rich points in the fabrics of culture, or in
the words of Kesckes (2015: 123) “formulaic language demonstrates very well how
language, culture, and context are intertwined. Culture is the originator.” Without
subscribing to the causality claim, one has to admit that the scenes (in the
Fillmorian sense to be elaborated on in part four) underwriting figurative formulaic
sequences are culture specific and this specificity is associated with the nature of
figurativity. As Palmer (1996) and Sharifian (2011b) concur, verbal symbols are
based on imagery which is culturally constructed.
10.3 The Role of Figurativity in Cultural

Conceptualisations
In order to understand the nature of the emergent conceptual structure in embodi-

ment via body parts, we need to review the understanding of figurativity in an
emergent, complex adaptive perceptual-symbol system, such as human language,
whose comprehension involves embodied enactment by an immersed experiencer.
As Bergen (2012: 46) claims
[m]eaning, according to the embodied simulation hypothesis, isn’t just abstract mental
symbols; it’s a creative process, in which people construct virtual experiences—embodied
simulations—in their mind’s eye.
These simulations are mostly motor-perceptual, i.e. they involve enactment of

visualisations and sequences of actions. In Bergen’s own words,
if we use our brain systems for perception and action to understand, then the processes of
meaning are dynamic and constructive. It’s not about activating the right symbol; it’s about
dynamically constructing the right mental experience of the scene (Bergen 2012: 47).
In any act of communication, the interactants create a shared semiotic space and
adjust to arising principles of signification among which the representational
dimension has a leading role, as linguistic communication is based on alternative
signals (perceptual symbols as defined by Barsalou 1999) and is guided by the
desire to achieve a maximally closely shared mental experience of the scene. Since
“the content of words must be showcased in a form fitting and effective for the
transmission of the message at hand” (Everett 2012: 215), in each communicative
instance the most appropriate representational design is chosen, which fine-tunes
“the parameter settings of a simulator in the conceptual system via specific lin-
guistic cues” (Sickinger 2012: 139). The most important consequence from this
hypothesis relating to figurativity is that “in each case, […], when you are con-
fronted with sentences about visible things, you perform embodied simulations of
the events they describe—using your brain’s vision system” (Bergen 2012: 121). It
is further posited that there are three possible scenarios for the visualisation of
experiences triggered by linguistic cues—“a God’s-eye view”, “the canonical
perspective view” and “the immersed experiencer view” (Bergen 2012: 153–154).
The first possibility is not feasible due to the viewpointed nature of human cog-
nition, the second one presupposes concatenations of sequences of objects, each
viewed from its canonical perspective, which requires too much processing pres-
sure. The third option most convincingly captures the embodied and immersed
nature of human cognitive abilities. In a nutshell, in figurative formulaic sequences
containing body parts visualisation scenes play a major role in cultural metonymic
194 A. Bagasheva
extensions that underscore cultural conceptulisations. In their turn cultural formulas

play a central role in the distribution of cultural conceptualisations. Figurative
expressions have a very special place in the “epidemiology of representations”
(Sperber 1996). The naturalistic, epidemiological approach to culture explains the
patterning at the macro-level as the cumulative effect of micro-processes that
emerge from individual events, such as specific choices of figurative expressions in
a communicative act which propagate shared cultural conceptualisations.
10.4 The Mouth and Its Meronymy in Bulgarian

and English
10.4.1 Approach to the Analyses
An “aspect of language that embodies cultural conceptualisations is the use of

expressions which include a body part and appear to be metaphoric” (Sharifian
2008: 168). Fully subscribing to this claim, we only need to add that the scenic
imagistic structures projected by metonymies also embody cultural conceptualisa-
tions. They hinge on the interplay between what is explicitly or implicitly included
in the linguistic representation and substantiate culture specific conceptualisations
associated with different scenic configurations. This interplay stems from salience
and is associated with preferences in cultural codifications of reality based on
specific “punctuation and catgorisation” (Lee 1959) thereof.
In other words, in the contrastive analysis presented below the focus falls on
similarities and contrasts in the abstract conceptualisations which the mouth and its
parts are deployed to construe in the linguistic inventories, on specific figuration
patterns and on the scenic details projected via the cultural formulas. Prominent
place in this occupy frames and conceptual metaphors and metonymies. Since
numerous scholars and disciplines utilise these as analytical (and nomological
terms), we need to provide the working definitions adopted here.
We assume that image schemas, metonymy and metaphor as dynamic cognitive
processes are central for the way knowledge is structured and put to use in linguistic
conceptualisations and communicative interactions. A further tenet to which we
fully subscribe is that “figurative meaning is part of the basic fabric of linguistic
structure” (Dacynger and Sweetser 2014: 1). Our encyclopaedic knowledge is
structured and experientially based, ultimately grounded in our body, where body is
a shorthand term for at least the following: the biological organism, the ecological,
the phenomenological, social and cultural body (Johnson 2008). In Johnson’s own
words,
[i]f we regard our conception of the body as […] a radial category, then our most central
sense of “human body” is the living biological-ecological body as we experience it phe-
nomenologically through proprioception, kinesthesia, and feeling (Johnson 2008: 166).
This complex conception of the body serves as a basis for the “the emergence of
human meaning, imagination, and reason from structures of bodily perception and
movement” (Johnson 2008: 160). As central for human meaning-making, the body
plays a pivotal role in the projection of culturally informed figurativity, where
figurative is defined as
a usage [which] is motivated by a metaphoric or metonymic relationship to some other
usage, a usage which might be labelled literal. And literal does not mean ‘everyday, normal
usage’ but ‘a meaning which is not dependent on a figurative extension from another
meaning’ (Dacynger and Sweetser 2014: 4).
Metonymic and metaphoric relations within cultural conceptualisations are highly

motivated and diachronically maintained. They are (re)negotiated in interactive
communicative acts in actual usage of viable cultural formulas. When fully lexi-
cally specified constructions with external body parts are chosen as fitting the
presentational design of an ongoing communicative exchange, the interactants are
immersed in the frame evoked by the used body term and the action frames in
which it is included. The frames cohere along the lines which the affordances
(Gibson 2015) of the external body part supply.
Both metaphor and metonymy are to be understood as construal phenomena
involving culturally guided inferencing. Both are cognitive processes in which one
conceptual entity, the source, evokes immediate mental access to another concep-
tual entity. In metonymy, both source and target are enclosed within the same frame
on the basis of natural correlations. The specificity of metonymy in relation to other
construal mechanisms is that it is specialised for (re)conceptualisation and/or novel
conceptualisation where the source establishes a perspective for the activation of the
target. A typical metonymy is a schematic metonymy whose target (initially a
secondary domain within the matrix) is clearly distinct from the source (Barcelona
2011: 20), based on inferencing grounded in a salient pragmatic link. In metaphor,
at least two frames are involved with inferecing guided by culturally motivated
perceived interframe resemblances (Grady 2007).
A frame, in turn, is the most widely accepted operationalisation of extralinguistic
factors that have direct bearing on linguistic units at the conceptual level. Fillmore
(2006: 378) defines the correlation between frames, construal mechanisms and
linguistic constructions as a mutually implicating one in which the frame is “the
structured way in which the scene is presented or remembered”. Furthermore, the
frame is a “system of concepts related in such a way that to understand any one of
them you have to understand the whole structure in which it fits; when one of the
things in such a structure is introduced into a text, or into a conversation, all of the
others are automatically made available” (Fillmore 2006: 373). Thus linguistic
constructions (from single words to proverbs) describe explicitly different portions
from a frame, while always evoking the whole for the sake of comprehension.
According to Alexieva (2010), the ratio between implicitness and explicitness can
only be measured in contrastive analysis where it is possible to compare what is
196 A. Bagasheva
overtly described (lexically or grammatically encoded) in a linguistic construction

and the rich conceptualisation associated with it in backstage cognition.
In keeping with this understanding of the culture-specific interplay between
implicit and explicit, in what follows the cultural conceptualisations of mouth and
its meronymy in Bulgarian and English are discussed on the basis of linguistic data,
focused on cultural metonymies and metaphors, actualised in figurative sequences
of various sizes (from derived words through compounds to idioms). As there is no
widely agreed upon heuristic or specific analytical model for approaching or
labelling cultural metonymies and the specific scenes associated with them, salient
features of a scene, distinguishing it from closely related ones will be used. A scene
is construed as an operationalisation of the culture-specific representation of a
frame. Codification of salient scenic details (explicitly described, morphotactically
presented components of a frame) represents linguistically the underlying cultural
conceptualisations detectable in the deployed patterns of figurativity, i.e. metaphors
and metonymies. Naturally, scene details differ cross-linguistically as predicted by
Fillmore (1975). He defines a
scene in a maximally general sense, including not only visual scenes but also familiar kinds
of interpersonal transactions, standard scenarios defined by the culture, institutional
structures, enactive experiences, body image (Fillmore 1975: 124).
Scenes and the associated metonymies and metaphors engender

language-specific imagery, which allows for diverse interpretative possibilities. For
lack of space not all scenes and their underlying frames are discussed but certain
rich points in scenes are noted in order to illustrate the emergent specifics of cultural
conceptualisations despite the supposed uniformity of the underlying frames
stemming from the inescapable sameness of the human body.
For example, in both Bulgarian and English the spread of information by oral
communication from person to person is conceptualised metonymically via the
mouth. In English by word of mouth is more explicit and involves the mentioning of
the actual means of communication—words, which metonymically stands for the
whole process of communication, speaking, exchanging information, etc. In
Bulgarian oт ycтa нa ycтa [ot usta na usta, ‘from mouth to mouth’, by word of
mouth] is characterised by greater scenic implicitness, since nothing about the
actual exchange is mentioned. Anything can be transferred from mouth to mouth,
from physical objects to diseases. However, from the metonymic chain of body
organ to language and communication, Bulgarians include in the formulaic
sequence the initial portion of the chain exclusively—the body organ. This figu-
rative, formulaic sequence collapses the complexity of communication to the pro-
duction site only, while the English cultural formula contains also the physical
product, i.e. word. In communication via spoken language at the recipient end is the
human ear and then the recipient becomes the source in the propagation of the
message to yet another party. In the Bulgarian conceptualisation greater emphasis is
put on the source of information, rather than the means, as if the consequences of
the act are not important, just the originator.
At the same time in terms of granularity of the dynamicity of communication,1 it

is Bulgarian that explicates greater dynamicity by means of the ablative-allative
chain of the participant roles in the event, which in English is not referred to at all
and therefore by word of mouth is more static. The salient elements of the frame in
Bulgarian are organised along the Source—Target chain, while in English at the
centre of the overt linguistic representation is the Instrument/Means component of
the frame.
10.4.2 The Partonomy of the Mouth and the Requisite

Affordances
Systematicity requires that we include in our analysis of embodiment via body parts
two perspectives which capture the specificity of the body part and the affordances
associated with it: (1) the partitional perspective and (2) the telic or functional
perspective as both participate in linguistic figuration in different ways and to
different degrees.
The mouth is defined as the opening and cavity in the lower part of the human
face, surrounded by the lips, through which food is taken in and vocal sounds are
emitted and consequently is made up of the following parts—lips, teeth, tongue,
cavity, muscular floor and roof (palate). As far as the partitional perspective is
concerned, it is interesting to explore how the mouth is described in supposedly
neutral terms as a body organ, but this would shift the discussion in an axillary
direction and will take up valuable space, so it will be left for further research and
no longer pursued here. The only thing to be noted is that while the relationship
between the whole and the part is truly meronymic for most mouth constituent
elements, the teeth seem to have a special status. The mouth is perceived as a
container for the teeth and they are not considered a natural part of it, as is for
example is a finger in relation to the hand. The remaining parts are perceived as
integral ones and this determines the separate functionalities or the operative per-
spective associated with these closely related pieces of human anatomy.
The mouth’s operational affordances are restricted to opening and closing,
rounding of lips, producing feasible shapes by positioning the cheeks and lips in
specific ways and biting and chewing with the help of the teeth. These operations
are associated with natural human activities such as ingestion of food, the sense of
taste, breathing and emitting sounds, including communication via speaking, spit-
ting and throwing up, i.e. inward and outward movement of stuff is possible. As a
tactile, sensory organ the lips can be spread, rounded, pursed, curled, etc. and are
1
I express my gratitude to an anonymous reviewer to whom I owe the analysis in terms of
dynamicity. According to the said reviewer it is the exchange precisely that is profiled in Bulgarian
(and other Slavic languages for that matter e.g. Pol. z ust do ust ‘from mouth to mouth’), while in
English prominent are the less dynamic Instrument and Channel, encoded via by.
198 A. Bagasheva
used for sound articulation, kissing, facial expressions (of emotions), and as an
erogenous zone. The teeth are used chiefly for chewing and are not salient as speech
organs (to the exception of linguists and phoneticians). The tongue’s four main
functions involve mastication, taste sensation, cleaning of teeth and sound articu-
lation. These affordances are differently capitalised on in the two cultures under
scrutiny.
A crucial feature of the mouth and its meronymic components is that homo loquens
and significus uses them as one of the natural ways of communication. This speciali-
sation determines a great number of the cultural metonymies (sometimes accompanied
by metaphors) involved in figurative formulaic sequences based on mouth/ycтa [usta].
Even if they are followed by metaphors in the ultimate linguistic encoding of an abstract
concept, metonymies underlie all kinds of body part figurative extensions. In the
mapping process from physical experience to an abstract concept the following
sequence of schematisation, categorisation and linguistic expression has been estab-
lished: bodily experience ! metonymy ! metaphor ! abstract concept (Maalej and
Yu 2011; Yu 2008). The nature of the most ubiquitous forms of human communication
engenders a further metonymic chain associated with the mouth and communication,
namely speech organ ! speaking ! speech ! language (Radden 2004). Even
though the mechanism and sequences might be considered cross-culturally uniform,
the cultural formulas based on this chain represent in different languages
culture-specific scenes that underscore the host of cultural conceptualisations.
Despite the inevitability of the presence of these series of metonymies in all body
term figurative extensions, there are always noticeable specificities and contrasts in
the cultural conceptualisations underlying the metonymic and metaphoric exten-
sions of mouth and its parts, which constitute the culture-specific conceptual
properties (CSCP) of the linguistic deployment of mouth and its meronyms.
Kecskes’ (2015: 120) distinction between word-specific semantic properties
(WSSP) and culture-specific conceptual properties (CSCP), with the latter
belonging to conceptual pragmatics, highlights the elusive uniqueness of cultural
conceptualisations and the effect they have on every aspect of human life, especially
communication and the pragmatics of human linguistic interaction. What is more, it
is CSCPs that underwrite figurative, metonymic and metaphorical meaning and the
development of word-specific semantic properties. In Kecskes’ (2015) dynamic
model of meaning (DMM), a lexical item, respectively a cultural formula, repre-
sents a blend of general world knowledge tied to the given concept, word-specific
semantic properties (lexicalised part of world knowledge), and culture-specific
conceptual properties (culture-specific part of world knowledge). It is the latter two
that can be operationalised via scenic details and CSCP. A heuristic for informed
analysis of culture-specific conceptual properties is suggested within DMM, namely
the comparison of words and expressions from different languages “that show
lexical equivalency but differ as to their culture-specific conceptual properties”
(Kecskes 2015: 121). Adopting this heuristic, in what follows the cultural formulas
containing mouth and its parts in the two respective languages are presented in a
series of tables, contrasting the CSCPs associated with the analysed cultural for-
mulas. In the cases where there is no equivalence between the two languages, the
metonymies and metaphors are patently culture-specific. However, even in those
instances where the expressions in both languages seemingly represent roughly the
same abstract concept, the scenic details reveal differences in salience and the
degree of explicitness. An illustrative sample of the latter is commented on below
each table.
10.4.3 Engendered Cultural Conceptualisations

and Figuration Patterns in Cultural Formulas
with Mouth and Its Parts in Bulgarian and English
The differences in the cultural conceptualisations of mouth and its parts in Bulgarian
and English are first presented in a table specifying the faculties, emotions, traits,
etc., that the mouth and its parts are used to conceptualise in the two languages. In
each subpart in Tables 10.1, 10.2, 10.3 and 10.4, the target domains projected by
cultural formulas based on mouth, lips, tongue and teeth in Bulgarian and English
are presented, together with the deployed figuration patterns. As becomes evident
from Tables 10.1, 10.2, 10.3 and 10.4, there is not full coincidence between the
target domains underscored by cultural formulas containing the same body organ
despite the proximity expected between the two cultural groups on the basis of
shared religion, current value system (as members of the same union), etc. The
obvious contrasts (i.e. the empty slots in the tables in columns 2 and 4, which
indicate that a particular abstract conceptualisation is characteristic of just one of the
investigated languages) reveal how the two cultural groups enculture the body in
different ways. The differences in the target domains showcase the cultural capi-
talisation on the mouth and its figurative projections via the set of associative
complexes that engender the cultural metonymies and metaphors underlying the
figuration patterns in the respective set expressions.
The cultural formulas (in all tables in the chapter) have been excerpted manually
from the following sources and cross-checked for occurrence in the British National
Corpus and the Bulgarian National Corpus (without any type or token frequency
measures taken into account, as the latter are deemed irrelevant for the argument
developed here): for Bulgarian—Phraseological Dictionary of the Bulgarian
Language. Vol. I and II, New Phraseological Dictionary of the Bulgarian
Language and the Dictionary of the Bulgarian Language Vol. I–XIV and for
English—Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms, Collins Cobuild Idioms Dictionary,
Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture and Oxford English
Dictionary.
200 A. Bagasheva
10.4.3.1 Mouth-Based Cultural Formulas
In Table 10.1, mouth-based cultural formulas in Bulgarian and English are pre-
sented. The data are organised in alphabetical order of the projected abstract con-
ceptualisations. An empty slot in column 2 or 4 indicates that there are not cultural
formulas with mouth in such a wide use in the respective cultural group for the
figurative conceptualisation of the target abstract domain as to be recorded in the
representative lexicographic reference materials.
In both cultures the opening of the mouth, as part of its teleological character-
istics, is associated with speaking, surprise and foolishness, as can be seen from the
projected conceptualisations listed in Table 10.1. Closing of the mouth is respec-
tively involved in the conceptualisation of reticence, stupidity and refusal to engage
in social interactions. In addition, in English closeness of the mouth underwrites the
conceptualisations of lack of courage, integrity and unity between words and
actions. Only in English the mouth is the source in polytropic2 metonymies and
metaphors for conceptualising social awkwardness, while only in Bulgarian it is
used to conceptualise broken dreams or expectations. Despite the more or less
similar scenic frame—the presence of a body part in the mouth (foot in English in
put one’s foot in one’s mouth, foot-in-mouth disease; finger in Bulgarian in
ocтaвaм c пpъcт в ycтa [ostavam s prăst v usta, ‘be left with one’s finger in one’s
mouth’, be deceived, do not get what one expects]), the figurativity patterns yield
quite distinct cultural conceptualisations. The metaphthonymic complex in English
is based on the physical impossibility of the act, which highlights the absurdity of
the social act.
Another notable specific category conceptualised via a mouth-based metonymy
in Bulgarian is unfitness or ineptitude (нe e лъжицa зa нeчия/вcякa ycтa [ne e
lăžica za nečiya/vsyaka usta, ‘not a spoon for someone’s/everyone’s mouth’, not
everyone/someone can cope with something]). The unfitness of a spoon for a par-
ticular mouth is projected via serial metaphtonymies as the ineptitude of a person
for a particular task with a highly negative valuation, with the task always
exceeding the capabilities of the person.
On the whole, the cultural metonymies and metaphors underscoring cultural
formulas with mouth are for the greater part different in the two languages as
obviated by the mismatches in Table 10.1. Intriguing specificities of cultural con-
ceptualisations could be uncovered by detailed contrastive analysis in all cases of
seeming coincidence and scenic dissection in both the instances of non-coincidence
and of seeming coincidence. For lack of space and to provide a narrower focus,
2
Polytrope is used here as employed by Shore (1996) and Friedrich (1991) to identify cases in
which it is extremely difficult to tease apart metaphors and metonymies and specify where
metonymy stops and metaphor takes up in the chain of figurative transpositions. In Cognitive
Linguistics the term metaphthonymy (Goossens 2003) has gained wider use in labelling instances
of polyfunctional patterns of figurativity where the exact sequencing of metaphor and metonymy
cannot be determined. The two terms are used interchangeably in the chapter.
10
Table 10.1 Abstract conceptualisations projected by mouth-based cultural formulas in Bulgarian and English and their figuration patterns
Projected conceptualisations Bulgarian English
Cultural formulas Figuration Cultural formulas Figuration
pattern pattern
A dependent *гъpлo зa xpaнeнea [gărlo za hranene, ‘a throat to MY a mouth to feed MY
feed’, a mouth to feed]
Alleged communicative cлaгaм дyми в ycтaтa нa [slagam dumi v ustata MY put words into someone’s mouth MY
contribution na]
Amazement/surprise cъc зяпнaлa ycтa [săs zyapnala usta, ‘with a MY gaping mouth MY
gaping mouth’, extremely surprised]
Cultural Conceptualisations of
Anger c пянa нa ycтa [s pyana na usta, ‘with foam at the MY foam/froth at the mouth MY
mouth’, foam/froth at the mouth]
Appetite/desire лиги ми пoтичaт oт ycтaтa [ligi mi potičat ot MY one’s mouth waters MY
ustata, ‘saliva starts dripping from my mouth’,
one’s mouth waters]
Attentive listening hang on someone’s mouth MY + MR
MOUTH, LIPS, TONGUE
Authority зяпaм някoгo в ycтaтa [zyapam nyakogo v MY, MY

ustata, ‘stare someone in the mouth’, trust every
and
word someone says, consider someone

unquestionable authority], зaтвapям/зaпyшвaм
TEETH
ycтaтa нa [zatvaryam/zapušvam ustata na,

…
‘close/stuff someone’s mouth’, defeat s.o.’s

arguments and make them stop speaking]
Bad language/inappropriate мpъcнa ycтa [mrăsna usta, dirty mouth] MY + MR dirty/foul/trash/toilet/potty mouth MY + MR
verbal behaviour
Blessing for a good omen злaтни ycтa [zlatni usta, ‘gold mouth’, bless s.o. MY + MR
for saying something good]
Boasting smart mouth, loud-mouthed MY
(continued)
201
Table 10.1 (continued)
202

pattern pattern
Comfortable life poдeн cъc cpeбъpнa лъжицa в ycтa [roden săs MY + MR be born with a silver spoon in mouth MY + MR
srebărna lăžitsa v usta]
Condemnation for a bad omen пeпeл ти нa ycтaтa [pepel ti na ustata, ‘ashes to MY + MR
your mouth’, don’t say something because it is bad
or it might come true]
Criticism in an angry or give someone a mouthful MY
offensive manner
Dejection be down in the mouth MY + MR
Disappointment/broken ocтaвaм c пpъcт в ycтa [ostavam s prăst v usta, MY + MR
dreams ‘be left with one’s finger in one’s mouth’, be
deceived, do not get what one expects]
Embitterment ocтaвям гopчив вкyc в ycтaтa нa [ostavyam MY leave a bad taste in one’s mouth MY
gorčiv vkus v ustata na, ‘leave a bitter taste in
one’s mouth’, leave a bad taste in one’s mouth]
Envious prediction of adverse be laughing out of the other side of MY + MR
future developments mouth
Forceful elicitation of вaдя/тeгля дyмитe c чeнгeл oт ycтaтa нa MY
communicative behaviour [vadya/teglya dumite s čengel ot ustata na,
‘take/drag the words with a hook out of s.o.’s
mouth’, force someone to speak]
Gossiping oт ycтa нa ycтa [ot usta na usta, ‘from mouth to MYs by word of mouth MYs
mouth’]
Hypocrisy butter wouldn’t melt in one’s mouth MY + MR
Ill-speak bad-mouth MY
(continued)
A. Bagasheva
10

pattern pattern
Impudence имaм ycтa дa [imam usta da, ‘have a mouth to’, MY
have the cheek to]
Inability to keep a secret or c гoлямa ycтab [s golyama usta, ‘with a big MY (have) a big mouth MY
restrain one’s speech for some mouth’, big mouth]
reason
Inability/unwillingness to ycтa имa, eзик нямa [usta ima ezik nyama, MY
speak (up) ‘someone has a mouth but lacks a tongue’, as good

as dumb]
Inactivity/lack of integrity cливи ли имaш в ycтaтa [slivi li imaš v ustata; MY be all mouth, all mouth but no trousers, MY,
‘do you have plums in your mouth’, mealy- put one’s money where one’s mouth is, MY + MR,
mouthed] mealy-mouthed, not open one’s mouth MY + MR,
MY
Incessant and frequently ycтaтa ми paбoти кaтo мeлницa [ustata mi S + MY diarrhoea of the mouth, motor/ratchet MR, MR,
MOUTH, LIPS, TONGUE
annoying talking raboti kato melnica, ‘my mouth works like a mouth, shoot one’s mouth off, mouth MY, MY
and
flourmill’, talk too much] off/on

Ineptitude нe e лъжицa зa нeчия/вcякa ycтa [ne e lăžica za MY + MR
TEETH
nečiya/vsyaka usta, ‘not a spoon for

…
someone’s/everyone’s mouth’, not

everyone/someone can cope with something]
Lack of experience c жълтo oкoлo ycтaтa [s žălto okolo ustata, MY, MY
‘with yellow around the mouth’, too young and
inexperienced]; ycтaтa мy oщe нa млякo
миpишaт [ustata mu oše na mlyako mirišat, ‘s.
o.’s mouth still smells of milk’, s.o. is too young to
have any experience]
(continued)
203
204

pattern pattern
Making hints пpaвя cи ycтaтa зa/дa [pravya si ustata za/da, MY
‘make/shape one’s mouth for/to’, make a hint]
Nervousness/apprehensiveness have one’s heart in one’s mouth MY + MR
Politeness мeд ми кaпe oт ycтaтa [med mi kape ot ustata, MY + MR
‘honey drips from my mouth’, be very polite]
Public opinion/gossiping влизaм нa xopaтa в ycтaтa [vlizam na horata v MY + MR *set tongues wagging MY
ustata, ‘enter people’s mouth’, set tongues
wagging]
Reluctance c пoлoвин ycтa [s polovin usta, ‘with half mouth’, MY
reluctantly]
Reproach for зaтвapяй cи ycтaтa/дpъж cи ycтaтa MY + MY Do you kiss your momma with that MY
bad/inappropriate verbal зaтвopeнa, [zatvaryay si ustata, ‘shut your mouth? Do you eat with that mouth?
behaviour mouth’/‘drăž si ustata zatvorena’, ‘keep your Shut your mouth
mouth shut’], c тaя ycтa ядeш? [s taya usta
yadeš, ‘you eat with this mouth’, Do you eat with
that mouth?]
Resemblance плюли cи в ycтaтa [plyuli si v ustata, ‘they spat MY + MR
in each other’s mouth’, speak alike, be alike]
Restraint form communication дъpжa cи ycтaтa зaтвopeнa [dărža si ustata MY keep one’s mouth shut MY
zatvorena, keep one’s mouth shut]
Say what another person взeмaм дyмитe oт ycтaтa нa [vzemam dumite MY take the words out of s.o.’s mouth MY
intended to ot ustata na, ‘take the words from s.o.’s mouth’]
Shifting opinions/alliances speak out of both sides of mouth MY + MR
(continued)
A. Bagasheva
10

pattern pattern
Social awkwardness put one’s foot in one’s mouth; foot-in- MY + MR
mouth disease
Source of knowledge right from the horse’s mouth MY + MR
Speaking without thinking ycтaтa ми paбoти пo-бъpзo oт yмa ми [ustata C + MY
mi raboti po-bărzo ot uma mi, ‘my mouth works
faster than my mind’, speak without thinking]
Uncomfortable life live from hand to mouth MYs

Legend: MY Metonymy; MR Metaphor; S simile; C comparison
a
The asterisk indicates that different elements from the meronymy of the mouth are employed in the two different languages
b
In the instances in which there is coincidence in both the WSSP and the CSCP in the two languages, the Bulgarian cultural formula is rendered only in terms
of its phonetic specificity, enclosed in square brackets. In all other cases the particular meaning is also provided, both in terms of WSSP (graphically
represented by enclosure in inverted comas), which projects the CSCPs, since the WSSPs provide a specific scenic description sculpting the implicit/explicit
ratio and the highlighted culture-specific scenic details
MOUTH, LIPS, TONGUE
and
… TEETH
205
206 A. Bagasheva
only cultural metaphtonymies conceptualising communicative behaviours are

expressly focused on here.
Various scenic framings of the mouth are deployed in English to conceptualise
too much speaking as inappropriate communicative behaviour (e.g. diarrhoea of the
mouth, motor/ratchet mouth, shoot one’s mouth off, mouth off/on), contrasted to a
single one in Bulgarian based on comparison (ycтaтa ми paбoти кaтo мeлницa
[ustata mi raboti kato melnica, ‘my mouth works like a flourmill’, talk too much]).
Another immediately observable contrast is that in English there are many more
expressions of [adjective/noun + mouth], conceptualising bad language, which are
negatively evaluatively marked, corresponding to a single descriptive expression in
Bulgarian—dirty mouth, trash mouth, garbage mouth, toilet mouth, potty mouth,
foul mouth, etc. versus мpъcнa ycтa [mrăsna usta, dirty mouth]. This elaboration
site for synonyms underlines the talk-sensitivity characteristic of English. As Fox
(2014) notes, the ‘grammar’ of Englishness is extremely sensitive to social awk-
wardness and ineptitude, privacy and standardised rules for talk. The notable fact in
this series of cultural formulas is the predominance of metaphoricity superimposed
on the general metonymic background of embodiment via body parts cultural
formulas. The metaphoricity of the conceptually independent constituent (in the
Langackarian sense) in the cases of domain adjective constructions as defined by
Sullivan (2013: 63–65) is transferred over to the whole construction—toilet mouth,
potty mouth, trash mouth, etc. In such metaphoric constructions, the conceptually
dependent construction constituent is always the mouth as a body organ without a
direct evocation of any action schema—big mouth, etc., while the adjective con-
tributes the source in the metaphoric projection. They are all negatively evaluatively
marked. A plethora of such metaphoric expressions is characteristic of English only
and involves mouth exclusively, not its inherent parts (to the exclusion of silver
tongue and sweet tooth). The predominance of the whole in such metaphoric
projections can be explained with its gestalt salience and with the supposition that
the whole metonymically entails its parts, while the reverse does not necessarily
hold true [especially considering facetisation and active zone evocation (Paradis
2011)].
In Bulgarian only two further such cultural formulas have been established
—злaтни ycтa [zlatni usta, ‘golden mouth’, what one says is extremely pleasant,
let someone’s words come true] and гoлямa ycтa [golyama usta, ‘big mouth’,
(1) boastful, (2) very critical]. The first one is evaluatively positive, the second one
conforms to the predominant negative valuation of domain adjective constructions
with mouth. Such uncancellable evaluative markedness is exclusively associated
with the specific domain adjective construction and the mouth as whole (to the
exception of the negative expressions sharp tongue/ocтъp eзик [ostăr ezik, sharp
tongue]), while in the corresponding constructions with tooth (e.g. sweet tooth) and
tongue (e.g. silver tongue) positive evaluation is detected.
Despite the heightened metaphoricity of the expressions described above, in the
remainder of cultural formulas metonymy is the predominant pattern of figurativity.
What is more, even in cases in which it is easy to uncover a cultural metaphor in a

formula with a body part, it is either embedded in or superimposed on metonymy.
The interactions of the two patterns of figurativity are so intriguing and suggestive
of further complexities of cultural conceptualisations that they deserve more
detailed research (a prospect for further work on the specific topic). Suffice it to say
that for the purposes of our research agenda all instances of metaphtonymy (ana-
lytically not differentiated amalgamations of metaphor and metonymy) engender
specific underlying cultural conceptualisations.
10.4.3.2 Lips-Based Cultural Formulas
In Table 10.2 lips-based cultural formulas in Bulgarian and English are presented.
The data are organised in alphabetical order of the projected abstract conceptuali-
sations. An empty slot in column 2 or 4 indicates that there are not cultural formulas
with lips in such a wide use in the respective cultural group for the figurative
conceptualisation of the target abstract domain as to be recorded in the represen-
tative lexicographic reference materials.
The most intriguing observation obviated in Table 10.2 is that the lips are used
in cultural formulas in English for the conceptualisation of communicative con-
ventions and patterns of verbal interaction (e.g. my lips are sealed/button up one’s
lips, on everybody’s lips, zip one’s lips) while no such metonymic projection has
been established in Bulgarian. The observation is consistent with the supposition of
the salience and shared alertness to communicative conventions in the texture of
Englishness. In Bulgarian, the lips are used for conceptualising emotions, attitudes
and personal conduct (e.g. cтиcкaм ycтни [stiskam ustni, ‘clench lips’, try to stifle
one’s anger], изкpивявaм ycтни в ycмивкa [izkrivyavam ustni v usmivka, ‘twist
lips in a smile’, show displeasure or forced enjoyment], пpиcвивaм ycтни [pris-
vivam ustni, ‘purse lips’, show contempt]).
Being the external and directly observable part of the mouth, the lips are
characterised with a lower figurative potential, unlike the tongue. No
metaphor-based figurativity pattern is actualised in Bulgarian. The cultural formulas
are based on metonymy exclusively. The only metaphor-based conceptualisation
involves the whole—mouth, not the specific meronym the lips, i.e. зaшивaм (cи)
ycтaтa (нa) [zashivam (si) ustata (na), ‘sew up (my) mouth (of)’, button
one’s/someone’s lips]. In English, in many formulas, metaphor is superimposed on
metonymy to render the imagistic conceptualisation of the cultural category (se-
crecy) as in my lips are sealed/button up one’s lips.
Keep a stiff upper lip and pay lip service to are notorious for their figuration
complexity. The second has been analysed as displaying demetonymisation inside a
metaphor by Goossens (1990), while Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez and Masegosa
(2011: 9) detect metaphor in “the idea of ‘giving money in return for service’ in the
source and of ‘supporting someone’ in the target” and rightfully recognise the
208 A. Bagasheva
Table 10.2 Abstract conceptualisations projected by lips-based cultural formulas in Bulgarian

and English and their figuration patterns
Projected Bulgarian English
conceptualisations Cultural formulas Figuration Cultural Figuration
pattern formulas pattern
Anger cтиcкaм ycтни [stiskam MY
ustni, ‘clench lips’, try to
stifle one’s anger]
Be the object of on MY + MR
common gossip everybody’s
lips
Coercion to paying read my lips MY
attention
Contempt пpиcвивaм ycтни MY
[prisvivam ustni, ‘purse
lips’, show contempt]
Courage in the face keep a stiff MYs
of pain or adversity upper lip
Displeasure/forced изкpивявaм ycтни в MY
(false) enjoyment ycмивкa [izkrivyavam ustni
v usmivka, ‘twist lips in a
smile’, show displeasure or
forced enjoyment]
Excitement about oблизвaм ycтни [oblizvam MY lick one’s lips MY
an incipient event ustni, lick one’s lips]
Insincere loyalty pay lip MYs
service to
Restraining from zip one’s lips
speaking
Secrecy *зaшивaм (cи) ycтaтa (нa) MY + MR my lips are MY + MR
[zashivam (si) ustata (na), sealed/button
‘sew up (my) mouth (of)’, up one’s lips
button one’s/someone’s lips]
Legend: MY metonymy; MR metaphor; S simile; C comparison
preservation of “the metonymic quality of “lip””. Disagreeing partly with both

analytical options, we claim that the figuration pattern involves a series3 of meto-
nymies. The first metonymy at play is a frame correlational metonymy (Dancygier
and Sweetser 2014; Koch 2001) evoked by the frame of PROVIDING A SERVICE, which
might be interpreted as a special case of the COMMERCIAL TRANSACTION frame. There
is no metaphor involved in ‘giving money in return for service’. The fact that the
whole expression is used to mean ‘support someone or something’ simply indicates
3
Chain metonymies and a series of metonymies are not coterminous. The former defines the case
of single frame-based metonymies that correlate naturally, while the latter defines the presence of
different metonymies not causally or naturally related in the same expression.
that this specific scenic representation is used in wider context to express pretended
loyalty, i.e. pay one’s dues but only in words. Without much effort interactants in a
communicative act can easily infer the intended meaning by metonymic processing
of language.
In to keep a stiff upper lip again there is a direct inferencing link between what is
described and the intended meaning of ‘not expressing one’s feelings when upset’.
It is a natural human reflex to move the lips when crying or smiling, i.e. there is a
natural cause–effect relationship between trembling lips and crying, so by chain
inferences (metonymic processing of language) it is easy to grasp the figurative
meaning.
10.4.3.3 Tongue-Based Cultural Formulas
In Table 10.3, tongue-based cultural formulas in Bulgarian and English are pre-
sented. The data are organised in alphabetical order of the projected abstract con-
ceptualisations. An empty slot in column 2 or 4 indicates that there are not cultural
formulas with tongue in such a wide use in the respective cultural group for the
As illustrated in Table 10.3, tongue is deployed in fewer cultural conceptuali-
sations than the whole, but in considerably more in comparison to lips in both
cultural groups. The cultural formulas centre around elaborations of the teleology of
the tongue in producing speech. This restrictedness could be interpreted as stem-
ming from the fact that the tongue is located in a bounded region and has a specified
scope for motility. Without reading too much into possible motivations, the number
of coincidences between the two cultural groups in expressions containing tongue
and the associated, underlying cultural conceptualisations, suggests predominance
of metonymic projections guided by the functional perspective of the body organ.
An interesting fact to note is the use of the whole in preference to the part in
Bulgarian for conceptualising being the cause for gossip and reprimand. In English,
in both instances, it is the tongue that is metonymically employed with a significant
level of scenic explicitness while in Bulgarian, the mouth is deployed in a most
general manner with the highest degree of implicitness in figurativity. In влизaм нa
xopaтa в ycтaтa [vlizam na horata v ustata, ‘enter people’s mouth’, become the
cause of gossip] a long series of chained metonymies projects the cultural con-
ceptualisation of human behaviour inviting gossip, but the gossiper is projected as
passive. It is the trigger of the gossip that is actively engaged in the scenic
description. In English, besides the active part played by the trigger of the gossip,
the gossiper is also explicitly projected as an active scenic participant via metonymy
of wagging tongues.
On the whole, even in cultural formulas with a shared target concept, there is
always a difference in lexicalisation, i.e. in WSSP. In English one ‘loses’ one’s
tongue, in Bulgarian it ‘gets swallowed’; in English one just ‘holds’ one’s tongue in
Bulgarian one ‘keeps it behind one’s teeth’.
Table 10.3 Abstract conceptualisations projected by tongue-based cultural formulas in Bulgarian and English
210

pattern pattern
Desire to say something cъpби мe eзикът [sărbi me ezikăt, ‘my tongue itches’, I want strongly MY
secret/inappropriate/hurtful to say something]
Error of expression гpeшкa нa eзикa [greshka na ezika, ‘an error of the tongue’] MY slip of the tongue MY
Evil person c двoeн/paзцeпeн eзик [s dvoen/razcepen ezik, ‘with a double/split MY + MR
tongue]
Honest or revealing talk paзвъpзвa ми ce eзикът [razvărza mi se ezikăt, ‘my tongue untied’, MY + MR loosen one’s tongue MY
loosen one’s tongue]
Hypocrisy speak with a forked MY + MR
tongue
Inability to encode пoд eзикa ми e [pod ezika mi e, ‘it is under my tongue’, on the tip of MY + MR on the tip of one’s MY + MR
linguistically one’s thoughts one’s tongue] tongue
Instigate gossiping *влизaм нa xopaтa в ycтaтa [vlizam na horata v ustata, ‘enter MY + MR set tongues wagging MY
people’s mouth’, set tongues wagging]
Joking tongue in cheek MY + MR
Monitor one’s watch/guard one’s MY
communicative behaviour tongue
carefully
Polite communicative keep a civil tongue MY
behaviour
Reprimanding *oтвapям eднa ycтa [otvaryam edna usta, ‘open one mouth’, MY give s.o. a tongue- MY + MR
criticise severely/reprimand] lashing/lick with the
rough side of o.’s
tongue
(continued)
A. Bagasheva
10

pattern pattern
Restrain from/incapability of дъpжa cи eзикa зaд зъбитe [dărža si ezika zad zăbite, ‘hold one’s MY, MY can’t find one’s MY + MR
communication tongue behind one’s teeth’, keep silent]; гълтaм cи eзикa [găltam si tongue/lose one’s
ezika, ‘swallow one’s tongue’ be unable to speak/be too intimidated to tongue,
speak]
Restraint from/regret for oтxaпвaм cи eзикa [othapvam si ezika,‘bite off one’s tongue’] MY bite one’s tongue MY
inappropriate
communicative behaviour
Speaking in a particular way

xaплив/ocтъp eзик [hapliv/ostăr ezik, ‘biting/sharp tongue’, sharp MY, MY tongue in cheek, MY + MR,
tongue]; дъpжa нeпpиличeн eзик [dărža nepriličen ezik, ‘hold an silver-tongued, keep MY, MY
indecent tongue’, speak inappropriately] a civil tongue
MOUTH, LIPS, TONGUE
and
… TEETH
211
212 A. Bagasheva
More interesting than the subtle differences in scenic granularity and detail, are
the more unfathomable differences in CSCPs. In the distinction between bite one’s
tongue vs. oтxaпвaм cи eзикa [othapvam si ezika, bite off one’s tongue], the
differences in WSSPs can be detected in the finality of the bite (in Bulgarian), i.e.
once bitten off, the tongue could no longer be used. In English there is no indication
as to finality, one can bite one’s tongue as many times as they wish. The essence of
the contrast in the underlying cultural conceptualisations does not lie in the scenic
details so much, but in the CSCPs—the English one is used to encode restraint from
inappropriate verbal behaviour or inadvertent content, while in Bulgarian the same
physical act construes regret for an accomplished inappropriate verbal act. Thus in
Bulgarian what is conceptualised is punishment for misfortunate verbal behaviour,
while in English what is conceptualised is prevention measures for inadequate
verbal behaviour. This is in tune with a host of expressions which construe the
disharmonious workings of the mind and the mouth (speaking without thinking)
which is axiomatically assumed to be the standard case in the Bulgarian culture. In
English, speaking is construed as controlled, strictly conventionalised and
premeditated behaviour which can be duly prevented (Fox 2014: 33–78, 101–182).
In both cultures, the figurativity hinges on a metonymic extension of the central
role of the tongue in articulating human speech. In the discussion developed
between Goossens (1995) and Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez and Masegosa (2011) it
transpires that the patterns in which metaphor and metonymy interact are difficult to
classify. Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez and Masegosa (2011: 8) argue that
biting one’s tongue, rather than a metonymy within a metaphoric framework, is part of a
scenario in which someone bites his or her tongue to refrain from revealing a secret or
otherwise speaking his or her mind. The expression thus stands for the complete scenario
that can then be used as a metaphoric source for other situations where people refrain from
speaking without actually biting their tongues.
In the case of bite one’s tongue what is metaphoric is the use to which the
cultural formula is put, not the figuration pattern which engenders the construction
which is metonymically motivated. There is no requirement for actual biting to
occur for the expression to be aptly used in a communicative exchange. Whenever
the expression is chosen it triggers off the requisite interpretation which is based on
a metonymy CAUSE FOR EFFECT. The inability or unwillingness to speak ensues in a
frame correlational manner from the physical infliction on the instrument in the
frame of speaking (which involves physical movement of the tongue).
Cultural specificity comes from the understanding of the spontaneity of speak-
ing, social decorum in speech and the general pragmatics of ‘face’-keeping,
involved in the cultural conceptualisations of communicative interactions. This
specific characteristic of understanding communication as rule-governed and
face-preserving activity is substantiated by two further cultural formulas: watch
your mouth and watch your tongue, which are patently lacking in Bulgarian. The
expression watch your mouth cannot possibly have a literal or physically descrip-
tive meaning since humans do not have visual access to their own mouths.
Watching always involves another entity, so watching one’s mouth promotes the
mouth as a separate, individual object whose functioning can be observed. Then the
meanings of watch as ‘pay diligent attention to a person or thing in view of possible
changes or movements’ and ‘vigilance against danger or surprise’ are activated.
Thus constant feedback, recognised as a design feature of language, is culturally
conceptualised as an impossible physical activity involving one’s mouth, or the
organ used for producing spoken language, which implies conscious effort for the
proper execution of such activities. Naturally we need to recognise the metonymy
INSTRUMENT FOR PRODUCT which leads to the culture-specific CSCPs.
10.4.3.4 Teeth-Based Cultural Formulas
In Table 10.4, teeth-based cultural formulas in Bulgarian and English are presented.
The data are organised in alphabetical order of the abstract conceptualisations
projected. An empty slot in column 2 or 4 indicates that there are not cultural
formulas with teeth in such a wide use in the respective cultural group for the
Even though there are a noticeable number of coincidences in the cultural
elaborations of teeth via cultural metaphors and cultural metonymies in the two
cultural groups, as demonstrated in Table 10.4, in English the cultural formulas and
the engendered cultural categories are perceptibly more numerous and diverse.
Teeth seem to be as metaphtonymically potent as mouth in this cultural group. This
is in keeping with the note that the teeth are perceived as independent, as simply
contained in the mouth and due to their hardness, naturally associated with the
conceptualisation of energetic, forceful acts. In a predictable manner, they are
highly valued and this is capitalised on in many of the culturally motivated figu-
rativity patterns. The two instances of body part mismatch between the two cultures
(against coincidence of the categories conceptualised) are not highly significant and
are restricted to differences in WSSPs.
Since for sake of consistency we restricted detailed analyses to abstract con-
ceptualisations relating to communication, we will not elaborate on a discussion of
teeth-based cultural formulas, since it appears that teeth are not encultured in a way
relating to conceptualising communicative behaviours in either cultural group.
Admittedly, the projected domains, the figuration patterns and scenic details
involved in the cultural capitalisation on teeth are extremely interesting and this
could certainly turn into a fruitful future research focus.
10.4.3.5 Interim Summary
The contrastive analyses provided in the current section revealed that there are
considerably few coincidences in cultural conceptualisations engendered by figu-
rative projections of the mouth and its parts in English and Bulgarian. Even in cases
in which the projected abstract domains coincide, there are always differences in
Table 10.4 Abstract conceptualisations projected by teeth-based cultural formulas in Bulgarian and English
214

pattern pattern
бopя ce cъc зъби и нoкти [borya se săs MY fight tooth and nail MY
zăbi i nokti]
(Degree of) satiation up to the teeth MY
Age (a bit) long in the tooth MY + MR
Anger and annoyance cкъpцaм cъc зъби [skărcam săs zăbi, MY gnash one’s teeth MY
‘screech with one’s teeth’, be very angry
or irritated/try to intimidate s.o.]
Control of a situation get the bit between teeth MY + MR
Demonstrate power and will пoкaзвaм cи зъбитe [pokazvam si MY + MR have teeth MY + MR
zăbite, ‘show one’s teeth’]
Difficulty in the teeth of MY + MR
Disdain or anger пpoцeждaм пpeз зъби [proceždam prez MY
zăbi, ‘strain through one’s teeth’ show
disdain or anger]
Disinterestedness no skin off someone’s teeth MY + MR
Endurance cтиcкaм зъби [stiskam zăbi, ‘clench MY grit one’s teeth MY
one’s teeth’, bare to do something very
unpleasant]
Energetic endeavour get/sink/put one’s teeth into MY
something
Extreme disappointment/unfair a kick in the teeth MY
treatment
Feeling coldness or fear тpaкaт ми зъбитe [trakat mi zăbite, ‘my MY chattering teeth MY
teeth chatter’]
(continued)
A. Bagasheva
10

pattern pattern
Get extremely fed up *идвa ми дo гyшa [idva mi do gusha, ‘it MY be fed up to the back teeth MY
comes to my neck’]
Gift acceptance нa xapизaн кoн зъбитe нe ce глeдaт MY + MR *you don’t look a gift horse in the MY + MR
[na harizan kon zăbite ne se gledat, ‘you mouth
do not look at the teeth of a gift horse’,
you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth]
In development teething (problems) MY + MR

Intimate knowledge знaм/пoзнaвaм и кътнитe зъби нa MY + MR
[znam i kătnite zăbi na, ‘know the
molars of’, know far too well]
Irritation/extreme discomfort set one’s teeth on edge MY
Particular experience cut one’s eyeteeth/teeth on/in MY
something
MOUTH, LIPS, TONGUE
Particular taste (have a) sweet tooth MY

and
Particular taste sweet tooth

Power and will have teeth, pull teeth, put some teeth My + MR
TEETH
into
…
Scarcity as scarce as hen’s teeth MY + MR

Strong desire give one’s eye teeth for sth. MY + MR
Surprise drop one’s teeth MY + MR
Threatening behaviour oзъбвaм ce [ozăbvam se, ‘get all teethy’ MY bare/show one’s teeth MY
bare one’s teeth]
215
216 A. Bagasheva
scenic details and CSCPs. These results only come to strongly emphasise the
encultured nature of the human body as the locus of the meaning-making potential
of humans.
On the whole, in both cultural groups mouth and teeth are the members of the
mouth meronymy utilised as sources for cultural metaphthonymies to the highest
degree. Truth be told, only mouth is comparably (in terms of the number of diverse
categories conceptualised via figurativity patterns based on it) deployed in cultural
conceptualisations in both cultural groups, with teeth figuring more prominently in
English. The comparability is quantitative only. In terms of the diversity of cate-
gories conceptualised by cultural embodiment via body parts, the coincidences are
negligible and can easily be explained away by the proximity of the two cultural
groups in terms of values, practices and everyday activities. Qualitatively speaking,
the diversity of cultural categories projected in cultural formulas containing body
parts is indicative of the inherent irreducibility of cultural cognition to human
universals, even when a physical universal—the human body—is involved.
Without venturing into anthropological interpretations or grand conclusions, it can
safely be claimed that the “obsession with rule-governed” social formulas for
communication is easy to read off from the employed cultural formulas based on
mouth and its meronymy in English (neglecting the diversity of cultural concepts
employing teeth). Such a consistent pattern does not stare one in the face in relation
to Bulgarian.
In both cultural groups in embodiment via body parts, metonymy is more fun-
damental and appears prior to any metaphorical mappings due to the nature of
language as a complex adaptive system and the nature of human meaning-making
strategies based on enactment, with metaphors contributing to a lesser degree. The
prevalence of metonymies in embodiment via external body parts can be explained
through the principle of the immersed experiencer which involves a sensorial input
which is schematically associated [in Blewitt’s (1993) sense] with the target con-
cept. In other words, frame correlational metonymies (Dancygier and Sweetser
2014) operate in mouth-based cultural conceptualisations. The mechanism is exe-
cuted by imposing a visualisation frame with a basic image schematic structure
derived from the source projected in the conceptualisation of the target. The whole
is used for a greater number of expressions than the parts, but with the parts greater
metaphoricity is at play.
Within contemporary debates of the nature of human conceptualisation and its
relation to culture and language Sapir’s contention that “no two languages are ever
sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality” (Sapir
1958: 69) still rings true, because they externalise different cultural
conceptualisations.
10.5 How Embodied Is Culture or How Cultural

the Body Is?
The cognitive architecture of cultural knowledge accommodates linguistic cultural

formulas as salience-enhancing templates. In Shore’s own words such templates
“render certain kinds of experience perceptually significant and readily communi-
cable within a community” (Shore 1996: 315). Admittedly, cultural formulas as
linguistic instantiations of cultural conceptualisations are differentially distributed
among the members of the cultural group. As suggested by Peters (1983: 3), there is
a continuum of formulas depending on use and distribution, starting from
‘cultural formulas’, which, judging from their invariance in form, are treated as units in a
particular speech community (whether of two or a million persons), and ‘idiosyncratic
formulas’, which may have a prefabricated status only for one particular speaker.
Cultural formulas and other types of cultural conceptualisations relating to the

mouth (Nissen 2011), the guts, heart-stomach, liver, etc., internal organs (Sharifian
et al. 2008), the face, the head, the eye and feet (Maalej and Yu 2011) provide
sufficient evidence for the claim that culture, language and cognition are embodied,
just as for the contention that bodies are encultured and linguistically construed.
Ethnomedical practices, cultural beliefs, social conventions, conceptualisations of
dirt, cleanliness, health, etc., all take part in the cultural conceptualisations of the
body and the cultural metonymies and metaphors projected from it for conceptu-
alising abstract domains. It appears that external organs whose structure and
function we can monitor behave differently from internal organs as elaboration sites
for cultural figurative patterns. While metonymy is essential for the deployment of
external body parts, internal body organs participate metaphorically in the con-
ceptualisation of different emotions. The findings are fully consistent with the
“embodiment premise” as formulated by Gibbs (2006: 9),
[p]eople’s subjective, felt experiences of their bodies in action provide part of the funda-
mental grounding for language and thought. Cognition is what occurs when the body
engages the physical, cultural world […] Human language and thought emerge from
recurring patterns of embodied activity that constrain ongoing intelligent behaviour. We
must […] seek out the gross and detailed ways that language and thought are inextricably
shaped by embodied action.
In accordance with these claims, in the current chapter on the basis of contrastive
analyses of body part based cultural formulas it was demonstrated that the mouth
and its meronymy play a culturally specific role in the natural metaphtonymic
projection of figurative expressions in the two respective cultural groups. By
applying qualitative contrastive analysis of fully lexically specified constructions in
terms of the abstract conceptualisations they project and in terms of the deployed
figuration patterns and scenic details it was demonstrated that cultural formulas in
Bulgarian and English are markedly different. The greatest differences were
218 A. Bagasheva
observed in terms of the figurative deployment of mouth and teeth in emergent

conceptulaisations. In the case of tongue, the greatest differences were detected in
terms of the scenic details involved in figurative projections. Both types of dif-
ferences are indicative of different daily practices and routinised activities that
override the biological affordances of the body and valorise the mouth and its parts
in culture-specific ways, which motivates the specific cultural formulas.
10.6 Retrospectus and Prospectus
Despite pessimistic claims that “the study of relationship between the sociocultural
and the mental in the social and human sciences stands at crossroads” (Lizardo
2015: 576), Cultural Linguistics offers an interdisciplinarily informed perspective
that supplies both a theoretical framework and analytical tools for gleaning into the
complexity of the interface between language, mind and culture. A powerful the-
oretical construct and analytical tool is ‘cultural conceptualisations’ which can be
tapped into in various ways via the effects they produce in numerous symbolic and
interactive systems. Among these linguistic instantiations stand out as we can
fruitfully employ them for analytical insights, since language “acts as both a
memory bank and a fluid vehicle for the (re-)transmission of these socioculturally
embodied cultural conceptualisations” (Sharifian 2015: 476), with both cultural
cognition and language interpreted as complex adaptive systems.
Cultural conceptualisations have two quite different lives: as social artefacts and
as cognitive representations and both users and analysts have direct access to the
latter only via the former. Formulaic sequences are among the most widely dis-
tributed social artefacts that can provide us with insights about the workings of the
cultural mind. Cultural categories can be tapped into by studying serial metony-
mies, polysemy networks, metaphoric chains and their culture-specific projections.
It is natural for a young or reborn discipline, such as Cultural Linguistics, to lack an
established, uniformly formalised analytical apparatus, so there is always some
leeway for subjectivity of interpretation since the analyst comes with an embodied
cultural mind to the task.
With these caveats in mind we hope to have provided ground for future more
detailed and more fully contextualised contrastive analyses of the cultural con-
ceptualisations based on the mouth and its meronymy across different cultural
groups and languages with a pronounced focus on the patterning of figurativity in
the engendering of cultural schemas revealing the encultured nature of the human
body.
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across cultures and languages (pp. 247–266). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
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15, 2016.
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Benjamins.
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Author Biography
Alexandra Bagasheva is an Associate Professor at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. She
is a member of the editorial boards of Contrastive Linguistics and Yearbook of Sofia University
“St. Kliment Ohridski”. She has published papers in the field of word-formation and cognitive
linguistics and has been a co-editor of issues of Italian Journal of Linguistics, Contrastive
Linguistics and SKASE.
Chapter 11
Cultural Conceptualisations of RIVER
in Hungarian Folksongs
Judit Baranyiné Kóczy
11.1 Introduction
11.1.1 Aim of the Research
Folksongs, which form a central group within Hungarian folk poetry, are collective
artefacts of traditional peasant communities. Although they are collective products,
they express lyrical messages about personal emotions by means of metaphorical
representation. In a considerable number of folksongs a so-called ‘initial image of
nature’ is employed to communicate personal matters in an indirect way by using
the imagery of natural phenomena. The meaning of these songs is rather ambigu-
ous, partly because they display a range of metaphors and schemas that have not
been sufficiently analysed from a linguistic point of view. According to the Cultural
Linguistic approach, which the present chapter adopts, Hungarian folksongs can be
considered true vehicles of the worldview of the traditional peasant communities
from which they emerged. Therefore they use cultural conceptualisations (Sharifian
2003, 2011, 2015, 2017) of their folk cultural cognition.
The present chapter explores the metaphors and image schemas related to the
natural entity RIVER in the context of love. The main premises of the chapter are the
following: (1) The conceptualisations of RIVER in the investigated folksongs elab-
orate the cultural metaphor EMOTION IS RIVER WATER; (2) While they are grounded in
cultural experiences, which is evidenced in the folksongs, the cultural metaphors in
the folksongs are only partly comprehensible in terms of conceptual metaphors;
(3) Overall the metaphors instantiate the cultural schema RESERVEDNESS in
expressing emotions, a schema which derives from the norms of peasant morality.
J. Baranyiné Kóczy (&)

Széchenyi István University, Győr, Hungary
e-mail: baranyine.koczy.judit@sze.hu

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_11
224 J. Baranyiné Kóczy
11.1.2 Cultural Conceptualisations
In the past few years, there has been a growing awareness of the fact that language,
cognition and culture, including metaphorical thought and expression, are strongly
correlated (Kövecses 2000, 2005, 2015; Palmer 1996; Sharifian 2011, 2015, 2017).
In this context, culture is practically viewed as “a set of shared understandings that
characterise smaller or larger groups of people” (Kövecses 2005: 1; see also Strauss
and Quinn 1997).
The cross-cultural variation of metaphors has become a major interest of
Cultural Linguistics (Sharifian 2017), a field in which metaphors are understood as
not only implying generic ideas, but express cultural conceptualisations and rep-
resent cultural cognition, i.e. “networks of distributed representations across the
minds in cultural groups” (Sharifian 2011: 5).
Cultural conceptualisations which are a central notion in Cultural Linguistics
cover the instantiations of cultural cognition in language as they appear in cultural
schemas, categories and metaphors, which transmit a cultural group’s beliefs and
ideas about their life, environment, religion and so on (Sharifian 2015: 477).
Understood as cultural conceptualisations, the metaphors of nature in Hungarian
folksongs are seen as deriving from collective experiences about human life and
perceptions about nature as they emerged in a particular cultural community. These
two domains give rise to characteristic cultural metaphors and image schemas
which reveal not only how the members of the group apply their experiences to
metaphorical conceptualisations but also how they think about nature in general.
They also reveal the beliefs and values they attribute to its elements, such as rivers
(see Whorf 1956: 214).
Cultural metaphors have overlaps with universal conceptual metaphors (Lakoff
and Johnson 1980) but importantly they are also variable phenomena. The
cross-cultural variation of metaphors is influenced by a range of factors like how a
cultural group chooses source and target domains and how they pair them to
constitute a metaphor, or how a generic schema is instantiated or specified
(Kövecses 2002). Differences may arise from differential experience (contexts
which include the physical environment, the social context, and the communicative
situation) and differential cognitive preferences, both of which are affected by
cultural factors (Kövecses 2005: 232, 246). Metaphors are also related to image
schemas, which provide structures for certain conceptualisations (Johnson 1987).
Gary Palmer regards them as “schemas of intermediate abstractions that are readily
imagined, perhaps as iconic images, and clearly related to physical (embodied) or
social experiences” (Palmer 1996: 66).
Cultural schemas are also determinative aspects in the creation of metaphors.
Accordingly, all metaphors, even those erected on universal grounds, are embedded
in implicit systems of cultural conceptualisations called cultural cognition which
are heterogeneously distributed. This point implies that cognition constantly
emerges from the interactions of the individuals and also suggests that the indi-
vidual members of a cultural group may share these conceptualisations in somewhat
11 Cultural Conceptualisations of RIVER in Hungarian Folksongs 225
different ways from one another. A great number of metaphors, however, can be
explained only in terms of the culture in which they emerged. The Cultural
Linguistic view of metaphors as cultural conceptualisations also enhances interest
in the source domain as a core issue in understanding cultural variation in meta-
phors (a view reflected in, e.g. Idström 2012; Sharifian et al. 2008; Yu 2007).
11.1.3 Hungarian Folksongs in the Cultural Context
This chapter employs the term folk cultural conceptualisations following

Hungarian ethnographers who use folk culture to refer to the culture that the
Hungarian peasantry passed down from generation to generations for centuries
(Katona 1998). This culture in its original form has already disappeared by now, but
even so folksongs remain strong markers of Hungarian cultural identity and the
metaphors that are found in them are still used in present day cultural artefacts.
Hungarian folksongs expressed the thoughts and emotions of the peasantry, most
often as they related to issues of love but also reflections upon other matters
including homesickness, outlaw lifestyle, military service and fear of death.
Folksongs have a lyrical quality manifested in brief and concise expressions of
emotion. However, their schematised imagery demonstrates their collective nature.
Folksongs are generally preserved within the community, but their origin and
creator is unknown (Katona 1998: 357); they are always found as range of variants,
which, during the process of becoming collective possessions and being passed on
to later generations, gradually illustrate various stages of losing their original
individual and incidental marks (Katona 1998: 357). Traditionally, folksongs are
often performed to an audience which is involved in adapting the discourse to their
situation in a direct and active manner (Katona 1998: 24). Schematic representation,
which is a major characteristic of collective poetry, allows collective ideas to be
adapted to particular or individual purposes.
While ethnographers have claimed the imagery of nature a characteristic trait of
Hungarian folksongs (Katona 1998; Lükő 1942, 2002; Ortutay 1975), the con-
ceptualisations presented in them have not yet been extensively explored. The
research on folksongs up to now focused on developing a motif-based classification
(Küllős 1991; Mona 1959), and defining patterns of meaning making (such as
parallelism, repetition, contradiction, climax and exaggeration) in a stylistic
framework (Katona 2002). According to the ethnographic account, the natural
images in folksongs emerged partly through the double influence of mediaeval
religious literature and secular poetry, but a considerable number of them can be
traced back well before the Middle Ages (Katona 2002). Natural images often
appear at the beginning of the stanzas, “setting” and “projecting” the follow-up
emotional message in a metaphorical way (Ortutay 1982). Their significance is
illustrated by the fact that in a survey of love songs, the central thematic subtype of
folksongs, 319 songs out of 445 (i.e. 72%) display natural scenes (Ortutay and
Katona 1975).
Images of nature in folksongs feature a variety of construal patterns.1 They

express emotions in more or less elaborated scenes, where the participants, actions
and relations bear metaphorical meanings. Most of them are rather complex and
involve a number of metaphors and image schemas. Sometimes the natural image
syntactically parallels the follow-up emotional message, revealing the mapping
correspondences within the metaphor, while in other cases it is restricted to an
ungrounded nominal phrase which is given without no explanation.
The complex view introduced here takes into account semantic, grammatical, as
well as ethnographical aspects of folksongs in order to investigate the meanings of
folksongs in great depth.
11.1.4 The Cultural Schema RESERVEDNESS
Various social, cultural and economic factors established the cultural ground for the
development of the cultural schema RESERVEDNESS in expressing emotions in the
Hungarian folksongs. The term RESERVEDNESS used here refers to a specific attitude
involving shyness and aloofness employed by peasants when speaking of emotions
and personal matters. It is apparent in indirect ways of expression. The cultural
metaphors and image schemas of the folksongs are one form of the instantiation of
RESERVEDNESS, along with other construal patterns that reflect this construal schema
(Baranyiné Kóczy 2011a; Baranyiné Kóczy 2016). This cultural schema is
grounded in the peasant morality which characterised traditional peasant society in
Hungary and it determined the acceptable behavioural patterns in connection with
emotions and marriage.
The lives of peasant communities were regulated by rules and traditions, which
were called into being by human and collective needs (Bódán 2008: 316). The
conception of ‘morality’ derived from three basic sources: Christianity, the secular
authorities and the vulnerable situation of the peasantry under feudalism (Nagy
1989: 225–249). Individual villages operated as closed societal units where the
village community defined what was immoral, and judged and punished any
offender accordingly (Tomori 2004: 196). It was public opinion that guarded the
moral order, cracking down on guilty individuals through their most effective
device: gossip. Those involved in scandal lost status in the estimation of the village
(Balázs Kovács 2004: 185).
The selection of suitable candidates for marriage was a family issue and the
decision was made by the gazda (the ‘ruling’ male in the family) (Bell 1985: 60–
61). There was considerable social stratification within peasantry, ranking males
and females by the amount of land they had (as agricultural products were the main
source of nourishment). In this way, the social classes within the peasantry ranged
1
“The term construal refers to our manifest ability to conceive and portray the same situation in
alternate ways” (Langacker 2008: 43).
from wealthy peasants to smallholders and even landless peasants (Bell 1985: 29).
The general principle was to marry people of roughly equal financial means. This
meant that attraction was often aroused in the face of the norms and restrictions of
the community but such feelings were not considered when parents planned their
children’s marriage.
In relation to attraction, sexuality was a crucial issue. For girls, preserving their
virginity was the central concept of morality, and virginity was an essential part of
the dowry. It was a rather unrealistic expectation, given that the expected behaviour
patterns for young men included success in courting and love (Jávor 2000: 618–
622, 660). Premarital sexual relationships were considered a ‘mistake’, especially
for the girls, but they were not easily proven, except if a pregnancy occurred
(Bódán 2008: 321). An unwed girl who became pregnant was viewed as a disgrace
in folk communities while for her it meant the loss of any prospect for an appro-
priate marriage. All in all, the principals of peasant morality, the male and female
role schemas, and the method of choosing a marital partner led to the special
treatment of emotions and sexuality, which is reflected in the folksongs’ cultural
schema RESERVEDNESS.
11.1.5 Corpus and Methodology
All the folksongs and linguistic data used in this chapter are taken from “Hungarian
folksongs” (Ortutay and Katona 1975) and are presented in a rough translation by
the author, indicating the thematic subtype of the song. References to “the folk-
songs” in the remainder of the chapter refer to this collection. An empirical
approach is used to investigate this collection of about 2500 texts (Ortutay and
Katona 1975), which were selected from ten thousands of folksongs and themati-
cally arranged into 47 subtypes, to ensure a complete coverage of “historic, geo-
graphic, and ethnic interface” (Ortutay 1975: 7). The collection provides a balanced
range of folksongs with various regions and having different historical origins well
represented. The lyrical folksongs can be categorised into a total of 13 thematic
groups, namely: matchmaking songs, spinning songs, love songs, curse songs,
melancholic songs, fugitive songs, wanderer songs, songs of ’48,2 soldier songs,
shepherd songs, outlaw songs, prison songs and fisherman songs.
The study basically utilises an etic perspective. The author is not part of the folk
community but acknowledges some cultural understanding of folk culture as is the
case with all Hungarians. The linguistic analyses focus on two forms of repre-
sentation: first the metaphors that make up the images in which rivers are displayed,
and secondly, the basic image schemas of RIVER.
2
Referring to the Hungarian revolution against Austrian dominance within Austro-Hungarian
Monarchy in 1848–49.
11.2 The Cultural Conceptualisations of RIVER

in the Folksongs
Rivers are conventional conceptualisations in the folksongs, referenced by either

proper names or common names. Table 11.1 shows the frequency of occurrence of
RIVER in terms of song types (i.e. thematic contexts) and overall, based on the corpus
of folksongs.
As Table 11.1 shows, rivers unsurprisingly appear most frequently in fisherman
songs. On the other hand, rivers are not represented in curse songs and wanderer
songs at all. Love songs, by far the largest subtype, are remarkable not only for the
relatively high proportion that mention rivers (13%) but also for the varied usage of
river imagery. It has also been found that 319 texts out of 445 feature natural
images, so in fact 18% of the natural images in love songs feature rivers. For
comparison, in the case of FOREST these figures are 6.5% for all love songs and 9%
for the natural scenes found in love songs (Baranyiné Kóczy 2011b).
11.2.1 The EMOTION IS RIVER WATER Cultural Metaphor
Folksongs display rivers from a variety of aspects, focusing on a set of charac-

teristics related to them. There is an underlying cultural metaphor behind the
conceptualisations, which can be framed as the EMOTION IS RIVER WATER metaphor.
This cultural metaphor is linked to the EMOTION IS FLUID IN A CONTAINER conceptual
metaphor (Kövecses 2000: 26) but it is instantiated in a variety of image schemas,
expressing different emotional stages and situations, many of which are more
focused on the perceptions of rivers than of fluids in general. The peasant com-
munities had ambiguous experiences of river water and evaluated it in various
ways.
In folkways the water of River Tisza was believed to have cleansing, healing and trouble
preventing functions. The water also had a special role in spring rituals. Many believed in
its purifying effect. The river water was a symbol of purification and renewal, and its
significance was strongly related to cleanliness and health. In folk belief, it also represented
transition and contradiction. Positive associations to the River Tisza thus included clear
water, cleanness, and health, while negative ones were dirt, danger, fear and death (Nagy
Abonyi 2015).
Other experiences related to rivers include their structural traits and the tem-
porality of flowing river water. A further point about image schemas in the folk-
songs is that they are often rather complex, incorporating two or more metaphors.
This is evidenced in folksong (1).
Table 11.1 The representation of RIVER with reference to thematic subtypes of Hungarian
folksongs
Thematic subtype Total number of songs Representations of RIVER
Total cases Rate within subtype (%)
Fisherman songs 12 7 58
Spinning songs 22 3 14
Love songs 445 57 13
Shepherd songs 60 6 10
Outlaw songs 67 7 10
Fugitive songs 51 4 7.8
Melancholic songs 52 2 3.8
Soldier songs 166 6 3.6
Prison songs 44 3 0.7
Matchmaking songs 20 2 0.5
Songs of ’48 74 3 0.4
Curse songs 10 0 –
Wanderer songs 13 0 –
All songs 1036 100 9.7
(1) Kiöntött a Tisza vize; The Tisza water has overflown,

Szőke kislány fürdik benne. A blond girl is bathing in it.
Én is megfürödtem benne, I have also bathed in it,
Rám is ragadt a szerelme. Her love stuck on me, too.3
(Love song 85)
Here line 4 makes it obvious that the lad and the girl have participated in the
same action (bathing), which causes the same emotional situation (love). Hence the
relation between bathing and love is unfolded, supported by the perceptual parallel
of getting wet and the ‘stickiness’ of love. The central mapping is FALLING IN LOVE IS
BATHING IN THE RIVER WATER. However, there is another mapping of the RIVER-
metaphor apparent in line 1: OVERFLOWING WITH EMOTION IS THE FLOOD OF RIVER
WATER. The two metaphors do not have the same root: if the conceptual metaphor
EMOTION IS FLUID IN A CONTAINER is applied to the river, then the riverbed stands for
the container, or the person in love. But the metaphor of BATHING involves different
participants and has a closer similarity with the LOVE IS A DISEASE metaphor
(Kövecses 2000: 26). Another metaphor captured in the scene represents the
UNIFICATION OF THE LOVERS by bathing in the same river and falling in love with each
other, hence the River Tisza has a unifying function.
Another example of the EMOTION IS RIVER WATER metaphor is displayed in folk-
song (2). Here a flood seems to be a mere setting that depicts spring when it is time
for animals to find a mate, the time to choose a partner. However, within the frame
Another possible interpretation of line 4 is ‘therefore her love stuck on me.’

3
of the cultural metaphor EMOTION IS RIVER WATER it represents OVERFLOWING EMOTION,

which is the motivation for searching for a partner.
(2) Tavaszi szél vizet áraszt, virágom, The spring wind floods water, my darling, my
virágom; darling,4
Tavaszi szél vizet áraszt, virágom, The spring wind floods water, my darling, my
virágom. darling.
Minden madár társat választ, virágom, Every bird chooses a mate, my darling, my
virágom; darling,
Minden madár társat választ, virágom, Every bird chooses a mate, my darling, my
virágom. darling.
(Love song 1)
The EMOTION IS RIVER WATER metaphor is displayed in various contexts, some of

which are rather ambiguous and difficult to interpret. Folksong (3) is an example of
the high level of complexity that may characterise images in the folksongs. It also
highlights the importance of spatial orientations in the metaphorical meaning,
which is quite common in the Hungarian folksongs.
(3) Tisza szélin egy nagy nyárfa On the bank of the Tisza, at the foot of a big poplar,
tüvibe A brown girl is sitting in a lad’s lap.
Barna leány ül a legény ölibe. The lad is watching the big foam of the water of the
Legény nézi folyó vize nagy habját, river.
Leány nézi az ragyogós csillagját. The girl is watching her shining star.
(Love song 216)
The spatial setting of the love scene is determined by the riverbank of the Tisza
and the poplar tree. In the Hungarian version the expression folyó vize is
ambiguous. Folyó has two meanings: ‘river’ or ‘flowing,’ and vize is a possession in
possessive construction (water + 3rd Sg possessive suffix with single possession5:
‘water of something or someone’), so it has an unmarked possessor. It is possible
then to interpret the ambiguous expression as ‘(the big foam of) the river water’ or
‘(the big foam of) his flowing water.’ Both interpretations have validity in this
context; the former alludes to the proximity of the river, while the latter has sexual
connotations, referring to a preceding sexual act. Thus the ambiguity of the
expression obeys the cultural schema RESERVEDNESS in representing the sexual act.
Further, the image has important implications in terms of the spatial orientations
described. A certain disharmony can be perceived in the fact the two participants
are looking in opposite directions: the girl looks upward, searching for her star in
the distance, in hope of a happy future (marriage) in their relationship, whereas the
boy looks downward, focusing on the actual physical benefits of the sexual act. It is
clear then that the scene depicts a premarital sexual act, which, according to peasant
morality, entails breaking the rules of the community. To explain why the girl is
Literally: ‘my flower’

4
5
Note that in Hungarian possessive suffixes can also indicate multiple possession.
looking upward and the lad downward, an observation about male and female role
schemas can be recalled. The ethnographer Bódán points out that despite the strict
norms of morality, some girls decided to have an intimate relationship with their
lover in hope of marriage and considered pregnancy as a means to bind someone to
themselves, especially if the lad was wealthy. This strategy, however, was not
always a successful attempt (Bódán 2008: 321). Folksong (3) represents this ‘hope’
on the girl’s side but it also gives the impression that the lad is unwilling to marry
the girl.
In conclusion, as it has been pointed out, the (seasonal) changeability of river
water as a source domain enables it to transmit a range of emotional states, each of
which can be traced back to the basic cultural metaphor. The representation of RIVER
WATER is mostly distinguished by its spatial characteristics, for example, spatial
extension, quality of movement and direction of movement. As will be shown in the
upcoming analyses, the mappings onto these properties are not invariable: they may
have different meanings according to different contexts.
11.2.2 FLOODING, FREEZING and TROUBLED RIVER WATER
Folksongs (1) and (2) described flooding river water and through it expressed the
state BEING OVERFLOWN WITH EMOTION. This image is applied to some folksongs in an
altered form, where FLOOD conveys the conceptualiser’s desire to accomplish his
wishes.
(4) Ha folyóvíz vónék, If I were river water,

Bánatot nem tudnék; I would not know sorrow.
Hegyek, vőgyek között Among hills and dales
Zengedezve járnék. I would run sounding.
Ahol kitírülnék, Wherever I’d make my way,6
Porondot hajtanék; I would roll river-gravel,
Kaszálórétekbe In the hayfields
Virágot növelnék. I would grow flowers.
(Love song 179)
Folksong (4) can be interpreted as using a blend (Fauconnier and Turner 2002:
255), integrating two inputs: in one input there is ‘the river’ with its experiential
characteristics and in the other there is ‘me’ or the lad singing the song who is
wishing to free his emotions, which are two different spaces connected by dis-
analogy connector. In the blend, ‘me’ and ‘the river’ are fused together to produce a
new character, influenced by both the conceptualiser’s emotional state and the
power of the river to flow freely and impact the environment either to ruin or build.
Folksong (4) draws attention to the twofold nature of the cultural conceptualisations
In the sense ‘distract’ (from the riverbed)

6
of RIVER in the folksongs: physical destruction (“make my way”, “roll river-gravel”)

is mentioned together with creation (“grow flowers”, “make a bouquet”). This point
is supported by the ethnographic observation that in the Hungarian peasant com-
munities social, cultural and economic attachment to rivers, especially to the Tisza,
has always been marked by ambivalence.
The Tisza has had a connecting function: it has connected nationalities, determined peo-
ple’s lifestyles, provided food, and kept alive tradition and folk lyrics. The Tisza has always
been respected by the inhabitants of riversides, who accepted that it would even swallow
their homes from time to time (Nagy Abonyi 2015: 113).
Accordingly, the conceptualisation of FLOOD was always contradictory in

Hungarian folk culture: while floods cause natural disasters in Hungary, some
communities benefit from farming on the fertile floodplains. In folksong (4), the
unconstrained freedom of the movement of river water can be mapped onto emo-
tions to express feeling untroubled, lighthearted, and free from cares (“I would not
know sorrow”, “I would run sounding”). When flooding occurs, the riverbed
functions as a barrier that has to be passed over, which, according to cultural
knowledge, embodies the social expectations that individuals will keep their feel-
ings to themselves. Thus folksong (3) is a prototypical instantiation of the cultural
schema RESERVEDNESS, making the confession of suppressed emotions its central
topic.
While a flood is considered an extraordinary state of a river, within the frame of
this conceptualisation, it represents a preferred emotional condition from the con-
ceptualiser’s individual point of view. A further example that illustrates that the
‘regular’ state of rivers does not necessarily represent a peaceful human state is
folksong (5).
(5) Úgy nyugszik a szívem gyászba, My heart rests in mourning

Mint a Maros az árkába, Like the Maros in its bed,
De még az is, ha kifárad, But even she, if she gets tired,
A mezőkre ki-kiárad. Overflows to the fields.
(Melancholic song 7)
The river resting in its bed refers to the intrinsic conflict (due to emotional
tension) of making constant effort to stay there. A flood, on the other hand, is a
desired state that again presents breaking loose from emotional control, and is
clearly a positive conceptualisation (RELIEF IS FLOOD).
Another experience of river water is its freezing. Frozen water refers to both
temperature (cold) and motion (motionless), and is strongly related to winter. The
negative conceptualisation of FROZEN RIVER WATER, which correlates with the emo-
tion metaphor EMOTION IS WARMTH/COLD (Kövecses 2000: 39), can be observed in
folksongs, alluding to PASSING LOVE in the context of love, as in (6).
(6) Mi dolog az, hogy a Tisza befagyott? How can it be that the Tisza is frozen?
Hogy engemet az én rózsám elhagyott? And that my sweetheart left me?
Szokása a Tiszának a befagyás. Freezing is a practice of the Tisza.
A legénynek a szerető-elhagyás. Leaving his lover is a practice of the lad.
(Love song 347)
There is, however, an entirely different conceptualisation of FROZEN RIVER WATER,

as can be observed in folksong (7).
(7) A nyári folyóvíz The summer river water

Télre megaluszik, Sets7 in winter.
De az én bús szívem But my sorrowful heart
Soha meg nem nyugszik. Will never calm down.
(Love song 318)
The physical change ‘freezing’ is paralleled with setting one’s heart at rest. The
conceptualiser’s implicit wish is to gain emotional stability and relief from his
misery. Hence, oddly enough, freezing is a positive conceptualisation in this frame.
In (7) the reason for evoking the image of frozen river water is to contrast the
natural process of rivers which freeze in winter to the conceptualiser’s ever-lasting
disturbed condition, hence EMOTIONAL REST IS FROZEN RIVER WATER.
Interestingly, whereas the icy water generates two entirely different conceptu-
alisations, one positive and one negative, both images rely on the perception that
freezing is a regular phenomenon of nature, which occurs every winter. This
experience is compared to the conceptualiser’s own personal state in (6) and is
contrasted to her emotions in (7).
The third condition of rivers, troubled water is a special state when, due to flood,
the river drift is stirred up, resulting in mud, which is yellowish in the case of Tisza
(reflected in its conventional name “blond Tisza”). “Troubled water” has a double
meaning: it refers to the chaotic motion and also to the dirtiness of the water.
(8) Zavaros a Maros, Troubled is the Maros,

Nem akar higgadni. It won’t steady down.
Hej, haragos a babám, Ay, angry is my darling,
Nem akar békélni. She won’t reconcile.
(Love song 375)
In (8) the two premises of lines 1–2 and 3–4, one about the river and one about
the relationship, are connected by a complete syntactic parallel, which makes the
metaphorical mapping evident. The TROUBLED RIVER WATER represents ANGER on the
side of the conceptualiser’s lover, while the river returning to its normal state means
solving the conflict in the relationship. This conceptualisation draws on the fact that
being troubled is a temporary state for a river, which means that the conceptualiser
also hopes that his lover’s anger will not last long.
The Hungarian word means ‘falls asleep’ in the meaning of ‘freezes.’

7
On the basis of this interpretation, an aspect of the cultural knowledge of the

metaphors in folksongs is that the implicit link between the river and the concep-
tualiser’s personal state may also be used, as in folksong (9).
(9) Szőke vize a zavaros Tiszának, Blond water of the troubled Tisza,
Mondd meg annak a szép barna kisjánnak, Tell that lovely brown girl,
Hogy az egész Tisza vize mentiben, That all along the Tisza,
Nincsen ollyan barna kisján sehol sem! There is no such brown girl anywhere!
(Love song 270)
The brief reference to Tisza (“Blond water of the troubled Tisza”) lacks any
proposition, which makes the metaphorical correlation difficult to interpret. What is
overt in the text is that the conceptualiser invites a go-between to report his
admiration for a girl to her. This scenario implies that he is located far from the girl,
which is confirmed by the distal deixis “that” (see EMOTIONAL RELATIONSHIP IS A
DISTANCE BETWEEN TWO ENTITIES, Kövecses 2000: 92), and that he is too shy to speak
to her directly.
These rhetorical resources suggest a negative situation, which is in line with the
cultural metaphor learned from folksong (8) A GIRL’S ANGER IS TROUBLED RIVER
WATER. Yet the conceptualiser also expresses his love for her (although only via the
message). This love is implied by the attribute “blond” applied to the Tisza, which
may refer to its beauty. Therefore the representation of the Tisza itself mirrors the
ambiguity of the conceptualiser’s love relationship.
11.2.3 The WATERING ONE’S HORSE IN THE RIVER Image

Schema
It is clear that the different conceptualisations of RIVER do not make up a clear and
comprehensive system which provides a key to understanding all the images and
the specific meanings of RIVER irrespective of context. However, some of the
conceptualisations can be connected to one another by discovering an underlying
image schema that operates as a common conceptual basis. The proposal made here
is that many of the folksongs discussed above pertain to the cultural image schema
WATERING ONE’S HORSE IN THE RIVER.
To start with, drinking and giving drink to somebody (usually an animal) is a
conventional metaphor in folksongs, which can be related to the EMOTION IS THIRST
metaphor (Kövecses 2000: 78). Observe folksongs (10) and (11):
(10) A szegedi tábla búza The wheat field of Szeged

Véggel van az országútra. Stretches up to the highroad.
Még a fejét ki sem hányta, The wheat hasn’t even headed out,
Már két galamb körüljárta. But two doves have walked round it.
(continued)
(continued)
Bárcsak én azt megfoghatnám, If I could only catch that one,
Kalickába bezárhatnám! And close it into a bird-cage!
Tiszta búzával tartanám, I would keep her on clean wheat,8
Folyóvízzel itatgatnám; Give her river water to drink,
Kedves galambomnak adnám. And I would give her to my darling.9
(Love song 14)
(11) Gerlice a búzát The dove carries the wheat

A párjának hordja, To its mate,
Mint a lyány a legényt, Like the girl waters the lad
Csókjában itatja. In her kisses.
(Love song 119)
In folksong (10) one may observe how the DRINKING RIVER WATER for WELL-BEING
metonymy is brought into a love context: gaining possession of the dove and
providing everything she needs is a metaphorical representation of how the male
conceptualiser wishes to look after his lover. However, folksong (11) reveals that
DRINKING in fact means KISSING.
WATERING ONE’S HORSE is a metaphorical representation for SEXUAL INTERCOURSE in
the folksongs. The source domain of the metaphor may possibly be traced back to
the Hungarian horse keeping and horse riding traditions (Paládi-Kovács 2001: 617),
but it is certain that it relates to the horses of shepherds, herdsmen and wranglers in
traditional folk society. Herding used to be the leading form of land use in Hungary,
and it included pasturing the stock on pasturages all through the year. Herding was
an occupation characterised by a lonely lifestyle far from the community, which
accounts for the outsider attitudes to peasant norms and morality associated with it
(Ortutay 1981: 209–210).
(12) Letörött a kutam gémje, The pole of my well has broken off,
Hun itatok mán estvére? Where can I water [my horse] tonight?
Kínyes az én lovam szája, My horse’s mouth is sensitive,
Nem szokott a más kútjára. It would not drink from someone else’s well.
Nem szokott a más kútjára… It would not drink from someone else’s well.
Belehajtom a Tiszába; I push it forward into the Tisza.
A Tiszának közepibe, Into the middle of the Tisza,
Onnan a másik szílire. And from there to the other side.
(Love song 11)
The conceptualiser is the horseman who wants to water the horse from his own
well, a desire that is frustrated because the horseman cannot draw water from the
well as it does not give water to him. The metaphorical meaning of this in a love
context is that he wants to satisfy his sexual desire but the girl refuses. The
‘Clean wheat’ means the wheat grains free from rye or other cereals after threshing and riddling
8
Literally: ‘my dove’

9
references to the part of the day (tonight) and the “sensitive” mouth of the horse
also support this mapping. In response to the girl’s refusal the horseman decides to
drive his horse into the Tisza, which offers plenty of water and opportunities to
drink, so he chooses to look for another girl who can satisfy his lust. Pushing the
horse to the other side of the river means fulfilling his desire and having sexual
intercourse (this will be further discussed later in the study). The basic mappings of
the image schema are the following:
THE LAD THE HORSE

THE GIRL THE WELL
SEXUAL INTERCOURSE WATERING THE HORSE
THE GIRL’S REJECTION BROKEN POLE
PLENTY OF CHANCES FOR SEXUAL INTERCOURSE AMOUNT OF WATER IN THE RIVER
COMPLETING A SEXUAL ACT GETTING TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RIVER
Having analysed a rather elaborated version of the WATERING ONE’S HORSE IN THE
RIVERimage schema, some further examples can be given where, in terms of the
image, the quality of the river water is the reason why the horse cannot be watered.
(13) Zavaros a Tisza vize, nem tiszta. Troubled is the Tisza water, it isn’t clear.
Ráhajtottam kis pej lovam, nem I pushed forward my chestnut horse but he won’t
issza. drink it.
Ha nem issza, ráhajtom a széles If he won’t drink it, I will drive him onto the wide
Dunára, Danube,
Mégsem leszek senki megunt babája. Yet I won’t be anybody’s neglected lover.
(Love song 360)
Folksong (13) is very similar to (12), except that instead of the well the first
choice offered to the horse is the Tisza River. The circumstance that prevents the
horse from drinking is that the water is troubled and dirty. The troubled river water,
then, refers to the emotional state of the girl, as it was also pointed out earlier in the
ANGER IS TROUBLED RIVER WATER metaphor. Line 4 explicates the mapping between
emotions and watering: being unable to water his horse (being a rejected lover)
makes the horseman feel neglected. Here, too, the rejected man seeks to have an
intimate relationship with some other girl.
Another reason that can impede the horse from being watered is frozen water
(14).
(14) Nincsen hideg, mégis befagyott a tó, It isn’t cold, still the lake is frozen.
Kibül iszik babám lova, a fakó. From whom my sweetheart’s brown horse drinks.
Ergye, pajtás, vágd föl néki a jeget, Come, mate, break the ice for him,
Hadd igyék a babám lova öleget! Let my sweetheart’s horse drink enough!
(Outlaw song 19)
The function of the lake is the same as that of the river earlier, but again, the
quality of the water prevents the horse from drinking, which employs the PASSING
LOVE IS FROZEN RIVER WATER metaphor.
It can be observed that the image schema WATERING ONE’S HORSE IN THE RIVER
utilises the ANGER IS TROUBLED RIVER WATER and the PASSING LOVE IS FROZEN RIVER
cultural metaphors which explain the negative state of a relationship. The question
is, whether the image schema works in the background of these cultural metaphors.
There is no linguistic evidence of that but the conceptualisations in the folksongs
seem to arrange themselves by the principle of heterogeneous distribution, always
sharing some but not all of the properties of similar images used in other songs. It is
possible therefore that the semantic relationship between lines 1 and 2 in folksong
(6) (“How can it be that the Tisza is frozen?/And that my sweetheart left me?”)
relies on the cultural schema of WATERING. It is more than likely that the negative
experiences in the context of love, indicated by frozen water or troubled water, are
grounded in the everyday experience of farmers.
11.2.4 The PASSING LOVE IS FLOWING RIVER WATER Metaphor
The direction of the flow of a river is, generally, unchangeable. This phenomenon
has many aspects, which become the source domains of a number of ideas repre-
senting emotions. First, the conventional image of a river flowing backwards (like
Maros in [15]), which indicates something impossible happening. The conceptu-
aliser utilises this image schema to disclose how he feels about parting from his
lover: as rivers cannot flow backwards, he cannot face the possibility of leaving his
partner.
(15) Könnyebb a Marosnak It is easier for the Maros

Visszafelé folyni, To flow backwards,
Mint nekem, te rózsám, Than for me, my darling,
Tőled elszakadni. To part from you.
(Love song 376)
Again, the uni-directional flow of the water is in the focus of the natural image in
folksong (16).
(16) Lefelé folyik a Tisza, Down flows the Tisza,

Nem folyik a többé vissza. It does not flow back any more.
Rajtam van a rúzsám csókja, On me I have my lover’s kiss,
Ha sajnálja, vegye vissza. If he regrets it, he had better take it back.
(Love song 122)
The expression “down flows” refers to the direction in which a river naturally
flows. Here the emphasised aspect of the flowing river water is that the water
consists of small portions which move away from the speaker’s viewpoint. The
verb prefixes (le ‘away/down’ and vissza ‘back’) thus do not have independent
meanings but relative to the speaker who serves as a reference point. The most
observable part of the song is the speaker’s ironic advice in line 4. It reveals that the
emotions of the speaker’s lover (who, according to role schemas, must be a ‘he’)
have changed. For the girl the kiss is not only an evidence of his (now fading) love
but she wants to point out that whatever happened between them cannot be undone.
The cultural knowledge of peasant morality suggests that if the kiss is an issue, then
what happened was more than a kiss and, thus, the reference is metonymical. Hence
the girl feels betrayed and advises him ironically to try to “take back” the evidence
of his past affection. Of course, events cannot be undone since time cannot be
turned back. In this way the spatial aspects of the river image have temporal
reference which is grounded in the conceptualisation of time in terms of things (e.g.
THE TIME PASSING IS MOTION OF AN OBJECT metaphor, Lakoff 1992: 213–214). The
temporal aspect of flowing is reflected in the folk cultural conceptualisations, as in
the proverb Sok víz lefolyt a Dunán azóta (‘A lot of water has flown down the
Danube since then’), which means ‘a lot of time has passed since then’.
Temporality can be mapped onto both the acts of intimacy and the faithless part-
ner’s emotion in general, so the water moving away from the speaker also repre-
sents her lover’s passing love. Hence the cultural metaphor in folksongs can be
formulated as THE PASSING EMOTION IS FLOWING RIVER WATER.
In folksong (17) the flowing river water is viewed from a proximal viewpoint,
with a narrow perspective and a more personal meaning. This time the flowing
water represents the speaker’s own passing emotions and he refers to the funda-
mental experience of flowing (river water moves away) while he is warning the girl
not to trust him as his emotions have changed. The image is also based on the
cultural metaphor THE PASSING EMOTION IS FLOWING RIVER WATER where the gate is a
metonymical representation of the conceptualiser.
(17) Kapum előtt foly el a víz, In front of my gate flows away the water.
Kapum előtt foly el a víz. In front of my gate flows away the water.
Gyenge babbám, bennem ne bízz! My gentle darling, do not trust me!
Gyenge babbám, bennem ne bízz! My gentle darling, do not trust me!
Ha bízol es, csak keveset, Even if you trust me, do it just a little,
Ha bízol es, csak keveset, Even if you trust me, do it just a little,
Mer én téged nem szeretlek, ‘Cause I don’t love you.
Mer én téged nem szeretlek. ‘Cause I don’t love you.
(Love song 241)
A rather complex scene that incorporates the FLOWING RIVER WATER image schema
appears in (18).
(18) Házam előtt a Tisza folydogál; In front of my house the Tisza flows slowly,
Közepében felnőtt három nádszál, In its middle three reeds have grown.
Hajtogatja a szélnek fujása. They quiver by the blow of the wind.
Eszembe jut rózsám búcsúzása. I remember my lover’s goodbye.
(Love song 364)
A brief and concise emotional statement in line 4 is mapped onto an elaborated

natural image. Basically, the emotional situation expressed by the speaker has two
aspects, ‘parting of lovers’ on the one hand and ‘remembering’ on the other. Firstly,
within the natural scene the spatial location of the entities is described and these serve
as reference points to one another: the house ) the river ) the reeds. The house
refers to its owner, or ‘me’, metonymically, and suggests that whatever the entities
near the house represent metaphorically have strong personal reference to the speaker.
The reeds, which serve as central figures in the scene, are located in the middle of the
river; their central position is an orientation that illustrates importance. The reeds may
either represent the girl or the relationship. They grow up despite the flowing water,
which might imply that the relationship stood in opposition to some external pro-
cesses. From the conceptualisations of the image schema FLOWING RIVER WATER both
the PASSING TIME (in relation to remembering) and the PASSING EMOTIONS target domains
are called forth. The wind may indicate REMEMBRANCE or GOSSIP, whereas the effect of
the wind, the bending of the reeds, represents the weakness of the relationship (on the
conceptualisations of the wind see Baranyiné Kóczy 2011c). Hence the basic map-
pings of the image are the following:
RELATIONSHIP REEDS
WEAKNESS BENDING OF THE REEDS
PASSING TIME/PARTING FLOWING RIVER WATER
IMPORTANCE OF THE RELATIONSHIP MIDDLE OF THE WATER
REMEMBRANCE/GOSSIP BLOWING WIND
For a further instantiation of the image schema observe folksong (19).
(19) Szeged alatt folyik el a Tisza. Below Szeged flows away the Tisza.
Kedves rózsám, ne várj többé vissza: My dear lover, don’t expect me back:
Vagy a Tisza, vagy a széles Duna Either the Tisza or the wide Danube
Megemészt már engem nemsokára. Will soon swallow10 me.
(Love song 55)
The specification of the target domain is not faithlessness here but the PARTING OF
LOVERS, which is a necessary consequence of passing love. According to the con-
ceptualiser’s words as he says goodbye to his lover, he seems to have been forced to
leave his home (presumably he has been sent to the town of Szeged) due to some
external force or law (like military service). FLOWING then illustrates PARTING or
LEAVING.
11.2.5 The CROSSING THE RIVER Image Schema
In a range of folksongs it is not the river water that is in the focus of conception but
the river itself along with its riverbed and its opposing sides. The experience that
Literally: ‘digest’
10
this circle of conceptualisations derive from is that rivers are geographical forma-
tions that separate the land into two parts, which may have contrastive properties
and cannot be easily accessed from one another. A number of folksongs use rivers
according to the CROSSING THE RIVER cultural schema, as in folksong (20).
(20) Mély a Tiszának a széle, Deep is the side of the Tisza,

De még mélyebb a közepe. But even deeper its centre.
Barna legény kerülgeti, A brown lad is walking round it,
Átal akar rajta menni. And wants to go across it.
Átal akar rajta menni He wants to go across it
Tearózsát szakítani. To pluck a tea-rose.
Tearózsa, ne illatozz! Tea-rose, do not have scent!
Reám, babám, ne várakozz! My darling, don’t keep waiting for me!
Mert ha reám várakozol, Because if you wait keep waiting for me
Akkor meg nem házasodol. Then you won’t ever get married.
Gyenge vagy a házasságra, You are too weak for marriage.
Nem illik a csók a szádra. The kisses do not suit your lips.
(Love song 406)
According to the literal meaning of the song, the lad and the girl (appearing as a
tea-rose) are located on the two opposite banks of the river. Hence the river
manifests a real as well as a symbolic line between them, but the metaphorical
reference it has is soon disclosed. The lad “is walking round” and “wants to go
across” the river “to pluck a tea-rose,” which reveals his intentions to get to the
other side to his lover (which are related to the LOVE IS JOURNEY and LOVE IS
CLOSENESS/RELATIONSHIP IS A DISTANCE BETWEEN TWO ENTITIES emotional metaphors,
see Kövecses 2000: 92, 26), but also displays his hesitation about acting. In the
Hungarian folk cognition PLUCKING A FLOWER is a conventional metaphor for the
unification of lovers, the sexual act or marriage as in folksong (21) (note that the
bouquet on the hat used to be a wedding ornament for the bridegroom).
(21) Két szál pünkösdrózsa Two Peonies

Kihajlott az útra, Have bent onto the road.
El akar hervadni, They want to fade,
Nincs, ki leszakassza. No one plucks them.
– Szakaszd le te, Mari, “Pluck it, Mari,
Kössed bokrétának, And bunch a bouquet of them,
Kössed a Pajzs István Bunch it for István Pajzs’s
Pörge kalapjára! Round hat!”
(Matchmaking song 6)
The tea-rose attracts the lad through its scent, which reflects the girl’s relatively
passive attitude in waiting for him, where the ultimate goal is marriage. The river is
a physical obstruction for him in his attempt to get closer to his lover, indicating
difficulties in the relationship, and providing a culture-specific instantiation of the
conceptual metaphor DIFFICULTIES ARE IMPEDIMENTS TO MOVEMENT (Lakoff and
Johnson 1999: 188). The degree of difficulty is illustrated by the depth of the
riverbanks and the riverbed. The young man’s external conflict (the dangers of the
river contra the attracting scent) represents his internal conflict, namely, whether to
pursue the sexual act or not, considering that they cannot get married as she is “too
weak for marriage” (perhaps indicating that she is not a suitable party for him).
The sexual meaning of CROSSING THE RIVER is expressed in folksong (22).
(22) Még ma éjjel átugratok a This very night I put my horse over the Tisza and visit my
Tiszán, darling.
s felkeresem a babám. She lives in the, she lives in the town, on the third street.
Bent lakik a, bent lakik a Blue forget-me-not, hedge rose, and reseda are blooming in
városban, her window.
a harmadik utcában. (Love song 133)
Kék nefelejcs, csipkerózsa,
rezeda
nyílik az ablakában.
The horse and the reference to the night both allude to sexuality. Here, the
conceptualiser expresses his desire and crosses the river mentally simulating the
path to his lover’s home (Baranyiné Kóczy 2016).
Crossing the river needs motivation and courage as it may involve the danger of
dropping into the river and dying. The deep riverbed and banks in (20) represented
the difficulty of getting across. In folksong (23) the dangerous aspect of crossing is
detailed.
(23) Átulmennék én a Tiszán, nem I want to get over the Tisza, I don’t dare, I don’t
merek, nem merek, de nem merek; dare, I don’t dare;
Attul félek, hogy a Tiszába jesek, hogy a I fear that I will fall into the Tisza, fall into the
Tiszába jesek: Tisza:
Lovam hátán – seje-haj, férefordul a On the back of my horse, heigh-ho, the saddle will
nyereg, slip aside,
Tisza, Duna habgyai közt elveszek, a I will get lost amidst the waves of Tisza or Danube
babámé nem leszek. and I won’t ever be my sweetheart’s.
(Love song 132)
The specific meaning of dropping into the river is not explained but it represents
some kind of trouble that may occur. The projection of falling into the river and the
proposition “I won’t ever be my sweetheart’s” should not necessarily be seen as a
cause ) effect relationship. Instead, they could simply suggest that when the
young man faces a moral conflict, knowing that he cannot marry the girl he desires,
he does not want to get into trouble by having a sexual relationship with her.
Based on the folksongs studied, the cultural schema of CROSSING THE RIVER
involves the following mappings:
PRESENT SITUATION PROXIMAL BANK OF THE RIVER

INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE GIRL OPPOSITE BANK OF THE RIVER
EMOTIONAL DISTANCE FAR
MAN/LAD LAD/HORSE
WOMAN/GIRL TEA-ROSE
EMOTIONAL ATTRACTION SCENT OF THE ROSE
SEXUAL INTERCOURSE PLUCKING THE ROSE
DIFFICULTIES OF THE RELATIONSHIP RIVER
DEGREES OF DIFFICULTIES DEPTH OF THE RIVER
GETTING INTO TROUBLE DROPPING IN THE RIVER
EMOTIONAL APPROACH CROSSING THE RIVER
It is not easy to find the appropriate mapping for the river in the frame of the
schema, but perhaps the DECISION ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP IS RIVER metaphor can fit. It
might be mapped onto an actual intimate situation or can be extended to a decision
about the future of a relationship, including stepping over the border from bache-
lorhood to marriage. Another question is whether this cultural schema also has its
origins in the EMOTION IS RIVER WATER cultural metaphor. Considering that the lad’s
hesitation is about whether he should get involved in intense emotions, or whether
his act may have serious emotional consequences, the answer seems to be yes.
The schema is grounded in the cultural belief that rivers represent transition and
contradiction (Nagy Abonyi 2015: 110) and unattainable objects are located on the
other side of the river (Lükő 1942/2001: 198).
Fig. 11.1 The cultural metaphors of RIVER in the Hungarian folksongs

11.3 Conclusion
The chapter has explored the Hungarian folk cultural conceptualisations of RIVER
based on an empirical analysis of Hungarian folksongs. It has been shown that in
the context of love, the conceptualisations can be traced back to the EMOTION IS RIVER
WATER cultural metaphor. The analysis has also identified two basic image schemas:
CROSSING THE RIVER WATER, which is related to the DECISION ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP IS
RIVER metaphor and the WATERING ONE’S HORSE IN THE RIVER schema, which appears in
relation with several other metaphors. The basic source domains and sub-metaphors
of the EMOTION IS RIVER WATER are shown in Fig. 11.1.
The observations of the present chapter serve as a case study for exploring
cultural metaphors and schemas in the Hungarian folksongs within the framework
of Cultural Linguistics. Meanwhile, it provides a potential basis for further com-
parative research on the folksongs of other cultures, while the method could be
extended to other folk cultural discourses. The study of the cultural metaphors of
nature in folk cultural artefacts offers a new prospect to delineate the differences and
similarities in the cultural conceptualisations across various cultures.
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Author Biography
Judit Baranyiné Kóczy (Ph.D. 2014, Eötvös Lóránd University, Budapest) is a senior lecturer at
the Széchenyi István University, Győr, Hungary. Her Ph.D. thesis, where she explored the
metaphorical meaning of natural images in folksongs, took a spatial semantic approach to
Hungarian folksongs. Her present research focuses on language, conceptualisation and culture,
more particularly folk cultural conceptualisations in folk literature within the framework of
Cultural Linguistics, cognitive semantics, spatial semantics and ethnography.
Chapter 12
Pride in British English and Polish:
A Cultural-Linguistic Perspective
Paul A. Wilson and Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk
12.1 Introduction
The general focus of our cross-cultural investigation is to compare cultural emotion

schemas of pride in British English and Polish. We propose that such schemas
comprise emotion clusters rather than single emotions. For example, we have
shown in our previous research that whereas love and happiness are represented by
one cultural emotion schema in Polish, there are two distinct schemas for these
emotions in British English (Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk and Wilson 2015). In the
present study we widen our focus on pride to include not only British English pride
and its widely accepted Polish equivalent duma, but also hubristic pride, which is
represented in Polish by próżność and pycha.
12.1.1 The Concept of Culture
Numerous definitions of culture proposed throughout years of research involve a

few constitutive properties (Damen 1987; Kluckhohn and Kelly 1945), which
comprise patterning, that is human models for living and behaviour, the sharing of
these patterns, their repetitiveness and structure, learnability and acquisition, cul-
tural transmission in terms of symbols and signs, and cultural imagery and its
embodiment in artefacts and in human achievement in thought and language.
P.A. Wilson (&) B. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk

University of Lodz, Lodz, Poland
e-mail: p.wilson@psychology.bbk.ac.uk
B. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk
State University of Applied Sciences, Konin, Poland

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_12
248 P.A. Wilson and B. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk
Being a broad and elaborate concept, culture involves real or fictitious heroes
and events, concerns imagery and symbols, describes verbal and non-verbal rituals
such as speech events and hand shaking, identifies good and evil profile values, and
creates or imposes numerous social practices (Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk 2011).
However, a particular culture primarily involves patterns of thoughts and emotions
shared by a given community of people. In the present paper we ask questions as to
how people’s shared ideas and cultural practices, in other words the cultural models
shared by a society, shape feelings and emotions.
12.1.1.1 Cultural Linguistics
Cognitive linguistics and Cultural Linguistics are similar in terms of the view that
meaning is identified as conceptualisation. While Cultural Linguistics is based on
the fundamental tenets of cognitive linguistics, it is further grounded in Langacker’s
(2014) position that cognition is embodied and rooted in culture. Placing the
comparison between British English pride and Polish duma in the present study in
the context of Cultural Linguistics allows an analysis in terms of the relationship
between cultural cognition, cultural conceptualisations and language (Sharifian
2015: 473). According to Sharifian (2015: 476), “cultural cognition embraces the
cultural knowledge that emerges from the interactions between members of a
cultural group across time and space”. Language is the tool by which cultural
cognition is stored and communicated. Sharifian (2015) further explains that
another component of the analytical framework that Cultural Linguistics attempts to
provide is cultural conceptualisations, which comprise ‘cultural categories’, ‘cul-
tural metaphors’ and ‘cultural schemas’, each of which interrelates with language.
To explain more fully, whereas cultural categories are culturally constructed
objects, events and experiences, cultural metaphors are culturally constructed
conceptual metaphors. Although cultural schemas, the more complex of which are
termed cultural models, pertain to the cognitions that arise collectively from a
cultural group and facilitate the communication of cultural meanings, they are not
“equally imprinted in the mind of every individual member, but are rather shared in
varying degrees between the members of a cultural group” (Sharifian 2007: 34).
12.1.2 Pride and Duma Clusters
Pride is generally regarded as a self-conscious emotion that has the adaptive

function of preventing rejection by enhancing one’s acceptance and social status
within a group (Leary et al. 1995). The expression of pride increases an individual’s
self-esteem and conveys the message that one is worthy of praise and increased
status (Tracy and Robins 2008). Despite these features that are consistent with the
12 Pride in British English and Polish … 249
traditional classification of pride as a self-conscious emotion, it has more recently

been claimed that pride merits basic emotion status1 on the basis of its distinct,
universal non-verbal expression that is cross-culturally recognised by children and
adults (Tracy and Robins 2008; Tracy et al. 2005).
More recent research has challenged the traditional view of pride as a single
emotion. Tracy and Robins (2004) argue that there are two distinct facets of pride—
authentic pride, which is the more positive prosocial form that is characterised by
the enhancement of self-esteem and status outlined above, and a hubristic form of
pride that is associated more with narcissism, which can lead to aggression, as well
as problems and conflicts in interpersonal relationships (Bushman and Baumeister
1998; Paulhus et al. 2004). These two forms of pride were identified in a series of
seven correlational and experimental studies by Tracy and Robins (2007). It was
shown that when individuals focus on the semantic meanings of pride-related words
and their own pride feelings they distinguish between authentic and hubristic pride,
with the former experienced when success is attributed to internal, unstable, con-
trollable causes, and the latter when success is viewed as a consequence of internal,
stable, uncontrollable causes. Furthermore, if one’s interlocutor considers their own
achievements to be of higher significance than one’s own, one might tend to judge
the interlocutor’s sense of pride in terms of the more negative hubristic pride rather
than the more positive authentic pride. This highlights the need to assess the
possible independent effects of authentic and hubristic pride in cross-cultural and
cross-linguistic studies on pride. The present study aims to compare British English
authentic pride with its Polish counterpart duma, and to further compare British
English and Polish hubristic types of pride, including vanity.
Both authentic pride and hubristic pride have a variety of cultural and linguistic
manifestations. The Polish system comprises three concepts expressed in the three
forms duma, pycha and próżność, which correspond to the two English notions
pride and vanity. While Polish duma is conventionally considered as authentic
pride, at least more frequently than English pride, both próżność and pycha possess
clear negative connotations and can be considered variants of hubris. Although both
Polish próżność and its English lexicographic equivalent vanity denote excessive
pride in both languages, it is Polish próżność that is primarily linked with the
meaning of mental emptiness (superficiality, stupidity). Both refer to excessive
pride, self-conceit and too much concern with oneself. Nevertheless, as will be seen
in the collocational combinations later in the chapter, the causes (stimuli) of vanity/
próżność in English and Polish Emotion Events (see Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk
and Wilson (2013) for a discussion of Emotion Events) are not necessarily identical.
1
There are six basic emotions—anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise—that are
classified as basic emotions as a consequence of their distinct non-verbal expressions that have
universal recognition (Tracy and Robins 2008).
12.1.2.1 Individualistic Versus Collectivistic Influences
Individualism and collectivism are potentially major underlying influences on the

variation of pride across cultures. It was Hofstede’s (1980) original work that led to
the mapping of world cultures on the basis of individualism versus collectivism.
Whereas in individualistic cultures one perceives oneself as an individual, auton-
omous entity with individualised goal construal designed to gain personal optimal
achievement, self-fulfilment and accomplishments that differ to those of the
in-group, the fundamental feature of collectivism comprises the closer interpersonal
relationships that are present within groups, which result in these groups being
more cohesive with emphasis being placed on the maintenance of harmony.
According to the individualistic versus collectivistic viewpoint, whereas one
would expect pride to be more accepted in individualistic cultures on the basis of
the tenets of autonomy, self-fulfilment, personal accomplishments and the personal
satisfaction gained from achieving these, as evidenced by its relatively greater
prevalence and more positive VALENCE, in collectivistic cultures pride can be
understood in terms of the emphasis placed on the achievement of in-group har-
mony and the control of the outward expression of emotions, and therefore one
would expect this emotion to be less salient and more negative in such cultures.
Support for such clear-cut differences in the cultural emotion schemas of pride in
these two cultures is equivocal. Consistent with the individualistic versus collec-
tivistic standpoint, Eid and Diener (2001) concluded that the lower frequency and
intensity of pride they reported in Chinese and Taiwanese than Australian and
American cultures demonstrate the greater relevance of pride in individualistic
cultures. Consistent with this, Fischer et al. (1999) showed that pride was charac-
terised more by negative feelings by the relatively more collectivistic Spanish than
the more individualistic Dutch participants in their study. Van Osch et al. (2013)
also found that pride had a less positive evaluation in Eastern than Western cultures.
However, contrary to expectations based on the control of the outward expression
of emotions by collectivistic cultures, it was additionally shown that pride was
associated with a desire to be the centre of attention and showing off in Eastern
cultures. It was concluded that pride might have a less positive evaluation in Eastern
societies as a direct consequence of its expressive nature in such contexts. In
another study that opposes the individualistic versus collectivistic basis to
cross-cultural differences in pride, Scollon et al. (2004) concluded, in the light of
results showing that both collectivistic Hispanics and individualistic Americans had
higher levels of pride than collectivistic Asian Americans, Indians and Japanese—a
result that clearly cannot be explained in terms of individualism and collectivism,
that Asian cultures place less emphasis on disengaging emotions, such as pride. To
conclude, the evidence relating to cross-cultural differences in pride is ambivalent
with regard to a possible individualistic–collectivistic explanation.
An important differentiating feature of the cultural emotion schema of pride in
individualistic versus collectivistic cultures is self versus other orientation. The
emphasis placed on interpersonal relations suggests that whereas collectivists are
relatively more likely to be proud of significant others, the value placed on
self-fulfilment that is associated with a more personal type of this emotion is more
likely to be salient in individualistic cultures.2 Consistent with this, Stipek (1998)
observed that, in comparison with Americans, who are similar to the British in
terms of their relatively high individualism (Geert Hofstede Country Comparison),
the Chinese, as one might expect from a more collectivistic culture, have a more
positive evaluation of pride for accomplishments that benefit others, but a more
negative view of pride related to personal achievement. Similarly, Ogarkova et al.
(2012) showed that emotional scenarios describing national team success were
labelled more as pride by collectivistic Russian participants, whereas the more
individualistic French, German and English participants reported more pride in
response to situations exemplifying personal success. The pride of others as
opposed to oneself that appears to be more salient in collectivistic cultures points to
a more communal conceptual representation of pride. All in all, in contrast with the
possible emphasis placed on pride in terms of personal achievement in individu-
alistic cultures, the type of pride that would appear more salient in collectivist
societies is more communal in nature.
In the light of the comparison between pride in British English and Polish in the
present study it is important to narrow our focus on these two cultures. In
cross-cultural research, Poland is often described as a collectivistic culture
(e.g., Szarota et al. 2015). However, despite a score of 60 on the individualism–
collectivism scale, which shows that Poland is clearly more collectivistic in relative
terms than individualistic Britain, which has a score of 89, it can be questioned
whether Poland can be deemed to have a collectivistic status that is on a par with
countries typically considered in such terms, such as China with an individualism–
collectivism score of 20 (Geert Hofstede Country Comparison). However, the point
to note here is that the individualism–collectivism scale allows the relative com-
parison of countries on this dimension and Poland is clearly more collectivistic in
comparison to Britain on this scale. The pertinent question is therefore whether,
despite the lack of clear evidence as seen above, Polish pride conforms to what one
would expect for a culture that is relatively more collectivistic than British culture,
namely a lower sense of acceptance of this emotion in Polish than British English.
The limited evidence available is affirmative in this respect. For example, Dabul
et al. (1997) observe that more modest presentation strategies in the employment
setting are relatively more popular with Poles in comparison with Americans,
especially American males. Similarly, Mandal (2007) shows that individual success
is viewed more negatively in Polish culture.
The issue regarding the different variants of pride is also relevant to the identifi-
cation of underlying explanations of how pride might differ across cultures. As van
Osch et al. (2013) explain, methodological paradigms such as the GRID instrument
2
It should be noted that a dimension similar to individualism versus collectivism exists at the
personal, psychological level. As Triandis et al. (1988) observe, “allocentrism versus idiocentrism
is a within-culture variable that corresponds to collectivism versus individualism at the cultural
level” (p. 323). Although allocentrism versus idiocentrism is an important individual variable, it is
beyond the scope of our focus on culture in the present chapter.
(see below for further details) are restricted in terms of using a single emotion term to
study pride. This means that the GRID methodology is limited in terms of determining
how pride might differ cross-culturally on the basis of different cultural schemas vis-à-
vis semantic differences. A positive feature of our analyses of British English prideand
Polish duma is in the complementary methodologies employed to understand the
underlying reasons for any cross-cultural differences that are shown. A key
methodology in this respect is the cognitive corpus methodology.
Whatever the relationship between pride and individualism versus collectivism,
different facets of pride, individual or national, will, in many cultures, be rooted in
the context of the experiencer’s satisfaction from an achievement and, connected
with it, the attribution of the experiencer’s special status in the community.
Prototypes of the PRIDE radial structure, socially engaging to different degrees, will
also play a role in identifying collectivistic and individualistic traits of pride in
particular cultures.
12.1.3 Aims
The methods that we employ in the present paper (the GRID instrument, the online
emotions sorting task, and the corpus methodology) are designed to focus on the
differences between British English and Polish pride in terms of cultural schemas,
cultural categories, and cultural metaphors. Even a cursory glance at the meaning of
the members of the PRIDE/DUMA clusters in British English and Polish demonstrates
an asymmetry between them. The aim of the present chapter is to provide a more
detailed analysis of the conceptual content of the members of the two clusters
pertaining to these languages and to manifest the role of cultural dimensions
(particularly individualism and collectivism) in shaping the differences in their
meanings.
12.2 Materials and Methods
The comparison of pride in British English and Polish was achieved with the use of
three complementary methodological paradigms: GRID, online emotions sorting,
and cognitive corpus linguistics.
12.2.1 GRID
The GRID instrument (Scherer 2005; Fontaine, Scherer and Soriano 2013) employs
a system of dimensions and components, which bring about insight into the nature
of emotion prototypical structures. The GRID project is coordinated by the Swiss
Centre for Affective Sciences at the University of Geneva in collaboration with

Ghent University and is a worldwide study of emotional patterning across 23
languages and 27 countries. The GRID instrument comprises a Web-based ques-
tionnaire in which 24 prototypical emotion terms are evaluated on 144 emotion
features. These features represent activity in all six of the major components of
emotion (Ellsworth and Scherer 2003; Niedenthal et al. 2006; Scherer 2005) and the
methodology is therefore componential in its approach. These components com-
prise appraisals of events (31 features), bodily reactions (18 features), motor
expressions—facial, vocal or gestural (26 features), action tendencies (40 features),
subjective feelings (22 features) and emotion regulation (4 features). An additional
three features refer to other qualities, such as frequency and social acceptability of
the emotion. Participants are asked to rate the likelihood of presence of the emotion
features when an individual who speaks their language employs the emotion terms
when describing an emotional experience.
In addition to its componential approach, the GRID methodology offers a
dimensional perspective, whereby the emotion domain is represented by a small
number of underlying dimensions. Fontaine (2013) observes that “dimensional
approaches play a central role in the assessment of emotional, and more broadly,
affective experiences” (p. 32). Fontaine and Scherer (2013) underscore the con-
gruence between this dimensional approach and the componential approach that
they find in their results. There has been some debate regarding the optimum
number of dimensions, with the earlier account of Osgood et al. (1975) advocating
three (EVALUATION, POTENCY and ACTIVATION), and later proposals focusing on
VALENCE and AROUSAL (e.g., Yik et al. 1999). Analyses performed on the data from
all of the languages represented in the GRID project have produced a
four-dimensional structure comprising VALENCE, POWER, AROUSAL and NOVELTY
(Fontaine et al. 2013). It was further shown that this four-dimensional solution
forms a stable structure that also provides a good representation of the compo-
nential data.
An understanding of the four dimensions retrieved from the GRID data is
important as they are central to the GRID analyses performed on British English
pride and Polish duma (see below). The VALENCE dimension is characterised by
appraisals of intrinsic pleasure and goal conduciveness. Other features include
action tendencies of approach versus avoidance, and pleasant emotions versus
unpleasant emotions. Specific examples of features associated with this factor
include “felt positive”, “wanted to sing and dance”, “in itself unpleasant for the
person”, “felt inhibited or blocked” and “incongruent with own standards and
ideals”. POWER includes appraisals of control, with the feelings of power and
weakness being particularly salient. It is also characterised by appraisals of inter-
personal dominance or submission, and by urges to either initiate action or refrain
from this. This dimension includes features such as “assertive voice”, “felt sub-
missive” and “wanted to take the initiative her/himself”. The AROUSAL dimension is
mainly characterised by sympathetic arousal (e.g., rapid heartbeat and readiness for
action). The features associated with this dimension include “breathing getting
faster”, “felt hot”, “sweat” and “spoke faster”. The fourth dimension is represented
by NOVELTY. On this dimension appraisals of novelty and unpredictability are

compared with expectedness or familiarity. Fontaine et al. (2007) found that sur-
prise was associated more with the NOVELTY dimension than the other emotions they
analysed. This dimension includes features such as “raised eyebrows”, “jaw
dropping” and “confirmed expectations”.
12.2.1.1 Procedure
British English and Polish participants completed the GRID instrument in a con-
trolled Web study (Reips 2002), in which each participant was presented with the
pride emotion term in their respective language3 and asked to rate it in terms of the
144 emotion features. Each of the 144 emotion features was presented separately.
Participants rated the likelihood that each of the 144 emotion features can be
inferred when a person from their cultural group uses the emotion term ‘pride’ to
describe an emotional experience. A 9-point scale was employed that ranged from
extremely unlikely (1) to extremely likely (9)—the numbers 2–8 were placed at
equidistant intervals between the two ends of the scale, with 5 ‘neither unlikely, nor
likely’ in the middle and participants typed their ratings on the keyboard. It was
clearly stated that the participants needed to rate the likelihood of occurrence of
each of the features when somebody who speaks their language describes an
emotional experience associated with pride.
12.2.1.2 Participants
The mean ages and gender ratios of the participants for pride and duma were as
follows: pride (31 British English-speaking participants; mean age 23.1 years, 18
females); duma (22 Polish-speaking participants; mean age 22 years, 16 females).
12.2.2 Online Emotions Sorting Methodology
In the emotions sorting methodology, emotion terms are typically presented

simultaneously on a desk in front of participants who are free to categorise them
into as many or as few groups as they wish. In the online version the sorting takes
place on the computer desktop. In the only study employing the category sorting
task in a cross-cultural perspective (to our knowledge), the conceptual structure of
3
The procedure presented here focuses on pride as the present study centres on this emotion. To
gain a broader understanding of the full procedure involving the complete set of 24 emotion terms,
it should be noted that each participant rated four emotion terms, which were randomly chosen
from the 24 emotion terms, on the 144 emotion features. This means that all 24 emotion terms
were rated on the 144 emotion features.
emotions in Dutch versus Indonesian was investigated by Fontaine et al. (2002).

The category sorting task has also been used to determine the conceptual structure
of pleasure (Dubé and Le Bel 2003).
In the present study we adapted the NodeXL tool (Smith et al. 2010), an
open-source template for Microsoft Excel, to provide information pertaining to the
pride cluster in British English and Polish. Although the most common use of
NodeXL is to analyse relationships between individuals using online social media
networks, we employ NodeXL to create graphical representations of the Polish and
British English co-occurrence matrices pertaining to pride. The graphs created are
similar to those produced by the synonyms rating methodology employed by
Heider (1991) to compare and contrast emotion terms across three Indonesian
languages. In Heider’s (1991) study participants provided a synonym emotion for
each target emotion term and in the maps of the emotion domains the nodes are
represented by the individual emotion terms. For the sake of consistency, we adopt
the same terminology as Heider (1991) where possible. The main difference is in
the terms used to refer to the links that show the relationships between the nodes;
whereas for Heider connection strength refers to the mean frequency with which an
emotion term is given as the synonym for another, the connection strength in our
NodeXL graphs represents the co-occurring frequency of the emotion terms in the
online emotions sorting data, and are hence referred to as co-occurrences or
interconnections.
A dynamic filter can be applied in NodeXL to only show interconnections that
have a certain connection strength. One of the most common uses of this filter is to
reduce the clutter that restricts the emergence of a clear pattern. Our analyses
showed that the main clusters of emotions in both British English and Polish could
be discerned at an interconnection strength of 20 and above. It was therefore
decided to set the threshold of interconnection strength at this value.
12.2.2.1 Procedure
Participants volunteered to take part in the study either through direct contact by
one of the authors or in response to adverts placed on internet forums. Each vol-
unteer was sent a link to the experimental platform and was allowed to take part in
the experiment at a time and location of their choosing, with the request that they do
the experiment in seclusion. The first page presented the British and Polish flags
and the participants clicked on these according to their nationality. Then the
instructions page appeared in the appropriate language. Initially, there was a brief
introduction outlining that the study was concerned with finding out about how
people think some emotions “go together” and other emotions belong in different
categories. More detailed instructions regarding the specific sorting task were as
follows:
You will be presented with 135 emotions on the computer screen. We’d like you to sort
these emotions into categories representing your best judgement about which emotions are
similar to each other and which are different from each other. There is no one correct way to
sort the emotions—make as few or as many categories as you wish and put as few or as
many emotions in each group as you see fit. This study requires careful thought and you
therefore need to carefully think about which category each emotion belongs rather than
just quickly putting emotions in categories without much thought.
Following this, participants were told they would watch a video (about 8 min)
that would demonstrate the procedure. They were told that this would be followed
by a practice session that involved the categorisation of food items, and once this
had been completed the proper experiment with emotion terms would begin. The
following message appeared in a central window on the experimental page:
You need to click on the “New Emotions Group” button and drag emotions to create your
emotion groups. When you have finished creating your emotion groups, click on the orange
“DONE” button and the experiment has been completed.
12.2.2.2 Participants
There were 58 British English participants (27 females, mean age = 42.7 years)
with the following occupations: academic departmental manager, administrator (3),
civil servant, cleaner, company director, IT (4), consultant (3), editor, events
manager, executive coach, housewife (3), lecturer (5), manager, psychologist (2),
radiographer, retired (6), tailoress, scientist, self-employed, student (11), supported
housing officer, teacher (4), teaching assistant, unemployed and volunteer (one
participant did not state their occupation). There were 58 Polish participants (27
females, mean age = 35.8 years) with the following occupations: account manager,
accountant, career advisor, cashier, cultural studies specialist, doctor, IT (3), lec-
turer (14), marketing employee, office employee (2), pedagogist, project manager,
psychologist, student (10), teacher (16) and translator (3).
12.2.3 Language Corpus Data
In order to extract the context of the use of emotion terms in English and Polish, we
resort to large language corpus data, particularly collocations (words co-occurring
more frequently than by chance, minimally 5 times in the materials consulted) and
their frequencies. Two selected association scores are computed for each collo-
cational combination: t-score (TTEST) and mutual information (MI). By analysing
authentic language, we can detect shifts in meaning for the same linguistic form and
we can also describe the contexts which support such shifts. Based on the frequency
of occurrence, corpus-based methods let us statistically determine which linguistic
meanings are most salient. The materials we use come from the British National
Corpus (BNC—100 million words) and the National Corpus of Polish (NKJP—
nkjp.pl), which contains 300 million units of balanced data, to which we apply the
process of (corpus size) normalisation to enable comparison across these differently

sized large datasets. Polish-to-English and English-to-Polish translation corpora and
the tools of their alignment (http://clarin.pelcra.pl/Paralela/) show a number of
cross-linguistic correspondences within the PRIDE cluster. The materials contained in
the BNC and NKJP are structurally comparable to a large extent and contain
language from similar domains, styles and genres, although the narrow contexts in
which the forms of the PRIDE/DUMA clusters are used are not always identical in the
two languages. The analysis of the quantitative data is completed by some cognitive
linguistic instruments referring to the construal (Langacker 1987, 1991) of Pride
Event scenarios and metaphors as well as other figurative language uses (Lakoff
and Johnson 1980).
12.3 Pride Analyses
12.3.1 GRID Results
To determine the dimensional structure of the Polish and British English data in the
present study, principle components analysis (PCA) with varimax rotation was
performed on the combined dataset of these two languages. There were 201 British
English participants (124 females) with a mean age of 21.5 years, and 124 Polish
participants (95 females) with a mean age of 23.2 years. The four-dimensional
solution that was selected comprised the same dimensions as Fontaine, Scherer and
Soriano (2013) and accounted for 81.9% of the total variance. The first dimension
(VALENCE) accounted for 52.9% of the variance, the second dimension (POWER) for
15.5%, the third dimension (AROUSAL) for 8.3%, and the last dimension (NOVELTY)
for 5.1%. A GRID feature was included in a dimension if it achieved a 0.6 loading
on that dimension and did not have a higher loading on another dimension (see
Appendices A, B, C, D for loadings of GRID features on each of the four
dimensions).
12.3.1.1 Valence
The means of the negative VALENCE and the positive VALENCE features were deter-
mined for each participant. A 2 2 ANOVA was performed on these means that
had one between-subjects variable (language group: British English pride vs. Polish
duma). There was also one within-subjects variable (VALENCE: negative VALENCE
features vs. positive VALENCE features—see Appendix A). There was a main effect
of language group, F(1, 49) = 11.86, p < 0.01. There was also a main effect of
VALENCE, F(1, 49) = 279.13, p < 0.001. It can be seen in Fig. 12.1 that positive
VALENCE features of pride were rated higher than the negative VALENCE features,
showing on the whole that pride is evaluated positively in both British English and
Polish. There was also a significant interaction between language group and
VALENCE, F(1, 49) = 4.09, p < 0.05. Contrasts were performed to break down this
interaction. There was a significant difference between negative and positive
VALENCE features for pride, F(1, 49) = 137.5, p < 0.01. It can be seen in Fig. 12.1
that positive VALENCE features were rated higher than negative VALENCE features for
pride (means of 6.54 and 3.62, respectively). Likewise, there was a significant
difference between negative and positive VALENCE features for duma, F(1,
49) = 144.3, p < 0.01. Figure 12.1 shows that positive VALENCE features were rated
higher than negative VALENCE features for duma (means of 6.53 and 2.8, respec-
tively). There was a significant difference between pride and duma on the negative
VALENCE features, F(1, 49) = 12.05, p < 0.01. It can be seen in Fig. 12.1 that pride
is characterised by relatively more negative VALENCE than duma (means of 3.62 and
2.8, respectively). By contrast, there was no significant difference between pride
and duma on the positive VALENCE features, F(1, 49) = 0.01, p > 0.05.
All in all, these results show that although pride has a more positive VALENCE
than negative VALENCE in both British English and Polish, the higher rating of pride
on negative VALENCE features means that it is characterised as more negative than
duma.
12.3.1.2 Power
The means of the low-POWER and the high-POWER features were determined for each
participant. A 2 2 ANOVA was performed on these means that had one
between-subjects variable (language group: British English pride vs. Polish duma).
There was also one within-subjects variable (POWER: low-POWER features vs. high
POWER features—see Appendix B). There was a main effect of POWER, F(1,
49) = 69.98, p < 0.001. It can be seen in Fig. 12.2 that high-POWER features of pride
were rated higher than the low-POWER features, showing on the whole that pride is
associated with high POWER in both British English and Polish. There was also a
significant interaction between language group and POWER, F(1, 49) = 4.33,
p > 0.05. Contrasts were performed to break down this interaction. There was a
significant difference between low- and high-POWER features for pride, F(1,
49) = 25.2, p < 0.01. It can be seen in Fig. 12.2 that high-POWER features were rated
higher than low-POWER features for pride (means of 5.53 and 4.31, respectively).
Likewise, there was a significant difference between low- and high-POWER features
for duma, F(1, 49) = 44.9, p < 0.01. Figure 12.2 shows that high-POWER features
were rated higher than low-POWER features for duma (means of 5.57 and 3.54,
respectively). There was a significant difference between pride and duma on the
low-POWER features, F(1, 49) = 10.89, p < 0.01. It can be seen in Fig. 12.2 that
pride is relatively more associated with experiences of higher low POWER than duma
(means of 4.31 and 3.54, respectively). By contrast, there was no significant dif-
ference between pride and duma on the high POWER features, F(1, 49) = 0.01,
p > 0.05.
Fig. 12.1 Means of Pride 7

versus Duma on the VALENCE
dimension 6 Pride
Duma
5
Means
4
2
Negative Valence Positive Valence
To summarise, these results show that although high POWER is salient in both
British English and Polish variants of pride, the higher rating of pride on low-POWER
features means that it is characterised by lower POWER than duma.
12.3.1.3 Arousal
The means of the low-AROUSAL and the high-AROUSAL features were determined for
each participant. A 2 2 ANOVA was performed on these means that had one
There was also one within-subjects variable (AROUSAL: low-AROUSAL features vs.
high AROUSAL features—see Appendix C). There was no significant effect of lan-
guage group on the AROUSAL features, F(1, 49) = 3.5, p > 0.05. There was a sig-
nificant main effect of AROUSAL, F(1, 49) = 19.8, p < 0.01. However, the interaction
between AROUSAL and language group was not significant, F(1, 49) = 0.15,
p > 0.05, meaning that there was no significant difference between pride and duma
on low-AROUSAL features versus high-AROUSAL features.
12.3.1.4 Novelty
The means of the low NOVELTY and the high NOVELTY features were determined for
each participant. A 2 2 ANOVA was performed on these means that had one
There was also one within-subjects variable (NOVELTY: low NOVELTY features vs.
high NOVELTY features—see Appendix D). There was no significant effect of lan-
guage group on the NOVELTY features, F(1, 49) = 3.16, p > 0.05. There was a
significant main effect of NOVELTY, F(1, 49) = 14.9, p < 0.01. However, the inter-
action between NOVELTY and language group was not significant, F(1, 49) = 3.61,
p > 0.05, meaning that there was no significant difference between pride and duma
on low NOVELTY features versus high NOVELTY features.
Fig. 12.2 Means of Pride 6

versus Duma on the POWER
dimension Pride
5
Duma
Means
4
2
Low Power High Power
12.3.1.5 Congruence with Own Standards and Socially Accepted

Norms
An independent t-test was performed on the ratings of pride and duma on the
violated laws or socially accepted norms GRID feature. The difference between
these ratings was not significant, t(49) = −0.67, p > 0.05. However, pride
(mean = 4.32) was significantly higher than duma (mean = 3) in the independent t-
test performed on the incongruent with own standards and ideals GRID feature, t
(49) = −2.31, p < 0.05.
12.3.1.6 Conclusions
The results provide important information regarding the cultural schemas of PRIDE in
British English and Polish (Sharifian 2015). The finding that pride is evaluated
relatively more positively than negatively in both British English and Polish in the
GRID results points to authentic pride being the more salient cultural schema in
both of these cultures than hubristic pride. The negative evaluation of the PRIDE
cultural schema in comparison to the DUMA cultural schema is inconsistent with
expectations based on individualism versus collectivism. The lower POWER of pride
compared with duma is a likely consequence of its relatively more negative eval-
uation. This possibility gains support from Fontaine and Scherer (2013), who show
in their analyses of the GRID data from the complete set of countries that although
“VALENCE and POWER cannot be reduced to one another”, “POWER itself is positively
valenced” (p. 124). The finding that pride is relatively more incongruent with one’s
own standards and ideals is also consistent with the PRIDE cultural schema being
more negatively valenced than the DUMA cultural schema. Clearly, if pride is
deemed to be more inconsistent with one’s standards and ideals, then it is more
likely to be viewed negatively.
12.3.2 Online Emotions Sorting Results
Both pride and duma are unusual in that they both share very few co-occurrences
with other emotions at the interconnection strength threshold of 20 (see Figs. 12.3
and 12.4). It can be seen that pride has interconnections with satisfaction (20) and
enthusiasm (21), while duma has an interconnection with podziw ‘adoration,
admiration’ (22); in addition, both pride and duma have interconnections with the
respective equivalents of triumph. Podziw ‘adoration, admiration’ is interesting
with regard to pride as adoration and admiration characterise love and respect
towards an individual that might additionally encompass pride. Therefore, the pride
that characterises podziw ‘adoration, admiration’ could, on the basis of collectivistic
features, be viewed in terms of the greater pride Polish individuals might have for
others whom they adore or admire. By contrast, there is a lower co-occurrence
between pride and adoration (10) (not shown in Fig. 12.3 as it is lower than the
interconnection cut-off of 20), which is consistent with pride being a relatively less
salient other-directed emotion in the individualistic British, even in cases in which
adoration is present.
The interconnection between pride and satisfaction is consistent with the indi-
vidualism expected for the British participants when one considers that satisfaction
is predominantly a personal, self-oriented emotion. However, when one considers
co-occurrence strengths between duma and satisfaction-related emotions below the
interconnection threshold of 20, one can see that duma is similar to pride in this
regard (duma - spełnienie ‘fulfilment’ = 16; duma - zadowolenie ‘gladness, con-
tentment’ = 16). This lack of a clear difference between pride and duma in their
interconnections with emotions related to satisfaction is inconsistent with what one
would expect in terms of the respective individualistic versus collectivistic bases to
pride and duma.
12.3.2.1 Conclusion
Despite both being relatively isolated clusters with relatively few co-occurrences
with other emotions, the online emotions sorting results reveal interesting patterns
regarding self versus other orientation of focus of the PRIDE and DUMA cultural
schemas. In particular, the relatively strong interconnection between duma and
podziw ‘adoration, admiration’ is consistent with the cultural schematic conceptu-
alisation of duma as a more communal pride of others4 as one might expect in a
relatively more collectivistic Polish culture.
4
Another Emotion Event scenario might involve two individuals, with one experiencing
admiration/adoration of the other, and the latter experiencing pride because of this.
Fig. 12.3 PRIDE cluster enthusiasm

(co-occurrence
threshold = 20) triumph
21
27
pride
20
satisfaction
Fig. 12.4 DUMA cluster triumf ‘triumph,

(co-occurrence jubilation’
threshold = 20)
31
duma ‘pride’
22
podziw ‘adoration,
admiration’
12.4 Pride Metaphors and Culture
One of the cognitive construal mechanisms (Langacker 1987, 1991) identifying the
processes of meaning construction is figurative language, which is characterised in
particular by the metaphor and metonymy that are the embodiment of various
cultural schemas and models.
In their list of master metaphors Lakoff et al. (1992: 165) describe English pride
and related concepts such as conceit in terms of size in the metaphorical Source
Domain.5 Pride is conceptualised in terms of the goal of getting larger and is
typically conveyed by the Source Domain of swelling:
(1) CONCEIT IS INFLATION
Alternate names: PRIDE IS SWELLING
Source Domain: size
Target Domain: conceit
Related metaphors: IMPORTANT IS LARGE SIZE (thus to seem more important,
seem larger)
She’s got an inflated ego/sense of herself
He’s a stuffed shirt
She was puffed up with pride
He was becoming quite grandiose when I left.
She’s got a big/swollen head
In Polish6 too, the metaphor of swelling, getting bigger and bursting is pro-
ductive (data generated from the Polish National Corpus by PELCRA tools
(Przepiórkowski et al. 2012):
(2)
Total Chi^2
rozpierać ‘(pride) rozpierała___duma (13), 36 668,324.59
forcefully expands, duma___rozpiera (10), rozpiera___duma
makes larger’ (7), duma___rozpierała (3),
duma___rozpierać (1),
duma___rozpierały (1),
rozpierać___duma (1),
The HEALTH domain is also a source of some metonymic/metaphoric structures in

both languages, in which somebody/something can hurt (metonymically) experi-
encer’s pride:
(3)
Total Chi^2
2. urazić urażona___duma (22), duma___urażonych (1), 24 227,817.83
‘hurt’ duma___urażona (1),
5
Conceit and pride are members of the same PRIDE emotion cluster and they share part of the
conceptual content. The differences between them are of a cognitive-interactional and of a
quantitative nature: pride, apart from the core sense of feeling that one is better/more important
than others, typically involves elements of the feeling of consideration for others, while conceit
prototypically lacks such consideration and refers to excessive, self-admiring pride. However, in
practical contexts both lexical items are sometimes used interchangeably as pragmatic synonyms.
6
The source of each corpus example used in this chapter can be consulted at pelcra.clarin-pl.eu.
Both Polish and English pride and clusters of related forms, such as English conceit
and Polish zarozumiałość ‘conceit’, are perceived in terms of the experiencer’s larger
physical size, often metaphorically conveyed as containers (balloons in particular) with
the air pumped in by experiencers themselves. Thus both Polish pękał z dumy and its
English equivalent ‘he was bursting with pride’ indicate the large size of an experiencer
(conceptualised as an object, typically a balloon), which is caused by an excessive
amount of internal air and can lead to a potential burst (Polish dumny jak balon ‘proud as
a balloon’). The consulted corpus data support such figurative uses: Szef naszego
prezydenta, Też się nosi publicznie jak balon rozdęty ‘Our president’s boss. He also
looks like an inflated balloon’ and jesteś nadęta jak balon! Zbyt wielkie ego to całkiem
poważny problem - ostrzegają eksperci. ‘you are inflated like a balloon! Too big an ego
is a serious problem—experts warn’. Some other uses employ more complex
metaphorical/metonymic scenarios, as in Polish napuszony ‘getting larger and larger by
means of posture and facial expression’. Its metaphorical sense and its basic verb form
puszyć się, used literarily in the case of birds in the sense of fluffing up feathers, convey
the meaning of an experiencer’s action that shows superiority to others (to show oneself
as bigger than others), observed in by far the most frequent Polish simile dumny jak paw
‘proud as a peacock’, which has a similar equivalent in English (4). References to the
fluffing up of feathers or tail displays (peacock) are identified in both languages:
(4) We’ve heard a lady extend the sum total of her devotion, in all its pride, plume
and peacock, to a member of her own living race.
A metonymic source of pride conceptualisation is also identified in stroszyć
pióra in the sense ‘of hair and feathers: ruffle, to erect hair or feathers’, which is
usually performed in anger, but in Polish it is also used to show off, to proudly
demonstrate one’s power as in
(5) Można powalczyć, pokazać, kto jest silniejszy. Tylko jak tu stroszyć piórka,
gdy trzeba słuchać przełożonej.
‘You can fight, show who is stronger. But how can you ruffle (feathers) when
you have to listen to this (female) boss’.
Some Polish speakers report properties of erectness and alert posture to con-
ceptualise a proud person. Furthermore, the expression dumny i blady ‘proud and
pale’ indicates another bodily property accompanying pride, namely skin paleness.
Pride is also conceptualised in both languages as food which is (to be) swal-
lowed (6, 7), meaning that it has to be eliminated in some situations. Such a use of
the verb swallow is significantly more frequent in British English than in Polish.
The National Corpus of Polish does not generate such a structure, although it is
present in the results generated via Google search.
(6) Kasmin swallowed his pride and set off as a travelling salesman.
(7) Musiałam połknąć całą swoją dumę i zgodzić się na te warunki ‘I had to
swallow all my pride and agree to those conditions’.
The evaluative dimension of pride and duma reveals interesting English–Polish

differences. In a number of contexts pride is associated with negative evaluation in
English texts:
(8) This poem would be an example of striking pride and arrogance.
(9) There are no elevating thoughts about money, all the emotions aroused by it
are bad; pride and miserliness and greed are quickly followed by fear of losing
money.
And yet pride in both languages is less diagnostic of its evaluative dimension
than other emotions; although Polish, having a larger set of PRIDE cluster members,
allows a more granular classification of shades of pride than English. Out of the
basic three, it is duma which is most positive (neutral and weakly negative in some
contexts), while the other two, próżność and pycha, involve a negative charge in all
contexts. Próżność, equivalent to English vanity, is, as was mentioned above, a
derivative of the literal próżny ‘empty/vain’ in both languages. Its meaning tends to
imply excessive interest in self appearance or in the worldly pleasures and empti-
ness with respect to the head (mind). Pycha on the other hand possesses an
interesting cluster of derivatives of varying, sometimes contrary, evaluative prop-
erties such as pyszny. When pyszny is used with reference to humans it is
ambiguous between lofty and magnificent on the one hand (pyszny władca ‘dig-
nified, magnificent, lofty ruler’). When it refers to objects it denotes things ‘tasteful,
pleasing in taste’ on the other, which can be further extended to pleasing to the
eyes, senses or mind, also with its own set of cognates. Pyszny/pyszne are used
mainly in informal settings to refer to good in taste as in pycha, pychotka, pyszności
‘excellent (of food)’ (Mamy pyszny obiad z dwóch dań ‘We’re having a delicious
(pyszny) dinner of two courses’) or extended to please other senses and tastes (autor
pysznej anegdoty o pająku ‘the author of an excellent (pysznej) anecdote about a
spider’). While the adjectival derivatives pyszny,-a,e in Polish are instances of
antonymous polysemy (Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk 2007), in which the same
related form shows opposite senses in different contexts, the related nominal con-
cepts exhibit less ambiguity. The emotion Noun pycha is always unambiguously
negative and the extended Noun pycha, which is used in relation to food and other
products, is unambiguously positive.
While pride expresses the experiencer’s positive self-image and their fulfilled
desire and well-being as a consequence of this, it is also considered a social, or
interpersonal, emotion in the sense of the experiencer’s achievements being the
subject of evaluation (appraisal) by others. If pride is excessive it gets renamed.
Emotions relating to pride and expressing a sense of moral elevation over others are
conceit ‘zarozumiałość’, contempt ‘pogarda’ and slight ‘lekceważenie’. The rela-
tionship between these emotions and those more narrowly affiliated in the PRIDE
cluster is that they are all social, interactional and reflect the experiencer’s attitude
towards others, but the dimension of interpersonal relations is more strongly evident
for the other emotions in the cluster than for pride itself. Contempt and slight are
related to pride by means of causal or consecutive relations. While pride and conceit
can be considered more self-centred, contempt and slight are other-directed and are
a consequence of pride and conceit during the experiencers’ encounters with others.
Pride is less explicitly conditioned by the real or imagined presence of others than
vanity in English or próżność and pycha in Polish. Pride in the attitudinal sense is less
axiologically determined than the other members of the clusters although even here
there are differences observed for their respective prototypical senses, as also confirmed
by the GRID/online emotions sorting data. Of significance here is the frequency of the
items relating to these emotions in the Polish and English data, in which both pride and
slight in English have a significantly lower frequency than duma and lekceważenie in
Polish. These data seem to be related to the collectivism–individualism distinction as
more socially loaded emotions are more frequent in Polish discourse.
Polish lekceważenie ‘slight’ and its Verb and Adjective counterparts lekceważyć
‘to slight’ and lekceważący ‘slighting’ show a palette of fine-grained meanings
around the sense of ‘treating somebody/something (too) light’, implying careless-
ness (niefrasobliwość), irresponsibility (nieodpowiedzialność) and negligence
(zaniedbanie) on the one hand towards emotions indicating higher arousal and
stronger, more negative judgment, such as gardzenie/pogarda ‘contempt’ or
nieposzanownanie ‘disrespect’ or degradacja ‘degradation’ and marginalizacja
‘marginalisation’ of others. It seems that Polish lekceważenie is more polysemic in
terms of the evaluation criterion than English slight, which expresses an event that
has causes (stimuli) relating to a more serious matter. It is also important to note
that the frequency of British English slight and its related forms are relatively lower
in the consulted corpora (slight = 50) than those of their Polish lexicographic
equivalents (Noun lekceważenie = 1923, Verb lekceważyć = 3580, Adjective
lekceważący = 506).
English slight is also typically used, unlike Polish lekceważenie, in contexts in
which it is considered an unintentional type of emotional act:
(10) Sometimes an unintended slight can create grudges.
(11) No slight was intended.
Polish conversational data show a range of senses of lekceważenie, but it is
always connected with the Experiencer’s intentional act:
(12) obowiązek szkoły. nie należy lekceważyć.
‘school duty cannot be slighted/neglected’
Pride is most commonly perceived as a strong emotion in Polish, with experiencers
metaphorically bursting (rozpierać) with pride, and easily hurt (zranić). Syntactically,
pride in Polish is invariably put in focus in the agentive role of the subject position
(duma ich rozpiera lit. ‘pride is pushing them from inside/bursting them’). At the same
time Polish pride is a brittle thing, an object, metonymically related to the experiencer,
that is easy to hurt (zraniła jego dumę ‘she hurt his pride’).
In terms of adjectival combinations, the feeling of pride in Polish is positively
evaluated as the collectivistic, national, state or ancestral pride that dominates in
this culture. In some less frequent cases, usually with reference to an individual
rather than a community (personal pride), duma is close to excessive pride

(próżność and pycha), or English vanity in some aspects. The Catholic Church,
which is the dominant religion in Poland, recognises pride as one of the deadly sins,
which, consonant with our analysis, renders the unambiguously negative pycha as a
Polish equivalent of English pride rather than the fairly positive duma. Pycha,
bringing about eternal damnation, has a closer correspondence with English pride.
The Polish collocations show a distinction between proper, justified pride and
hubristic pride, the latter of which is rendered most often as próżność and pycha.
In comparison with Polish duma, prototypical English pride is characterised by means
of a more negative VALENCE. Additional, linguistic reasons for such a state of affairs are
precisely the fact that the two other lexical items from the PRIDE cluster (próżność and
pycha), discussed above, possess less ambiguous negative appraisal properties, which are
lexicalised and can be used. Duma therefore produces a more positive or at least neutral,
counterbalance, particularly to pycha, in a number of contexts.
12.5 Corpus Results
Language corpora, particularly larger language collections, are a reliable source of

data. They are both a source of authentic examples of language use in various
contexts and make it possible to generate distributional co-occurrence patterns and
their frequencies, which are characteristic of a particular language system. Such
materials, in turn, enable a qualitative analysis, which might provide support to the
qualitative analysis of language- and culture-related preferences, portraying the
shareable, recurrent meanings in a particular community, involving inter alia ex-
bodiment, that is bodily and linguistic expression of particular feelings and emo-
tions, their clustering and evaluation. Collocations comprise one such corpus-based
tool, which, to put it generally, involve patterns of use of particular language
combinations that are used in texts more frequently than by chance.
The form pride in British English and duma in Polish and other members of the
clusters will be presented below in their respective collocational frames as gener-
ated from the BNC and the Polish National Corpus.
12.5.1 English PRIDE Cluster
English pride appears in the following verbal and adjectival collocational patterns
(Table 12.1).
The Verbal collocates of lower frequencies include keep, give, bring, remember,
stand, run, play, show, get, find, should, may, see, will, come, would, think, make,
have, can, go, say, know, do and be (Table 12.2).
The lower frequencies are occupied by outraged, maternal, certain, military,
immense, enormous, local, curious, spiritual, silly, moral, regional, stupid,
Table 12.1 Verbal # Collocate POS A TTEST

collocates of pride
1 take V% 237.0 12.91
2 swallow V% 32.0 5.57
3 restore V% 29.0 5.22
4 hurt V% 25.0 4.80
5 salvage V% 12.0 3.44
6 swell V% 10.0 3.11
7 burst V% 10.0 2.99
8 glowinga V% 5.0 2.20
9 beam V% 5.0 2.18
10 regain V% 5.0 2.11
11 wound V% 5.0 2.11
12 worn V% 5.0 2.06
13 recall V% 6.0 1.95
14 retain V% 6.0 1.87
15 feel V% 21.0 1.80
16 demand V% 6.0 1.72
17 express V% 7.0 1.65
18 keep V% 17.0 1.52
19 prevent V% 5.0 1.20
20 lose V% 8.0 0.74
For practical reasons, all collocation and collocate lists are
classified as tables
The symbols used in the collocation tables express Part of Speech
(POS), absolute frequency (A) and TTest (see Pęzik 2014)
a
All verbal collocates generated in this application include both
infinitival and participial forms of the verbs
excellent, considerable, strong, commercial, individual, equal, warm, cultural,

British, powerful, greater, particular, full, black, special, high, human, real, little,
free, old, able, political, right, good, new and other.
An interesting contrast is presented when both the attributive and predicative
Adjectival collocations are taken into consideration, with the clearly negative
adjectives stubborn, sinful and fierce surfacing in the data (Table 12.3).
The concordances below exemplify the pride emotion clusters, co-occurring
with the forms denoting accomplishment, accuracy and admiration, but also with
those of vanity and self-conceit (Table 12.4).
The negative prosodic patterns such as the ones below outnumber the positive
ones in some contexts in English (Table 12.5).
The Nominal collocates of English pride list the positive concepts of joy, family,
love as frequent co-occurring forms, followed by vanity, ambition and sin, which
mark the negative prosody in other contexts.
Table 12.2 Adjectival # Collocate POS A TTEST

collocates of pride
1 great AJ% 64.0 6.61
2 national AJ% 61.0 6.58
3 civic AJ% 26.0 5.04
4 hurt AJ% 20.0 4.43
5 wounded AJ% 18.0 4.21
6 scottish AJ% 19.0 3.78
7 injured AJ% 13.0 3.54
8 fierce AJ% 10.0 3.03
9 celtic AJ% 9.0 2.91
10 personal AJ% 16.0 2.88
11 professional AJ% 12.0 2.70
12 justifiable AJ% 7.0 2.61
13 racial AJ% 7.0 2.50
14 lose AJ% 7.0 2.48
15 intense AJ% 7.0 2.42
16 stubborn AJ% 6.0 2.40
17 evident AJ% 7.0 2.39
18 foolish AJ% 6.0 2.33
19 intact AJ% 6.0 2.32
20 gay AJ% 6.0 2.28
21 proprietorial AJ% 5.0 2.22
22 quiet AJ% 7.0 2.07
23 false AJ% 6.0 2.07
24 male AJ% 8.0 2.04
25 sheer AJ% 5.0 2.00
12.5.2 Polish DUMA Cluster
The most frequent Verbal collocates of Polish duma are

Polish duma ‘pride’—NKJP Verbal collocates (top selection): mówić ‘speak’,
podkreślać ‘emphasise’, pokazywać ‘show’, rozpierać ‘burst with’, urazić ‘hurt’,
opowiadać ‘tell’, prezentować ‘present’, napawać ‘to fill with’, powiedzieć ‘say’,
kryć ‘hide’, dodawać ‘add’, nosić ‘carry, bear, wear’, patrzyć ‘look at’, oświadczyć
‘state’, odczuwać, poczuć, czuć ‘feel’, ukrywać ‘hide’, zranić ‘hurt’, pękać ‘burts
with’, dodać ‘add’, stanowić ‘be’, wspominać ‘remember’, obnosić ‘to carry
around’ […] puchnąć ‘swallow with’, łechtać ‘tickle’ (Table 12.6).
The collocate łechtać ‘tickle’ co-occurs predominantly with the more negative
variants of Polish duma, próżność and pycha, which correspond to English vanity as in
pochwała połechtała jego dumę/próżność/pychę ‘the praise tickled his pride/vanity’.
The collocates generated from the Polish samplers also include characteristic
Nominal, mainly positive, segments co-occurring with duma (Tables 12.7 and
Table 12.3 Adjectival (predicative/attributive) collocates of pride

# Collocate POS A TTEST
1 national AJ% 56.0 4.66
2 civic AJ% 22.0 4.57
3 hurt AJ% 18.0 4.16
4 wounded AJ% 16.0 3.93
5 great AJ% 52.0 3.84
6 injured AJ% 11.0 3.16
7 celtic AJ% 9.0 2.82
8 scottish AJ% 16.0 2.61
9 justifiable AJ% 6.0 2.37
10 stubborn AJ% 5.0 2.13
11 proprietorial AJ% 4.0 1.98
12 gay AJ% 5.0 1.83
13 professional AJ% 12.0 1.78
14 ruffle AJ% 3.0 1.71
15 foolish AJ% 4.0 1.69
16 sinful AJ% 3.0 1.67
17 intense AJ% 5.0 1.65
18 damaged AJ% 3.0 1.65
19 racial AJ% 4.0 1.59
20 fierce AJ% 4.0 1.56
Table 12.4 Sample of PRIDE cluster concordances

N Concordance
1 completing a task on schedule, you may generate a feeling of pride and accomplishment
2 and gave them tea in the Long Gallery, which Lie described with more pride than
accuracy as ‘the finest room in England’
3 and spiritual pride is added to the pride and vanity and self-conceit
4 used to fill him with pride and admiration that she could so naturally be at ease
5 then, pained beyond belief in some tender pride, she advanced alone upon the cows, and
they parted softly and meekly
Table 12.5 NEGATIVE pride

1 and if the common factors of this power were pride, indolence and stupidity, they could be
differently opposed
2 most famous preacher of the time, accused him of having three wicked daughters, pride,
avarice and sensuality
3 in proportion to Wolsey’s pride, luxury and greed was his munificence in founding schools
and colleges
Table 12.6 Verbal # Collocate POS A TTEST Eng equi

collocates of duma
1 mówić Verb 466.0 18.53 speak
2 podkreślać Verb 152.0 11.99 emphasise
3 pokazywać Verb 138.0 11.39 show
4 rozpierać Verb 109.0 10.43 burst with
5 urazić Verb 94.0 9.66 hurt
6 opowiadać Verb 102.0 9.39 tell
7 prezentować Verb 75.0 8.28 present
8 napawać Verb 64.0 7.97 fill with
9 powiedzieć Verb 121.0 7.33 say
10 kryć Verb 54.0 7.10 hide
11 dodawać Verb 51.0 6.29 add
12 nosić Verb 45.0 6.21 carry
13 patrzyć Verb 53.0 6.04 look
14 oświadczyć Verb 39.0 6.00 state
15 odczuwać Verb 39.0 6.00 feel
16 poczuć Verb 41.0 5.93 feel
17 czuć Verb 51.0 5.64 feel
18 ukrywać Verb 36.0 5.63 hide
19 zranić Verb 30.0 5.42 hurt
20 pękać Verb 26.0 5.00 burst
21 dodać Verb 36.0 4.97 add
22 stanowić Verb 46.0 4.97 constitute
23 wspominać verb 31.0 4.82 remember
24 obnosić Verb 22.0 4.67 carry, parade
25 oznajmić Verb 23.0 4.66 state
26 pokazać Verb 29.0 4.36 show
27 pęcznieć Verb 19.0 4.34 swell
28 podkreślić Verb 23.0 4.32 emphasise
29 budzić Verb 25.0 4.25 wake
12.8). The collocates given below in Table 12.7 show a set of concepts
co-occurring with pride as generated from the PELCRA corpus SAMPLER.
Polish duma ‘pride’—NKJP Adjectival collocates (top selection) narodowy
‘national’, rosyjski ‘Russian’, męski ‘masculine, male’, państwowy ‘state’, swój
‘one’s’, nasz ‘our’, pełny ‘full’, niejaki ‘a certain’, słuszny ‘right’, rodowy ‘ancestral’,
matczyny ‘motherly’, niekłamany ‘unfeigned, genuine’, wyraźny ‘clear’, ojcowski
‘fatherly’, własny ‘own’, wyniosły ‘lofty’ and patriotyczny ‘patriotic’.
The top 25 adjectival collocates generated from the National Corpus of Polish
are mostly positive in Polish, while in English (Tables 12.2 and 12.3) the number of
the items with negative meaning is higher. The Polish collocates focus more sali-
ently than English on collective types of causes and stimuli of pride (Table 12.9).
Table 12.7 Duma Polish KRAJ ‘country’

corpus sampler (PELCRA)
POLSKA ‘Poland’
collocates
POLAKOW ‘Poles’
PANSTWO ‘state’
ROZPIERA ‘burst’
GODNOSC ‘honour’
CZLOWIEK ‘man’
MESKA ‘male’
BOG ‘God’
SZLACHETNOSC ‘nobility’
ROD ‘race, house, descent’
The corpus SAMPLER data are generated by the WordSmith
tools with less statistical information provided
Table 12.8 Noun collocates # Collocate POS A TTEST Eng equia

of duma
1 duma Noun 11.0 2.19 pride
2 mieszkaniec Noun 24.0 −4.39 inhabitant
3 właściciel Noun 8.0 −6.72 owner
4 ojciec Noun 15.0 −7.23 father
5 rodzice Noun 7.0 −7.28 parents
6 dyrektor Noun 13.0 −7.49 director
7 prezes Noun 7.0 −13.86 president
8 pani Noun 21.0 −16.04 lady, mrs
9 człowiek Noun 9.0 −19.98 man, human
10 miasto Noun 15.0 −20.93 town
11 szkoła Noun 9.0 −24.40 school
12 pan Noun 18.0 −66.11 sir, mr
a
The abbreviation ‘equi’ stands for ‘equivalent’
The Polish concordances are mostly positive although they also uncover links
with emotion terms that have less positive polarity. Although conceptually close to
duma, the more negatively marked próżność or pycha are both close to English
vanity and self-conceit (Table 12.10).
The form pride both co-occurs and is aligned with vanity and self-love (miłość
własna) and Polish pycha (excessive, hubristic pride) in translation (see
Sect. 12.5.5) (Tables 12.11 and 12.12).
What is striking in the Verbal collocates list is the topmost collocate between
pycha and grzeszyć ‘to sin’, which points to the unambiguously negative character
of this emotion and the important role of (Catholic) religion in Polish culture.
English vanity and Polish póżność, its closest equivalent, constitute other, fully
negative, members of the analysed cluster (Tables 12.13, 12.14 and 12.15).
Table 12.9 Adjectival collocates of duma

# Collocate POS A TTEST Eng equi
1 narodowy Adj 288.0 16.16 national
2 rosyjski Adj 96.0 9.20 Russian
3 męski Adj 64.0 7.65 masculine, male
4 państwowy Adj 73.0 7.17 state
5 swój Adj 242.0 7.13 one’s
6 nasz Adj 154.0 5.93 our
7 pełny Adj 46.0 4.53 full
8 niejaki Adj 15.0 3.69 some
9 słuszny Adj 17.0 3.59 just
10 rodowy Adj 12.0 3.39 clan, (extended) family, ancestral
11 matczyny Adj 11.0 3.26 motherly, maternal
12 niekłamany Adj 10.0 3.13 lit. unlied, true
13 wyraźny Adj 15.0 3.08 clear
14 ojcowski Adj 10.0 3.06 fatherly, paternal
15 własny Adj 50.0 2.88 own
16 wyniosły Adj 8.0 2.77 lofty
17 patriotyczny Adj 9.0 2.71 patriotic
18 moskiewski Adj 8.0 2.61 Moscow’s
19 pewny Adj 50.0 2.57 certain
20 uzasadniony Adj 10.0 2.49 justified
21 sarmacki Adj 6.0 2.42 Sarmatian, old-Polish
22 gejowski Adj 6.0 2.40 gay
23 wielki Adj 93.0 2.27 large, great
24 fałszywy Adj 9.0 2.24 false
25 wrodzony Adj 6.0 2.24 inborn
Table 12.10 Sample of DUMA cluster concordances

Concordances
1 z dumą pokazuje ranę po kuli ‘he proudly shows his bullet wound’
2 pytam i widzę, jak duma ich rozpiera, że proboszczował właśnie im. ‘I’m asking and I see
that they are bursting with pride that he was precisely their parish priest’.
3 a jednocześnie zuchwałość, duma i pewność siebie, malujące się w obliczu, nie pozwalały
zapominać, kim jest ‘and at the same time his impudence, pride and self-conceit would not
let him forget who he is’
12.5.3 VANITY and PRÓŻNOŚĆ
To extend the material basis of the comparison between the cluster members of
similar meanings and their collocates, a Colosaurus tool, which presents collocation
databases of a number of lexemes in one table (Pęzik 2013), is used to show the
Table 12.11 Adjectival collocates of pycha

# Collocate POS A TTEST Eng equi
2 ludzki Adj 28.0 4.86 human
3 własny Adj 30.0 4.17 own
5 bezgraniczny Adj 8.0 2.81 borderless, limitless
6 nadęty Adj 6.0 2.43 swollen
7 próżny Adj 6.0 2.43 vain
8 zaślepiony Adj 5.0 2.22 blind
9 diabelski Adj 5.0 2.20 devilish
10 autorski Adj 5.0 2.05 author’s
11 nieludzki Adj 4.0 1.95 inhuman
12 szlachecki Adj 4.0 1.92 nobleman’s
13 odęty Adj 3.0 1.73 swollen
14 bezmierny Adj 3.0 1.72 limitless
15 bluźnierczy Adj 3.0 1.72 blasphemous
16 nieposkromiony Adj 3.0 1.72 uncontrollable, unrestrained
17 mój Adj 25.0 1.70 my
18 grzeszny Adj 3.0 1.69 sinful
19 nieskończony Adj 3.0 1.69 infinite
20 duchowy Adj 4.0 1.62 spiritual
contrast between the English adjectival forms proud and vain and their collocates
(Table 12.16), and, in the next section (Table 12.19), between their semantically
close Polish equivalents.
The English data present typical combinations of vain with human activities
such as attempt, effort and search, in the sense of ‘bringing no success’ or ‘useless’.
Collocations with human Nouns, which are of more interest to us here, usually
employ the general terms man and woman and point to an excessively high opinion
one holds of oneself, or, more precisely, excessive pride, which is often combined
with shallowness and conceit (Tables 12.17 and 12.18).
12.5.4 Colosaurus Data for the Adjectives dumny, pyszny,

próżny
The Polish Colosaurus tool is used to present a comparison in the collocations

between the following analysed emotions in the Adjectival form: dumny ‘proud’,
pyszny ‘proud/lofty’, and próżny, which, similar to English, corresponds to shal-
lowness and conceit. Pyszny is ambiguous in Polish between the meanings proud
and lofty, on the one hand, and tasty and its extension ‘very good/excellent’, on the

collocates of pycha
1 grzeszyć Verb 24.0 4.89 sin
2 unosić Verb 17.0 4.07 lit. fly, (fill with)
3 zgubić Verb 16.0 3.96 lose
4 ukarać Verb 14.0 3.68 punish
5 zgrzeszyć Verb 9.0 2.99 sin Perf.
6 wbić Verb 9.0 2.95 lit. hammer,
become Perf.
7 kazać Verb 9.0 2.78 order
8 popełnić Verb 8.0 2.66 fulfil, commit
9 popaść Verb 7.0 2.60 fall into
10 czynić Verb 8.0 2.57 perform
11 rozpierać Verb 6.0 2.44 swell
12 przemawiać Verb 6.0 2.30 orate
13 powodować Verb 7.0 2.23 cause
14 graniczyć Verb 5.0 2.21 border
15 uważać Verb 11.0 2.20 note, attend
16 wbijać Verb 5.0 2.20 lit. hammer
Imperf.
17 urazić Verb 5.0 2.20 hurt
18 zrzucić Verb 5.0 2.18 throw off
19 popełniać Verb 5.0 2.16 commit Imperf.
20 dopuszczać Verb 5.0 2.11 allow
Table 12.13 Adjectival # Collocate POS A TTEST

collocates of vanity
1 personal AJ% 6.0 1.88
2 human AJ% 4.0 1.27
Table 12.14 Nominal # Collocate POS A TTEST

1 fair N% 29.0 5.36
2 mirror N% 4.0 1.79
3 unit N% 6.0 1.71
4 table N% 4.0 0.88
5 case N% 3.0 −1.82
Table 12.15 Verbal # Collocate POS A TTEST

1 say V% 6.0 −1.60
2 have V% 21.0 −4.11
3 be V% 61.0 −8.65
Table 12.16 Colosaurus data for the adjectives proud and vain
Collocate proud_A proud_TTEST proud_R vain_A vain_TTEST vain_R
assertion 3 1.33 3 0 – 0
attempt 0 – 0 60 7.62 41
beauty 3 0.17 2 0 – 0
bid 0 – 0 7 2.55 6
boast 12 3.44 11 0 – 0
creature 3 0.36 3 0 – 0
dad 17 3.1 7 0 – 0
day 8 −17.72 8 0 – 0
effort 0 – 0 5 1.81 5
eye 5 −8.05 4 0 – 0
face 3 −8.94 3 0 – 0
father 14 −0.29 10 0 – 0
head 3 −12.44 2 0 – 0
history 8 −1.58 8 0 – 0
holder 3 0.2 2 0 – 0
hope 0 – 0 40 6.23 31
man 19 −9.38 18 6 −0.39 6
moment 4 −5.51 3 0 – 0
mother 12 −1.55 9 0 – 0
mum 8 0.93 6 0 – 0
name 3 −9.76 2 0 – 0
owner 53 6.54 31 0 – 0
parent 19 1.54 17 0 – 0
people 13 −17.92 11 0 – 0
pomp 0 – 0 3 1.73 2
position 3 −7.84 3 0 – 0
possessor 9 2.97 7 0 – 0
race 4 −0.8 4 0 – 0
record 15 0.8 12 0 – 0
search 0 – 0 3 1.5 3
shadow 0 – 0 3 1.55 3
tradition 4 −0.08 3 0 – 0
valley 3 −0.22 3 0 – 0
woman 0 – 0 5 0.35 5
other. The items collocating with pyszny ‘tasty’, invariably denoting food or liquids
such as bigos ‘Pol. sauerkraut-and-meat-stew’, butelka ‘bottle (of)’, chleb ‘bread’,
ciastko ‘pastry’, deser ‘dessert’, danie ‘dish’, herbata ‘tea’, as well as those in the
sense of excellent, such as pyszny kawał ‘excellent joke’, are deleted from
Table 12.19. The form próżny in the sense of ‘physically empty, i.e., containing no
liquid, mass or object’ as in próżna hala ‘an empty hall’ and those which refer to
Table 12.17 Adjectival # Collocate POS A TTEST Eng equi

collocates of Polish próżność
‘vanity’ 1 własny Adj 27.0 4.65 own
2 mój Adj 31.0 4.40 my
3 kobiecy Adj 14.0 3.69 feminine
4 męski Adj 14.0 3.67 masculine
5 ludzki Adj 10.0 2.87 human
7 zwykły Adj 5.0 2.00 usual, common
8 narodowy Adj 6.0 1.91 national
9 twój Adj 6.0 1.91 your
10 osobisty Adj 4.0 1.71 personal
11 ow Adj 4.0 1.54 that
13 wszelki Adj 3.0 1.13 any
14 prawdziwy Adj 3.0 1.08 true, real
15 nasz Adj 11.0 1.01 our
16 pewny Adj 5.0 0.88 certain
17 jaki Adj 3.0 −1.67 some
18 wielki Adj 3.0 −2.16 great
19 sam Adj 3.0 −3.24 self
20 ten Adj 25.0 −3.59 this

collocates of Polish próżność
‘vanity’ 1 łechtać Verb 21.0 4.58 tickle
2 połechtać Verb 17.0 4.12 tickle Perf.
3 zaspokajać Verb 11.0 3.30 satisfy
4 zaspokoić Verb 6.0 2.42 satisfy Perf.
5 pozbawić Verb 6.0 2.34 devoid
6 powodować Verb 5.0 2.04 cause
7 dawać Verb 6.0 2.01 give
8 móc Verb 21.0 1.83 be able
9 mówić Verb 5.0 −0.56 speak
10 być Verb 62.0 −0.58 be
11 mieć Verb 6.0 −5.92 have
useless and futile activities or states, such as próżne gadanie ‘empty talk’, are also
deleted from the table as they are not relevant to the present discussion, although
the development of their (polysemic/homonymic) senses is otherwise an interesting
marker of the derivation of the emotion terms from physical concepts.
A comparison between the corresponding Polish and English Adjectives in fuller
context presents a picture of a more salient co-occurrence of dumny with positive
stimuli than in the case of proud. Although the use of pyszny in its physical and
Table 12.19 Colosaurus noun values for dumny [du] ‘proud’, pyszny [py] ‘proud (neg.)’ and
próżny [pr] ‘vain’ [A = adjective, TT = TTest, R = range, i.e., the number of corpus segments
which contain the collocation]
Collocate du_A du_TT du_R py_A py_TT py_R pr_A pr_TT pr_R Eng.
equivalents
arystokrata 6 2.38 5 0 – 0 0 – 0 aristocrat
Bóg 6 −3.52 6 0 – 0 0 – 0 god
chłopiec 6 −0.5 6 0 – 0 0 – 0 boy
córka 17 2.69 15 0 – 0 0 – 0 daughter
człowiek 21 −1.6 19 0 – 0 19 3.55 17 man/human
being
dziecko 15 −7.62 12 0 – 0 0 – 0 child
dziewczyna 6 −0.98 4 0 – 0 0 – 0 girl
kobieta 20 −0.84 15 0 – 0 7 – 0 woman
koń 0 – 0 6 1.88 5 0 – 0 horse
kraj 9 −6.42 6 0 – 0 0 – 0 country
krok 7 −0.05 6 0 – 0 0 – 0 step
ludzie 22 −5.63 22 0 – 0 0 1.53 6 people
mama 9 1.05 7 0 – 0 0 – 0 mummy
matka 20 1.39 17 0 – 0 0 – 0 mother
mąż 7 −0.37 5 0 – 0 0 – 0 husband
mężczyzna 7 −3.36 7 0 – 0 0 – 0 man, male
miasto 14 −6.81 12 0 – 0 0 – 0 town
mieszkaniec 23 0.89 14 0 – 0 0 – 0 inhabitant
mina 20 3.17 16 0 – 0 0 – 0 facial gesture
młodzież 6 −1.08 2 0 – 0 0 – 0 youth, young
people
naród 33 4.76 24 0 – 0 0 – 0 nation/people
niemiec 7 0.22 7 0 – 0 0 – 0 German
ojciec 34 2.8 27 0 – 0 0 – 0 father
oko 13 −2.56 12 0 – 0 0 – 0 eye
pan 57 −8.69 31 6 13.45 6 0 – 0 Mr, master,
landlord
pani 23 −3.3 19 0 – 0 0 – 0 Mrs, lady
panna 7 1.71 6 0 – 0 0 – 0 Miss
paw 9 2.96 6 0 – 0 0 – 0 peacock
pałac 0 – 0 7 2.26 6 0 – 0 palace
polak 40 6.32 26 0 – 0 0 – 0 Polish/Pole
posiadacz 18 3.82 14 0 – 0 0 – 0 owner
potomek 8 2.61 6 0 – 0 0 – 0 descendant
prezes 6 −4.88 6 0 – 0 0 – 0 president (of
company,
etc.)
ród 6 1.89 6 0 – 0 0 – 0 kin, tribe,
house
rodzice 38 4.41 27 0 – 0 0 – 0 parents
rodzina 10 −3.42 9 0 – 0 0 – 0 family
(continued)

Collocate du_A du_TT du_R py_A py_TT py_R pr_A pr_TT pr_R Eng.
equivalents
rycerz 8 2.41 8 0 – 0 0 – 0 knight
serce 10 0.33 9 0 – 0 0 – 0 heart
spojrzenie 17 3.33 12 0 – 0 0 – 0 look
syn 35 4.43 27 0 – 0 0 – 0 son
szkoła 9 −8.26 8 0 – 0 0 – 0 school
szlachcic 7 2.55 6 0 – 0 0 – 0 nobleman
tata 9 2.65 8 0 – 0 0 – 0 daddy
twarz 23 2.5 20 0 – 0 0 – 0 face
uśmiech 6 1.08 6 0 – 0 0 1.0 1 smile
wzrok 9 1.83 7 0 – 0 0 – 0 look, sight
władca 6 1.87 6 0 – 0 0 – 0 ruler
właściciel 11 −0.03 8 0 – 0 0 – 0 owner
żona 15 1.4 13 0 – 0 0 – 0 wife
extended senses is always positive and denotes ‘tasty, loveable’, it is, by contrast,
mostly negative in its non-physical meaning. Furthermore, although it is occa-
sionally mixed with a dose of admiration combined with envy, it can be used with
reference to people showing loftiness and excessive pride, and in such cases it is
frequently associated with their high social position, rank or status. The Adjective
próżny is used as the neutral or negative form ‘empty, not full’ when collocating
with physical objects and is invariably negative when describing vanity with ref-
erence to people or, by metonymic links, to people’s attributes such as face, look,
heart or eye.7 It is interesting to note that dziecko/dzieci ‘child/children’ is not
identified to co-occur with próżny ‘vain’ or pyszny/e ‘negative pride’, and even with
respect to dumne/y ‘proud’ the form of dziecko ‘child/ren’ is not particularly sig-
nificant. A possible interpretation of this is that to experience these emotions,
particularly the former, one has to have reached cognitive maturity and be cognizant
of the interactional relations and power relationships in one's culture.
It is also interesting to note that it is only in English pride that the collocate
personal is identified. In contrast with the latter English collocate, which collocates
with the nouns in the list, in the Polish data all the collocates are of a communal
character. The difference between Polish duma and próżność, on the other hand, can
be captured, inter alia, by the presence of the osobisty ‘personal, own’ form, that
collocates with the latter, but is absent in the former.
Polish duma possesses a more positive appraisal than English pride. However,
the type of pride that is positive in Polish culture is most often collectivistic pride
7
Both of the adjectives próżny and pyszny are polysemous (próżny—between ‘excessively (un-
justified) proud’ and ‘empty’; and pyszny—‘negatively proud, elevated, (in some contexts) mag-
nificent’, and ‘tasty’ in some others). The phrases pełen pychy ‘full of (negative) pride’ and those
with a replaced word order such as czlowiek próżny (lit. ‘a man vain/empty’), which eliminate
these ambiguities, can be used in Polish instead.
such as being proud of one’s own country, nation, family, sports team, or, mini-
mally of one’s own daughter, son, or husband/wife, etc. rather than being proud of
one’s own individual achievements. Pride from individual achievements is suspi-
cious and it can turn to undesired negative pycha, which is considered unjustified,
excessive and sinful.
English pride is more negative as it epitomises both more positive and negative
attributes of this emotion. Even unmodified pride as in the corpus example below is
not too positively evaluated:
(13) On more than one occasion French writers explained the defeats and
set-backs suffered by their kings and military leaders by emphasising that
these were divine punishments for civil disorder and pride.
12.5.5 Translational Data
Other evidence for the absence of appraisal symmetry in Polish duma and British
English pride can be found in the translational data both in Polish-to-English and
English-to-Polish translated texts. Both duma and pycha are most often rendered as
pride, which supports the finding that pride activates a larger and more salient
negative area than duma:
(14) Pol. U niej wszelkie uczucia zastępuje pycha, a tę warto upokorzyć.
Eng. Her feelings are concentrated on pride—and that needs humbling.
(15) Eng. sinful pride Pol. grzeszna pycha
(16) Pol. — To pycha … która poniesie karę, jak na to zasługuje.
Eng. It is pride–pride that deserves and will receive punishment.
Other English emotion terms from the negative pride cluster such as vain and
boast are rendered as Pol. pycha in the English-to-Polish transition corpora, which
provides evidence of the unambiguously negative evaluation of Polish pycha.
(17) Eng. They were a vain and boastful company of heroes when the tale was
done. > Pol. Gdy skończył, wszyscy poczuli się prawdziwymi bohaterami;
rozpierała ich pycha lit. ‘vain conceit was expanding in them/was bursting in
them’
Pycha also corresponds to some more distant members of the English NEGATIVE
cluster such as insolence, ambition, conceit, arrogance:
PRIDE
(18) Pol. Pycha ich pokarana została > Eng. their insolence is punished
(19) Pol. Nienasycona pycha władców > Eng. unmeasurable ambition of princes
(20) Pol. Jej pycha > Eng. her conceit
(21) Pol. A pycha równała ich z obrazem Boga > Eng. but in arrogance they
equated themselves with God’s image.
12.6 Conclusions
From the viewpoint of the Cultural Linguistics framework (Sharifian 2015), the
results highlight a number of ways in which the PRIDE cultural schema differs to that
of DUMA. The negative evaluation of pride relative to duma is clearly shown in the
GRID and corpus results. The positive VALENCE of adoration and admiration means
that the relatively greater interconnection between duma ‘pride’ and podziw ‘ado-
ration and admiration’ in the online emotions sorting data is consistent with this.
These results are contrary to what one would expect for British English and Polish
culture schemas of PRIDE that are subject to relatively more individualistic and
collectivistic influences, respectively. Recall that whereas individualistic traits such
as self-fulfilment, personal accomplishments and satisfaction are deemed to
engender a greater acceptance and positive viewpoint of pride in these cultures, the
emphasis placed on the achievement of in-group harmony and the control of the
outward expression of emotions in collectivistic societies means that pride in such
contexts is likely to be less salient and more negative. However, our results are
similar to some other findings that are inconsistent with predictions based on the
individualistic versus collectivistic standpoint (e.g., Scollon et al. 2004).
A possible reason for the apparent lack of support for the individualistic versus
collectivistic viewpoint might be based on self versus other orientation of focus.
The more positive VALENCE of duma in comparison with pride might be a conse-
quence, as noted above, of the former being more communal in nature. It is clear
how a relatively more collectivistic culture such as Poland might particularly
endorse such a variant of pride. One interpretation of the relatively strong inter-
connection between podziw ‘adoration, admiration’ and duma (22) shown in the
online emotion emotions sorting study results is consistent with this. This relatively
high interconnection, in comparison to that between pride and adoration (10),
possibly shows the relatively greater salience of communal pride of others in the
DUMA cultural schema. However, it might alternatively point to an Emotion Event
scenario that involves two individuals, one experiencing admiration/adoration of
the other, with the latter experiencing pride because of this.
The difference between the two cultures lies in the distinction we propose
between different cultural-linguistic schemas of PRIDE/DUMA in English and Polish.
These schemas involve different cluster equivalence correspondences and divergent
polarity marking in duma/pride items. This variation is partly due to the asym-
metries in the distribution across the semantic material of pride in terms of a
different number of the lexical items instantiating it in either language. Some
overlaps between Polish and English are observed in their more encompassing,
complex cultural models such as, for example, similarities between PRIDE and DUMA
construal in their basic metaphoricity and Source Domains.
The corpus data showing asymmetries in the distribution of the pride-related
linguistic collocates between English and Polish are observed in the collocation
patterns of the PRIDE cluster members. While Polish duma combines with positively
charged collocates, both pycha and próżność display their clearly negative
character. Furthermore, duma, judging from its nominal collocates in particular, is

more frequently combined with the nouns of a collective type such as naród ‘na-
tion’, rodzina ‘family’ or ród ‘clan, descent, house’ and there are no collocates
signifying an individual or personal property. The combinations that might look
individualistic, like ojciec/ojca ‘father(ly)’, matka/matki ‘mother/(ly), etc., are in
fact unambiguously collectivistic. Pride in English shows either a negative or a
positive charge and the most characteristic use in its negative polarity is reflected in
its religious occurrence, in which it is singled out as one of the seven main/deadly
sins. In Polish this role is taken over by pycha, an instance of hubristic pride,
requiring in its Emotion Event pattern the presence of two individuals, one judged
as overtly and excessively conceited and self-centred, full of slight and arrogance
towards the other, who is considered of a lower status by the former. As an
unambiguously negative emotion, as judged inter alia by its entirely negative
metaphoric uses such as ‘blinded pycha’ or lit. ‘swollen or inflated of pycha’, pycha
is not used as a linguistic term by experiencers themselves but rather by individuals
considered lower in the social hierarchy. Pycha has a significantly higher
co-occurrence rate with other religion-based collocates such as diabelska ‘devilish’
and bluźniercza ‘blasphemous’. The concept of vanity and its close counterpart
próżność, on the other hand, are other instances of hubristic pride, although in this
case the metaphorical sense of emptiness, present in the semantic content of these
terms in both languages, uncovers the epithet of ‘mental emptiness’ underlying their
meanings. In this sense it can be proposed that the instance of hubris in Polish has
two manifestations, namely pycha and próżność, which are linked with loftiness
and stupidity (mental emptiness), respectively.
The physically expressed semantic distribution between the linguistically dis-
tinct lexical forms signifying typically ‘positive pride’ duma and (negative) hubris
pycha is one of the reasons for the presence of a clearer distribution of these senses
in Polish in comparison with the one corresponding lexical form—pride—in
English, which is more ambiguous in its character between its possible positive and
negative evaluation patterns.
Two other notable phenomena that are related to pride are face work and the
sense of honour, which are relevant to how pride is conceptualised across cultures
and how manifestations of these properties interact in different ways in expressing
the different senses of pride in languages. Pride and honour, accompanied by lin-
guistic references to face work, tend to co-occur in different contexts in English and
Polish (e.g., anthems which strike pride and honour into one’s soul; regeneration of
pride and honour, etc., recorded in the BNC materials, and szacunek dla samego
siebie, honor, duma ‘self-respect, honour, pride’ in the Polish data). However, they
are somewhat beyond the scope of the present focus and further investigation is
necessary to determine more precisely how the self-dignity and self-value that
characterise honour and face relate to pride in British English and Polish.
Appendix A: GRID Features that Characterise the VALENCE

Dimension
Negative VALENCE Positive VALENCE
In itself unpleasant for somebody else Wanted to sing and dance

Felt negative Consequences positive for person
Consequences negative for self Smiled
Frowned Felt at ease
Incongruent with own standards Felt good
Stopped what doing Felt positive
Felt inhibited In itself pleasant for the person
Wanted to break contact with others Wanted the ongoing situation to last or be
repeated
Felt bad Wanted to submit to the situation as it is
Pushed things away Wanted to be near or close to people or
things
Wanted to undo what was happening Wanted to get totally absorbed in the
situation
Wanted to prevent or stop sensory contact Wanted to be tender, sweet, and kind
Treated unjustly Wanted to go on with what he or she was
doing
Pressed lips Muscles relaxing (whole body)
Wanted to destroy whatever was close Felt calm
Withdrew from people or things Consequences positive for somebody else
Wanted to oppose Important and relevant for person s goals
Wanted to flee Wanted to comply to someone else’s wishes
Wanted to do damage, hit, or say something that Wanted to comply with
hurts
Wanted to run away Felt in control
Violated laws or socially accepted norms Moved toward people or things
Irrevocable loss Felt energetic
Felt powerless Important and relevant for goals of
somebody else
Wanted to hide from others Wanted to be at centre of attention
Produced a short utterance Felt strong
felt exhausted Consequences able to live with
In danger Wanted to show off
Wanted to withdraw into her/himself Felt warm
Felt nervous Felt powerful
Tried to control the intensity of the emotional Wanted to be seen
feeling
Felt restless Wanted to take care of another person or
cause
(continued)
(continued)
Negative VALENCE Positive VALENCE
Muscles tensing (whole body) Confirmed expectations

Felt out of control Caused by the person’s own behaviour
In itself unpleasant for somebody else Felt dominant
Wanted to be hurt as little as possible Had an urge to be attentive
Felt weak Produced a long utterance
Consequences negative for somebody else Familiar
Felt tired
Felt cold
Got pale
Inconsistent with expectations
Had stomach troubles
Produced speech disturbances
Needed help and support
Had a trembling voice
Hid the emotion from others by smiling
Lacked motivation to pay attention to what
going on
Appendix B: GRID Features that Characterise the POWER

Dimension
Low POWER High POWER
Felt submissive Wanted to tackle the situation

Wanted to hand over the initiative to somebody else Had an assertive voice
Wanted to do nothing Wanted to control the situation
Fell silent Wanted to take initiative her/himself
Decreased the volume of voice Wanted to act, whatever action it might be
Wanted to make up for what she or he had done Had a loud voice
Felt weak limbs Spoke faster
Closed her or his eyes Had an urge to be active
Spoke slower Wanted to move
Lacked the motivation to do anything Moved against people or things
Had a lump in throat
Will be changed in a lasting way
Appendix C: GRID Features that Characterise the AROUSAL

Dimension
Low AROUSAL High AROUSAL
Had no bodily symptoms at all Breathing getting faster

Did not show any changes in gestures Heartbeat getting faster
Did not show any changes in face Sweat
Did not show any changes in vocal expression Perspired, or had moist hands
Breathing slowing down Felt hot
Heartbeat slowing down Felt shivers
Was in an intense emotional state
Produced abrupt body movements
Appendix D: GRID Features that Characterise the NOVELTY

Dimension
Low NOVELTY High NOVELTY
Experienced the emotional state for a long time Unpredictable

Consequences predictable Had the jaw drop
Caused by chance
Suddenly
Had eyebrows go up
Required an immediate response
Opened her or his eyes widely
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Author Biographies
Paul A. Wilson holds the post of professor in the Department of English Language and Applied
Linguistics at the University of Lodz, Poland. He completed his PhD on the interplay between
cognition and emotion at Birkbeck (University of London) in 2000. His main research interests
include the conceptual representation of emotions from a cross-cultural perspective.
Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk Dr. Habil., full professor of English and Applied

Linguistics at the State University of Applied Sciences in Konin, head of the Department of
Research in Language, Literature and Translation, served for many years as head of the
Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics at the University of Lodz. She is the
author and editor of numerous books and papers in cognitive and corpus linguistics, collaborative
knowledge acquisition and translation. She has been honoured with awards by the Polish
Academy of Sciences, and is an Honorary Professor in Linguistics and Modern English Language
at the University of Lancaster, UK. She is frequently invited to read papers at conferences and give
workshops at European, American and Asian universities.
Chapter 13
Beyond Metaphorisation
and Myth-Making: Tertium Datur
for Language and Culture
Adam Głaz
13.1 Introduction
The figurativeness of the language that frames conceptualisations of folk cultural

groups can be representative of either metaphorical or mythological thinking.
Metaphor, understood in terms of CMT, is a mapping of one kind of experience
onto another. Mythological thinking, in turn, is when people construe a live
cosmology, i.e. attribute their own features to the cosmos, and behave accordingly.
The question of whether it is one or the other arises, as one example of potentially
many similar cultural contexts, in considerations of the following statements,
translated from Polish folk dialects: The sun is joyful, The stars look upon us, The
heaven/sky is angry, or The earth gives birth. In Polish ethnolinguistics, statements
like these have been interpreted, not as metaphorical but as mythological and
bordering on animism:
[D]oubts as to a metaphorical or mythological understanding of sentences such as ‘The sun
is joyful’, ‘The stars look upon us’, ‘The heaven/sky is angry’ or ‘The earth gives birth’ is
decided by the knowledge of beliefs relating to the animistically understood nature and to
the principles of behaviour with respect to it. Let us take the heavenly bodies. In archaic
folk tradition, one must behave towards them in the same way as one would towards living
creatures: the earth must not be hit with a stick in spring, when it is pregnant with new life,
the sun must not be pointed at, etc. Therefore, the sentences above have, for the members of
the community in which they exist, a mythological, rather than a metaphorical, sense.
(Bartmiński 2009: 34–35; emphasis added)1
1
The ideas can be traced back to much earlier publications of that author and his associates (e.g.
Bartmiński 1988 or Niebrzegowska 1986).
A. Głaz (&)
Marie Curie-Skłodowska University (UMCS), Lublin, Poland
e-mail: adam.glaz@umcs.pl

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_13
290 A. Głaz
Bartmiński points to cases when members of a given cultural group animate and
“live by” symbolically expressed entities or events, i.e. myths: this is in line with
Edward B. Tylor’s classic view of the “animistic origin of nature-myths” (1871:
260). Admittedly, the so-called “new animism” reverses the link, in that person-
hood is not viewed as extended from people onto other beings but it is humans that
are perceived like other, non-human persons (rock-persons, bear-persons, etc., cf.
Hallowell 1960). However, new animism continues the tradition of interpreting the
universe as propelled by forces that link human and non-human worlds. Indeed,
before humans began to discover general laws governing phenomena around them,
they exhibited a remarkable predilection for myth-building, in that “natural phe-
nomena were regularly conceived in terms of human experience and … human
experience was conceived in terms of cosmic events” (Frankfort and Frankfort 1977
[1946]b: 4). Yet, what Frankfort and Frankfort call mythopoeic thought is quali-
tatively different from animism—I return to this idea in Sect. 13.4.
Because these problems span across the domains of language use, cognition, and
culture, one can be hopeful that a better understanding of them can come from
analyses couched within the framework of Cultural Linguistics. This will indeed be
shown to be the case; moreover, the method of differentiating between metaphor
and myth proposed below, as well as the very distinction between metaphorical and
mythological thinking, will be related to a text that at its face value does not easily
yield to Cultural Linguistic inquiry: Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ (2015).
Being authored by the pontiff and available in several languages,2 the text is drafted
in a maximally “a-cultural” manner, if a culture is viewed as being integrated with
a language (the two shaping each other dialectally and being each other’s aspects).
But culture, regardless of its obvious and multifarious links with language, is the
natural habitat of humans, the environment where they try to make sense of
themselves and the world they live in, regardless of the language(s) they speak but
not to the neglect of them. Although signed by a single person, the encyclical was
undoubtedly formulated in consultation with many others serving in various
capacities in the Catholic Church, law, or science; it certainly draws, too, on the
literature of ecology, at least as indirect influence.3 All of this makes it very much a
cultural product, of the kind that James Underhill links with a cultural mindset, i.e.
a “worldview specific to a political [system] or religion” (Underhill 2011: 7).
A cultural mindset “must take root within a given linguistic worldview but … can
migrate between language systems (as the spread of Catholicism, Protestantism,
Buddhism and communism clearly demonstrates)” (ibid., p. 6).
In this study, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, I do not associate Pope Francis’
encyclical with a religion, for reasons explained below, nor do I strictly follow
2
Through the Vatican website (http://w2.vatican.va/, accessed August 6, 2016), the encyclical is
available in Arabic, two varieties of Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Polish,
Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. One can assume that translations into other languages have
been or are in the process of being produced.
3
Gary Palmer (p.c.).
13 Beyond Metaphorisation and Myth-Making … 291
Underhill’s associations of cultural mindsets with ideology (or ideologies). But I do

follow his reasoning in two respects:
(i) Discourses that span and migrate between languages are still necessarily
cultural (because humans are inherently cultural beings).
(ii) These discourses are appropriately framed as mindsets because they relate to
what links people in the way they think—but also (and crucially) to how they
act as a consequence of the thinking. Cultural mindsets can be expressed, with
a fair degree of accuracy, in various languages because they are cherished by
groups that have adopted a certain mode of thinking on a particular subject
(therefore genetic affinity or mutual influence of languages certainly help but
are not a sine qua non).
Cultural Linguistics, with its focus on conceptualisation and symbolic expres-
sion, stands every chance of contributing to our understanding of cultural mindsets.
One such application, proposed below, will commence with a discussion of how
metaphorical thinking can be distinguished from mythological thinking, followed
by a proposal to break this binary opposition with a third interpretation. This third
interpretation will be attributed to Laudato Si’, whose major motif of the earth as
“our common home”, “mother” and “sister” will be framed as a cultural model.
13.2 Recourse to Peircean Semiotics
In his cognitive ethnolinguistic framework, Bartmiński seeks a way of distin-

guishing metaphorical from mythological thinking in the semiotics of Charles S.
Peirce. If the statement of the kind The earth is our mother is accompanied by
specific action or refrainment from action (as a result of a socially imposed pro-
hibition), it is understood mythologically, in the sense that the myth of Mother
Earth is something that a given cultural group cherishes, lives by, and accepts as
real. The idea is promising but in order to turn it into an efficacious and testable
principle, I suggest that two conditions must be met:
1. The kind of action/cultural behaviour mentioned here must be distinguished
from what is theorised in CMT, where metaphor is also a matter of “thought and
action” (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 3). Thus, because action is not necessarily
limited to mythological thinking, a greater precision is necessary as to how
behaviour is linked with the linguistic symbolisation of thought.
2. Peirce’s model is complex and often presented in enigmatic language; therefore,
the advantage of applying it to the problem at hand must be elaborated in greater
detail.
With regard to problem 1, what Lakoff and Johnson have in mind is a certain
consistency in how we speak, think, and act: as well as speaking and thinking of
arguments as wars, we also as if wage wars when we argue. The “as if” is crucial
292 A. Głaz
here: the consistency rests on subjectively (though not arbitrarily) established

correspondences between domains of experience. But arguments are not wars: they
are like wars and we construe them as if they were:
It is not that arguments are a subspecies of war. Arguments and wars are different kinds of
things—verbal discourse and armed conflict—and the actions performed are different kinds
of actions. But ARGUMENT is partially structured, understood, performed, and talked
about in terms of WAR … We talk about arguments that way because we conceive of them
that way—and we act according to the way we conceive of things. (Lakoff and Johnson
1980: 5)
In other words, arguments and wars (love relationships and journeys, time and
money, etc.) continue to be distinct (and largely different) domains but for the sake
of successful functioning in a culture we establish correspondences between the
domains and “pretend” they are one. Therefore, Bartmiński (p.c.) suggests that
Lakoffian formulation of metaphor lacks modality and should be rephrased as
ARGUMENT IS LIKE WAR.4 Of course, the overt presence of like turns the
metaphor into a simile, but both are manifestations of the conceptualisers’ ability to
seek and find correspondences between domains of experience, including action
involved therein. Action is also an important aspect of metaphorical thinking when
it is harnessed for the purpose of effective advertising. Yet, it differs from the action
triggered by mythological thinking: it is a result of persuasion, need not affect all
people, and does not have the status of a socially accepted norm.
With regard to point 2, Bartmiński rests his hopes on identifying mythological
thinking in Peirce’s pragmatic maxim, which allows for the ultimate interpretations
of signs:
[T]he entire meaning and significance of any conception lies in its conceivably practical
bearing, … in consequences … which in conceivable circumstances would go to determine
how we should deliberately act, and how we should act in a practical way… (Peirce 1998: 145)
According to Peirce, thought ultimately leads one to action by forming a habit, a

certain predisposition of the mind to perform under the influence of a sign (a
linguistic expression):
The deliberately formed, self-analyzing habit … is the living definition, the veritable and
final logical interpretant. Consequently, the most perfect account of a concept that words
can convey will consist in a description of the habit which that concept is calculated to
produce. But how otherwise can a habit be described than by a description of the kind of
action to which it gives rise, with the specification of the conditions and of the motive?
(Peirce 1998: 418, emphasis added)
4
This is an approach older than Lakoff’s and goes back to Wierzbicka’s (1971) explication of
metaphor in metalinguistic-cum-negational terms: “you’d say that it is not X but Y”, e.g. “you’d
say that they are not people but lions”. While I hesitate to endorse Wierzbicka’s (1971, 1986: 294)
treatment of metaphor as “a linguistic device” that can only be used in “talking about” things (a
view that runs counter to CMT), the call for a modal softening in the formulation of metaphor’s
architecture (with the locutional you’d say or the comparative like) appears well-advised.
In other words, “what a thing means is simply what habits it involves” (Peirce
1992: 131)—habit is something that originates in a sign and links it to behaviour. It
leads to action (qua behaviour) but is grounded in the action of the mind, or in what
Peirce calls the final logical interpretant. It is this transition from action of the mind
to action as conduct that Bartmiński finds attractive for his ethnolinguistic purposes.
Peirce’s clearest example of this is probably a hypothetical situation when, upon
awakening, he is asked by his bedfellow: “What sort of a day is it?”. The final (or
ultimate) interpretant5 of this is “her purpose in asking it, the effect its answer will
have on her plans for the ensuing day” (Peirce 1998: 498). Therefore, “the whole
function of thought is to produce habits of action” (1992: 131).
In this way, Peirce’s pragmatic maxim can aid the ethnolinguist in deciding
whether a given statement is (“merely”) metaphorical or (more profoundly)
mythological: a positive score on its links with action/behaviour suggests the latter
interpretation. But mythological thinking is in fact indicative of the
subject-produced, cultural projection of a community’s beliefs: myth is not so much
a story of the world but of that community itself and its understanding of the world;
it is an expression of what the community believes to be true. Stars are grouped into
(and named as) constellations not because the constellations are there—or not even
because they resemble something, for usually the similarity is tenuous—but
because we transfer our cultural experiences onto the firmament. In contradistinc-
tion to this, Peirce represents anti-mentalist realism: the laws of the sign are claimed
to be inherent in the sign itself, rather than being conceptualisations produced by
the interpreting subject. Although the final/ultimate interpretant (an aspect inherent
in the sign itself) does require the presence of an interpreter, the direction of
influence is from the object of semiosis to its subject, from the interpretant to the
interpreter. Hence, the final or ultimate interpretants (i.e., the effects the sign has on
the interpreter) are discovered rather than conceptually constructed. In short, while
the importance of the subject is not denied, the focus is placed on the sign’s object.
This will prove to be of crucial importance in deciding the status of the text
analysed here, Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’, in that the encyclical will be
claimed to represent the third way beyond the binary metaphorical vs. mythological
thinking. I will try to show in what sense, although framed in figurative language,
the document constructs a kind of symbolic imagery that is more than metaphorical
and yet not mythological, especially when myth-making is viewed as a manifes-
tation of animistic thinking.
5
Peirce’s terminology is difficult to harness: the author usually talks about either final or ultimate
interpretants, but sometimes collapses the two into one, as at this point. Also, it is often far from
clear whether by final interpretant Peirce means final logical interpretant, in the sense specified, or
ultimate interpretant (where final = ultimate). These are fascinating questions but mainly relevant
for the historian of semiotic thought and so need not worry us unduly here.
294 A. Głaz
13.3 Laudato Si’ in Close-Up
13.3.1 The Realness of Experience
With Peirce’s semiotics we remain within the realm of symbolic language,

grounded in conceptualisation, but such that the object in the symbol enjoys a
certain “realness”. In the case of Laudato Si’, it is the realness of humans experi-
encing themselves and the environment they live in.6 Certainly, when the Pope
writes about the earth as “our common home”, it is possible to analyse it within the
framework of CMT—but this would have to be on the level of specific languages
and correspondences between the English earth and home, Arabic ‫ ﺿﺮﺃ‬and ‫ﺍﻟﺒﻴﺖ‬,
German Erde and Haus, Spanish tierra and casa, French terre and maison, Italian
terra and casa, Latin terra and domus, Polish ziemia and dom, Portuguese terra and
casa, etc., with a search for common denominators for all these mappings. It is also
possible to treat it as an animistic myth, all the more so because the earth is also
portrayed in the encyclical as “our sister” and “mother”.
However, I will claim that the Pope’s encyclical contains a symbolic (but not
mythological) portrayal, and not merely a conceptualisation, of the earth as home.
The motif obviously has an age-old tradition; in this study we will see how the
symbolism is framed in what I will call a discourse of inclusion, characterised by
tangential points with ecopoetics. In being such, it parallels but also elaborates on
and goes beyond The Earth Charter (Earth Charter Commission 2000), in whose
Preamble the earth is also called “our home” and people are recognised as
belonging to “one human family”. The Charter then points to a “relational” nature
of the human condition, in that “peace is the wholeness created by right relation-
ships with oneself, other persons, other cultures, other life, Earth, and the larger
whole of which all are a part” (ibid., IV.16.f). Echoes of these statements rever-
berate in the encyclical but are not blindly followed. Based on Biblical creationist
accounts, the Pope expresses the “relational” truth about humans thus: “human life
is grounded in three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships: with God,
with our neighbour and with the earth itself” (Francis 2015: 667). The human–home
relationship (where the home is the earth) is thus an integral part of the human
condition. The human home is not (only) a “place” but the totality of a person’s
experience with the Creator, fellow human beings, and the environment. This is
also why Francis advocates that action be taken on various levels:
• the personal and communal levels: adoption of a new lifestyle (Chap. 6),
ecological conversion (Sect. III), practicing civic and political love (V);
6
Blount (2014: 283) notes that culture consists in sharing cultural models: it is the sharing that
endows it with realness because “the consequences of sharing or not-sharing are socially real”. In
Laudato Si’ the realness also has a biological, purely ecological dimension.
7
In the case of the encyclical, the numbers refer not to pages but to its sections.
• the local level: integral ecology (Chap. 4), embracing the ecology of the envi-
ronment, economy and social life (Section I), cultural ecology (II), the ecology of
daily life (III), or the effort to achieve greater justice for the common good (IV, V);
• the international level: multifarious dialogue in the international community
(Chap. 5). This has now been partly realised, in the form of The Earth Charter
or the Adoption of the Paris Agreement (United Nations’ Framework
Convention on Climate Change 2015), to be followed by ensuing steps.
I therefore interpret Francis’ message, seeking to “enter into dialogue with all
people” (Francis 2015: 3), as coming remarkably close to ecopoetics, in the most
profound sense of the term.
The extended contemporary understanding of ecopoetics is grounded in the
name’s etymology, i.e. the Greek oikos ‘dwelling place, habitation, shared space,
house’ and the abstract noun poiēsis, derived from the verb poiein ‘make form’. It is
the making of a home, “formation and transformation of the world, through lan-
guage or otherwise” (Fiedorczuk and Beltrán 2015: 271), “a practice of inhabiting
the planet Earth which, in turn, is part of a larger cosmos” (p. 201). The usage is
obviously related to ecology (again, in the etymological understanding of Ernst
Haeckel, as the study/knowledge of the environment as one’s natural home) and
economy (from the Greek nomos ‘rule, law’) as the rules of house management. But
ecopoetics precedes or should precede the other two disciplines because, say
Fiedorczuk and Beltrán, “there is no ruling and there is no studying if there is no
house” (2015: 273).8
Francis’ discourse comes close to ecopoetics because his notion of the envi-
ronment includes other, non-human creatures; the Pope refers both to the Bible
(example 1) and to saints of the Catholic Church (2):
(1) The laws found in the Bible dwell on relationships, not only among indi-
viduals but also with other living beings. “You shall not see your brother’s
donkey or his ox fallen down by the way and withhold your help … If you
chance to come upon a bird’s nest in any tree or on the ground, with young
ones or eggs and the mother sitting upon the young or upon the eggs; you shall
not take the mother with the young” (Dt 22:4, 6). Along these same lines, rest
on the seventh day is meant not only for human beings, but also so “that your
ox and your donkey may have rest” (Ex 23:12). Clearly, the Bible has no place
for a tyrannical anthropocentrism unconcerned for other creatures. (Francis
2015: 68, emphasis added)
(2) … for him [Saint Francis] each and every creature was a sister united to him
by bonds of affection. … His disciple Saint Bonaventure tells us that, “from a
reflection on the primary source of all things … he would call creatures, no
matter how small, by the name of ‘brother’ or ‘sister’”. Such a conviction …
8
Ecopoetics in this broad sense is related to (certainly etymologically), but distinct from, eco-
poiesis, or the building of an ecosystem for humans to live in on a planet where there is none
(Haynes 1990). (This is now usually referred to as terraforming or planetary engineering.)
296 A. Głaz
affects the choices which determine our behaviour. (11; reference in the
original: The Major Legend of Saint Francis, VIII, 6, in Francis of Assisi:
Early Documents, vol. 2, New York–London–Manila, 2000: 590)
Therefore,
(3) Everything is related, and we human beings are united as brothers and sisters
on a wonderful pilgrimage, woven together by the love God has for each of his
creatures and which also unites us in fond affection with brother sun, sister
moon, brother river and mother earth. (92)
Compare this with ecopoetic discourse, with the latter’s emphasis on “the
relationships between humans and non-humans” (Fiedorczuk and Beltrán 2015:
213), “a hightened sensitivity to the style of our encounters with other phenomena”
(p. 230), “a way of engaging with other beings and entities” (p. 273). The earth, and
in fact the cosmos is “a home, oikos, shared with humans and non-human others”
(p. 273).9 What stops me from classifying Laudato Si’ as an example of ecopoetics
or ecocriticism are obvious and direct references to God in the encyclical. Although
ecopoetics does embrace various trends and perspectives, philosophically it is
predominantly materialistic: the major driving force behind the emergence and
coexistence of beings is attributed to the agency and self-organisation of the beings
themselves, without “external intervention”. But although different in this respect,
the Pope’s approach and ecopoetics are compatible in ecological spirit.
13.3.2 Where Cultural Models Come from
In this section, Pope Francis’ portrayal of home will be framed as a cultural model,
as understood in Cultural Linguistics. The notion of a cultural model, however,
must be located against the backdrop of the whole system of Cultural Linguistic
constructs.
When Gary Palmer first conceived of the cultural linguistic enterprise, he wanted
to place its concern “not with how people talk about some objective reality, but with
how they talk about the world that they themselves imagine” (Palmer 1996: 36).10
But imagery here (not imagination) does not invalidate the realness of human
experience. Cultural Linguistics approaches the imagery as being shared—a portion
or aspect of what is shared is framed as a cultural meaning, i.e. “the typical …
interpretation of some type of object or event evoked in people as a result of their
9
The non-human dimension is thus an extension of Levinas’ (1961) and Kapuściński’s (2008)
appreciation of the human Other.
10
Palmer has pursued his set goal in subsequent publications, adding precision to the enterprise,
filling its various gaps, and applying it to a variety of contexts, as in Palmer (2015), where he
argues for the importance of ethnography (i.e. “descriptions of culture obtained by a variety of
methods, both linguistic and non-linguistic”, p. 24) in inductive linguistic research.
past experiences” (Strauss and Quinn 1997: 6; based on Spiro in Kilborne and
Langness 1987: 163). Cultural meanings are captured in terms of cultural con-
ceptualisations, i.e. cultural schemas, cultural categories, and cultural-conceptual
metaphors (Sharifian 2011, 2015a, b). In Sect. 13.3.1 I explain why the discourse
of Francis’ encyclical may be analysed in terms of metaphorisation but why this is
unconvincing. Cultural categories and cultural schemas, as well as cultural models,
will be discussed now.
Cultural categories arise as a result of allocating objects and events into classes
through exposure to culture (cf. Sharifian 2015b: 519). In Francis (2015), the earth
is culturally categorised through discourse as “(our common) home”, “mother”, and
“sister”; these categories are then constructed as cultural schemas, i.e. those that
“serve as a basis for communicating and interpreting cultural meanings” (Sharifian
2015b: 518). Because the literature on schemas is vast, it will suffice to assume that
they are “building blocks of cognition used for storing, organising, and interpreting
information” (Sharifian 2015a: 475; following Rumelhart 1980). Once the notion of
cognition is extended and applied to a cultural group or a community of
speakers/experiencers, some schemas can be considered cultural: “a schema is
cultural to the extent that it is a product of humanly mediated experiences” or to the
extent that “it is not predetermined genetically” (Strauss and Quinn 1997: 7). For a
schema to be cultural, it must be shared (cf. Blount 2014),11 a process that can
occur across time and space:
[C]ultures are not bounded and separable. You share some experience with people who
listen to the same music or watch the same television shows you do, other experiences with
those who do the same work you do, and still others who have had formal schooling like
yours, even if you live on opposite sides of the world. This makes each person a junction
point for an infinite number of partially overlapping cultures… [W]e do not want to return
to the assumption that shared cultures belong only to spatially and temporally contiguous
communities. (Strauss and Quinn 1997: 7)
Cultural schemas can then give rise to cultural models (for a historical and
theoretical overview, cf. Blount 201412). Cultural models are based on schemas as
“underlying, abstract mental structures” (Blount 2014: 275) in the sense that
schemas are filled with cultural values (D’Andrade 1995). Cultural values, in turn,
are “values that appear to be widespread within a languaculture, … that underpin
the beliefs, convictions, attitudes and communicative habits generally associated
with that languaculture” (Peeters 2015a: 52).13 Because in the case of the Pope’s
encyclical we are operating at the level of a cultural mindset, which “must take root
within a given linguistic worldview but which can migrate between language
11
Sharing assumes the shape of the so-called distributed cognition (Kronenfeld 2008) or cultural
cognition (Sharifian 2011, 2015a, 2015b).
12
For reasons explained therein, Blount (2014) prefers to call them cultural cognitive models, a
topic for another study.
13
The notion of languaculture is inherited from Agar (1994). Peeters (2015b) illustrates his
understanding of cultural values with an analysis of tall poppies in Australian English; for a
number of studies on cultural values and translation, cf. Blumczyński and Gillespie (2016).
298 A. Głaz
systems” (Underhill 2011: 6; see Sect. 13.1 above), “beliefs, convictions, attitudes”
become especially important. Additionally, one property of cultural models is their
directive force: they drive behaviours (cf. D’Andrade and Strauss 1992; Strauss and
Quinn 1997). As argued above, the behaviour/action is associated with a certain
mode of thinking: one that is symbolic but that ultimately seeks to pin down the
realness of the human condition. I will therefore claim that the notion of home in
Francis’ encyclical is best captured as a cultural model in this sense, and proceed
now to specify its details.
13.3.3 Laudato Si’: The Cultural Model of Home
First, home is identified with the earth as the planet: the word earth is used about 60
times in the entire text of the encyclical, including a fair proportion of quotations.
Many of the uses are clearly “planetary”, with the word planet itself being used 27
times. In a broader context, earth also refers to the universe (universe is used 19
times plus two in quotations; cosmos is used three times, including one quotation,
cosmic is used once in a quote).
Second, the tone for the entire encyclical is set in its initial paragraph with the
portrayal of the earth as mother and sister:
(4) … Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister
with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to
embrace us. “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth,
who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured
flowers and herbs”. (1; quotation from Canticle of the Creatures (pp. 113–
114), in Armstrong 1999)
The image of the earth here rests on the dual notions of sisterhood in a rela-
tionship of all creation to God, but motherhood with respect to humans, for whom
the earth brings forth all that is necessary.
Elsewhere, the two kinship notions are kept distinct, as in example (3) above
(earth as mother) versus (5) below:
(5) These situations have caused sister earth, along with all the abandoned of our
world, to cry out, pleading that we take another course. (53)
The horizontal human–earth relation of “sisterhood” can also be expressed in
terms of fraternity:
(6) Fraternal love can only be gratuitous; it can never be a means of repaying others
for what they have done or will do for us… This same gratuitousness inspires
us to love and accept the wind, the sun and the clouds, even though we cannot
control them. In this sense, we can speak of a “universal fraternity”. (228)
Thus, the leading motif of the encyclical, “our common home”, is framed in the
following manner:
• our is used in reference to all humans but also all creatures (the encyclical’s
sections 11, 68, 92);
• common denotes “shared inheritance” (93), with humanity as “one people living
in a common home” (164);
• home is the earth (21), the world (155, 232), or the planet (164); it should be
built and protected (13); it is where we live (164, 232)—but it is also our “sister”
(1, 53) and “mother” (1, 92), so that it has been mistreated (53), like a human
being can.
As well as these recurrent motifs, home in the encyclical is also framed in terms
of:
• “feeling at home” in the urban context:
(7) There is also a need to protect those common areas, visual landmarks and urban
landscapes which increase our sense of belonging, of rootedness, of “feeling at
home” within a city that includes us and brings us together. (151)
• planet as homeland—and the latter as home: “our planet is a homeland”, “hu-
manity is one people living in a common home” (164)14;
• in the religious sense, one’s home in heaven:
(8) Even now we are journeying towards the sabbath of eternity, the new
Jerusalem, towards our common home in heaven. (243)
The two homes, the earthly and the heavenly one, are linked into a unity of
experience:
(9) In the meantime, we come together to take charge of this home which has been
entrusted to us, knowing that all the good which exists here will be taken up
into the heavenly feast. (244)
Importantly, Pope Francis’ portrayals do not compete but complement one
another in a coherent home-making discourse. Apart from the complex image of the
earth as sister and mother (example 4 above), sister earth, our common home, and
our planet are brought to the surface in a single paragraph:
(10) These situations have caused sister earth, along with all the abandoned of
our world, to cry out, pleading that we take another course. Never have we so
14
The common origin of the English words home and homeland, as well as the conventionalised
way of referring to one’s own country as home, provoke discussions on the relatedness of these
notions. Several viewpoints on this subject with regard to a few other languages and from the
translational point of view were presented at the 2015 “Translating Heimat, Home and Homeland”
seminar at Rouen University, France (videos available through the Rouen Ethnolinguistic Project
website, http://rep.univ-rouen.fr/content/homeland). Of these, Underhill (2015) focuses specifi-
cally on English.
300 A. Głaz
hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last two hundred
years. Yet we are called to be instruments of God our Father, so that our
planet might be what he desired when he created it and correspond with his
plan for peace, beauty and fullness (53, emphasis added).
This illustrates the relational nature of people and their home, the nature that can
be experienced by every human being. It is the realness of this experience that plays
a crucial role in the interpretation of the encyclical, some more comments on which
are offered below.
13.4 Pope’s Discourse of Inclusion Versus Myth-Making
Papal encyclicals are peculiar texts. Written from the perspective of the Catholic
pontiff, they address issues relevant to the Bishops of the Catholic Church or to the
Church as a whole—Laudato Si’ is exceptional in being addressed to “all people”
(Francis 2015: 3). It stands a chance of contributing to our understanding of the
world and ourselves, regardless of whether it is or is not read as a religious work.
According to the author, “[i]t would be quite simplistic to think that ethical prin-
ciples present themselves purely in the abstract, detached from any context. Nor
does the fact that they may be couched in religious language detract from their
value in public debate” (199). Public debate, in turn, requires that efforts of various
disciplines be combined:
(11) It cannot be maintained that empirical science provides a complete expla-
nation of life, the interplay of all creatures and the whole of reality. This
would be to breach the limits imposed by its own methodology. If we reason
only within the confines of the latter, little room would be left for aesthetic
sensibility, poetry, or even reason’s ability to grasp the ultimate meaning and
purpose of things. (199)
In saying so, the encyclical tallies with Fiedorczuk and Beltrán’s (2015)
ecopoetics as a “defence of poetry”: “we argue that poetry can be a source
knowledge and wisdom as well as a vital creative force. [… P]oetry is the exercise
of the imagination” (p. 201).15 The ultimate aim is to re-balance the contribution to
our knowledge and understanding of the world coming from the sciences and the
humanities, to include more of the latter, as well as a fairer proportion of the arts.
Only then can we hope to arrive at a reasonably comprehensive picture of inher-
ently relational humans in their equally relational home.16
15
See also the journal Ecopoetics at https://ecopoetics.wordpress.com/ or the description of
ecopoetics at the Poetry Foundation website http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/glossary-
term/ecopoetics (accessed Jan 10, 2016).
16
A good example is Wheeler’s (2010, 2014) notion of metaphor as “a most basic aspect of living
things” (2010: 281): it “belongs to life from the start” (p. 282) as the heart of pan-biological
semiosis and the driving force of evolution.
This places Pope Francis’ encyclical in a somewhat peculiar position with

respect to what Frankfort and Frankfort (1977 [1946]a) call mythopoeic thought: the
tendency for “pre-scientific” humans to link each event with a wilful act of a
personal being and thus to create myths that would explain these events. To be sure,
in no sense can the Pope’s writing be claimed to instantiate that practice, nor is it
parallel to the ancient human’s view of the world as wholly and thoroughly ani-
mate.17 Therefore, the encyclical does not tell “myths” in this sense; indeed, it is
grounded in “Judeo-Christian thought [which] demythologised nature” (Francis
2015: 79), a process that Frankfort and Frankfort describe thus:
When we read in Psalm 19 that “the heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament
sheweth his handiwork”, we hear a voice which mocks the beliefs of the Egyptians and
Babylonians. The heavens, which were to the psalmist but a witness of God’s greatness,
were to the Mesopotamians the very majesty of godhead, the highest ruler, Anu… The God
of the psalmists and the prophets was not in nature. He transcended nature—and tran-
scended, likewise, the realm of mythopoeic thought. (Frankfort and Frankfort 1977 [1946]
a: 363)
The multiplication of personal beings, typical of Egypt and Mesopotamia, is thus

claimed to have been overcome with the Hebrew Biblical image of a single personal
God.18 Having said this, we observe that Laudato Si’ does contain echoes of the
mythopoeic processes identified by Frankfort and Frankfort, namely:
• a close bond between nature and humans (for the ancients, “the realm of nature
and the realm of man were not distinguished”, “nature and man did not … have
to be apprehended by different modes of cognition”, Frankfort and Frankfort
1977 [1946]b: 4);
• the framing of the otherwise symbolic discourse in terms of what goes beyond
symbolism and is intended to touch upon the real and actual situation of humans
(for the ancients, “rituals are not merely symbolical; they are part and parcel of
the cosmic events; they are man’s share in these events”, p. 25); therefore
• what I claim to be the Pope’s discourse of inclusion is a home-making (through
language) that is intended to express the truth of the human condition, in its
relational networks with the Creator and other fellow creatures, both human and
non-human;
• the Pope’s discourse is also a call to action—in Peircean terms, it is ultimately
interpreted through ensuing action. In the ancient world, in response to an event
that directly affected people, action is of the ritualistic kind which involves both
humans and the relevant non-human forces and which brings about a change.
17
“Primitive man does not … know an inanimate world… [H]e does not ‘personify’ inanimate
phenomena not does he fill an empty world with the ghosts of the dead, as ‘animism’ would have
us believe. The world appears to primitive man neither inanimate nor empty but redundant with
life…” (Frankfort and Frankfort 1977 [1946]b: 5–6).
18
The Pope himself uses the word myth in the everyday, common sense of ‘a worldview inaccurate
with regard to what it purports to explain’: “the myths of a modernity grounded in a utilitarian
mindset (individualism, unlimited progress, competition, consumerism, the unregulated market)”
(210).
302 A. Głaz
The contemporary call is for non-ritualistic but equally effective kinds of action,
such as those advocated by Pope Francis (see Sect. 13.3.1 above).
To synopsise, the Pope’s Laudato Si’ is not a myth, nor does it contain myths in
Frankfort and Frankfort’s understanding, but it does seem to inherit some of the
properties of what these authors recognise as practice by humans aware of and
seriously addressing their inherent and inseparable entwinement with “home”.
13.5 Final Word
Do considerations of this kind belong to the realm of Cultural Linguistics? This is

beyond doubt, for what links the three pillars of Cultural Linguistics, namely (i) the
structure and use of language, (ii) culture, and (iii) cognition, is the focus on the
human conceptualising, cognising and speaking subjects, understood not so much
as individuals but as communities of speakers variously defined. In so doing,
Cultural Linguistics aligns its focus with those of compatible, parallel endeavours,
albeit functioning under different labels: anthropological linguistics, ethnolinguis-
tics, or linguistic anthropology. For Anusiewicz (1994: 10) anthropological lin-
guistics is concerned with “the human being as seen through the prism of
language…, definable it its terms in the fullest and the most comprehensive man-
ner”. For Bartmiński (2009: 7), the semantic components of the term ethnolin-
guistics are: “speakers (community of speakers) + language” (i.e. the term “directly
relates language to its collective subject, a community of speakers, and indirectly to
what binds that community, i.e. culture”). For Duranti (1997: 3), the subject of
linguistic anthropology are “speakers … as social actors”.
This is because humans are inherently cultural beings. Therefore, I believe that
Cultural Linguistics can be applied, which I hope to have shown here, in an analysis
of a text that is not grounded in the life of any specific linguistic–cultural group. By
identifying Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ as representing a cultural mindset (in an
understanding inspired by, although not strictly following, Underhill 2011), it has
been classified as discourse of home-making. Through an application of one of
Cultural Linguistic’s descriptive constructs, that of a cultural model, to the
encyclical’s recurrent motif of the earth as “our common home”, we can appreciate
how the biblical call to “subdue the earth” translates into a discourse of inclusion.
By engaging in a dialogue with parallel approaches, through extensions and
enrichment from other disciplines (semiotics, theories of animism and myth),
Cultural Linguistics can realise its potential to offer a better understanding of how
humans place themselves in, and cope with the world they live in. A world that is
inherently cultural and symbolic—but nevertheless very real.
Acknowledgements I wish to thank Gary Palmer, Hubert Kowalewski, Julita

Fiedorczuk-Glinecka, Grzegorz Czemiel, Sam Bennett and the anonymous reviewers for providing
insightful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter. I have gratefully incorporated some of their
suggestions into the text but—for better or for worse—decided to stand by my original ideas in
some cases. Whatever the consequences of this move, the responsibility lies with me alone.
References
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Author Biography
Adam Głaz is professor of linguistics at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (UMCS) in Lublin,

Poland; he researches in cognitive linguistics, language and culture, linguistic worldview, and
translation. He has authored two monographs (The Dynamics of Meaning. Explorations in the
Conceptual Domain of EARTH (2002); Extended Vantage Theory in Linguistic Application. The
Case of the English Articles (2013)) and several dozen articles and book chapters. He has also
co-edited about a dozen volumes and journal special issues, as well as having translated two books
and numerous articles in linguistics. Głaz’s specific interests have included, over the course of his
career, applications of Ronald Langacker’s network model, adaptations of Robert MacLaury’s
Vantage Theory to analyses of linguistic data, and considerations of worldview as it is encoded in
language and modified in translation. His recent interest lies with the development of Cultural
Linguistics.
Chapter 14
Context in Cultural Linguistics: The Case
of Metaphor
Zoltán Kövecses
14.1 Introduction
Imagine that a speaker uses a metaphorical expression at some point in a particular

discourse in a real-life situation. Any such situation can be conceived of as a
(socio)cultural situation. Indeed, in the cultural linguistic literature one of the most
commonly used technical terms for this situation in discussions of cultural aspects
of meaning making is “(socio)cultural context.”
This state of affairs raises at least three large questions for Cultural Linguistics:
(1) What is the relationship between culture and context?
(2) How many types of context are there?
(3) How does context actually influence cultural meaning making?
The first issue has to do with the clarification of the relationship between the
notions of culture and context. We need to ask in precisely which sense and how
culture can function as context, on the one hand, and whether culture exhausts what
we should mean by context, on the other. My answer to the latter question will be that
culture does not exhaust context. If this is the case, we have to ask the further question
of what other types of context there are that are different from the cultural context.
Finally, we should address the issue of how we can operationalise the relationship of
meaning making and (various types of) context, and account for the influence of
context on the construction of metaphorical meaning in online discourse situations.
I am grateful to two anonymous reviewers for the their constructive and extremely helpful
criticism of this chapter.
Z. Kövecses (&)
Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
e-mail: kovecses.zoltan@btk.elte.hu

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_14
308 Z. Kövecses
The three questions above provide the structure for the present chapter. First, I
address the culture–context relationship; second, I turn to the issue of different
context types; and, third, I offer one way of operationalising the influence of context
on online metaphorical meaning making. (In some parts of the discussion, I rely on
my book Where Metaphors Come From. See Kövecses 2015.)
Before I begin the discussion of these issues, I should make clear what I mean by
Cultural Linguistics. As has been emphatically stated by Sharifian (2015) and several
other practitioners of the field, Cultural Linguistics (CL) is concerned with cultural
conceptualisation. In my view, it follows from this that CL is dependent on the
cognitive work of the people who constitute particular speech communities as regards
their linguistic practice. Conceptualisation rests on cognition (i.e. a variety of cog-
nitive operations). When in the course of describing and explaining linguistic (or other
symbolic) practice we focus on the cognitive aspects of this practice, i.e. we are doing
Cognitive Linguistics. However, when we focus on the “cultural” aspects, we are
doing Cultural Linguistics. Cognition and culture cannot be separated. Every act of
linguistic (symbolic) practice is both cognitive and cultural at the same time, but we
can pay more attention to the cognitive side in some cases and more to the cultural side
in others. When we engage in the former, we do Cognitive Linguistics, when the latter
we do Cultural Linguistics. In the chapter, I will fluctuate between the two sides. In
general, I find it difficult to draw a clearer distinction between Cognitive Linguistics
and Cultural Linguistics. I use Cultural Linguistics as a term for emphasising the
cultural side of linguistic practice. (When I use the term in an adjectival function, I
spell it with lower case letters: cultural linguistic.)
14.2 Culture and Context
In the present section, first, I examine the relationship between culture, the con-
ceptual system, and context, followed by the examination of two ways of inter-
preting culture for the purposes of metaphorical meaning making.
14.2.1 Reinterpreting Culture-as-Conceptual Context
In the view I am proposing here and in line with the general consensus, a con-
ceptual system is both a process and a product. The process part of the conceptual
system involves a variety of cognitive, or construal, operations. The conceptual
system can also be seen as a product that results from the activity of the various
construal operations. From a cognitive anthropological perspective, the conceptual
system (in the product sense) can be equated with what we mean by culture. In
perhaps its best-known formulation, Clifford Geertz wrote: “Man is an animal
suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun. I take culture to be those
webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of
14 Context in Cultural Linguistics: The Case of Metaphor 309
law but an interpretative one in search of meaning” (Geertz 1973: 5). This view of
culture-as-conceptual system also resonates in cognitive linguistics that adopts an
encyclopaedic view of meaning, in which our conceptualisation of the world at
large is encapsulated in our conceptual system.
Properties of this system include, first, that the concepts are represented by frames,
as developed in cognitive linguistics by Fillmore (1982), Lakoff (1987), Langacker
(1987), and others. Cultural anthropology and Cultural Linguistics also adopted the
idea of culture being constituted by frames, or alternatively called cognitive models,
cultural models, and the like (see, e.g. Holland and Quinn 1987; Sharifian 2015).
Another property of the conceptual system is that it has an embodied basis, which
means that the conceptual units of frames, or cognitive-cultural models are experi-
entially motivated structures; they are the products of direct or indirect lived experi-
ence (Gibbs 2006; Johnson 1987; Lakoff 1987). The shared experiences imbue the
conceptual units with a meaning that makes sense to a community of speakers who use
the language and the conceptual units.
I will suggest below that this way of thinking about the conceptual system enables
us to view culture, in one sense, as the context for metaphorical conceptualisation. The
culture/conceptual system as context may be the default case in the production of
metaphors. For example, when a speaker uses the verb defend in the sense of “sup-
porting an argument” what enables him/her to do this is that there is a conventionally
associated pair of concepts: war and argument/nonphysical conflict, both represented
in the conceptual system by frame-like structures. In a way, we can even go further and
claim that what is in the conceptual system in the form of such pairs of concepts primes
the use of a particular metaphorical expression. In other words, culture-as-conceptual
system can function as (conceptual) context for the use of the metaphorical
expression.
In this cognitive anthropological/linguistic view of culture-as-conceptual system,
the conceptual system does not consist of a large number of static representations of
concepts by means of frame-like structures. Instead, it is a dynamic and constantly
evolving system characterising a group of people (a community) who live in a
social, historical, and physical environment making sense of their experiences in a
more or less unified manner. We can think of the conceptual system conceived of
this way as one form of culture, which can function as context of a particular kind.
14.2.2 Culture as Situational Context
In the previous subsection, culture was identified as conceptual context. Culture can
also be thought of as situational context. In this case, we can think of culture as
defined by concepts, ideas, values, principles, behaviours, and things that are
specific to a particular (language) community. These unique products of culture can
also function as context for metaphorical conceptualisation. The cultural factors that
affect metaphorical conceptualisation include the dominant values and character-
istics of members of a group, the key ideas or concepts that govern their lives, the
310 Z. Kövecses
various subgroups/subcultures that make up the group, the various products of

culture such as artistic works, physical artefacts, TV shows and films, and a large
number of other things. All of these cultural aspects of the setting can supply
members of the group with a variety of metaphorical source domains (see Kövecses
2005). In other words, I distinguish the general conceptual system as context from
the set of specific ideas, values, practices, artefacts, etc. that characterise a linguistic
community, and is thus fairly active and salient in their members’ minds in par-
ticular cases of metaphorical conceptualisation. I view this as the cultural aspect of
the general situational context (which of course includes more, as will be suggested
below).
One example of how the sociocultural context can shape conceptual metaphors
is provided by Geeraerts and Grondelaers (1995). They note that in the
Euro-American tradition it is the classical–mediaeval notion of the “four humours”
from which the Euro-American conceptualisation of anger (as well as that of
emotion in general) derived. The humoral view maintains that the four fluids
(phlegm, black bile, yellow bile, and blood) and the temperatures associated with
them regulate the vital processes of the human body. They were also believed to
determine personality types (such as sanguine, melancholic, etc.) and account for a
number of medical problems. The humoral view exerted a major impact on the
emergence of the European conception of anger as a hot fluid in a pressurised
container. By contrast, King (1989) and Yu (1995, 1998) suggest that the Chinese
concept of “nu” (corresponding to anger) is bound to the notion of “qi,” that is, the
energy that flows through the body. “Qi” in turn is embedded in not only the
psychological (i.e. emotional) but also the philosophical and medical discourse of
Chinese culture and civilisation. When “qi” rises in the body, there is anger (“nu”).
Without the concept of “qi,” it would be difficult to imagine the view of anger in
Chinese culture. Thus emotion concepts, such as “anger” in English, “düh” in
Hungarian (the two representing European culture), and “nu” in Chinese, are in part
explained in the respective cultures by the culture-specific concepts of the four
humours and “qi,” respectively. It appears that the culture-specific key concepts that
operate in particular cultures account for many of the specific-level differences
among the various anger-related concepts and the PRESSURISED CONTAINER metaphor
(see Kövecses 2000).
The governing principles and key concepts have special importance in
(metaphorical) conceptualisation because they permeate several general domains of
experience for a culture or cultural group. This can be noticed perfectly in everyday
concepts as well. They may have an important role in distinguishing people’s
habitual metaphorical thought across cultures or subcultures. For example, Boers
and Demecheleer (1997, 2001) suggested that the concepts of HAT and SHIP are more
productive of metaphorical idioms in English than in French. And conversely, the
concepts of SLEEVE and FOOD are more productive of metaphorical idioms in French
than in English. They argue that this is because the former two concepts are
relatively more salient for speakers of (British) English, while the latter two are
relatively more salient for speakers of French. (Here salience can be thought of as
the degree to which people tend to see, or are predisposed to seeing, something
through something else.)
The two cases above have to do with long-standing or permanent aspects of
culture. In many other cases, however, aspects of culture that play a role in
metaphorical conceptualisation can be found in situations of shorter duration. We
can think of these as the immediate cultural context. Consider the following
example taken from the San Francisco Chronicle, in which Bill Whalen, Professor
of Political Science in Stanford and an advisor to Arnold Schwarzenegger in his
campaign, uses metaphorical language concerning the actor who later became the
Governor of California:
“Arnold Schwarzenegger is not the second Jesse Ventura or the second Ronald Reagan, but
the first Arnold Schwarzenegger,” said Bill Whalen, a Hoover Institution scholar who
worked with Schwarzenegger on his successful ballot initiative last year and supports the
actor’s campaign for governor.
“He’s a unique commodity – unless there happens to be a whole sea of immigrant body
builders who are coming here to run for office. This is ‘Rise of the Machine[s],’ not ‘Attack
of the Clones.’” (San Francisco Chronicle, A16, August 17, 2003)
Of interest in this connection are the metaphors He’s a unique commodity and
particularly This is ‘Rise of the Machine[s],’ not ‘Attack of the Clones.’ The first
one is based on a completely conventional conceptual metaphor: PEOPLE ARE
COMMODITIES, as shown by the very word commodity to describe the actor. The other
two are highly unconventional and novel. What makes Bill Whalen produce these
unconventional metaphors and what allows us to understand them? There are, I
suggest, two reasons. First, and more obviously, it is because Arnold
Schwarzenegger played in the first of these movies. In other words, what sanctions
the use of these metaphorical expressions has to do with the knowledge that the
conceptualiser (Whalen) has about the topic of the discourse (Schwarzenegger).
Second, and less obviously but more importantly here, he uses the metaphors
because these are movies that, at the time of speaking (i.e. 2003), everyone knew
about in California and the US. In other words, they were part and parcel of the
immediate cultural context. Significantly, the second movie, Attack of the Clones,
does not feature Schwarzenegger, but it is the key to understanding the contrast
between individual and copy that Whalen is referring to.
14.3 Types of Context
I suggest that there are different types of context, of which we have seen two so far:
the situational context (the four humours and the Schwarzenegger example) and
what I call the conceptual-cognitive context, in the sense of Geertz. In the section
below, I try to take stock of the various types of context, together with some of the
representative contextual factors that make them up. The classification I provide is
somewhat similar to the classification offered by Fetzer (2004), who discusses the
312 Z. Kövecses
cognitive, linguistic, social, and sociocultural contexts. We will see, however, that
the two classifications differ in at least one major respect.
14.3.1 Situational Context
The situational context is perhaps more commonly called the extralinguistic con-
text, anything external to the language used. Now the situational context involves
not only the cultural situation, but also the social one (if we distinguish the social
from the cultural, as scholars often do; see, e.g. Fetzer 2004, above), as well as the
physical setting. We have seen two examples for the cultural context above. Let us
now turn to the physical setting.
14.3.1.1 Physical Setting
Semino (2008: 3–4) discusses an example that, in my view, can be taken to be a

metaphorical example of shared perceptual experience. A commentator on the 2005
G8 summit made a remark that was turned into a statement by a journalist reporting
on the event: ‘Dr Kumi Naidoo, from the anti-poverty lobby group G-Cap, said
after “the roar” produced by Live 8, the G8 had uttered “a whisper”.’ The loud
noise produced by a rock band at the G8 summit was conceived of as a “roar,” as
opposed to what was described as a “whisper,” indicating the faint-heartedness of
the summit to handle poverty. The shared perceptual experience made it possible to
create a novel metaphor that was understood easily by the journalist and the readers
of the newspaper article; they had the same perceptual experience either directly or
indirectly. (I come back to this example at the end of the chapter.)
In sum, the situational context is made up of the cultural, social (or sociocul-
tural), and physical factors that may figure importantly in metaphorical
conceptualisation.
14.3.2 Conceptual-Cognitive Context
As was noted above, the conceptual system can be thought of as context. The
general type of context it belongs to is the conceptual-cognitive context. This
consists of a variety of subtypes, of which the conceptual system is one. Thus we
have
Conceptual system
Ideology
Memory of events and things
Concerns and interests
14.3.2.1 Conceptual System
The conceptual system is composed of a system of concepts, plus a set of construal

operations. Concepts (meanings) are represented as frames, or models. The frames
constitute a large part of our knowledge about the world. I will return to the set of
construal, or cognitive, operations later in the chapter.
Also, as we saw above, some of the concepts in this system of concepts can
stand in a metaphorical relationship to one another (e.g. LIFE IS A JOURNEY, ARGUMENT
IS WAR) in long-term memory. Given such metaphorical concepts (i.e. relationships
between two concepts), their presence or absence in the metaphorical conceptual
system in the course of acts of metaphorical conceptualisation may lead to the
production and comprehension of different meanings attributed to particular
metaphors.
14.3.2.2 Ideology
Ideology can also be a formative factor in the use of metaphors in discourse. One’s
ideology concerning major social and political issues may govern the choice of
metaphors (as work by, for instance, Goatly 2007; Lakoff 1996, shows). Closely
related to ideology is the knowledge people have about the dominant forms of
discourse in a society (e.g. the discourse of Christianity or Marxist discourse).
Dominant forms of discourse may acquire the status of ideologies, but this is not
necessarily the case.
14.3.2.3 Memory of Events and Things
Being aware of past events and states (i.e. items in short-term and long-term
memory) shared by the conceptualisers may also lead to the emergence of specific
metaphors in discourse. A special case of this involves a situation in which the
speaker assumes that the hearer has a particular mental state in the course of
metaphorical conceptualisation (see, e.g. Ritchie 2004).
14.3.2.4 Concerns and Interests
People are commonly prompted to use particular metaphors (more precisely,

metaphorical source domains) in real communicative situations relative to their
interests and concerns about the world (see, e.g. Kövecses 2005). Teacher talk,
doctor talk, athlete talk, and business talk are well-known examples of how routine
activities and ways of speaking characterising a group can also pervade the groups’
metaphorical conceptualisation of other domains of experience.
The various types of information listed above can be considered, at least loosely,
to be a part of context. They can all affect the use of metaphors in communicative
314 Z. Kövecses
situations through prompting, or priming, the emergence of particular metaphors.

The term I use for the description of this kind of context is “conceptual-cognitive
context.”
14.3.3 Discourse Context
What I call the discourse context includes the immediate linguistic context (cotext),
previous discourses on the same topic, and the knowledge about the main elements
of the discourse.
14.3.3.1 Cotext
Consider the following text:

When the Electoral Commission came to make its choice between referring the case to the
police and taking no action it was this defence, described by an authoritative source as
showing “contempt” for the law, which helped to tilt the balance – and Mr Hain – over the
edge. (The Times Friday January 25, 2008, News 7)
The metaphorical expressions that are relevant here are tilt the balance and [tilt]
Mr Hain over the edge. The second metaphorical expression is elliptical in the text,
but we can easily supply the word tilt to make the sentence complete. Why can we
do this? We can do it, of course, because the word tilt used in the first expression
also fits the second. We keep it in memory and since it fits, we can supply it again.
Let us look at some of the details of how this might happen.
The metaphorical expression tilt the balance is a conventional one and is
a linguistic example of the metaphor UNCERTAINTY IS BALANCE (OF THE SCALES)
and CERTAINTY IS LACK OF BALANCE (OF THE SCALES). In the metaphor, making a
choice (i.e. eliminating uncertainty) corresponds to tilting the balance. The second
expression, tilt someone over the edge, is much less conventional than the first. The
question is why the word tilt gets selected in the second one, besides the fact that it
(the word form) is still in memory. I suggest that the reason is the following: In the
second expression the relevant conceptual metaphor is LOSS OF RATIONAL/MORAL
CONTROL IS LOSS OF PHYSICAL CONTROL, such as PHYSICAL FALL (INTO A (DEEP) HOLE).
The cause of the loss of rational/moral control is the same as the cause that made the
commission arrive at a decision; namely, ‘showing “contempt” for the law.’ There
are many linguistic expressions that could be used to convey the idea “to cause
someone to fall down (into a hole),” including push, drive, force, jolt, nudge, poke,
prod, propel, shove, press, butt, and so on. Of these, the most conventional ones are
certainly push and drive; both of which occur in the idiom push/drive someone over
the edge. However, in the discourse the author uses tilt, which is an additional but
somewhat unmotivated possibility to express the idea of causing someone to
physically fall down (into a hole). What makes it acceptable and natural, though, is
that it fits the metaphor (no matter how unconventionally), on the one hand, and that
it is elicited by the word used in the previous linguistic metaphor. In this manner,
the phonetic shape of an expression in discourse can function as an elicitor of a
metaphorically used expression in the same discourse, provided that the condition
of fitting the required conceptual metaphor is also met.
14.3.3.2 Previous Discourses on the Same Topic
Given a particular topic, a range of conceptual metaphors can be set up. Such
metaphors, that is, metaphorical source domains, often lead to new or modified
source domains in the continuation of the debate involving the topic by, for
example, offering a new or modified source domain relative to one of the former
ones. Semino (2008) provides an apt demonstration of this, analysing a part of a
speech by Tony Blair:
Get rid of the false choice: principles or no principles. Replace it with the true choice.
Forward or back. I can only go one way. I’ve not got a reverse gear.
Obviously, Blair tries to present himself here as forward-looking politician who

has clear and, what he takes to be, progressive goals and wants to reach those goals.
In setting up this image, he uses the conventional conceptual metaphors PROGRESS IS
MOTION FORWARD and PURPOSEFUL ACTIVITIES ARE JOURNEYS, but he also employs a
little metaphorical trick to achieve this: he portrays himself as a car without a
reverse gear. In the same way as a car without a reverse gear cannot move back-
ward, only forward, he, the politician, can only move forward, that is, can only do
things in the name of progress.
Following the speech in which Blair used the “car without reverse gear” image,
an anchorman on BBC evening news remarked:
but when you’re on the edge of a cliff it is good to have a reverse gear.
The “edge of a cliff” in the source symbolises an especially difficult and dan-
gerous situation, where it is a good thing to have a car with a reverse gear. In the
target, the dangerous situation corresponds to the Iraqi war, where, in the view of
the journalist and others, it would have been good for Blair to change his views and
withdraw from the war, instead of “plunging” the country into it.
In other words, metaphors can change in the course of their discourse history.
When they do, they can be turned against the original user.
14.3.3.3 Knowledge About the Main Elements of Discourse
The main elements of discourse include the speaker, topic/theme of discourse, and
hearer. Knowledge about any one of these may lead to the use of metaphors that are
specific to a particular discourse situation.
316 Z. Kövecses
Let us take the following example that involves the topic of discourse—a long
article about cyclist Lance Armstrong in the January 25–27 issue of the American
newspaper USA TODAY. The article is about Armstrong’s confessions concerning
his doping and that his confessions up to that point had not been sufficient to
redeem himself and clean up the sport of cycling. Several crisis management
experts who were interviewed thought that additional steps must be taken by
Armstrong to achieve this. One specialist said this in an interview: “To use an
analogy from the Tour de France, he’s still in the mountain stage, and will be for
some time” (2013, USA TODAY, 6W Sports, Weekly International Edition). What
we have here is that the specialist has extensive knowledge about the topic of the
discourse, which is Armstrong’s doping scandal. That knowledge includes that as a
cyclist Armstrong participated in several Tour de France events and that this race
has several “mountain stages.”
In other words, the topic of the discourse primed the speaker to choose a
metaphor to express a particular idea; namely, that, in order to come completely
clean, Armstrong has a long and difficult way to go. This idea was expressed by the
mountain stage metaphor, which is based on the mapping “impediment to
motion ! difficulty of action (making full confession and being forgiven)” in the
ACTION IS MOTION conceptual metaphor. Thus, anyone with minimal back-
ground knowledge about the Tour de France can easily interpret (but also produce)
the metaphor.
14.3.4 Bodily Context
The body is not only responsible for the emergence of hundreds of conceptual
metaphors through the many universal correlations in subjective and sensory-motor
experience (cf. Grady 1997a, b; Lakoff and Johnson 1999), but it can also prime the
use of particular metaphors in more immediate, local contexts (see, e.g. Boroditsky
2001; Boroditsky and Ramscar 2002; Gibbs 2006; Gibbs and Colston 2012). In
other words, it can lead to the production of metaphors in discourse in the same way
as the other contextual factors previously mentioned can. That is, the body can
motivate the emergence of metaphors locally as well, not only globally and
universally.
An example of this is when an individual bodily specificity can have an influ-
ence on which metaphors are used by particular people. For example, Casasanto
(2009) found that left-handers prefer to use the MORAL IS LEFT, as opposed to the
MORAL IS RIGHT, conceptual metaphor in various tasks. In Where Metaphors Come
From (Kövecses 2015), I showed how Dickinson’s choice of metaphors may have
been influenced by her optical illness.
In summary, the four types of context outlined above capture the major areas of
our interaction with the world. Fetzer (2004) identifies some of the same contexts
types: the cognitive, linguistic, social, and sociocultural contexts. The type of
context that is missing in her approach is the bodily context. Given the classification
above, culture would be involved in two types of context: the situational and the
conceptual-cognitive contexts.
At this point, the question legitimately arises: Are not the other two types,
discourse and bodily context, cultural then? My answer to this is that since we use
our conceptual system to conceptualise everything including not only the situational
context, the various forms of conceptual-cognitive context, such as memory and
concerns, but also the discourse context and the bodily context, culture pervades all
conceptualisation. This is because the concepts-frames constituting the conceptual
system come with particular perspectives, elements of frames, emotions, evalua-
tions, associations, etc. that are characteristic of communities of speakers. Thus, the
frames impose particular ways of seeing the world (i.e. the four, or more, types of
context). In other words, when I speak about the discourse or the bodily context, I
do not mean that these contexts are viewed in a culture-free manner. And I consider
ideology (an aspect of the conceptual-cognitive context) as a more limited but more
specific way in which a particular outlook is imposed on reality. As such, it also
lends a cultural element to our perceptions. In other words, the four types of context
are meant to be a possibly novel way of classifying context types and not as
suggesting how they actually function in the interpretation of reality.
14.4 Operationalising Contextual Influence

on Metaphor Production
In the present section, I attempt to briefly discuss the main conceptual ingredients
that appear to be prerequisite for the production of a particular metaphorical
expression in a discourse situation. I propose that there are at least four cognitive
processes involved: (1) Out of the many construal, or cognitive, operations the
speaker must decide on metaphor as a meaning making device. (2) Given the
various context types, the speaker is exposed to a wide array of information or
experiential knowledge that “compete” for the speaker’s attention. (3) One of the
contextual factors will emerge as the strongest and primes the speaker to use the
matching metaphorical expression. (4) The expression will have the meaning that is
appropriate for the communicative intention of the speaker. I label the required
cognitive processes as follows:
Cognitive/construal operations
Local versus global context
Contextual priming
Conceptual pathways
318 Z. Kövecses
14.4.1 Cognitive Operations
In any given context, the speaker unconsciously chooses a particular construal

operation (potentially supported by others) out of the many that are available to
him/her. Below is a list of these operations that cognitive linguists typically work
with (based on Langacker 2008; see also Kövecses 2006):
Schematisation/abstraction
Image–schemas
Attention/focusing
Figure–ground
Scope of attention
Scalar adjustment (granularity; fine-grained–course-grained conceptualisation)
Dynamic and static attention (sequential and summary scanning, including fic-
tive motion)
Prominence/salience
Profile–base
Trajector–landmark alignment
Perspective
Viewpoint
Subjectivity–objectivity
Metonymy
Metaphor
Mental spaces
Conceptual integration
Often, several of these constitute alternative choices for the construal of a sit-
uation. The alternative operations commonly include abstraction, schematisation,
attention, perspective (subjectivity–objectivity), metonymy, metaphor, and con-
ceptual integration. In the case under consideration, the speaker decides on using
metaphor. This choice is indicated by bold in the list above.
14.4.2 Local Versus Global Context
The various types of context discussed above all come in two versions: local and
global. As regards the cultural context, we can distinguish the local cultural situ-
ation, as exemplified in the Schwarzenegger example, from the global cultural
situation that we saw in the case of the general conceptualisation of anger as a hot
fluid or as qi in Chinese or as being in the hara in Japanese (see Kövecses 2000).
More generally, the local context involves the specific knowledge conceptu-
alisers have about some aspect of the immediate communicative situation, while the
global context consists of their general knowledge concerning the nonimmediate
situation that characterises a community. Thus, while the local context implies
specific knowledge that attaches to the conceptualisers in a specific communicative
situation, the global context implies knowledge shared by an entire community of
conceptualisers. However, there is no sharp dividing line between the two types of
context; there is a gradient where the local turns imperceptibly into global or the
other way around. (Unfortunately, the feature of “gradience,” the gradual transition
from global to local and vice versa, is not visible in the diagram—for lack of
sufficient computer skills.) These ideas about the global and local contexts remind
us of the notion of “distributed cognition,” a recently emerging concept in cognitive
science and linguistics emphasising the shared interconnections in experience
among groups of people in making sense of the world (e.g. Gibbs 2006; Johnson
2007).
The diagram below summarises the various kinds and types of contextual fac-
tors, as discussed so far (Fig. 14.1):
The idea of culture as a system of shared meaning making can provide us with
an enhanced view of culture and context. We can think of the shared meaning
making system as global context for particular instances of metaphorical concep-
tualisation. This would be the global version of the conceptual-cognitive context.
Local versions of this context type would involve specific states of a person’s
conceptual system in a given communicative situation.
The shared meaning making system provides a (more or less) uniformly present
context for all members of a language community, while the latter involves specific
local aspects of one’s understanding of a specific communicative situation. The
former makes it possible for conceptualisers to draw well-established and entren-
ched metaphors from long-term memory, while the latter enables them either to
select metaphors from among the established ones or to create novel ones given the
local, immediate context.
14.4.3 Priming
It can be argued that (the knowledge and awareness of) our experiences in the local
and global contexts can prompt the use of particular metaphors—either conven-
tional or novel ones. I suggest that the various contextual factors can prime the use
of a metaphor in discourse. Priming is a well-studied cognitive process used
extensively in psychological and psycholinguistic experiments with a sizeable lit-
erature (see, e.g. Boroditsky and Ramscar 2002; Casasanto 2009; Gibbs and
Colston 2012; and several other studies). Importantly, priming is based on the
simulation of some experience in the situational, discourse, bodily, and
conceptual-cognitive context.
320 Z. Kövecses
Fig. 14.1 Summary of contextual factors (from Kövecses 2015)
Experiments that make use of priming as a method in their design can range
from “in vitro” to “in vivo” experiments. The former refers to experiments con-
ducted in labs. In the latter, people simply go through their everyday routines
constituting particular contextual factors, and the researcher asks the participants
questions about the way they conceptualise a particular situation, given those
experiences. A large number of studies (see above) indicate that various bodily and
discourse (semantic) experiences that function as contextual factors do shape the
subjects’ metaphorical (and nonmetaphorical) conceptualisations of the situations
related to those experiences. It is shared experience (the dynamically evolving
common ground in a situation) that enables the production and comprehension of
metaphors in discourse.
14.4.4 Conceptual Pathways
How can a particular context-induced metaphor have the meaning intended by the
speaker? In many cases, the primary physical and the secondary abstract,
metaphorical meaning of such an expression may be fairly different and distant
notions. Out of the many potential experiences represented by various contextual

factors above, a particular metaphorical meaning can be conveyed, I suggest, if a
specific target-domain meaning is expressible by the context-induced
source-domain meaning. This can be achieved if a particular conceptual pathway
(made of several conceptual metaphors and metonymies) can be built between the
two meanings (Kövecses 2015). This way a particular piece and kind of information
(or experiential content) and a particular context-induced metaphor (whisper) is
chosen out of the huge number of available options in the situation.
Let us take an example for this from work by Semino (2008), briefly mentioned
in an earlier section. Semino studied the metaphors used by various participants at
the 2005 G8 summit meeting in Scotland on the basis of an article about the
summit. As explained above, the summit was accompanied by a major rock concert
called Live 8. Some participants assessed what the G8 summit had achieved pos-
itively, while some had doubts concerning its results. Semino looked at one such
negative assessment she found in an article about the summit. She comments in the
following way:
In contrast, a representative of an anti-poverty group is quoted as negatively assessing the
G8 summit in comparison with the Live 8 concert via a metaphor to do with sound:
1:1 Dr Kumi Naidoo, from the anti-poverty lobby group G-Cap, said after “the
roar” produced by Live 8, the G8 had uttered “a whisper”.
The reference to ‘roar’ could be a nonmetaphorical description of the sound made by the
crowd at the concert. However, the use of ‘whisper’ in relation to the summit is clearly a
(negative) metaphorical description of the outcome of the discussions in terms of a sound
characterised by lack of loudness. Hence, the contrast in loudness between the sounds
indicated by ‘roar’ and ‘whisper’ is used metaphorically to establish a contrast between the
strength of feeling and commitment expressed by the concert audiences and the lack of
resolve and effectiveness shown by the G8 leaders. (Semino 2008: 3–4)
In my view, the metaphor whisper here emerges from the physical(-social)

context in which it is produced. Dr. Kumi Naidoo creates the metaphor whisper
against a background in which there is a very loud concert and a comparatively
quiet summit meeting. We can think of the loudness and the relative quiet of the
occasion as perceptual features of the two events. Thus, the original conceptualiser,
Dr. Kumi Naidoo, chooses a perceptual property of the physical context from all the
experiential content that is available to him.
The required conceptual pathway consists of the following conceptual metaphors
and metonymies: INTENSITY IS STRENGTH OF EFFECT, EMOTIONAL RESPONSES FOR THE
EMOTIONS, ANGRY BEHAVIOUR FOR ANGER/ARGUMENT, and EMOTION FOR DETERMINATION
TO ACT. We need each of these metaphors and metonymies to be able to account for
the meaning of the word whisper in the example. The INTENSITY IS STRENGTH OF
EFFECT metaphor is especially important; in that it provides us with the connection
between the degree of the loudness of the verbal behaviour and the intensity of the
determination, or resolve, to act. This way a particular piece and kind of infor-
mation (or experiential content) and a particular context-induced metaphor (whis-
per) is chosen out of the huge number of available options in the situation.
322 Z. Kövecses
14.5 Conclusions
In the chapter I argued for a broad conception of context in metaphorical con-

ceptualisation—one that covers our cognitive interaction with various elements and
properties of the situation of discourse, the discourse itself, the conceptual-cognitive
background, and the body of the speaker. These dimensions of our interaction with
the world were labelled the situational context, discourse context,
conceptual-cognitive context, and the bodily context. All of these context types and
the specific contextual factors that make them up can influence the creation of
metaphors in discourse.
I suggested that culture in this scheme belongs to two different (though obvi-
ously related) types of context: the situational context and the conceptual-cognitive
context. The latter is the consequence of identifying culture with our long-term
conceptual system. As regards its classification with the former, it coincides with
the more traditional conception of culture (i.e. culture as part of the extralinguistic
situation). It is important to point out, however, that the notion of context
encompasses much more than these two views of culture. Specifically, it includes,
in addition, our experiential knowledge about the discourse and the body as con-
texts. Admittedly, this way of thinking about culture would reveal a restrictive view
of culture on my part—one in which culture is thought of in fairly specific ways.
But another tack to take would be to go the opposite way, and regard what I have
taken to be all the various types of context as culture. I argued for such an approach
suggesting that the conceptual system through which we interpret reality lends
culture-specificity to not just the situation context as culture but also to all the other
types, including the body.
Finally, I proposed a set of cognitive mechanisms that can operationalise the
process of metaphorical conceptualisation in context. For the contextual influence
to take place, the speaker opts for conceptualising the intended meaning
metaphorically, is affected by a number of contextual factors in the local and global
contexts, and is primed by one or some of these that can be conceptually connected
to the intended target-domain meaning by means of an appropriate conceptual
pathway.
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Chapter 15
Metaphor and Cultural Cognition
Andreas Musolff
15.1 Introduction: Cultural Cognition and Cognitive

Metaphor Theory
The notion of “cultural cognition” as part of Cultural Linguistics focuses on

“culturally constructed conceptualisations” that are specific to speech communities
and manifest themselves in “cultural schemas”, “cultural categories” and “cultural
metaphors” (Sharifian 2015: 476–478). The key-term “culture” in these phrases is
linguistically defined, in contrast to definitions in other theories, where it can refer
to socio-political, popular and legal “cultures” (Gannon 2011; Kahan 2012; Van der
Linden 2016). The relationship between culture and language should not be con-
ceived of as a one-dimensional link, as the substantive critiques of over-egged
versions of Linguistic Relativism and of essentialism in theories of Inter- and
Cross-cultural Communication have emphasised (Gumperz and Levinson 1996;
Holliday 1999; Niemeier and Dirven 2000; Scollon et al. 2012). Culture is, in
Scollon and Scollon’s words, probably best conceived of as a “verb” (Scollon et al.
2012: 5), i.e. it is not a static, identical entity, but a dynamic, variable form of
communicative action that manifests itself in socio-historically embedded situations
(Frank 2008).
The application of this insight to “cultural metaphors” seems straightforward
only at first sight. Are metaphors, as concepts, universal or culture-specific in the
sense that they provide insights into culture-specific cognition patterns that are not
necessarily transferrable into other cultural contexts without losing some of their
semantic and/or pragmatic value? Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), developed
since the 1980s by Lakoff, Johnson and others, has taken up a fundamentally
universalist stance by locating the roots of metaphorical cross-domain mappings in
A. Musolff (&)
Intercultural Communication, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
e-mail: a.musolff@uea.ac.uk

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_15
326 A. Musolff
neurophysiological structures; however, even Lakoff has claimed compatibility with

linguistic relativity when it has suited him (Lakoff 2004a). However, such squaring
of the circle is only possible at the expense of relegating culture-specific variation to
a secondary, lexical and discursive “elaboration” level, whereas “primary”, i.e.
experience-based and neuro-physiologically manifested metaphor-constitutive
“image schemas” are seen as “embodied conceptual universals” (Lakoff 2004a;
see also Gallese and Lakoff 2005; Lakoff 1993, 2008; Lakoff and Johnson 1980/
2003, 1999).
The only attempt at a testable CMT-oriented analysis of (allegedly)
culture-specific metaphor variation that the Lakoff-school has provided is their
interpretation of the 1990s international debate about the last Soviet leader, M.
Gorbachev’s slogan of the “Common European House”. According to Chilton and
Lakoff (1995), the lexemes dom in Russian and house in English access different,
culture-specific mental models of the general concept of HOUSE, on account of the
alleged fact that the Russian HOUSE stereotype is a communal apartment block
whereas the Western HOUSE stereotype is supposed to be a free-standing,
owner-occupied family home. Therefore, they hypothesised that “[when] the
metaphor was translated out of Russian into the language and cultural setting of
other European states, the entailments were different” (Chilton and Lakoff 1995: 54;
see also Chilton and Ilyin 1993). But when this hypothesis was applied to multi-
lingual corpus-data (Bachem and Battke 1991; Musolff 2000), British and German
media, which can plausibly be regarded as belonging to the ‘Western’ camp, were
shown to frequently use the supposedly Russian-specific ‘communal apartment
block’ version of the metaphor slogan during the late 1980s; they only stopped
doing so when the Soviet Union, and with it Gorbachev’s international prominence,
became history in 1991. The slogan’s demise thus did arguably not result from
differences in the conceptual systems of Russian and other European languages or
cultures but from contingent political circumstances. Lakoff’s other analyses of
metaphor variation have concentrated on intra-national contrasts in the usage of the
NATION AS FAMILY metaphor in the political sphere of the United States, specifically
the ideological differences between Liberals and Conservatives (Lakoff 1996,
2004b). Lakoff has referred to this contrast as a cultural divide (e.g. Lakoff 1996:
222) but in the loose sense of “political cultures”, not in the sense of linguistic
relativity. In the following sections, I would like to overview and comment on more
specifically cross-cultural metaphor research that has been carried out in the wider
field of cognition studies and then present and discuss recent empirical findings that
focus on the reception/interpretation side of cultural cognition.
15.2 Research on Cross-Cultural Variation of Metaphor
Whether metaphorical meanings vary across culturally distinct communities cannot

be determined by just consulting dictionaries or lists of idioms but only on the basis
of empirical discourse data. This maxim is borne out by the largest overview of
15 Metaphor and Cultural Cognition 327
culture-specific metaphor variation to date, i.e. Kövecses’ (2005) volume on

Metaphor in Culture: Universality and Variation. Kövecses defends CMT’s tenets
in general but makes a sustained effort to accommodate significant culture-specific
variation by making two crucial “modifications” to classical CMT: (a) he stresses
that it “is complex metaphors—not primary metaphors—with which people actu-
ally engage in their thought in real cultural contexts”; (b) he introduces the notion of
a “main meaning focus” that metaphors gain within the community of speakers
(2005: 11–12). This culture-specific meaning focus consists of source-conceptual
material that is typically applied to a range of target domains within specific
communities but not others. For instance, the apparently universally occurring
metaphorical conceptualisation of the emotion ANGER (target concept) as PRESSURE IN
A CONTAINER (source concept), which has been researched across cultures by
Kövecses (1986, 1990, 1995, 2000) and others (Matsuki 1995; Taylor and Mbense
1998; Yu 1998), has distinct semantic manifestations. In English, it is expressed by
way of analogy to a fluid but in Chinese by analogy to a gas, and its main locations
can be the head (English), the belly (in Japanese) or the heart (Zulu) (Kövecses
2005: 68–69). The investigation of cultural differences in conceptualisation of
emotionally and cognitively central body parts (i.e. as seat of emotional/cognitive
agency) has been developed further into a typology of “abdomino-”, “cardio-” and
“cerebrocentrist” perspectives (Sharifian et al. 2008; Ibbaretxe-Antuñano 2012).
Recent corpus-based research into the metaphorisation of emotions across English,
Russian and Spanish has shown that these three languages share some salient
conceptualisations (of which the BODY-based ones are only a part) but at the same
time exhibit significant differences in the “appraisal, expression, regulation and the
saliency of physiological aspects of anger” (Ogarkova and Soriano 2014). In a
similar vein, Yu (2008) has demonstrated that the SOCIAL FACE-metaphor of
folk-psychology (as, for instance, in English, to save/maintain/lose face) is differ-
entially composed in Chinese and English, respectively emphasising the aspects of
1
DIGNITY IS FACE versus PRESTIGE IS FACE, and MUTUAL versus EGOCENTRIC FACE.
Besides the contrastive synchronic studies of culture-specific use and elaboration
of metaphors, diachronic studies have further shattered CMT’s initial universalist
bias. As early as 1995, Geeraerts and Grondelaers highlighted the fact that the
EMOTION-AS-PRESSURE IN CONTAINER metaphor, which had been researched by then
mainly on the basis of English language data, bore an uncanny resemblance to the
traditions of ‘humoral’ medicine and philosophy that dominated European thought
for more than a thousand years, deriving their authority from ancient medical
philosophers such as Hippocrates (460–370 BCE) and Galen (129–217 CE). Their
terminological traces can be found in many modern European languages to this day,
e.g. in the phraseology of ‘choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic and melancholic tem-
peraments’ (Geeraerts and Grondelaers 1995; Temkin 1973). The cultural
1
For the important consequences of this culture-specific difference of FACE concepts in Politeness
Theory. Which at first used to be considered an undisputed pragmatic “universal” (Brown and
Levinson 1987), see Jia (1997), Pan (2000), Pan and Kadar (2012), Watts (2005).
328 A. Musolff
continuity of these traditions provides at least as much of a semantic “motivation”

for the FLUID-version of the EMOTION-AS-PRESSURE IN CONTAINER metaphor as its
“experiential”, physiological grounding in body temperature sensations. Trim
(2011a, b) has developed the historical analysis of metaphor usage into a theory of
diachronic conceptual networks as reference frames for explaining the relative
salience of specific versions of emotion metaphors, e.g. the LOVE-AS-FIRE metaphor,
in particular socio-historical settings/periods.
Within nation-cultures, the metaphor of the NATION (STATE) AS A BODY has played
a central role in expressing collective identity (Guldin 2000; Hale 1971; Musolff
2010a). Significantly, evidence of national variation can be found both in historical
texts and in present-day usage. Shogimen (2008) has shown how this metaphor
differed in mediaeval European (English) and Japanese political thought. The
European tradition, as exemplified, for instance, in the Policraticus, authored by the
cleric, politician and philosopher John of Salisbury in the mid-twelfth century,
“highlighted coercive and punitive aspects of government as the final solution to
political conflicts” on the basis of assumptions about medicine as disease eradi-
cation or surgery; the contemporary Japanese concepts of “medical treatment as
controlling physical conditions” with an emphasis on “healthcare and preventative
medicine”, however, favoured preventative measures at the political (target-)level
(Shogimen 2008: 103; see also Nederman 1988). Further evidence of
culture-specific variation of the NATION-AS-BODY metaphor has been found in
present-day lexicalisations and distribution patterns in English, French and German
public political discourse (Musolff 2010a, b, 2011). On the one hand, these three
language communities share conceptual coverage of the source domain BODY when
mapped onto the target concept NATION (STATE), including the aspects of LIFE CYCLE,
ANATOMY-PHYSIOLOGY, STATE OF HEALTH, INJURY and THERAPY. The origins of this
concept date back to the mediaeval Latin terms corpus mysticum and corpus
politicum, which were translated into European vernacular languages in the six-
teenth century (Archambault 1967; Bertelli 2001; Charbonnel 2010; Hale 1971;
Kantorowicz 1997; Patterson 1991); e.g. into English body politic, French corps
politique, German, politischer Körper, Italian corpo politico, Dutch politiek
lichaam, Polish ciało polityczne, Russian, пoлитичecкoe тeлo, Greek, Pokisijη´
Rx´laso1.
Despite this common origin, however, typical uses of the NATION-AS-BODY
metaphor in today’s language communities show divergent trends in usage and
lexicalisation patterns. In English, the central lexicalisation is the phrase body
politic, which since its loan-translation from late Latin has largely shed its
once-salient role as a politico-theological counterpart of the King’s body natural
(Kantorowicz 1997). Instead, body politic nowadays refers to the totality of the
social and political organisation of a nation. Nevertheless, bodily collocations of the
mediaeval and Renaissance meanings still surface in a sub-strand of British political
discourse that is distinctive in terms of its pragmatic stance, i.e. irony and sarcasm:
(1) I am inventing a new diet: it’s called the Greek austerity diet. And I am putting myself
on it right away. … the first and most obvious difference [to the EU-led economic
austerity policy in post 2008-Greece] is that my Greek Austerity Diet is entirely a

scheme of my own devising. I voted for it. My own body politic took the decision. (The
Daily Telegraph, 14 November 2011, author: Boris Johnson, a portly British Tory
politician, then Mayor of London (italics for highlighting here and in following
examples by A.M.))
(2) Body politic: […] In what is perhaps the ultimate betrayal of the Celebrity ‘Cool
Britannia’ culture he embraced upon entering Downing Street, Heat [magazine] this
week prints a long-lens snap of Blair resplendent in his Caribbean holiday podge – a
sort of ‘ripples and nipples’ look. (The Independent, 14 August 2007)
In these cases, the physical body or body appearance of a prominent politician is

the ostensive target referent of the phrase body politic, but the use of that very
phrase points to an implicit target, namely the politician’s standing, power and
status. Their frequency in English political discourse appears to be higher than in
German and French corpus samples (Musolff 2011). German public discourse, on
the other hand, has three instead of one lexicalised items to express political BODY-
status: the rarely used phrase politischer Körper (‘political body’), the more fre-
quently found compound Staatskörper (‘state body’) and the by far most frequent
item, Volkskörper (‘people’s body’). The two latter compounds occur in
present-day public discourse in starkly different usage environments: ‘state body’
can be applied to any nation or a multi-national entity seen as a whole; ‘people’s
body’ on the other hand, is used almost exclusively in contexts of the author
expressing a critical stance to that concept on account of its historical-ideological
connotations that relate it to (neo-)Nazism and to (neo-)Nazi jargon:
(3) The individual citizen drunk on Germanness became identical with the rabid collective
body of the people (Die Zeit, 16 August 2012, referring to the photo of a drunken
Neo-Nazi attacking an asylum-seekers’ home in Rostock in 1992, translation here and
in further examples by A.M.).
(4) This sick people’s body harbours a wounded soul. Katharina Rutschky sees the debate
about biopolitics [i.e. about demographic decline] as a symptom of a mass hysteria
which has its deepest roots in the German traumas of the twentieth century (Die Welt,
26 March 2006).
Historically, the use of ‘people’s body’ can be traced back to the 1840s, when it
still could refer to any people. However, from the mid-19th century onward, it
became popular with racist, especially anti-Semitic, writers in Germany, and in the
first half of the 20th century, it acquired the status of a quasi-technical term in Nazi
ideology, where it was used to depict the supposed German/Aryan race’s Self as
being under attack from the Jewish parasite/alien body-‘Other’ (Bein 1965; Rash
2006; Musolff 2010a: 23–68). In this highly specialised and, after 1945, politically
and ethically marginalised version it has survived in German-speaking and inter-
national neo-Nazi discourses (Posch et al. 2013; Musolff 2015a) and has acquired a
Nazi-stigma in mainstream public debate. Its relatively high frequency in German
media discourse vis-à-vis other body-political terminological variants is not a sign
of any positive popularity but rather of a measure of the strongly critical attention
that is generally paid to Nazi-reminiscent vocabulary (Eitz and Stötzel 2007).
330 A. Musolff
French seems to have a morphologically and semantically equivalent phrase to

the English body politic, i.e. corps politique, but as in German we find ‘competitor’
or ‘partner’ terms such as the expressions corps électorale and corps social. The
following, corpus-based examples (Musolff 2015b) illustrate the intricate interplay
of the three terms (indicated in the translation as “[c-p]”, “[c-e]” and “[c-s]”,
respectively; all translations by A.M.):
(5) From Mitterrand to Sarkozy – an unstoppable decline of the presidential office and the
body politic [c-p]. (Le Monde, 5 March 2011)
(6) For more than 25 years, the political classes, both the (neo-)liberal right and the
socialist left, have mismanaged the ageing body of French society [c-s]. (Le Figaro, 9
November 2010)
(7) To note a figure that was not highlighted during the election night, i.e. the 2.14 million
void votes, 5.8 per cent of the whole electorate [c-e], which represents an extremely
elevated level that is doubtlessly owed in part to the Front National voters of the first
round. (Éco 121, 7 May 2012)
As these examples show, the meanings of the phrases corps politique, corps
social and corps électorale, are not identical but very closely related: the social,
electoral and political aspects of the French nation. Examples (5) and (6) depict
institutions and classes as ‘political bodies’ that care (or fail to care) for the French
nation as a social whole (6). Its manifest incarnation, however, is the entirety of
voting citizens in the national election [even if they spoil their votes, as is suspected
in (7)].
Such mutually defining uses of corps politique, corps électorale and corps social
are found frequently in the French discourse but have few counterparts in the
English and German samples. Which tradition can they be linked to? A com-
mentary in the leftist newspaper Libération may help us here: “The body politic: a
sick patient in search of a therapy” (Boisnard 2005). The article’s author argues that
the political classes must rethink their fundamental assumptions, in particular the
notion that the French state ‘organs’ owe obedience to a sovereign general will,
which dates back to J.-J. Rousseau’s Social Contract (1762):
(8) In order to think of the political sphere in terms of the image of a body should require
no more than to reread Rousseau’s Social Contract. This metaphor is by no means
neutral; it supposes that this body is directed by a singular unity of intention and that
all members of society are only to be considered as its organs. (Boisnard 2005,
translation AM)
If we follow this reading, the relationship between the ‘political’, ‘electoral’ and
‘social bodies’ of the nation in French present-day usage can be traced back to
Rousseau’s impact on revolutionary and republican thought (de Baecque 1997;
Sinding 2015). Such an explication does not imply that every French politician or
journalist who uses these terms today must to be aware of the conceptual link with
his philosophy but it is plausible to assume that, thanks to the enduring presence of
Rousseau’s thought in French public discourse (Bertram 2003), his definitions still
form a distinctive focus, which distinguishes this discourse tradition from the
historical legacy of Volkskörper in the German public sphere, and the English
wordplay on double-entendres of body politic/natural with respect to individual

politicians’ status.
15.3 Culture-Specific Interpretation of Metaphors
One central question left open by contrastive studies that concentrate on metaphor
production and usage is that of whether differences in figurative conceptualisation
impact on understanding processes. There is now a growing body of evidence that
much metaphoric discourse in World Englishes and English as lingua franca
provide as many instances of miscommunication as of successful intercultural
understanding. Sharifian (2014), for instance, analyses in detail communicative
clashes between speakers of Standard Australian English and Aboriginal English
that originate in the latter’s conceptualisation of the concepts LAND, RAIN, MEDICINE
as being linked to the belief in ancestor beings, whereas such links appear in a
non-Aboriginal context only as irrational superstitions or at best quaint, ‘merely’
rhetorical metaphors. Analyses of English used as a lingua franca in secondary and
higher education contexts have exposed hitherto unnoticed miscommunication that
is due to wrongly understood figurative language use (Littlemore 2001, 2003;
Littlemore et al. 2011; MacArthur and Littlemore 2011; Piquer-Piriz 2010;
Wang and Dowker 2010) as well as instances of creative adaptation of L2 lexis to
L1 mappings (Heredia and Cieślicka 2015; Nacey 2013; Philip 2010). ‘Creative
misunderstandings’ also seem to occur in the media use of “hybrid metaphors” that
adapt a metaphorical idiom in one language to accommodate meaning aspects that
were originally parts of an idiom in another language, such as the Spanish neolo-
gism la pelota está en el tejado de alguien (‘the ball is on someone’s roof’), which
arose from contact between the Spanish expression estar en el tejado (‘to be at a
stalemate’) and loan translations of the English idiom, ‘the ball is in the other
court/half’ (Oncins 2014). We are thus confronted with a complex and method-
ologically challenging situation: metaphoric expressions can be understood vary-
ingly by L2 or lingua franca users, with possible influence from their L1 cultures;
furthermore, this variation can lead to miscommunication and to the creation and
sociolinguistically successful dissemination of new metaphor meanings. How can
we identify culture-specific patterns in this seemingly unpredictable variation?
When teaching on a metaphor course for British and international MA students
with English as L1 or very good English as L2 competence at the University of
East Anglia (UK) in 2011, I ran a brief class test to make sure that the recently
mentioned phrase body politic had been correctly understood by the students.
Fifty percent of them were Chinese, the other half was made up of British,
US-American, European, Kurdish and Arab students. The instruction was informal
and asked students to explain the meaning of body politic with reference to their
home nations. Here are two examples of student responses (relevant metaphor
instances in italics, A.M.):
332 A. Musolff
(9) The head of the body represents the Queen of England, as she is in charge of the
whole country and she is royalty. The features of the head (eyes, nose, mouth and
ears) represent the different official people, such as politicians, the Prime Minister, the
Government.
(10) Beijing: Heart and Brain, Shanghai: Face (economic centre); Hong Kong and
Taiwan: Feet; Tianjin: Hands (= army close to Beijing); Shenzhen: Eyes (= the first
place open to the world).
It will come as no surprise that example (9) was produced by a British student
and example (10) by a Chinese; what was unexpected was a complete 50/50 split in
the class’s answers between a Chinese version and distinct non-Chinese one. All
non-Chinese responses conceptualised the nation state and its institutions through
functionally and hierarchically motivated analogies to the whole and parts of a
human body (with minor variations at the target level depending on the respective
political systems). These analogies reproduce ‘sedimented’ parts of the European
conceptual and discursive traditions dating from the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance sketched in the previous section.
The Chinese students’ responses, by comparison, presupposed a basic mapping,
GEOGRAPHICAL SHAPE OF NATION-ANATOMY OF A HUMAN BODY, salient parts of which
were selected according to PLACE-FOR-POLITICAL INSTITUTION/FUNCTION metonymies
(e.g. Beijing—seat of government, Shanghai, Shenzen, Hong Kong—internationally
relevant economic centres, Taiwan—politically separate island state, Tibet–province
with outlawed independence movement). These metonymies were then associated
with functional interpretations of prominent body parts and organs, e.g., brain or
heart as controlling the rest of the body, face, eyes, arms as oriented to the outside
world, etc. For the Chinese respondents the basic geopolitical metonymy served as
the foundation to construct the metaphor, whereas it played no significant role in most
of the other students’ answers. The Chinese responses, in turn, could not be linked to
the ‘Western’ conceptual traditions that originate in the shared historical heritage of
Late Latin corpus mysticum/corpus politicum terminology. However, that of course
does not mean that they are without history. One possible link to historical traditions
may be China’s publicly imagined “geobody” (Callahan 2009) as part of its national
identity, with an emphasis on overcoming the legacy of Western imperialist attacks
up until the mid-twentieth century by expressing ambitions to achieve “symbolic
recognition, acceptance and respect” (2009: 171) and reasserting central status in
Asian and global geopolitics (Callahan 2009, 2010; Schneider 2014; Schneider and
Hwang 2014).2
After this first encounter with divergent body politic interpretations, I devised a
simple questionnaire-based survey that posed the task to view one’s home nation
“in terms of a human body”. With the generous help of colleagues the survey was
administered in seven more UEA seminars and in language-/communication-related
courses at two other British universities and in Higher Education institutions of nine
2
A comparable focus on territory-based interpretations of the NATION-AS-BODY metaphor can be
found in Hungarian political discourse as a reflex of the territorial amputations after WW1, see
Putz (2014: 126–131).
more countries (China, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Norway, Poland, Romania
and Spain). The survey yielded 648 questionnaires completed by participants from
31 distinct cultural and linguistic backgrounds (Musolff 2016). It was presented as a
simple vocabulary exercise before other metaphor examples were introduced as part
of the syllabus. In this way, we aimed to reduce any inadvertent ‘priming’ effects of
lecturers conveying specific model answers to the students to a minimum. The
survey was not set up as a statistically valid psycholinguistic experiment; it thus did
not yield reliable quantitative data. Instead, it aimed at a qualitative pilot-analysis of
semantic variation in the interpretation of the NATION-AS-BODY metaphor, to find out
whether any striking distribution patterns emerged that can be hypothesised as
being related to cultural traditions and provide a platform for further testing.
Roughly, 80% of all informants concentrated on interpreting the NATION-AS-BODY
metaphor in a narrow bodily meaning, whilst one fifth widened it to a NATION-AS-
PERSON reading. In the following sub-sections, the findings for both response types
will first be presented separately and then discussed in an overview.
15.3.1 NATION-AS-BODY Interpretations
After the first encounter with contrasting interpretations of the BODY POLITIC concept
as either an anatomy-/function-based or geography-based metaphor it soon became
clear that there was no 1:1 match of interpretations in relation to specific linguistic
and/or cultural groups. For instance, British and US students’ responses include
geography-based readings that are fully compatible with Chinese students’ answers:
(11) This is Britain, a vast, churning body of 48 million people, sucking in resources,
processing them, and spewing out fumes and ideas. The mouth and nose are Dover
and Portsmouth, sucking in the oxygen of European food and produce. It travels
down the oesophagus of the motorways, arriving in the guts of the suburbs. (English
L1 informant)
On the other hand, some Chinese students chose to construct function-focused

BODY PART-INSTITUTION mappings that seemed to be typical of the Western body
politic tradition, as in (12):
(12) The communist party of China is the head of the body. It leads the functions of the
whole body system, which decides the entire national affairs. The government is the
nervous system of the body, which is controlled by the head of the body. (Mandarin
L1 informant)
However, interpretations such as (12) only represent a minority among the

Chinese cohort’s responses. The ratio of anatomy-/function-based versus
geography-based interpretations of the NATION-AS-BODY metaphor for the Chinese
cohort is 1:3. For the British/US cohort, this ratio is almost exactly reversed, i.e.
2.9:1, and for other European/‘Western’ cohorts with sufficiently many responses,
the preponderance of the anatomy-/function-based reading over the
334 A. Musolff
geography-based interpretation is equal or even more pronounced (e.g. for German

respondents 61:4; for Hungarian ones 16:5; for Israeli ones 14:2; for Italian ones
84:27). Although these raw figure ratios cannot be regarded as statistically fully
validated, they indicate a marked difference between Chinese and non-Chinese
respondents. The great majority of responses given by Chinese students are
geography based, whereas the European, US and Israeli students’ responses are
much more likely to resemble more the ‘Western’ tradition of conceptualising the
nation as a body of interdependent and hierarchically ordered members and organs.
In addition to providing corroborating evidence in support of our hypothesis of
at least two culture-related tendencies in interpreting the NATION-AS-BODY metaphor,
the survey also revealed two more interpretation perspectives, which viewed the
nation either as part/organ of a larger body or as part of one’s own personal body.
The former perspective can be observed in examples (13)–(15):
(13) England is like an appendix, not very significant anymore but can still cause trouble
and make you realise its [sic] there if it wants to (English L1 informant)
(14) Norway is a hand waving to the world. (Norwegian L1 informant)
(15) Israel is the heart of the Middle East. It is a main artery that transporting [sic]
Merchandise for all the middle east [sic]. (Hebrew L1 informant)
Examples (13) and (14) and others of this type leave open the question of
precisely which larger BODY-whole the nation in question belongs to. They also
often assume folk-theoretical and symbolic encyclopaedic knowledge for the
conceptual grounding (appendix as ‘superfluous’ organ, hand waving as symbol of
friendliness). Similar cases are characterisations of Germany as a fist (on account of
the two World Wars), Israel as a fingernail (on account of its size and being the
target of design changes by outside powers) and China as the back of the world (on
account of its role in the global economy). Some responses, however, specify the
LARGER BODY target, as in (15).
The alternative ‘nation-as-part-of X’ version, i.e. NATION AS PART OF ONE’S OWN
BODY, is not present in the smaller national cohorts but still forms a recurring pattern
across Chinese, British and German samples. About half of them are sourced from
notions of HEART and BLOOD as the centre/medium of a person’s identity, emotional
existence and heritage, as in the following example:
(16) Motherland likes [sic, presumably intended: is like] my blood. Blood is a part of my
body so that I can’t live without blood, and I also can’t live if I lost my motherland.
What’s more, motherland likes my blood [sic], because I feel its warmth and at the
same time it provides me the ‘oxygen’ and ‘nutrition’. (Mandarin L1 informant)
Other examples of this type conceptualise the nation as the speaker’s own feet/
legs (for “standing up and going forward in the world”), hands (“creating the
people”) or eyes (“noticing the democracy and equality enjoyed by general citizens
as well as the corruptions and irresponsibility of some government parasites”).
Compared with such ‘personalised’ and often ideologically charged interpretations,
the two main readings, i.e. the anatomy/function—and geography-based
interpretations, are more standardised and repetitive, whilst at the same time being
much more frequent.
Overall, the main finding, i.e. evidence of a wide range of semantic variation in
the survey responses throws in question the assumption of an automatic under-
standing of metaphors, which underlies much of the classic CMT literature. It also
shows that seemingly unproblematic metaphorical communication may hide dif-
ferences in understanding. Doubtless, informants can interpret conventional meta-
phors quasi-automatically when they are asked to produce just one meaning and
have been primed by source-related stimuli, as has been confirmed in psycholin-
guistic research (Gibbs 1994, 2005; Giora 2003; Glucksberg 2001, 2008;
Glucksberg and Keysar 1993). As our survey show, however, responses to meta-
phor interpretation tasks can be much more varied and imaginative if elicited by an
open-ended task and with less priming, and the variation found in our corpus
appears to show some systematic distribution patterns that can be linked to
culture-specific traditions. The degree to which respondents are aware of these
traditions still remains to be explored further.
15.3.2 NATION-AS-PERSON Interpretations
Roughly one fifth of all responses (131 out of 648) focused on the PERSON concept
as the source for the metaphor interpretation, with the Chinese cohort providing the
bulk of this response type and fewer examples coming also from the European and
Israeli cohorts. The majority of responses list character traits or activities of PERSON
TYPES, as in the following examples:
(17) My nation is like a woman who has experienced a lot. She has been living over
thousands of years and the mountains and rivers are like wrinkles on her body. The
land is like her warm hug and she uses it to feed trillions [sic] of people. (Mandarin
L1 informant)
(18) China welcomes and gives warm hugs to foreigners who come to China. China is
growing up day by day. China wears a beautiful dress to show her elegance to the
whole world. China fights against violence bravely. China kissed the India [sic] and
comforted them in a very kind way. (Mandarin L1 informant)
The characterisations of one’s nation as a mother or a beautiful woman dominate

the Chinese sample: they account for 30 and 16 occurrences respectively, out of a
total of 70 responses (66 of which were given by female respondents). Feminine
personifications are also represented in Israeli, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Serbian,
Spanish responses, but, curiously, not in the German and British cohorts. The latter
do contain father characterisations (one quoting the term “fatherland” as evidence)
but the number of occurrences (seven across the overall corpus) is too small to be
indicative of any specific socio-cultural trend. The main MASCULINE figure in the
NATION-AS-PERSON characterisations, however, is the old wise man/(grand-)father/
teacher figure who looks after his family as competently and caringly as the mother
336 A. Musolff
figure does. This type is represented across several national cohorts, as the fol-
lowing examples show:
(19) China is a father who has survived many vicissitudes but still has infinite power.
Hong Kong, who had been abandoned helplessly, is his favorite daughter among lots
of children. Nowadays, after the excited and impressive coming, her father does all
he can and does his best to compensate for this abandoned thing. (Mandarin L1
informant)
(20) My nation looks like a 65 year old man, who is wise and clever but he hasn’t be [sic]
able to use his intelligence to become happy […]. (Greek L1 informant)
(21) Britain is an easily likeable friend, […] [He] is ancient but is experiencing revitali-
sation […]. (English L1 informant)
(22) As Abraham Avinu [Abraham our father] signed an alliance between god and his
body, so does the land of Israel and all of it’s [sic] citizens with god. […] (Hebrew L1
informant)
(23) […] when a group of people or a person is in pain he [= Romania] is going to get
help. (Romanian L1 informant)
This father/teacher figure collocates strongly with other characterisations that

focus on wisdom and competence (including the roles of lawyer, doctor, pacifist),
which altogether account for 53 responses. By contrast, there seem to be only two
responses that come close to the strict father model that Lakoff (1996, 2004b) has
identified as the dominant metaphor model of US political discourse. Both of these
responses betray no great liking or positive bias on the part of the writer:
(24) My country is like a muscular, middle-aged man. He […] has scarfs [sic] all over
him, but still stands tall. He is white an [sic] catholic, but shows respect to others,
[…] He has a strict facial expression, even if he tries to smile. (German L1 informant)
(25) My Government is like a selfish father. His “kids” are affected by his decisions
without being asked. (Spanish L1 informant)
Characterisations of one’s own country as a BABY/CHILD only occur in small

numbers of responses by Chinese (9), Norwegian (2), Nigerian (1) and Belorussian
students (1), relating as they do to the respective nations’ political or economic
status. What emerges overall from these recurring characterisations is the picture of
an EXTENDED FAMILY, in which NURTURE, SOLIDARITY and COMPETENCE are of prime
importance. The two main results that can be gleaned from these data are a marked
preference for mother-type nation-concepts.
There is a small sub-group of NATION-AS-PERSON interpretations in terms of
national politics. These are sophisticated constructions that allude to topical and/or
historical aspects, taking a specific political stance, as in the following examples:
(26) Despite being a fairly young nation, Norway is already a full-grown petroholic. Like
most addicts, Norway might appear well-functioning for longer periods of time […]
Still, Norway frequently turns into a state of denial. (Norwegian L1 informant)
(27) The Romanian nation […] knows too well the price of hardship and whose hard
work has left deep marks on its soul. It […] puts a lot of soul in everything it does.
[…] It has not learnt yet that mind and reason should prevail over soul and heart.
(Romanian L1 informant)
(28) The soul of my nation is the mentality the people have. Body and mind didn’t work
together properly the last 100 years that’s why its has been seriously ill at least two
times. (Polish L1 informant)
In these examples, nation-specific experiences of economic development, crisis

and conflict are reinterpreted as personality traits, with the NATION-AS-PERSON
metaphor providing a platform for political comments.
15.3.3 Discussion
Our principal finding is that metaphor reception/understanding is at least as variable

as metaphor use and production. Even for a centuries-old mapping such as that
between the concepts of a human body/person and a nation, understanding is
neither automatic nor universal but, on the contrary, variable and culture-specific
(or at least culture-sensitive). This variation is particularly visible in the contrast
between the two main most frequent versions of corporeal conceptualisations of the
nation in the questionnaire responses. Chinese responses clearly favoured inter-
pretations based on a geography-institution metonymy, which was interpreted
further metaphorically, as in Beijing being portrayed as the heart of China, on
account of it being the seat of government. The majority of non-Chinese responses,
on the other hand, reproduced the hierarchically organised, anatomy-and/or
physiology-based analogies to political institutions, which have been the staple
of Western political theories since the Middle Ages. In addition, two less frequent
interpretations emerged from the pilot survey: the conceptualisation of the nation as
an organ/part of a larger (international or global) body and its ‘reverse’ version, i.e.
the understanding of the nation as part of the Self’s own body.
This latter interpretation links to the second group of responses, i.e. the NATION-
AS-PERSON interpretation. On the one hand, we found evidence for the conceptual-
isation of the state as an authority-figure in a family, with the great majority of
responses focusing on the role of a nurturing and wise parent. These results gen-
erally confirm CMT’s insight into the centrality of the NATION-AS-PERSON metaphor
in political thought (Chilton and Lakoff 1995; Goatly 2007; Lakoff 1996; Musolff
2010a; for a critique see Twardzisz 2013). They also partly confirm Lakoff’s
specific hypothesis about the fundamental role that the conceptual complex NATION-
AS-PERSON-AS-FAMILY MEMBER plays in political thought (Lakoff 1996, 2004b).
However, they add a cross-cultural analysis dimension to it that relativises any
potential assumptions about a universal predominance of Strict Father over
Nurturant Parent models, at least for the Chinese data. The preference for feminine,
and especially motherly nurturing nation-persons is perhaps related to the concern
about the integrity of the nation territory, similar to that which we observed in the
geobody interpretations: Here, however, it is not body members that need to be
rescued for the nation but children that need to return to the mother, as in the still
popular 1925 poem, “Songs of Seven Sons”, by the poet Wen Yiduo (1899–1946),
338 A. Musolff
in which the former colonies Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Weihai, Guangzhou
Bay, Kowloon, Lushun/Dalian, as the sons of China express their longing to return
to their mother (Clayton 2009: 43–44).3 As example (19) above shows, this
caring-nurturing type of parenthood can also be masculine-coded by reference to
China as father; nonetheless, the strong preponderance of feminine ‘gendering’ of
the nation-person in the Chinese cohort seems indicative of a ‘mainstream’ ten-
dency that has links to cultural history.
These findings put the traditional view of metaphor ‘recipients’ as understanding
and accepting automatically the ideological bias of any metaphors they are pre-
sented with further into question. If interpretations vary to such an extent and also
include creative de- and reconstructions of metaphors, it seems plausible to credit
their understanding processes with ‘deliberateness’ (Steen 2008, 2011; for critique
see Gibbs 2011a, b). The emergence of distinct trends of metaphor interpretation
among specific linguistic and national groups in our survey also provides evidence
of culture-specific bias, which can be related to particular discourse traditions that
may be seen as serving as an interpretation guidance for many respondents.
However, this latter result does not imply that the respondents had no choice in their
interpretations. Obviously, socially entrenched interpretations provide easily
accessible and socio-culturally acceptable models to follow, but they are neither the
only ones available nor exempt from reflexive or meta-linguistic uses that enable
speakers/writers to put the respective political bias under scrutiny. Unlike the
necessity to identify a target referent, which may indeed be mainly a matter of
quasi-automatic processing, the decision to accept, endorse and disseminate its bias
is in the gift of the interpreter.
15.4 Conclusions
How can interpretation patterns that embody cultural knowledge become cogni-
tively accessible for metaphor interpreters? Cognitive semantics provides a general
answer through reference to the category of conceptual “frames”, as outlined first
by Fillmore and developed further by Lakoff and others (Fillmore 1975; Lakoff
1987; Taylor 1995). However, with regard to metaphors, CMT has long contented
itself with relying on notions of “image schemas” and other highly schematic
frames such as SOURCE-PATH-GOAL, GREAT CHAIN OF BEING and CONTAINER schemas.
Hence, non-spatially targeted uses of prepositions, deictic expressions and transitive
constructions have all been viewed as “metaphorical” (Johnson 1987; Lakoff 1993;
Lakoff and Johnson 1980/2003, 1999; Lakoff and Turner 1989; for critiques see,
inter alia, Jackendoff and Aaron 1991; Pinker 2007). Such an inflationary attri-
bution of metaphoricity promises little profit for a cultural cognition theory of
3
I am grateful to STD Wong for bringing this link to China’s recent cultural history to my
attention.
metaphor, not least because it leads to positing conceptual metaphors at such a high
level of generality and universality, e.g. STATES ARE LOCATIONS, CHANGES ARE
MOVEMENTS, CAUSES ARE FORCES (Lakoff and Johnson 1999: 179), that culture-specific
insights are hard to detect.
By contrast, F. Sharifian’s notions of “cultural schema”, “category” and
“metaphor”, which represent cultural conceptualisations at morpho-syntactic,
semantic and pragmatic levels respectively (Sharifian 2015: 478), can help to
integrate the cultural mediation-aspect of linguistic meaning-constitution. With
special regard to cultural metaphors, empirical Cultural Linguistics research focuses
“on the conceptualisations that represented active insight at some stage in the
history of the cultural cognition of a group” (Sharifian 2015: 478). Such insights
are, for instance, the hypothetical links that we have indicated between the distri-
bution patterns of answers across different cohorts of respondents in the interpre-
tation survey and Western v. Chinese discourse traditions of conceptualising
nation-bodies and -persons. Our hypotheses about the culture-specific preferences
for the NATION BODY (as an INSTITUTIONAL HIERARCHY versus a GEOPOLITICAL ENTITY)
and for the NATION PERSON (as characterised by MASCULINE versus FEMININE TRAITS) are
testable (and, if necessary, falsifiable) conclusions from patterns of interpretations
as they emerge from the data.
It is important to underline that observed differences are not cases of
‘all-or-nothing’ occurrences of particular interpretation in one cultural group versus
another group, but instead of contrasts in relative frequencies, i.e. allowing also for
in-group variation. We must therefore assume that the respondents, far from pro-
ducing their readings automatically, have a range of interpretations perspectives to
choose from. Some of them use non-default/non-typical versions, but the majority
in each group appear to ‘agree’ on using the ‘mainstream’ interpretation patterns
that seem to link up to well-established discourse traditions in their community. In
this way, cultural metaphor cognition complements the universal aspects of meta-
phor acquisition, production and understanding. This acknowledgement of
cross-cultural contrasts does not entail an absolute incommensurability of languages
or cultures but is, on the contrary, a condition for modelling their role in inter-
cultural communication as a process of mutual adaptation and learning. In our
survey, one respondent criticised the NATION-AS-BODY metaphor because it “excludes
the possibility to integrate new elements in the body” and does not reflect a nation’s
ability to “change and evolve”. In linguistic theory-building, the concept of cultural
metaphor may help to avoid a similar mistake.
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Author Biography
Andreas Musolff graduated from Düsseldorf University and is Professor of Intercultural

Communication at the University of East Anglia in Norwich (UK). His research interests focus on
Cultural Metaphor Studies, Intercultural and Multicultural communication, and Public Discourse
Analysis. He has published widely on figurative language use in the media and in the public sphere
in general; his publications include the monographs Political Metaphor Analysis—Discourse and
Scenarios (2016), Metaphor, Nation and the Holocaust (2010), Metaphor and Political Discourse
(2004), and the co-edited volumes Metaphor and Intercultural Communication (2014), Contesting
Europe’s Eastern Rim: Cultural Identities in Public Discourse (2010) and Metaphor and
Discourse (2009). He is currently Chairman of the Executive Board of the International
Association for Researching and Applying Metaphor (RaAM).
Chapter 16
The Conceptualisation of AUSTERITY
in the Portuguese, Spanish and Irish Press
Augusto Soares da Silva, Maria Josep Cuenca and Manuela Romano
16.1 Introduction
The aim of this chapter is to analyse the conceptualisation of austerity in three

different European cultures by identifying metaphorical expressions used in the
Portuguese, Spanish and Irish press between 2011 and 2012, in a context of global
economic crisis and austerity measures.
Starting from Soares da Silva’s (2016) study of the metaphors used in the
implementation and justification of harsh austerity policies in the Portuguese press
in 2011 and 2013, the analysis relies on a corpus of news and opinion articles
comprehending a one-month period right after the 2011 (Portugal and Ireland) and
2012 (Spain) elections and the announcement of the first austerity measures by the
new governments. The metaphors were identified by searching for three keywords
from the field of economy and politics: austeridade-austeridad-austerity, corte-
recorte-cut and dívida-deuda-debt.
The analysis follows corpus-based and discourse-based approaches to concep-
tual metaphor (Musolff and Zinken 2009; Semino 2008; Steen 2011; Stefanowitsch
and Gries 2006), and integrates them with the general framework of Cultural
This study has been carried out under the research project UID/FIL/00683/2013, funded by the
Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the research projects
FFI2012-30790 and FFI2016-77540P, funded by the Spanish MINECO.
A. Soares da Silva (&)

Catholic University of Portugal, Braga, Portugal
e-mail: assilva@braga.ucp.pt
M.J. Cuenca
University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain
M. Romano
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_16
346 A. Soares da Silva et al.
Linguistics (Bernárdez 2008b; Frank 2015; Frank et al. 2008; Sharifian 2008, 2011,
2015), as shown in Sect. 16.3. From this perspective, metaphor is seen as a pow-
erful conceptual and discourse strategy to frame economic, political and social
issues and to serve emotional and ideological purposes. Through metaphor, the
strongly mediatised political and economic debate about austerity measures and
policies becomes effectively persuasive and manipulative.
Even though the austerity measures were quite similar in all three European
countries, this chapter shows how the specific political and economic situation, as
well as the different socio-cultural contexts of the Portuguese, Spanish and Irish
communities have influenced the way austerity was conceptualised and hence
expressed metaphorically in chapters’ news.
By analysing the discourse of austerity, both qualitatively and quantitatively, in
three of the European communities most deeply affected by the 2008 financial crisis
and the Great Recession that followed, this study sheds light on key questions, such
as: (i) The persuasive force of ideological metaphors used in the implementation
and justification of austerity policies by the European Union between 2011 and
2012; (ii) How similar political and economic situations triggered different con-
ceptualisations of austerity based on different cultural schemas and metaphors;
(iii) The fruitfulness of the Cultural Linguistics’ framework in the analysis of
discourse whose understanding relies on socio-cultural shared knowledge.
16.2 Corpus and Methodology
The corpus of analysis includes all the contexts of occurrence of three targets
(namely, ‘austerity’, ‘cut(s)’ and ‘debt’) in one representative newspaper from each
culture during one month. The period corresponds to the moment when the first
austerity measures were systematically applied in each country. Specifically, in the
case of Portugal, the corpus includes all the news of the newspaper Público pub-
lished between 15 June and 15 July, 2011, after the entry of the Troika (i.e. the
European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund)
in Portugal. This fact triggered the announcement of the first austerity measures by
the new centre-right coalition government, headed by Pedro Passos Coelho (after
winning the Portuguese elections following the resignation of former socialist
Prime-Minister José Sócrates). In the case of Spain, the newspaper is El País, a
centre-left wing publication that aligns with the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE),
which was by that time the main opposition party; the period is between 2 January
and 2 February 2012, after the Spanish elections and the announcement of the first
austerity measures by Mariano Rajoy’s right-wing government. As for Ireland, the
analysis is based on all the news published in the Irish Times between 1 March and
1 April, 2011, after the Northern Irish general elections and the announcement of
the first austerity measures by Prime-Minister Enda Kenny from the Fine Gael
conservative party.
16 The Conceptualisation of AUSTERITY in the Portuguese … 347
It is important to mention that Público, El País and the Irish Times were chosen
as datasets because of their wide range of readers.1 Even though all three news-
papers can be considered centre-left politically speaking, their editorial boards
include journalists ranging from right to left ideology. For these reasons, we think,
the three newspapers can be representative of a significant segment of Portuguese,
Spanish and Irish societies.
The method for metaphorical identification is based on Stefanowitsch’s (2006)
'metaphorical pattern analysis' of target domains. This method consists of searching
for metaphorical expressions which contain words from their target domains. The
metaphorical expressions to which the target concepts and lexical items belong are
identified as metaphorical patterns. On the basis of the metaphors they instantiate,
groups of conceptual mappings are established. The identification of a metaphorical
pattern is based on the syntactic/semantic frame in which the target lexeme occurs.
Our analysis started by the selection of the three concepts, which led to the
identification and classification of the contexts including the following words:
Pt. austeridade, Sp. austeridad, En. austerity
Pt. corte(s)/cortar, Sp. recorte(s)/recortar, En. cut(s)
Pt. dívida, Sp. deuda, En. debt.
These keywords, which can be directly associated with austerity policies in the
domains of economy, finance and politics, give access to the conceptualisation of
austerity in the culture considered.
The corpus analysis was organised into two main stages. First, all the occur-
rences of the three aforementioned target lexemes and their derivatives were
identified. Then, the hits that constituted metaphorical expressions or, more pre-
cisely, metaphorical patterns related to austerity policies were selected. The total
hits and the metaphorical ones of the three target concepts are summarised in
Table 16.1.
The selection of the metaphorical uses not only excluded literal uses of the
lexemes but also uses not related to austerity policies and those referring to
countries other than that of the culture under consideration.
Secondly, every metaphorical pattern was individually analysed, taking into
account its context of use, the nature of the source domain, the type of motivation
and the mappings established across the domains. The metaphorical contexts were
classified in three general groups, namely, propositional schemas, which act as
models of thought and behaviour, image schemas, which provide structure for the
concept under study and are based on physical-embodied experiences such as force
and path, and event schemas, which are abstractions from experiences of certain
events, such as war, mission and therapy (cf. Sharifian 2011). The classification in
these three general groups and in specific sub-schemas made it possible to compare
the different conceptualisations and their frequencies across cultures.
1
Público (401.000), El País (1.500.000) and Irish Times (427.000).
Table 16.1 Occurrences of Targets Portugal Spain El País Ireland Irish

the keywords in the corpus Público Times
Hits Met. Hits Met. Hits Met.
Austerity 68 44 114 102 77 45
Cut 116 88 912 612 96 71
Debt 96 77 279 158 161 116
Total 280 209 1305 872 334 232
16.3 Theoretical Framework
The approach adopted in this research intends to profit from two general frame-
works—namely, Cultural Linguistics and Cognitive Linguistics—and make them
interact in the area of Conceptual Metaphor studies.
Cultural Linguistics is a multidisciplinary theoretical model whose ultimate goal
is to establish a framework for the study of language grounded in cultural cognition.
Recent developments in the field (Sharifian 2008, 2011, 2015, 2017; see also
Bernárdez 2008b; Frank et al. 2008; Frank 2015; Palmer 1996; Pishwa 2009) are
especially useful to explain how and why the different conceptual metaphors
identified in each language have emerged and spread across their communities.
Cultural Linguistics has been chosen as a general framework for the study of
how austerity is conceptualised across languages and cultures for two specific
reasons. First, because of its multidisciplinary approach to discourse, Cultural
Linguistics reveals itself as a very powerful umbrella framework to describe the
relationships between metaphor, culture and conceptualisation, by bringing together
the analytical and methodological tools of other theories interested in metaphor as a
discursive, conceptual, cognitive and embodied instrument. Namely, Conceptual
Metaphor Theory (Kövecses 2002; Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 1999) as extended
into (i) Corpus and Contextual analysis of metaphor (Bernárdez 2016;
Charteris-Black 2004; Kövecses 2009, 2010, 2015; Musolff and Zinken 2009;
Sardinha 2011; Semino 2008; Steen 2011, 2014; Stefanowitch and Gries 2006;
Vereza 2007, 2013), and into (ii) Critical Metaphor analysis (Charteris-Black 2004,
2005, 2013; Chilton 1996, 2004; Dirven et al. 2007; Hart 2010, 2014, 2015; Koller
2004, 2013, 2014; Lakoff 1996, 2004; Moreno Lara 2008; Musolff 2004; Soares da
Silva 2006, 2013, 2016). And second, Cultural Linguistics has provided and refined
a set of theoretical concepts coming both from Cognitive Linguistics and Linguistic
Anthropology that have proved to be very useful in the explanation of metaphor as
grounded in cultural cognition, and more specifically to understand how and why
the different conceptual metaphors for austerity have emerged and spread across the
Portuguese, Spanish and Irish communities. These ‘new’ constructs are: cultural
conceptualisation, cultural schema and cultural metaphor (Sharifian 2008, 2009,
2011, 2015).
Cognitive linguists have always shown interest in the social-contextual aspects
of language (Barlow 2000; Bernárdez 1995; Brandt and Brandt 2005; Geeraerts
et al. 1994; Geeraerts and Grondelaers 1995; Langacker 1994, 2001; Palmer 1996),
but it has not been until the last decade that this interest has developed into a real,
‘new’ social-turn to metaphor analysis by integrating and reviewing the theoretical
and methodological tools coming from other disciplines concerned with the rela-
tionships between language, culture and conceptualisation; linguistic anthropology
in the main.
From an epistemological point of view, the idea that “metaphorical concepts do
not arise from pre-stored mappings in the conventional conceptual system […] but
result from the priming effect of contextual factors in real situations of discourse on
the human mind” (Kövecses 2015: 49) seems to be well established within the field.
Today the emphasis has moved from considering metaphor as a thought-structuring
device to that of strategy that is born from a specific need to create a new discourse
for a new socio-cultural and historical situation (Díaz-Vera 2015; Romano and
Porto 2016). Understanding metaphor as a social and cultural product that is
transmitted from one generation to another, which is cognitively integrated in the
community in an unconscious way, and on which the principles and guidelines of a
culture and community are built (Bernárdez 2008a), brings the field straight into its
most recent approaches as a product of situated embodiment (Zlatev 1997), social
situatedness (Linblom and Ziemke 2002), situated cognition (Smith and Semin
2004), synergetic cognition (Bernárdez 2008b, in press), social cognition
(Augoustinos et al. 2006), and socio-cultural cognition (Frank 2008, 2015;
Sharifian 2008, 2011, 2015, 2017).
Within this action-based, dynamic approach to discourse, political metaphor, as
the case under study, is a paradigmatic example of a socio-culturally, situated
discursive strategy that emerges from the interactions between deeply entrenched
cultural-ideological knowledge, the specific socio-historical situation and the more
particular contextual factors, such as discourse type, intentions of participants, etc.
The persuasive and manipulative nature of political metaphors thus requires a
model that integrates the cognitive, social and discursive strategies in the expla-
nation of both their production and interpretation in real communicative situations,
and Cultural Linguistics can, in our opinion, help to bridge the gap between the
work being done within Cognitive Sociolinguistics (Geeraerts et al. 2010;
Kristiansen and Dirven 2008; Kristiansen and Geeraerts 2013) and Critical
Metaphor Analysis (Charteris-Black 2004, 2005, 2013; Hart 2010, 2014, 2015),
possibly giving rise to a new approach that could be named socio-cognitive critical
metaphor analysis.
From a methodological point of view, a culturally and discursive approach to
metaphor implies the acceptance that interpretative explanations of metaphors are
no longer sufficient for systematic, scientific studies. Experimental and data-driven,
corpus-based analyses are mandatory to corroborate hypothesis and, as in the case
under study, draw cross-cultural conclusions on the incidence and weight of the
different conceptual metaphors. This ‘empirical turn’ in socio-cognitive linguistics
(Geeraerts 2006; Glynn and Fischer 2010; Kristiansen and Dirven 2008;
Kristiansen et al. 2006; Pütz et al. 2014; Reif et al. 2013; Stefanowitsch and Gries
2006), is especially fruitful for the two main issues involved in metaphor analysis,
i.e. the identification of the metaphors in a corpus and the interpretation of their
specific function in discourse (Soares da Silva 2016).
16.4 Cultural Conceptualisations, Metaphors

and Schemas
We assume the premise that language construes the world in a particular way
depending on the specific context, speaker’s purpose or participants, among other
contextual variables, and it therefore provides different ways of directing attention
to certain aspects of what we are talking about or viewpoints (Langacker 1987).
Under this assumption, shared by both Cultural Linguistics and Cognitive
Linguistics, political-ideological metaphors, such as those based on the concept of
austerity in the political and economic field, can be considered cognitive strategies
by which specific communities or cultures create non-physical reality—social,
political, psychological and emotional worlds, that is, devices that have the power
to provide a particular perspective on especially salient subject matters in a culture
and to function as latent norms of conduct (Kövecses 2015: 83).
In this sense, the concept austerity in the Portuguese, Spanish and English Irish
press in the context of the 2008 Financial Crisis is a paradigmatic example of
cultural conceptualisation, conceptual structures that have cultural basis, embody
group-level cognitive systems or worldviews, and are encoded in and communi-
cated through features of human languages (Sharifian 2011, 2015), metaphor in the
case under study; hence the concept of cultural metaphor (Sharifian 2011). Cultural
Linguistics is thus interested in exploring conceptual metaphors that are culturally
constructed, that is, those metaphors that are specific to a culture or group and guide
their thinking and helps the understanding of certain domains of experience
(Sharifian 2015: 482).
Together with cultural metaphor, the notion of cultural schema is especially
useful to explain the more culture-specific conceptualisations of austerity in each of
the communities analysed, and the more ‘universal’ or global conceptualisations
shared by all three. Cultural schemas are “a culturally constructed sub-class of
schemas or cognitive structures which establish patterns of understanding and
reasoning, which are often elaborated by extension from knowledge of our bodies
as well as our experience of social interactions” (Sharifian 2015: 474). Much of the
embodiment on which conceptual systems are based is near-universal, but, at the
same time, cross-cultural differences can be depicted based on the different
socio-cultural and historical contexts. In this sense, the concepts of proposition
schemas, image schemas and event schemas (Johnson 1987; Quinn 1987; Palmer
1996; Sharifian 2011) have been especially useful for the analysis of austerity from
a cross-cultural perspective:
• PROPOSITIONAL SCHEMAS are abstractions which act as models of thought
and behaviour and “specify the relations that hold among them” (Quinn and
Holland 1987: 25, in Sharifian 2011: 10). Propositional schemas are, for
instance, those in which austerity is conceptualised as human behaviour, a
family, a house or building, living beings (animals and plants), illnesses, natural
forces, supernatural forces, objects and machines, in the main.
• IMAGE SCHEMAS are those which provide structure for concepts. Palmer
(1996) defines them as intermediate abstractions—between mental images and
abstract propositions—that are readily imagined and clearly related to
physical-embodied or social experience (Palmer 1996: 66, in Sharifian 2011: 9).
The most common image schemas by which austerity is conceptualised are:
force-weight, path, front-back, up-down, link, container and spiral.
• EVENT SCHEMAS are abstractions from experiences of certain events (Shank
and Abelson 1977). Austerity, for instance, is conceptualised as war, mission,
game, business and therapy, among others.
In short, the concepts of cultural conceptualisation, cultural metaphor and
cultural schema, seem very powerful to explain how the political-ideological
metaphors on which European politicians and mass media have built the concep-
tualisation of austerity in order to legitimatise very specific economic and political
measures from 2011 to 2013 (and beyond). More specifically, the notion of cultural
schema (propositional, image and event) can help, as we will see, to distinguish
both the near-universal more physical-embodied conceptualisations shared by the
three languages/cultures, and the more socio-historical and cultural conceptualisa-
tions of austerity of each community. Following Kövecses (2015), austerity would
be a paradigmatic/prototypical case of body-based social constructed metaphor,
since it has been constructed under the pressure of coherence deriving both from the
human body (embodied) and of the context in which the conceptualisation takes
place (socio-culturally situated). That is, a metaphor which is situationally, dis-
cursively, conceptually, cognitively and bodily constructed.
16.5 The Metaphorical Conceptualisation of Austerity
The metaphors used to conceptualise austerity can be grouped into the three types,
as presented in Sect. 16.4: propositional schemas, image schemas and event
schemas.
16.5.1 Propositional Schemas
Propositional schemas allow the conceptualisation of austerity and related concepts

in terms of models of thought and human behaviour, living entities, natural and
supernatural forces and physical or immaterial objects, as we can see in examples
(1)–(9), which include one example of each target in the three
languages/communities under study.
1. Adopção do pacote de austeridade mostra “uma maturidade incrível” dos

portugueses (Público, 10.07.11)
‘Adoption of the austerity package shows “an incredible maturity” from the
Portuguese’
2. Ya es incapaz de ocultar sus fracasos: al traje de la austeridad se le abren las
costuras pese a sus aparatos de propaganda, y por ellas asoma la Galicia real
(País, 08.01.12)
‘(Feijóo’s Gov.) is incapable of hiding its failures: all the seams of the suit of
austerity are being broken despite the propaganda apparatus, and the real Galicia
can be seen through them’
3. Yet education budgets at all levels are being cut, as are university research
budgets. Can we overcome this problem while sinking in our quicksand of debt
and austerity? (Irish Times, 25.03.11)
4. Não se poderá correr o risco de cortar o músculo pensando que se estará a cortar
na gordura. (Público, 15.06.11)
‘The chance of cutting the muscle while thinking that one is cutting the fat is
possible’
5. En cualquier caso CiU insiste en que ellos ya están “haciendo los deberes” con
los recortes (País, 12.01.12)
‘In any case, CiU insist they are already “doing their homework” with cuts’
6. The DUP would have you believe that the economic problems afflicting
Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom began on the 6 May
2010… I and my party have not joined in the siren calls to “resist the Tory cuts”
and to ignore what is a reality. (Irish Times, 9.03.11)
7. História sentimental da dívida (Público, 22.06.11)
‘The debt’s sentimental history’
8. La lentitud se paga cara en finanzas, porque aumenta la bola de nieve de la
deuda (País, 05.01.12)
‘Slowness is paid for dearly with money, because of the debt snowball’
9. Dear St Patrick—You once saved this nation from bondage. I am writing to you
to ask if you might consider helping out again. Let me explain. You were
kidnapped by Irish marauders, sold as a slave and, all in all, suffered a lot. In a
horrible twist of fate we, the children of Erin, find ourselves in much the same
state, except in our case the marauders were of the financial and political variety.
Instead of minding our master’s sheep on a cold, wet hill we have to work till
we drop paying off their debts. (Irish Times, 12.03.11)
The previous examples show how austerity policies and measures are
metonymically associated with human attributes and qualities, both positive ones
[such as responsibility, discipline, honesty, sacrifice, rigour, commitment and
honour, as in (1) and (5)] and negative (irresponsibility, laxity, obesity, cruelty,
despotism, slavery, humiliation, evil, obsession, madness and blindness).
Metaphorical mapping is also present here, in the sense that austerity policies and
measures are understood in terms of human attributes and behaviour, psychological
and moral attitudes, individual and national ideals. Economic austerity is therefore
understood in terms of psychological and moral austerity. Thus, the very abstract
idea of austerity policies is humanised or even divinised or demonised.
Also related to the domain of human behaviour is the conceptualisation of
institutional agents of austerity measures. The State is metaphorically conceptu-
alised as an obese and irresponsible person as in (4), and also as a household or
enterprise. The national economy is metaphorically conceptualised as a family
economy, the State management as a household/enterprise management, the State
budget as a family budget, national debts as family debts, the indebted State as an
indebted family.
The remaining propositional schema metaphors present austerity as non-human
entities. Austerity is conceptualised as illness, just as the global financial crisis was
conceptualised through the productive metaphor of illness (see Rojo López and Orts
Llopis 2010; Soares da Silva 2013). Austerity is also seen as an inevitable natural
force, purifying or destructive [as in (3)], like atmospheric and geological forces
and, especially, fire. The concept of austerity is thus part of the natural catastrophe
metaphor, which was very productive in the conceptualisation of the financial crisis
(see Soares da Silva 2013). It is usually conceptualised metaphorically as a
supernatural force or creature, specifically as a divine blessing, miracle or angel,
and as demon, monster or draconian force. Some of these supernatural metaphors
also serve to conceptualise the Government, the Troika and the European Union
and even the State debt. Other expressions in our corpus refer to austerity policies
and measures as a remedy and a venom, as a physical object, and even as an
artefact, especially a weapon or bomb.
The specific propositional schemas identified in the corpus and their frequencies
in the three newspapers are summarised in Table 16.2.
Regarding Portuguese, two main results should be highlighted. First, metaphors
based on the behaviour of persons or families represent the greatest part (50%) of
the propositional schema metaphors in the press corpus. If we add other metaphors
related to human beings, such as metaphors of disease, household and enterprise,
this percentage rises to 60.98%. Second, the Portuguese corpus presents a higher
number of propositional schema metaphors used in a positive sense: out of the 82
propositional schema metaphorical expressions found in the corpus, 67.91% were
used with a positive connotation and 32.09% were negative.
Specifically, the Portuguese journal Público shows that austerity policies are
metonymically associated with positive human attributes and qualities, such as
responsibility, social maturity (as in example (1) above), discipline, honesty, sac-
rifice, rigour, commitment and honour. Accepting and implementing austerity
measures means being responsible, disciplined honourable, reliable, patriotic,
courageous, a dedicated person with spirit of sacrifice, and a good student. Thus,
Portuguese citizens are conceptualised as reliable, honourable, stoic, exemplary
people and good students, as in “Depois de ter sido o bom aluno europeu, Portugal
terá de ser o bom arrependido europeu”, ‘After being the good student of Europe,
Portugal will have to be the good contrite European’. Sometimes, austerity is also
associated with negative human behaviour, such as cruelty, despotism, slavery,
humiliation, evil, obsession, madness and blindness (“cortar impiedosamente”, ‘to
cut ruthlessly’, “cegueira no corte”, ‘blindness in cutting’). To impose harsh aus-

terity is to be severe, cruel, obsessive, authoritative and despotic. The State is
metaphorically conceptualised as an obese person (“cortar nas gorduras do Estado”,
‘to cut in the fat of the State’) that is living above its means and indebted, and which
must urgently go on a diet, slim down and save money through austerity measures
(“O Governo promete ‘um emagrecimento claro’ do Estado”, ‘The government
promises ‘a clear slimming down’ of the State’). The national economy is
metaphorically conceptualised as a family economy, the State budget as a family
budget, national debts as family debts, the indebted State as an indebted family. The
Government and the Troika are metaphorically conceptualised as good or bad
people, and Portugal, through its Government as a good subservient student of the
Troika and of the European Union. Austerity and, especially, debt are also con-
ceptualised as illness, as “os males do endividamento e das gorduras do Estado”,
‘the diseases of debt and of the fat of the State’. Austerity is an inevitable natural
force, purifying or destructive, like atmospheric and geological forces, and a
supernatural force, like a divine blessing, miracle, or goddess (“a bênção da crise e
da austeridade”, ‘the blessing of crisis and austerity’) and like a monster, a demon
or a draconian force (“austeridade draconiana”, ‘draconian austerity’, “o monstro do
défice e da dívida”, ‘the monster of deficit and debt’). It is usually conceptualised as
a remedy and a venom, as a cup (“beber o cálice da austeridade”, ‘to drink the cup
of austerity’), as a machine, and debt is sometimes even conceptualised as a ticking
Table 16.2 Metaphors based on the propositional schemas

Portugal Spain Ireland
Público El País Irish Times
Human behaviour 37 49 12
(45.12%) (20.40%) (18.18%)
Family–family budget 4 15 2
(4.88%) (6.66%) (3.03%)
Building, house 4 2 1
(4.88%) (0.92%) (1.51%)
Enterprise – 9 –
(4.16%)
Illness 5 37 10
(6.10%) (17.12%) (16.66%)
Living being (animal or plant) – – 4
(6.06%)
Natural force 8 31 13
(9.76%) (14.35%) (19.69%)
Supernatural force 2 4 2
(2.44%) (1.85%) (3.03%)
Object/instrument 22 70 22
(physical or immaterial) (26.83%) (32.40%) (33.33%)
Total 82 216 66
% of all metaphors (39.23%) (24.77%) (28.44%)
bomb (“A nossa bomba-relógio é a dívida externa”, ‘Our time bomb is external
debt’).
In the Spanish newspaper El País, propositional schemas are the least frequent
(24.77%). Most metaphors show austerity and cuts as objects, instruments or
solutions, but in this latter case journalists put forward that they have failed or will
fail. Austerity is a suit with broken seams (as in example (2) above). Cuts are
obstacles to overcome, useless magic wands, wrong measures to improve the
current situation, as in “una solución que no está dando resultados”, ‘a solution
which is not giving any results’ and in “no basta para crear empleo”, ‘it’s not
enough to create employment’. Some metaphors have to do with human behaviour
and they are generally used to relate austerity and cuts to errors or sins: “Los
docentes rechazan los recortes para ‘pagar el despilfarro’ del Consell”, ‘Teachers
reject cuts to pay for the local government waste’; “Zapatero y Rajoy han cometido
ambos un grave error: recortar en ciencia”, ‘Both Zapatero and Rajoy have made a
big mistake: cutting in science’, “recortar es robar”, ‘to cut is to steal’. Only seldom
austerity measures are presented as essential values together with humility and
transparency, an attitude that must be praised and that politicians promise.
A number of metaphors conceptualise debt and cuts as natural forces affecting
people. Debt is a natural force: a snowball (“bola de nieve” see example (8) above),
a hurricane (“evitar que nuestro país se viera arrastrado por el huracán de la crisis de
deuda soberana”, ‘prevent our country to be dragged by the hurricane of the
sovereign debt crisis’). Debt is also an illness, as in “la estabilización de los mer-
cados para frenar la hemorragia de la deuda”, ‘the stabilisation of the markets stops
the haemorrhage of the debt’. Cuts are tempests, waves and other atmospheric
forces threatening the citizens, as in “Como tres faros en el océano cultural español
y en medio de la tormenta de los recortes presupuestarios, resisten airosamente el
Prado, el Reina Sofía y el Thyssen” (‘As lighthouses in the Spanish cultural ocean
and under the storm of budget cuts, [three museums] resist bravely, namely Prado,
Reina Sofia and Thyssen’). Cuts are symptoms of an ill body (“recortes sangrantes”,
‘bleeding cuts’), diseases that people and institutions suffer from and that can kill
them (“los recortes que están sufriendo los trabajadores de las Administraciones
públicas”, ‘the cuts being suffered by civil servants’; “Quienes padecemos los
recortes, no curaremos nuestras heridas, los recortes están matando la economía”,
‘those who suffer from the cuts will not heal our wounds, the cuts are killing the
economy’).
Finally, in the Irish Times, the frequency of propositional schema metaphors
(28.44%) is closer to that of event schemas (21.12%) than in the case of image
schemas (50.43%). Of the 66 propositional schemas found in the data all examples
have negative connotations except five which refer to austerity measures in other
countries. More than one-third (33.33%) of these propositional schemas
conceptualise austerity and cuts as very harmful objects and instruments. Austerity
measures and cuts are ‘thrown at civil servants by a rotten administration’, ‘a
straightjacket that ties the country’, ‘sharp’ and ‘slashing’, they ‘hurt the most
vulnerable’ and must be ‘kept in place’. Austerity is ‘a machine that does not work’,
or ‘a wedge’ driven between more and less developed countries; and debt a
‘crushing rock’. A second group of metaphors within this group presents austerity
and debt as natural elements and forces that are devastating the country (19.69%):
debt is ‘a maelstrom’, ‘headwind’, ‘a cloud’, ‘quicksand’ in which the country is
‘sinking’, cold ‘water’ investors do not want to dip their toes in, and ‘mud’ difficult
to go through; and austerity, in addition, is a ‘tidal wave’. A third recurrent source
domain the discourse of austerity draws from in the Irish Times is that of illness
(16.66%). Debt, thus ‘threatens contagion’, is ‘crippling’, ‘drains the lifeblood’ and
‘saps the appetite’ of the country, can be ‘toxic’, etc. Also worth mentioning in this
group of negative propositional schemas is the fact that austerity is conceptualised
as a ‘a savage animal’; debt is a wild horse that needs to be ‘reined’; austerity
measures, cuts and debt ‘bite’, ‘raise fears’ and ‘engulf’ Ireland.
16.5.2 Image Schemas
Image schemas allow to conceptualise austerity, cut(s) and debt in terms of

embodied and dynamic patterns of movements in the space, manipulation of
objects, and perceptual interactions, as illustrated in examples (10)–(18).
10. O antigo governador do Banco de Portugal não tem dúvidas de que há uma
“longa e dolorosa estrada” de austeridade (Público, 05.07.11)
‘The former governor of the Portuguese Bank has no doubt that there is a “long
and painful path” of austerity.’
11. “Todo ello bajo el paraguas de una política de austeridad”, dijo, aunque a
continuación matizó que no recortará en servicios imprescindibles (País,
10.01.12)
‘“All under the umbrella of austerity”, he said, even though he clarified that
basic services would not be cut’
12. Congress economic advisor Paul Sweeney said the austerity programme drawn
up by the previous Fianna Fail and Green coalition was likely to plunge Ireland
into another year of a downward deflationary spiral. (Irish Times, 15.03.11)
13. Não querem sacrificar a possibilidade de conseguir cortes na despesa mais
profundos por parte do Governo. (Público, 15.07.11)
‘They aren’t willing to sacrifice the possibility of getting the Government to cut
deeper in the expenses.’
14. Este recorte es, sin duda, un paso más hacia el vacío cultural (País, 08.01.12)
‘This cut is, clearly, a further step backwards in the cultural vacuum’
15. Finance minister Sammy Wilson said he had taken every chance available to
him to ease the blow of spending cuts and he accused the SDLP and Ulster
Unionists of having no alternative, costed proposals. (Irish Times, 09.03.11)
16. Esta é uma crise de dívidas e, como tal, traz consigo a capacidade de arrastar
tanto credores como devedores para o fundo do abismo. (Público, 13.06.11)
‘This is a debt crisis and, as such, it carries along with it the capacity to drag
both creditors as well as obligators to the bottom of the abyss.’
17. La elevada deuda privada y la falta de competitividad suponen un lastre (País,

29.01.12)
‘High private debt and the lack of competitiveness are a burden’
18. Leaving aside the immediate question of the interest rate, the Government
believes these tests will necessitate a significant amount of new capital for the
banks. It fears that such recapitalisations, added to the burden of the rising
national debt, may prove unsustainable. (Irish Times, 09.03.11)
The most frequent image schemas are force, with specifications such as com-
pulsion, restraint, blockage and balance, as in examples (15), (17) and (18); path,
whose basic structure is the source-path-goal schema, as in example (10), and
up-down, as in examples (12), (13) and (16). Other image schemas include
front-back direction, as in (14), spiral, as in (12), link, and container, as in (11).
The specific image schemas identified in the corpus and their frequency in the three
newspapers are summarised in Table 16.3.
Within the Portuguese data, austerity is conceptualised as “uma longa e dolorosa
estrada”, ‘a long and painful path’, as in example (10), which is necessary for
Portugal to reach the “metas de redução do défice e da dívida”, ‘targets for the
reduction of deficit and debt’ agreed with the Troika, and as a “força coerciva”,
‘restraining force’ that obliges one to “travar e reduzir o endividamento do Estado”,
‘stop and reduce the State debt’. More emotionally, austerity is conceptualised as a
“via de sentido único”, ‘one-way street’ that has to be travelled in order to emerge
from the crisis. Austerity is also conceptualised as a trajector that has to be “de-
sacelerar, travar, desviar”, ‘slowed, stopped, diverted’ and “fazer marcha atrás”,
‘reversed’, as “já chegou ao limite”, ‘it has already reached the limit’ and even gone
“para além das metas”, ‘beyond the targets’ defined by the Troika; and as “uma
caminhada apocalíptica”, ‘an apocalyptic journey’, which has left millions of people
unemployed and caused deep economic recession. Other force schema metaphors are
manifested in expressions, such as “forte e terrível impacto das medidas de austeri-
dade”, ‘the strong and terrible impact of austerity measures’, “novos ‘apertos’ que a
austeridade impõe”, ‘new ‘constraints’ that austerity imposes’, “cortes drásticos”,
‘drastic cuts’, “fardo da dívida”, ‘burden of debt’ and “Governo irá insistir junto da
Troika para alívio da dívida”, ‘the government will insist that the Troika offer debt
relief’. Other image-schema metaphors include (i) the front-back schema, as “gov-
erno avança com novas medidas de austeridade”, ‘government puts forward new
austerity measures’, “inverter o rumo”, ‘does a U-turn’, “recuo das medidas de
austeridade”, ‘to go back on these austerity measures’, and “austeridade recessiva”,
‘recessive austerity’; (ii) the up-down schema, as examples (13) and (16), “dívida
cresceu mais do que o previsto”, ‘debt has grown more than expected’ and “aus-
teridade afunda economia”, ‘austerity sinks the economy’; (iii) the spiral schema, as
“espiral da dívida”, ‘spiral of debt’; (iv) the link schema, as in “conciliar redução da
dívida com crescimento económico”, ‘conciliate debt reduction with economic
growth’ and “novos cortes para compensar o desvio orçamental”, ‘new cuts in order
to compensate for the budgetary deviation’; and (v) the container schema, as “não há
margem para mais austeridade”, ‘no room for more austerity’, “pacotes de
Table 16.3 Metaphors based Portugal Spain Ireland

in image schemas Público El País Irish times
Source-path-goal 11 37 2
(13.25%) (10.60%) (1.70%)
Front-back 6 8 –
(7.23%) (2.29%)
Up-down 15 95 33
(18.07%) (27.22%) (20.20%)
Force 31 179 72
(37.35%) (51.28%) (61.53%)
Spiral 3 – 4
(3.61%) (3.41%)
Container 17 30 6
(20.48%) (8.60%) (5.12%)
Total 83 349 117
% of all metaphors (39.71%) (40.02%) (50.43%)
austeridade”, ‘austerity packages’ and “contenção do débito” ,‘debt contention’.

When we examine the positive and negative uses of image-schema metaphors, we
find some more negative metaphors (58.11%) than positive ones (41.89%).
In the Spanish corpus, image-schema metaphors are very frequent (40%),
especially force, up-down and path, as we can see in “La elevada deuda privada y la
falta de competitividad suponen un lastre”, ‘High private debt and the lack of
competitiveness are a burden’. Cuts are forces affecting people and economy in a
negative way (“La Generalitat rebaja el impacto del recorte”, ‘the Catalan gov-
ernment reduces the impact of the cut’), and they have negative effects on people
and entities, as in “los recortes conllevan restricciones en cadena y no parece que
vayan a reactivar la economía”, ‘cuts involve chain restrictions and are not likely to
revive the economy’. Cuts are burdens that people must carry (“medidas [que]
cargan el peso de los recortes entre los funcionarios”, ‘measures that put the weight
of cuts among civil servants’). Debts and cuts increase (go up, reach, exceed limit,
add, scale) and decrease (go down, reduce, devaluate), as in “el recorte en Cultura
va en aumento”, ‘the cut in Culture is increasing’, or in “La Comunidad Valenciana
se ha hundido” ,‘The Valencian Community has sunk’. Cuts and austerity are paths
but not easy ones (“El camino de la austeridad está repleto de piedras”, ‘The path of
austerity is full of stones’), and the end of the journey is always problematic: a
cul-de-sac (“callejón sin salida de los recortes”), a step towards emptiness (“Este
recorte es, sin duda, un paso más hacia el vacío cultural”, ‘This cut is, clearly, a
further step backwards in the cultural vacuum’), or a deep abyss (“las medidas de
austeridad conducen al abismo económico”, ‘austerity measures lead to the eco-
nomic abyss’).
Image-schema metaphors are by far the most frequent of all three subtypes in the
Irish English corpus (50.4%). All image-schematic metaphors delve into the neg-
ative, pernicious nature of austerity measures and policies. 61.53% of these
metaphors are force schemas, which conceptualise cuts, debts and austerity
measures as hitting and affecting people and keeping Ireland subdued under an
unsustainable weight or burden. Cuts, austerity (measures) and debt “hit”, “impact”,
“affect” and “have effect on” and are “inflicted on” ordinary people, welfare and
budgets. Cuts, austerity and debt also “assert control”, “counter”, exert “pressure”
and “force” and “push” people into poverty. Cuts are also “imposed” by govern-
ments (UK and the Troika), governments try “to ease the blow of cuts” (example
15), attempt at “minimising the effects of cuts”, “hamper efforts” to safeguard
human rights. And, people “resist” and “react” to cuts; etc. Within the force image
schema, the most frequent conceptualisation is that of force-weight. Debt thus is
“(un)sustainable”, the State is “under the weight of” sovereign debt, debt is a
“burden” (example 18) and the country is “debt-laden”. Austerity, in addition, has
“subdued” Ireland, “weighs” on households, does not “support” growth and aus-
terity measures are “swingeing”. A second productive image schema within aus-
terity discourse is the up-down schema (20.20%). Within this schema, cuts are
“deep”, “minimised”, “scaled down”, “reduced”, show “low levels”, “peaks” and
“backdrops”. Debt “rises”, “grows”, “increases”, “mounts”, “goes beyond”, “pulls
lower”, “deepens”, “is downgraded”, “falls”, is “piled up” and “swells records”.
And austerity “restricts growth”, and is a means of further “depressing” the econ-
omy. Other image-schema metaphors include the container schema, as in “it is
difficult for Ireland to wriggle out of austerity” or “austerity comes in a package”;
and the spiral schema, as in “austerity can plunge Ireland into a downward
deflationary spiral” (example 12), or cuts are “turned round”, “reversed”.
16.5.3 Event Schemas
Event schemas allow to conceptualise the implementation of austerity policies and

related activities as certain events or even other actions, namely war, competitive
game, show business, household management, mission and medical practice,
especially painful therapy or treatment, as shown in examples (19)–(27).
19. O compromisso do Governo de impor uma equidade social na austeridade
através da justa repartição dos sacrifícios (Público, 15.07.11)
‘The government commitment as to impose a policy of social equity in aus-
terity by means of a fair distribution of sacrifices’
20. La oposición ha hecho un diagnóstico muy distinto: “No hay ni austeridad, ni
inversiones ni generación de empleo” (País, 31.01.12)
‘The opposition has made a very different diagnosis: “There is no austerity,
inversions nor creation of employment”’
21. The poisonous cocktail of austerity concocted by the witch doctors in
Brussels and in Frankfurt because of the sickness of the financial system is
continued to be force-fed to the people—Joe Higgins TD coins a new oxy-
moron. Coming to an empty bar near you: the Cocktail of austerity (Irish Times,
11.03.11)
22. O PS tem que participar na definição das medidas de “salvação nacional”, já

que é necessário “novos cortes” (…) É esta a altura de o PS contribuir para
“salvar o país” (Público, 05.07.11)
‘The Socialist Party has to participate in the definition of measures for “na-
tional salvation”, since “new cuts” (…). This is the time for the Socialist Party
to contribute to “save the country”’
23. Aseguró que su formación defenderá los derechos sociales frente a los
recortes que promueve López (País, 19.01.12)
‘He assured that his group will defend social rights instead of the cuts pro-
moted by López’
24. The report found the memos provided “clear warnings” on the risks of so-called
pro-cyclical fiscal action in which tax cuts and increased public spending was
fuelling the boom excessively (Irish Times, 2.03.11)
25. Os cortes já previstos mas confirmados no acordo de resgate financeiro não
serão batalhas fáceis. (Público, 18.06.11)
‘The cuts already planned but committed to the financial rescue agreement will
not be easy battles.’
26. ¿Cómo puede no actuar cuando el precio de la deuda amenaza con sumirnos a
todos en una recesión más grave que la de 1930 (País, 06.01.12)
‘How can (the ECB) not intervene when the debt price is menacing with
driving us all into a more severe recession than in 1930’
27. The draft competitiveness pact will be submitted for the approval of any
non-euro leader who wishes to adopt it as part of an anticipated agreement on
new measures to step up the battle against the sovereign debt crisis. (Irish
Times, 24.03.11)
The event/action schema metaphors share some features, such as conflict,
aggressiveness, competitiveness, sacrifice and suffering capacity and (im)morality.
The event schema metaphors identified in the corpus and their frequency in the
three newspapers are summarised in Table 16.4.
Regarding Portuguese, metaphors of war and mission are the most frequent in
the corpus. Metaphors of war, such as in (25), are manifested in other expressions
both with a positive connotation, such as “‘um governo de guerra’ para fazer
cumprir o acordo que foi estabelecido com a troika”, ‘“a government of war’ in
order to enforce the agreement that was established with the troika’) and with a
negative connotation, such as “combater a austeridade” ,‘combating austerity’,
“cruzada antiausteridade”, ‘anti-austerity crusade’, “programas de austeridade de
uma violência sem paralelo”, ‘austerity programs of an unparalleled violence’,
“capitulação de Portugal perante a troika”, ‘Portugal’s capitulation before the
Troika’. Metaphors of mission and sacrifice, such as those in (19) and (22) are very
persuasive and manipulative in the justification and implementation of the harsh
austerity measures. In fact, these metaphors allow us to understand that the
implementation of austerity is “um imperativo nacional”, ‘a national imperative’,
“uma obrigação moral”, ‘a moral obligation’, “a única solução para salvar o país”,
‘the only solution to save the country’; cuts are “necessários e inevitáveis”,
‘necessary and inevitable’ and “sacrifícios patrióticos”, ‘patriotic sacrifices’; the

government and the Troika have the “missão gloriosa”, ‘glorious mission’ to
implement the severe adjustments programme, cuts and tax hikes; and the
Portuguese people have “o dever de fazer os necessários e inevitáveis sacrifícios”,
‘the duty to make necessary and inevitable sacrifices’. These moral metaphors have
a strong positive connotation. The household management metaphor is manifested
in expressions such as “é tempo de arrumar a casa”, ‘it’s time to put the house in
order’, “é tempo de emagrecer a despesa e de arrumar a casa para cumprir o
memorando”, ‘it’s time to slim down spending and get the house in order to comply
with the memorandum’. The game metaphor includes expressions, such as “jogar o
argumento da transparência para anunciar outro pacote de austeridade”, ‘to play the
argument of transparency to announce another austerity package’. There are also
metaphors of painful treatment and therapy even with positive connotations, such as
“dura cura de austeridade imposta pela troika”, ‘the harsh austerity cure imposed by
the Troika’, “grandes cortes na despesa pública são a cura óbvia”, ‘profound cuts to
public expenditure are the obvious cure’, “várias doses de austeridade”, ‘various
doses of austerity’ and “sangria da Troika”, ‘Troika’s bloodletting’. Within the total
number of event schema metaphors found in the Portuguese corpus, there is a clear
predominance of positive metaphors: 71.23% were used in a positive sense and
28.77% were negative.
Event/action metaphors are very frequent (35%) in the Spanish newspaper El
País. The most frequent and varied action metaphors belong to the domain of
confrontation and war, as in “La austeridad a toda costa es una estrategia errónea, y
no servirá de nada”, ‘Austerity at all costs is wrong strategy, and will not help’. The
war metaphors are especially frequent with cuts, as in “Los recortes en la sanidad
pública han puesto en peligro mi vida”, ‘Cuts in public health have endangered my
Table 16.4 Metaphors based Portugal Spain Ireland

in event schemas Público El País Irish
times
War 20 183 37
(45.45%) (59.61%) (75.51%)
Competition game 2 4 3
(4.55%) (1.30%) (6.12%)
Show business 2 1 –
(4.55%) (0.03%)
Household 4 – 2
management (9.09%) (4.08%)
Mission 11 90 3
(25.00%) (29.31%) (6.12%)
Therapy 5 20 4
(11.36%) (6.51%) (8.16%)
Others – 9 –
(2.93%)
Total 44 307 49
(21.05%) (35.20%) (21.12%)
life’. People oppose, protest and organise frequent demonstrations against cuts and
austerity measures in general; in fact, the phrases “contra los recortes” (‘against
cuts’), “no a los recortes” (‘no to cuts’), “protesta contra/por los recortes” (‘protest
against/because of cuts’) and “manifestación contra/por” (‘demonstration
against/because of’) are very frequent.
Austerity measures threaten and attack the population, as in “Atenazada por la
deuda”, ‘Threatened by the debt’, in “el precio de la deuda amenaza con sumirnos a
todos en una recesión más grave que la de 1930”, ‘the debt price is menacing with
driving us all into a more severe recession than in 1930’ or in “el recorte pre-
supuestario es ‘un ataque’ al servicio público”, ‘the budget cut is an attack to public
service’. Cuts are menaces (as in “Los recortes suponen una seria amenaza”, ‘cuts
are a real menace’), hacks (“hachazos”) and deathblows, and there are victims (as in
“la cultura será una de las principales víctimas de los brutales recortes económicos
que nos acechan”, ‘culture will be one of the main victims of the brutal economic
cutbacks that haunt us’). As a consequence, the population must defend themselves
and what they consider as its social rights, as in “su formación defenderá los
derechos sociales frente a los recortes que promueve López”, ‘his group will defend
social rights against the cuts promoted by López’, or in “El nuevo rector coruñés
carga contra los recortes en presencia de Feijóo”, ‘The new rector of La Coruña
charges against cuts in the presence of Feijóo’.
On the other hand, austerity and cuts imply sacrifices. Austerity is an obligation
and must be asked for and accepted with resignation, as in “Andalucía ya ha hecho
grandes esfuerzos de austeridad”, ‘Andalusia has already made great austerity
efforts’, or in “la oposición en el Ayuntamiento de Valencia habían renunciado a
coche y escolta como gesto de austeridad”, ‘the opposition in Valencia’s City
Council had renounced car and escort as a gesture of austerity’. Cuts are sacrifices
that must be made to avoid punishment. Thus they must be accepted, tolerated (“los
recortes imprescindibles deberán hacerse con criterios de racionalidad”, ‘necessary
cuts should be made with criteria of rationality’). But this sacrifice is sometimes
sterile (“aplicándose con fervor casi religioso al cultivo de la mística del sacrificio
estéril, de los recortes compulsivos”, ‘pursuing with almost religious fervor to
cultivate the mystique of the sterile sacrifice, that of compulsive cuts’). Finally, cuts
are drugs or therapies that generally do not work, as in “Imagino los puños apre-
tados de padres de familia desempleados, a los que el Estado inyecta en vena
recortes”, ‘I picture unemployed family fathers with their fists clenched, to which
the State inject cuts directly into their veins’.
In the Irish data, event/action metaphors are the least frequent (21.12%) of the
schemas. As Portuguese and Spanish, the most productive metaphor within this last
category in the Irish Times is war/confrontation, showing 75.51% of all
event/actions schemas. Cuts, debts and austerity measures are again conceptualised
in a very negative way, since they are targeting the State and people, and thus
should be combated. Cuts are “a weapon” targeting state assets and emigration,
“fuel” for a bomb, “brutal”, “dramatic” and “threatening”. People and the
government “struggle with”, “march against”, “take action over”, “oppose to”,
“protest at” and “dispute over” cuts. People should “combat”, “challenge”, “face”,
“breach”, “confront”, “upheaval”, “discord over”, “step up against” (example 27),
“struggle against” and “quell” debt and austerity, as well as implement
“debt-fighting formulas”. There are “victims” of austerity and cuts, and austerity
should “be strongly opposed”. Other event/action schemas present in the Irish data
are: the therapy schema, as in “there is no recovery after austerity measures” or “a
poisonous cocktail of austerity measures is concocted by the witch doctors in
Brussels and in Frankfurt because of the sickness of the financial system is con-
tinued to be force-fed to the people” (example 21); and the game schema, as in
“Republicans and the conservative Wall Street Journal were cheerleaders for the
fiscal austerity and cutbacks enacted by Fianna Fáil”.
16.6 Conclusion
The cultural schemas activated in the three newspapers considered are based on
ideological metaphors, which, although contextually related to a similar ideological
agenda of austerity, show cultural differences, considering that the three papers
have a similar ideological orientation. Propositional Schemas, Image Schemas and
Event Schemas appear in the three cultures studied, but with different weights or
incidence. Table 16.5 synthesises the total number and relative frequency of the
three types of metaphors of austerity found in the three newspapers.
Comparatively, the Portuguese journal Público resorts to metaphors based on
propositional schemas—mainly those related to human behaviour—more often
(39.23%) than the Spanish (24.77%) and the Irish (28.44%) journals. The Spanish
El País shows a preference for event schema metaphors more often (35.20%) than
the Portuguese (21.05%) and the Irish (21.12%) journals, especially metaphors
related to war and confrontation, and thus negative connotations are predominant.
Finally, half of the metaphors in the Irish Times correspond to image schemas, more
specially force–weight. Whereas a relatively high amount of metaphors have a
positive connotation in the Portuguese journal (60.93% from the total number of
metaphorical expressions), Spanish and Irish news refer to austerity negatively.
More specifically:
(a) The Portuguese Público is rich in metaphors of obesity, indebted family, good
student and sacrifice, by which the political and economic elites aim to con-
vince the Portuguese that they must accept austerity measures. The emotional
and moral arguments point to a punishment resulting from “living above one’s
means”, which implies accepting the drastic cuts addressing the social expenses
of the State, wage reductions, fiscal sacrifices and poverty, on the grounds that
“there is no alternative”. The Portuguese conceptualisation of austerity echoes a
conservative and religious morality of self-discipline, punishment and future

reward.
(b) The Spanish El País depicts a country fighting against the crisis and the austerity
measures that it has brought about. The idea of sacrifice and moral values is not
very frequent. In contrast with the Portuguese case, where positive and negative
connotation metaphors alternate (60.93% vs. 39.07%), 91% of metaphors in the
Spanish journal had a negative connotation. Austerity is something to fight
against. Debts are problems and threats. Cuts are problems, dangers or obstacles,
natural forces that destroy, illnesses and anomalies that need specific therapies.
Only austerity is seldom presented as a positive human behaviour, a solution, a
necessary sacrifice or a therapy to the crisis, a way out from it.
(c) The Irish Times conceptualises austerity in terms of force-weight mappings in
the main. On the one hand, cuts, debts and austerity measures are forced,
imposed on people and countries. As a consequence, Ireland cannot sustain the
enormous weight or burden imposed by EC. On the other hand, cuts, debts and
austerity measures are brutal weapons hurting people and they should be
combated. In the case of Ireland, it is worth noticing that there are many
references to other countries (Portugal, Greece and Spain) and this clearly
indicates that, although the crisis was hitting Ireland in 2011, the message was
that it was “not as seriously as in other countries”.
In conclusion, the differences in the frequency of the types of schema and the
specific metaphors suggest that different socio-historical and cultural conceptuali-
sations result in the different types and rates of metaphors in the three cultures under
analysis, i.e. a deep conservative morality of self-discipline and punishment, in the
case of Portugal; a strong sense of outrage against austerity measures and their
creditors, in Spain; and the idea that the crisis and its effects were hitting the country
but not as seriously as others, in Ireland.
Even though these results cannot be automatically applied to the entire
Portuguese, Spanish and Irish societies, we do think that they represent a significant
segment of their communities. Further research including other newspapers or other
metaphorical mappings can test the extent and consistency of our conclusions.
Table 16.5 The three types Portugal Spain Ireland

of austerity-related metaphors Público El País Irish
Times
Propositional 82 216 66
schemas (39.23%) (24.77%) (28.44%)
Image schemas 83 349 117
(39.71%) (40.02%) (50.43%)
Event schemas 44 307 49
(21.05%) (35.20%) (21.12%)
Total 209 872 232
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Author Biographies
Augusto Soares da Silva is Professor of Portuguese Linguistics at the Catholic University of

Portugal. His research focuses on lexical semantics, grammar and conceptualisation, and language
variation and change within the framework of Cognitive Linguistics. He is also interested in
metaphor, ideology and discourse. He now coordinates two research projects on the comparison of
European and Brazilian Portuguese: Convergence and Divergence (funded by the Portuguese
Foundation for Science and Technology), and Conceptualisation of Emotions (funded by
Gulbenkian Foundation). His book The World of Meanings in Portuguese: Polysemy, Semantics
and Cognition won an award from the Portuguese Language Society. He is the director of the
Center for Philosophical and Humanistic Studies.
Maria Josep Cuenca is Professor of Catalan Linguistics at the University of Valencia (Spain) and
member of the Catalan Language Academy (Institut d’Estudis Catalans). Her research focuses on
text grammar and discourse analysis, especially, deixis, compound sentences, connectives,
discourse markers and interjections, among other subjects related to the interface between syntax
and discourse. She is also interested in similes and metaphor in the general framework of
Cognitive Linguistics. She is currently a member of the project Grampint (Grammar, Pragmatics
and Multimodal Interaction) financed by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y
Competitividad and the COST Action IS 1312 TextLink: Structuring Discourse in Multilingual
Europe.
Manuela Romano is Senior Lecturer in English Linguistics at the Universidad Autónoma de

Madrid. In her academic career she has been active in several fields: English historical linguistics,
metaphor and similes in discourse, and narrative studies, all within socio-cognitive approaches to
language, and she is currently working on the discourse of social protest movements. She now
co-ordinates the research project Emergent and Peripheral Discourses: Critical and
Socio-Cognitive Approach, funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad,
and has recently edited the volume Exploring Discourse Strategies in Social and Cognitive
Interactions. Multimodal and Cross-Linguistic Perspectives, John Benjamins 2016.
Chapter 17
Cultural Conceptualisations of DEMOCRACY
and Political Discourse Practices in Ghana
Gladys Nyarko Ansah
17.1 Introduction
Ghana is a highly multilingual/multi-ethnic country with between 70–80 indige-

nous languages (Anderson and Ansah 2015; Ansah 2014; Gyasi 1997).
Nevertheless, English is the official language of governance. Officially, Ghana
practices modern democratic governance and requires the participation of all adult
citizens (legally guaranteed under the 1992 constitution). However, the majority of
the population do not have adequate proficiency in the English they need to fully
participate in the political process. This may explain why the percentage of the
population that actually votes during elections is generally low. However, with the
spread of privately owned media stations across the country, broadcasting in local
languages is helping not only to complement the English language media but also to
develop some Ghanaian languages, e.g. Akan (Agyekum 2000; Anyidoho 2001).
According to Agyekum (2000) Akan is being modernised in the media through
lexical expansion in order for it to address new experiences of modern life in
Ghana, e.g. in politics, economics, science and technology etc. The main means
identified by which this lexical expansion has been taking place is by lexical
creativity or innovation—the creation of new words to denote new concepts (Addo
2002). Lexical creativity through the media also occurs in other Ghanaian
languages.
Democracy, which has become part of modern life in Ghana, is one of the
concepts that are relatively new to traditional Ghanaian culture that needs to be
captured through lexical innovation because it. While lexical items may simply
describe situations, they may also act as labels for culturally construed conceptu-
alisations (worldviews) of the situations they describe (Sharifian 2007; see also
Palmer 1996). Even though the concept ‘democracy’ may appear to be nearly
G.N. Ansah (&)

University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana
e-mail: gansah@ug.ed

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_17
370 G.N. Ansah
universal, findings from cross-cultural research, (e.g. Ansah 2014, 2011; Sharifian
2007, 2003; Kövecses 2003, 2005; Maalej 1999; Lutz 1988) suggest that different
socio-cultural groups filter the conceptualisations of such concepts to reflect con-
struals that are specific and salient to a particular socio-cultural group.
Sharifian (2007, 2013), suggests that democracy originally emerged from certain
culturally construed conceptualisations of western democracies with their founda-
tions in nineteenth century classical liberalism, a view that elevated the status of the
individual. We may say then that democracy (as practiced in Ghana) is motivated
by western-based conceptualisations because it has western origins. Nevertheless,
like many African societies, Ghanaians live in cultures that tend to elevate the
common interest of society above that of any single individual, and where a per-
son’s individuality or self-identity is immersed in the society (Agyekum 2004).
Thus, we may infer that while the discourse norms of western-based democra-
cies guarantee freedom of speech, and permit open and critical evaluation of higher
authority, the discourse norms of traditional political systems in Ghana require the
constant need to save the face of discourse participants, and emphasise politeness
and decorum, especially in public discourses (Agyekum 2004). Western-based
culturally construed democracy co-exists with traditional political systems in
Ghana. Thus, we may conclude the cultural conceptualisations that motivate and
underpin discourse norms about democracy in western cultures appear mutually
incompatible with the cultural conceptualisations that underpin discourse norms in
Ghanaian traditional cultures.
Agyekum (2004) has attributed the increasing use of invective language, in place
of politeness, indirectness and euphemisms, in Ghanaian political discourses situ-
ation to lack of traditional oratory skills among the actors in Ghanaian political
discourses. However, I shall argue that the current trends in political discourses in
Ghana (and the responses they evoke) reflect a clash of worldviews (political
systems). In other words, the current situation may signal a reconceptualisation of
democracy (i.e. a gradual restructuring of the discursive domain of politics) which
is uniquely Ghanaian. This new conceptualisation is influenced or shaped by
aspects of conceptualisations from both Ghanaian traditional cultures (in which the
actors live), and western-based cultures from where modern democracy appear to
have emerged.
Cultural Linguists assumes that political discourse is not free from cultural
influences. On the contrary it views, political discourse as heavily entrenched in
cultural conceptualisations which reflect salient cultural practices (Polzenhagen and
Wolf 2007; Sharifian 2013: 27). Concurring with these assumptions, this chapter
examines the cultural conceptualisations of democracy in Ghana. It also explores
how such conceptualisations challenge or interrelate with the cultural conceptual-
isations of traditional politics in Ghana (as described in the literature, Abotchie et al.
2006) as well as the effects such conceptualisations have on discourse practices in
contemporary Ghanaian political discourses.
The data for analysis consist of linguistic labels or lexical concepts that are used
to describe and talk about democracy and freedom of speech in Ghana. The data
were collated from talk radio programmes that were broadcast in three major
17 Cultural Conceptualisations of DEMOCRACY and Political … 371
Ghanaian languages that are widely spoken in Ghana (Akan, Ewe and Ga-Dangbe).
Data also came from one post-election, anti-government demonstration speech and
two newspaper articles that responded to the anti-government demonstration speech
in 2004.1 All words which were originally in a Ghanaian language were translated
into English for analysis. The full context within which each of the selected
excerpts was made is provided.
17.2 Defining Democracy—Western-Based

Conceptualisations
Gyekye (2015) asserts that defining ‘democracy’ is not difficult. However,

Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (2011), believes the concept may have several different
meanings, and mean different things to different people operationally defining the
concept as “a form of government in which power and civic responsibility are
exercised by all adult citizens, directly or indirectly through their freely elected
representatives”, the most widely accepted definition, according to Gyekye (2015),
is Abraham Lincoln’s: “a government of the people, by the people, and for the
people”. The foundations of Lincoln’s definition have been traced to the etymology
of the Greek words, demos (people) and kratos/kraetia (rule/power), (Gyekye 2015;
Becker and Raveloson 2008; Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung 2011). Key pillars of
democracy include:
• Citizen participation—citizens are part of the decision-making process on
matters that affect them. The decision-making process involves a two-way
consultative process (communication) between the rulers and the ruled.
• Political tolerance—democracy accommodates different viewpoints/worldviews
within society.
• Human rights (democracy ensures individual citizen’s fundamental rights to life,
freedom of speech, and so on).
The notion of freedom of speech, which is closely associated with the concept of
democracy, may be loosely defined as being able to speak freely without censorship
or limitation. It is recognised as a human right under Article (19) of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UN 1948). It is also recognised in international
human rights law by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(1966). In western cultures, the individual personality rights constitute the core of
human rights—in their strictest sense, human rights are ‘inherent to the individu-
ality of each person’ (Becker and Raveloson 2008). In this regard, human rights, as
defined above, form the foundations of democracy.
The concept of freedom of speech, as defined above, is inherently contradictory
to the foundations of traditional societies in Ghana where the common good of
The 2004 elections were significant because it was the first elections after the repeal.
1
372 G.N. Ansah
society is elevated above that of any single individual, and where each person’s
individuality or self-identity is immersed in the society (Agyekum 2004). For
instance, even though Ghana became a member of the United Nations in 1957, and
the 1992 constitution guarantees the right to freedom of speech or expression, the
country’s criminal libel and seditious laws, which were passed by the parliament of
Ghana’s first republic, (Act 29) of the Criminal Code 1960 constitution, remained in
its law books until 2001. How has this freedom been exercised in Ghana since the
repeal of the criminal libel laws, and in the light of the apparent inherent conflict
with traditional values?
17.3 Background Studies
Throughout Ghana’s post-independence history, political groups in power, partic-

ularly, military regimes have often shown vindictive and repressive tendencies
towards their perceived opponents, i.e. people who held different opinions and
openly criticised the government in power. For instance, following the overthrow of
General Akufo, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), and later
PNDC, both led by Rawlings, executed by firing squad three former heads of state,
two senior military officers and five other military personnel. Such repressive
tendencies were not directed at perceived opponents in the military alone but also at
the civilian population. For example, on 30 June2 1982, three Ghanaian Supreme
Court judges, including a nursing mother, were allegedly abducted and murdered
by some members of the AFRC because they had overturned decisions of the
AFRC’s Special Courts (Shillington 1992). Several hundred other Ghanaians also
either disappeared or were killed.
Particularly the AFRC, which metamorphosed into Provisional National
Defence Council (PNDC) in 1981 and then the National Democratic Congress
(NDC) in 1992, in particular, used institutional, legislative and practical instruments
to repress perceived opponents. For instance, it used Ghana’s criminal libel and
seditious laws to imprison and torture journalists and individuals who were critical
of the regime. Wiredu (1997–1998) traces the origin of the criminal libel law in
Ghana to the English common law (English Statute of Westminster 1275) which
was developed in the era of absolute monarchy when kings and queens ruled by
divine rights under the doctrine of monarchical infallibility, i.e. kings and queens
could not do wrong. Thus, criticising or insulting the king/queen or saying/writing
anything about them or their rule that could injure their reputation was considered
sacrilegious and therefore criminal. The criminal libel and seditious laws in Ghana
were employed as means of silencing that occurred at the two levels identified by
Anthonissen (2008: 401):
2
30th June is celebrated annually as a martyrs’ day (mainly by the Ghana Bar Association) in
Ghana.
(i) An authoritative body imposes censorship in order to obscure information it

believes to be harmful to either itself or to others
(ii) An individual or a group exercises self-censorship by withholding information
believed to be harmful to themselves or to others.
The intense intimidation, victimisation and torture of perceived opponents of
governments over the years resulted in the suppression of any open political dis-
course that was critical in nature. During this period, people who dared to be critical
of the government relied on traditional communicative strategies, e.g. various forms
of indirection, for instance, the “Woes of a Kwatriot”. Woes of a kwatriot’’ was a
column in The Mirror, a national weekly (written by Kwesi Yankah, a professor of
linguistics) that satirised socio-political issues and events in the 1990s. Indeed,
Yankah (2001: 227) calls the sung-tale metaphor (a rhetorical use of the tale as a
metaphor in popular music) as a hidden political text, and describes it as resilient,
efficacious and a rallying force for protest in Ghana’s contemporary political
history.
The repeal of the criminal libel and seditious laws in Ghana in 2001 was
therefore interpreted as a sign of consolidating constitutional and democratic rule,
especially regarding freedom of speech in Ghana. The result of exercising free
speech in Ghana appears to have led to the politics of insult, or an increasing use of
invectives, traditionally unacceptable speech norms in public/political discourses
(Agyekum 2004). My argument is that this situation may be traceable to the ways in
which Ghanaians have come to understand (conceptualise) democracy, and that the
language of political (democratic) discourses has contributed in not only shaping
but also spreading these conceptualisations.
17.3.1 Socio-Cultural Background of Ghana
Ghana comprises various ethnic groups who have traditional institutions with
pre-colonial roots and which continue to occupy socio-political and cultural space
in contemporary times (Abotchie et al. 2006). Chieftaincy is one such institution. It
has a place in modern governance in Ghana and features in the 1992 republic
Constitution (Brempong 2006; Abotchie 2006; Abotchie et al. 2006; Gyapong
2006). Even though chieftaincy is clearly not included in mainstream governmental
structure in Ghana, the 1992 constitution preserves the chieftaincy institution and
traditional roles by mandating the appointment of traditional rulers (chiefs) to
important agencies of government, e.g. the council of state,3 the prison council,
lands commission and regional coordinating council. This is because the chiefs are
regarded as joint-guardians with the government of the day (Brempong 2006;
Gyapong 2006).
3
This is the highest advisory body to the president of the republic of Ghana.
374 G.N. Ansah
Many people in Ghana regard their society as hierarchical—that is there is an

essential distinction between rulers and the ruled. Chiefs, the traditional rulers, are
seen as social and cultural leaders who are sanctioned holders of customary
authority (Brempong 2006; Rathbone 2006). According to Brempong (2006), the
chieftaincy system is deeply entrenched in Ghanaian culture. Abotchie et al. (2006)
report on a survey that sampled people from varying socio-economic background
across all ten (10) regions in Ghana that found that 80% of respondents agreed the
chieftaincy institution was relevant in Ghana, and 84% objected to the idea of
abolishing the institution. Thus, modern Ghana may be described as a nation
involved in a slow transition from traditionalism to modernity. However, (Abotchie
2006: 178) concludes that traditionalism persists in Ghana because the majority of
Ghanaians (60%) live in traditional communities.
17.3.1.1 Traditional Public/Political Discourse Norms
Oratory, particularly in political discourse, is a highly celebrated public art in

Ghana. Yankah (1995) has identified a collection of ornate expressions, for
example, metaphors, honorifics and politeness formulae as salient features of for-
malised discourses, including public political discourses, among the Akan of
Ghana. Even though there are fine differences in some of the socio-cultural prac-
tices of the various indigenous ethnic groups in Ghana, the general common code of
social conduct among all the cultures of Ghana includes showing politeness, respect
and dignity in public settings. For instance, traditionally, it is an offence to show
disrespect to a King/Chief among all the ethnic groups in Ghana. What are con-
sidered acts of disrespect typically include criticising, disagreeing with, repri-
manding or critiquing a King/Chief bluntly in public. This is because the
King/Chief is believed to embody or personify the essence of the group, including
its ancestry. Subsequently, any disrespect towards him or his office is not only an
affront to his person or office but an affront to the entire state.4 The evolution of this
common code of conduct in Ghana may be attributed to an underlying cultural
cognition also held in common.
This need to respect the King/Chief is extended to other ‘leaders’, (e.g. elders of
a community and parents) in the society. According to Yankah (1995), this
socio-cultural expectation is usually inculcated during the child’s socialisation
process. For example, he cites a socio-communicatively significant ritual that is
performed by the Akans on the occasion of a new born baby’s outdooring (the
Ghanaian (traditional) equivalent of christening) which he describes as “baptising
the child’s tongue with liquor”. Essentially, this liquor baptism involves dropping
different types of liquid (usually water and liquor) on the child’s tongue while the
following lines are recited: wose nsu a nsu; wose nsa a nsa ‘when you say water,
water; when you say liquor, liquor’. According to Yankah (ibid), the significance of
4
See discussion on extract (2) below.
this ritual is that “it initiates the child to the moral values of speech”. This ritual is
practiced by several other cultural groups in Ghana, e.g. Ga-Dangbe, Ewe and
Nzema.
The concepts of face and (im)politeness (Brown and Levinson 1978; Culpeper
2005; Tracy 2008), particularly from the perspective of Cultural Linguistics (see
Sharifian and Tayebi this volume) remain relevant to studying political discourse in
Ghana, particularly from the perspective of Cultural Linguistics (see Sharifian and
Tayebi this volume). On the one hand, politeness theories generally aim at
describing the discursive practices that ‘minimise potential for conflict and con-
frontation inherent in all human interaction’ (Lakoff 1990: 34). For example, Brown
and Levinson’s (1978) theory of politeness is an account of how affronts posed by
FTAs may be redressed. On the other hand, recent theorists on (im)politeness, (e.g.
Culpeper 2005; Tracy 2008) have argued that while many speech communities
recognise the need to mitigate the impact of FTAs in communicative events,
impolite acts (e.g. face-attack) are as much a part of everyday human interaction as
polite acts (See also Sharifian and Tayebi this volume). For example, Culpeper
(2011) has defined impoliteness as a category based on a negative attitude towards
specific behaviours (which conflict with the expected or valued behaviours)
occurring in specific contexts. Similarly, Sharifian and Tayebi (this volume) also
view impoliteness as a perception provoked by a clash of expectations, desires and
beliefs and note that the perceptions on both sides tend to be based on cultural
norms and values, underpinned by cultural conceptualisations or more specifically,
schematisation, categorisation and conceptual mapping.
Cultural conceptualisations emerge from people’s shared experiences.
Consequently, different cultures tend to have different norms and values.
Nishida (1999: 401) defines schemas as “generalised collections of knowledge
of past experiences which are organised into related knowledge groups and are used
to guide our behaviours in familiar situations”. Nesbitt and Norenzayan (2002) have
also defined cultural schemas as “patterns of schemas that create a meaning system
for a particular cultural group”. Thus, (cultural) schemas may be seen as guiding
expectations, interpretations and behaviour in any communicative event (Abbe
et al. 2009). In this regard, we may investigate the traditional socio-cultural dis-
course norms that govern public/political discourses in Ghana in terms of Cultural
Schemas (See Sharifian and Tayebi this volume).
According to the traditional Ghanaian schemas of (IM) POLITENESS, any com-
municative act that is potentially face-threatening, especially if it involves authority
or leadership, is expected to be mitigated through the use of communicative
strategies, e.g. the use of apologetics or indirectness (Agyekum 2004). For instance,
both Gyasi (1997) and Yankah5 (1995, 1997) have described how indirectness
(through rhetoric expressed in metaphors and sung-tale metaphors) is used as an
5
Yankah (1997) particularly chronicles the use of sung-tale metaphors during the period of the
culture of silence in Ghana—a prolonged period of military rule when perceived enemies of
government were severely dealt with.
376 G.N. Ansah
effective means of engaging in both traditional political discourses and contem-

porary political discourses in Ghana. This cultural schema sharply contradicts
Tracy’s (2008: 169) suggestion that some level of face-attack, what she calls
‘reasonable hostility’, is necessary in certain democratic communicative situations
if democratic bodies are to function properly. Thus, the democratic system of
governance which allows for communicative contexts where individual freedoms
are given priority over the interest of the larger society may be said to inherently
encourage ‘reasonable hostility’. In other words, the increasing use of invective
language rather than politeness strategies in modern political discourses and the
responses the practice receives may be attributable to the clash of cultural schemas
of political discourse in the two contexts—western-based cultures and Ghanaian
traditional culture.
17.4 Language, Culture and Political Discourse
The relationship between language and politics has been of interest to researchers
across disciplines. According to Chilton (2004: 4–5), Aristotle argued that all
humans are political because they use language to pursue their own ends. In fact,
Aristotle’s Rhetoric emphasised the central role of language in the political domain.
However, studies spanning the last four decades on the relationship between lan-
guage and politics (political discourses), for example, Chilton (2004), Musolff
(2004), Scott-Mio (1997), Van Dijk (1989) have emphasised the central role lan-
guage plays in politics.
Chilton (2004: 5) combines insights from rhetoric, pragmatics, critical discourse
analysis, speech act theory and cognitive linguistics to link language to politics and
argue that the central business of politics is an attempt to get others to share a
common view about what is good/evil, just/unjust, etc. This involves the use of
language to negotiate the representation of states of affairs in the world. Chilton
further argues that political actions that serve discourse functions such as legit-
imisation or delegitimisation, and representation or misrepresentation and persua-
sion are achieved through the strategic use of language and are attempts at
cooperation, i.e. getting others to share a moral view. These studies also consider
political discourse as a necessary product of individual or collective mental pro-
cesses, e.g. categorisation.
The idea that political discourse is a product of collective mental process is
stressed particularly in the theory of cultural cognition in Cultural Linguistics
(Sharifian 2009, 2011). Cultural cognition is a way of understanding the collective
cognition that characterises a cultural group, including the cultural knowledge that
emerges from the interactions between members of that cultural group across time
and space. Language is seen as a central aspect of cultural cognition—acting both
as “a memory bank and a fluid vehicle for the (re)transmission of cultural con-
ceptualisations” (Sharifian 2013: 8).
17.4.1 Cultural Linguistics
Cultural Linguistics is relevant for this work because it explores conceptualisations

that have a cultural basis and are encoded in communication through features of
human languages (Sharifian 2011). Cultural Linguistics assumes that the concep-
tualisation of political discourse is far from universal. Instead, “political discourse is
not free from cultural influence and is in fact heavily entrenched in cultural con-
ceptualisations” (Sharifian 2013: 27). It explores the interface between language,
culture and conceptualisation (Sharifian 2013) in the assumption that the semantic
and pragmatic meanings that underlie the use of language, e.g. political discourse,
largely dwell in cultural conceptualisations. Cultural conceptualisations are often
referred to as norms, beliefs, customs, traditions and values. They are abstracted
from people’s cultural and shared experiences, i.e. they emerge from the interaction
among members of socio-cultural group (Sharifian 2010: 3367). Even though
cultural conceptualisations are shared by members in a social group, it is believed
that they are not homogeneously distributed—they are shared in varying degrees
among the members of the group (Sharifian 2003; D’Andrade 1987).
Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) is equally relevant to this work because,
we may identify cultural conceptualisations from the conceptual metaphors that
underlie and motivate the linguistic labels (lexical items) which are used by
Ghanaians to denote aspects of democracy. Cognitive linguistics assumes, among
other things, that there is a cyclical relationship between linguistic structure and
conceptual structure, and that linguistic structure not only reflects conceptual
structure but it also shapes it (Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Evans 2009). While
linguistic structure encodes and externalises conceptual structure, conceptual
structure emerges from communicative function (Evans and Green 2006).
In CMT, conceptual metaphors (metaphorical conceptualisations) may point to
cognitive models, units of non-linguistic knowledge (including cultural knowledge)
to which lexical concepts (words) provide access (Evans 2009). In cognitive
anthropology, cultural conceptualisations are cultural models or cognitive schemas
that are idealised patterns of interrelated cultural knowledge that enables the indi-
vidual members of a culture to interpret cultural experiences. However, unlike in
CMT where cognitive models arise from conceptual metaphors, cultural models are
believed to arise from both metaphorical and non-metaphorical conceptualisations.
This is the position assumed in Cultural Linguistics (Sharifian 2003) where cog-
nitive models are described in terms of cultural conceptualisations—culturally
constructed ways of conceptualising experience.
Thus, by combining perspectives from both Cultural Linguistics and CMT, we are
able to discuss the Ghanaian conceptualisations of different aspects of democracy
across a wider range of linguistic data—both metaphoric and non-metaphoric.
378 G.N. Ansah
17.5 Conceptualising Aspects of Democracy in Ghana
In this section, I provide a brief overview of a previous analysis of a few political

expressions in Akan (Addo 2002). I then present a brief analysis of the lexical
concepts (linguistic labels) from the selected Ghanaian languages that point to how
democracy appears to be conceptualised in the Ghanaian context. Finally, I draw on
data from actual political discourses in Ghana to discuss how these conceptuali-
sations manifest in democratic discourses in the country.
Addo (2002) provides a detailed analysis of a number of lexical items in Akan,
the largest language group in Ghana, that have emerged through metaphorical
extension to denote a number of concepts that are related to modern governance,
particularly democracy, in Ghana. She also discusses the cultural basis of these
lexical innovations. For instance, she describes how the Akan lexical concept prɔɛ,
‘the rotten’, which basically describes decay in perishable goods, usually pertaining
to agro-products, has been metaphtonymically extended to describe moral decay in
politics, corruption. Again, Addo metaphorically connects the Akan lexical con-
cepts adanmudeɛ, ‘room thing’, and ‘kɛtɛasehyɛ ‘putting under a mat’ to the act of
giving or taking a bribe in politics. Addo (2002) suggests that both of the Akan
metaphorical expressions used to talk about bribery in Ghana imply concealment
which suggests that the concept is perceived or understood as an undesirable act or
practice (that one must hide doing).
Addo connects these conceptualisations to socio-cultural practices in Akan and
concludes that the metaphorical structure of bribery and corruption in Akan res-
onates with Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) assertion that metaphorical structure is
often coherent with the fundamental values in a given culture. For instance, in Akan
culture, anything desirable, for example, a new born baby, a new bride, a young
adult who successfully goes through puberty rites, is openly displayed (typically on
a mat) for public viewing and admiration. Thus, we may infer that in the Akan
culture, anything that needs to be concealed, i.e. that cannot be done or displayed
openly for public view or scrutiny must be undesirable.
These conceptualisations may be described as cultural metaphors of bribery and
corruption in Ghana thus BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION IS CONCEALMENT AND ROTTENESS
(See Addo 2002). The cultural basis for these conceptualisations of bribery and
corruption in Ghana is not revealed in the Akan language only. Indeed, there are
linguistic expressions in other major Ghanaian languages that suggest similar
conceptualisations. For instance, in Ewe, the second largest language group in
Ghana, corrupt practices such as bribery, are metaphorically linked to the night
(darkness). The expressions that denote engaging in corrupt practices in Ewe lit-
erally translate ‘eat the night thing’ ɖu eză nu (corruption), ‘receive the night thing’,
ză nu xoxo (the act of receiving a bribe) or ‘give the night thing’, ză nu nana (the act
of giving a bribe). These conceptualisations are similar to the Akan conceptuali-
sation of bribery in that they both involve the idea of concealment and covering
up. Even though the Ga expressions for these concepts (bribery and corruption) juu
kɜ fͻfeemͻ (literally translating as ‘stealing and evil doing’) and ojo tsuaa, (literally
translated as playing trick) do not directly denote concealment as described above,

the sense of their undesirability may still be inferred.
17.5.1 Linguistic Labels for ‘Democracy’ in Three

Ghanaian Languages
In this section, I present linguistic expressions that are used in three major Ghanaian
languages to describe or label democracy. The expressions are known by many
Ghanaians for two reasons. First, the languages are widely spoken across the
country. For example, Akan is potentially spoken by 49.1% of Ghana’s population
as their L1 (Ghana Statistical Services 2002) and 44% of the population speak it
either as an L2 or vehicular language (Guerini 2006). This is because according to
the census statistics, 49.1% of Ghanaians are ethnic Akans. Similarly, Ewe is
potentially spoken by 12.7% of Ghana’s population as their L1 while Ga-Adangbe
is spoken by 8% of Ghana’s population (Ghana Statistical services 2002). Second,
since the majority of Ghana’s population is not literate in English, political pro-
grammes, e.g. talk shows, that are broadcast in Ghanaian languages have become
the main medium by which many Ghanaians have access to political discourse in
the country. The repeal of the criminal libel and seditious laws resulted in
increasing the establishment of radio and television stations that broadcast in these
languages across the country (Addo 2002; Agyekum 2000; Anyidoho 2001).
Consequently, the lexical concepts discussed below and the conceptualisations that
underlie them are well known among the population.
One key assumption in Cognitive Linguistics is that there is a cyclical rela-
tionship between linguistic structure and conceptual structure that allows linguistic
structure to not only to reflect conceptual structure but also to shape it (Lakoff and
Johnson 1980; Evans 2009). In other words, the assumption is that while linguistic
structure encodes and externalises conceptual structure, conceptual structure
emerges, among other things, from communicative function (Evans and Green
2006). Thus, the assumption here is that the linguistic expressions I present below
do not merely reflect how democracy is conceptualised by Ghanaians but also that
the underpinning conceptualisations of these linguistic labels shape people’s
understanding of democracy.
(1) Akan:
i. Ka bi ma menka bi—say some make me say some
ii. Kyere w’adwen na menkyere m’adwen—display your mind and let me
display mine
(2) Ewe:
i. Gblormagbloe—say it let me say it
ii. Kpordegblor—I also have something to say
380 G.N. Ansah
(3) Ga:
i. Ayee moko nͻ—nobody rules over anybody
ii. Gontimanͻ6—freedom for all
iii. keemͻ ni makeemͻ eko—say it and let me say it
Based on the linguistic expressions identified in the selected languages, we may
infer a model of democracy that is based on the basic understanding that democracy
is system of governance which promotes individual freedoms and equal rights.
Implicit in this conceptualisation is the idea espoused by western-based concep-
tualisations of governance that proffers equal rights to both the ruler and the ruled,
as described above. In the light of the socio-cultural and political history of Ghana,
both in the traditional and modern sense (as described above), it is not surprising
that certain assumptions that are inherent in western-based culturally construed
democracy, e.g. the right to free expression, will appeal to a section of the Ghanaian
populace, especially, those who have received western-based education and
training.
It is also clear from the linguistic labels above that only certain aspects of
democracy (particularly the right to freedom of speech and expression, which is
entrenched in the 1992 constitution) are highlighted by the Ghanaian conceptual-
isations. However, other important aspects of democracy, e.g. the fact that freedom
of speech or expression is not absolute (even in western democracies, e.g., the
USA) are hidden by the Ghanaian conceptualisations.
The repeal of the criminal libel and seditious laws (which was interpreted as a
sign of consolidating constitutional and democratic rule, especially regarding
freedom of speech in Ghana) seems to have reinforced which aspects of democracy
are highlighted and which are hidden in the conceptualisation of democracy in the
country. Indeed, the phenomenon of the politics of insult emerged in force only
after the repeal of the criminal libel and seditious laws in Ghana in 2001.
For instance, on 27 July 2016, the supreme court of Ghana convicted three
persons (representatives of the ruling government) to a four month prison term for
contempt, i.e. for scandalising the Supreme Court and speech-making inciting
imminent lawless action (aspects of which bordered on criminality). Even though
the court said it had based its decision on 1992 constitution (which, like the US
constitution recognises several categories of speech, such as the ones listed above,
as excluded from this freedom), the lawyers representing the convicted parties led a
campaign to petition the President of Ghana to pardon them.
6
The basic meaning of this term is ‘the thumb is on’. This is a metonymy for voting in elections, a
key feature of democracy. However, it is often used metaphorically to denote democratic
governance.
One of the main arguments in the said petition was that the court’s decision
discouraged freedom of expression. One month into their prison term, the President
granted the convicts pardon based on the fact that the petition had been signed by
so many people including state ministers. It may be argued here that the apparent
conflict described above may be based on a misconceptualisation of democracy.
However we choose to characterise this conceptualisation, we may also attribute it
to the linguistic labels that structure the concept. In other words, the conceptual
underpinnings of the linguistic labels that denote DEMOCRACY appear to have
shaped the Ghanaian understanding of democracy in this regard.
Thus, what is reflected in political discourse in contemporary Ghana, the politics
of insults, and the reactions it attracts, may be attributable to a clash of cultural
conceptualisations.
17.5.2 Emerging Discourse Practices in Democratic

Discourses in Contemporary Ghana
Within the first four months of the second term in 20057 of J.A. Kufuor, the
successor of J.J. Rawlings, as president, the general cost of living in Ghana had
become so high that an anti-government pressure group called The Committee for
Joint Action (CJA) was formed by leaders from the opposition political parties,
social commentators and ordinary citisens. The CJA organised what it called
“wahala8 demonstrations” around the country to protest against the New Patriotic
Party government’s harsh economic policies. In one of those demonstrations as
Rawlings, whose party was then in opposition, was about to address the audience,
he introduced himself as the sitting president, while he designated J.A Kufuor as a
thief and a devil and compared him to a hardened criminal who had just been
arrested in his hideout. Below is the excerpt in which Rawlings referred to the
president as a thief. This was carried on news on both radio and TV across the
country.
(4)
Ɔsono nie; Kufuor nie.9
7
Kufour was sworn into office for a second term as president on 7th January 2005; his first term
was from 7th January 2001–6th January 2005.
8
A slang term for ‘trouble’ in Nigerian Pidgin English. Its origin has been attributed to either
Hausa or Arabic.
9
The elephant is the official emblem of the New Patriotic Party, president Kufuor’s party. The NPP
actually used this line as a slogan in the 2000 electioneering campaign, perhaps as way to make
voting for the NPP easier for the illiterate voting population who relied on symbols other than
written texts on the ballot paper.
382 G.N. Ansah
Here is the elephant; here is Kufuor.

Ataa Ayi nie; Kufuor nie.
Here is Ataa Ayi, here is Kufuor.
Ɔkorɔmfo nie, Kufuor nie.
Here is a thief, here is Kufuor.
Abonsam nie, Kufuor nie.
Here is the devil, here is Kufuor.
As soon as the speech entered the larger public domain through radio, many
Ghanaians expressed disapproval and several of the CJA organisers, including the
leadership of the NDC, Rawlings’s party, quickly dissociated themselves from
Rawlings’ statement, describing it as unfortunate. For instance, the 9 April 2005
edition of The Daily Graphic, the biggest selling national newspaper, carried a
front-page story captioned “SAY SORRY: church leaders demand unqualified
apology from former president Rawlings”. In that lead article, a group of respected
clergymen in Ghana were reported to have reacted to the former president’s
statement by calling on him to apologise to the whole nation. Describing the sitting
president as “the persona of the nation”, the clergymen outlined the basis for their
request for an apology as follows:
(5)
Disrespect towards him (the president) is tantamount to bringing the
people of Ghana into contempt, disrepute, dishonour and disgrace.
In that light, it is unconscionable for the president to be called a thief.
To condone such rhetoric is, in effect, to open the gate for sliding down into indiscipline,
chaos, violence and anarchy. (The Daily Graphic 2005a).
The clergymen ended their letter with a call for “a political discourse that is
characterised by mutual respect, coolness and a decent language”. After the pub-
lication of the clergy’s letter, they were accused by a section of the Ghanaian
populace of meddling in politics. In another front-page article in the same paper, the
clergymen responded to this accusation by defending and reiterating their earlier
position on the matter. In the second letter, they asked for respect for the presidency
in this way:
(6)
If the country cannot give anything to the future generation
it should give them a legacy of good public speaking.
(The Daily Graphic 2005b).
Examples 5 and 6 above are clear instances where constitutionally permissible

political discourse is deemed culturally unacceptable in Ghana. In other words, the
lack of concern for the sitting president’s face needs in example (4) is regarded not
only as threatening the president’s face but indeed the face of the entire people of
Ghana (see 5 above).
It is important to note that while a similar incident occurred in the South African
Parliament in 2014, the discourse dynamics that followed the name-calling were
different from what occurred in Ghana. On November 14, 2014, a member of
Parliament from the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters Party (EFF),
Ngwanamakwetle Mashabela, repeatedly called the South African president ‘a
thief, a criminal, and the greatest thief in the whole world’ on the floor of parlia-
ment. As in the response to the Rawlings speech discussed above, a colleague MP
(possibly from the president’s ANC party) raised an objection to Ms. Mashabela’s
comments calling the president a thief, and prevailed upon the Chair of Parliament
to cause Ms. Mashabela to withdraw her comments.
However, unlike the Rawlings discourse in Ghana, there were no further dis-
sociations from her comments by colleague MPs whether from her own party or
other opposition parties. On the contrary, other opposition MPs, e.g. from the
Democratic Alliance, supported her (BBC 2014). For example, when Ms.
Mashabela was being pressured by the Chair to withdraw her comments, a col-
league MP supported her by asking the Chair not to be personal about a political
debate. Finally, the whole episode of calling the sitting president of South Africa ‘a
thief and a criminal’ ended in a scuffle/clash between South African riot police and
the MPs in Parliament which made the headlines in the media, both local and
international (e.g. South Africa’s Mail and Guardian, BBC World/Africa). I did not
read of any extended discourse in the media in which civil organisations or
members of the general public condemning Ms. Mashabela’s comments let alone
asking for an apology.
Again, on 27 July 2011, an NPP youth activist, on a radio discussion pro-
gramme, seemed to have suggested that the then (NDC) sitting president was gay.
Whereas, the use of ‘gay’ to insult the sitting president amounts to defamation
which is treated only as a civil offence under constitutional democratic dispensation
in Ghana, defamation of this kind is considered a criminal case that attracts up to
10 years in jail in some western cultures, e.g. Australia (Lawstuff 2017). In spite of
the non-criminal nature of the ‘gay’ insult in Ghana, like the Rawlings speech
discussed above, the allegation was condemned vehemently by both politicians and
civil society with calls for apology from both politicians and the general public. For
instance, on 28 July 2011, when a group of clergy men called on the president in his
office, he expressed worry over the politics of insults and appealed to the clergy in
Ghana to lead a ‘crusade’ to halt the practice in Ghana (peacefmonline.com 2011a).
Furthermore, on 30 July 2011, the then deputy information minister reportedly
decried the use of ‘foul language’ in Ghanaian political discourse which he asserted
was making Ghana’s politics ‘disgusting’. He allegedly described the practice as
‘unacceptable behaviour’ (peacefmonline.com 2011b).
384 G.N. Ansah
Moreover, a senior researcher of the Centre for Democratic Development10

called on the president on 30 July 2011 to ‘fire any government official who
indulges in politics of insults’ (myjoyonline.com 2011a). Most interestingly, some
residents of Sunyani, the Brong Ahafo regional capital, even reportedly threatened
to boycott the 2012 general elections if politicians did not end the politics of insults
(myjoyonline.com 2011b).
17.6 Conclusion
This chapter has examined and explored the cultural conceptualisations of

democracy in contemporary Ghana. It has also explored how such conceptualisa-
tions challenge or interrelate the traditional conceptualisations, particularly cultural
schemas of politics in Ghana. Finally, the chapter explored how both traditional
conceptualisations of politics and contemporary conceptualisations of democracy
affect/shape political discourse practices in contemporary Ghanaian society.
The analysis has shown that democratic instruments, e.g. the 1992 constitution
and the repeal of the criminal libel and seditious laws in Ghana may have
emboldened many Ghanaians to engage in free expression despite traditional
socio-cultural and political discourse norms which demand politeness and social
decorum, including the avoidance of open critical discourses in the face of authority
(Agyekum 2004). Nevertheless, this constitutional guarantee appears to be some-
how constrained by traditional socio-cultural discourse norms/Ghanaian cultural
schemas. In other words, while we may argue that the constitutional provision of
free expression and particularly the repeal of the criminal libel and seditious laws
may have emboldened a cross section of Ghanaians to disregard or rise above
traditional political discourse norms/practices (Agyekum 2004), it is also true that
the predominance of traditionalism in Ghana implies that the worldviews of
majority of Ghanaians, including appropriate discourse practices, appears to still be
dominated by traditional norms and beliefs (Abotchie 2006), and that this tradi-
tional Ghanaian worldview is being brought to bear on discourses that emerge from
western-based culturally construed democracy.
These findings clearly suggest that DEMOCRACY may be described as a uni-
versal or near universal concept only at a highly schematic level. This is because, as
has been demonstrated in this chapter, the ways in which DEMOCRACY is
practiced is greatly influenced by the cultural conceptualisations of the
socio-cultural contexts within which the concept is practiced. For instance, it is
obvious that modern democratic political discourse in Ghana has not weaned itself
completely from Ghanaian traditional socio-cultural discourse norms. As Abotchie
10
The CDD is an independent, nonpartisan and non-profit organisation in Ghana that is dedicated
to the promotion of society and government based on the rule of law, appropriate checks on the
power of the state and integrity in public administration (as advertised on the home page of the
CDD at http://www.cddghana.org/).
(2006) suggests Ghanaians seem to be still emerging from traditional beliefs and
practices as a result of ‘enlightenment through modern (western-based) educational
process. This implies that until Ghana has fully emerged from these traditional
beliefs, democratic discourse in Ghanaian society will continue to require what
Agyekum (2004) calls “linguistic disarmament”—restricting the use of abusive,
insulting words or expressions (invectives) despite the western-based culturally
construed notion of free expression, a hallmark of democracy, that is entrenched in
the 1992 Constitution.
In this regard, we may conclude that the conceptualisation of democracy in
Ghana, as reflected in democratic discourses in the country is not free from cultural
(both western and Ghanaian) influences, and that these cultural conceptualisations
necessarily result in a unique model of democracy that appears different from
models of democracy that are practiced elsewhere, e.g. South Africa.
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Author Biography
Gladys Nyarko Ansah is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of English, University of Ghana,
Legon. Her research interests include the following: language and cognition, culture and cognition,
the sociolinguistics of bi/multilingualism, language and politics, and second language acquisition.
Her current research interests focus on Language and Migration, Culture and Politics, and
Language and Health Delivery.
Chapter 18
Perceptions of Impoliteness
from a Cultural Linguistics Perspective
Farzad Sharifian and Tahmineh Tayebi
18.1 Introduction
In this chapter, we aim to investigate the role of culture in perceptions of impolite

language from a Cultural Linguistics perspective. Studies on impoliteness have
identified a wide range of factors that influence speakers’ perception of impolite
language including the social context, attitudes, emotions, intentions, power and
considerations of face (see, for example, Bousfield 2008; Bousfield and Locher
2008; Culpeper 1996, 2005, 2008, 2011, 2012; Culpeper et al. 2003; Haugh 2008a,
b, 2013; Kienpointner 1997, 2008). Yet, the role of ‘culture’ and its influence on
evaluation and perception of impolite language use has not been adequately
addressed (for a discussion, see Bargiela-Chiappini and Kádár 2010; Kádár and
Haugh 2013; Kádár and Mills 2011; Mills 2009), partly due to the difficulty of
defining and delineating the notion of ‘culture’, and also due to the ontological and
epistemological complexity of the relationship between language and culture (see
Eelen 2001; Spencer-Oatey 2000).
Although “research on impoliteness needs some way of capturing the fact that
different groups of people—different ‘cultures’—have different norms and different
values” (Culpeper 2011: 12, emphasis in the original), this task needs to be
approached from a perspective that does not view speakers as being “imprisoned in
the house” of their cultures (Mills 2009). In this connection, rather than using the
abstract notion of ‘culture’, the present study explores the cultural conceptualisa-
tions that underlie the use of language a move that is in line with Cultural
Linguistics (Sharifian 2011, 2015, 2017). As discussed later in this chapter, Cultural
Linguistics does not view cultural conceptualisations as equally shared across the
F. Sharifian T. Tayebi (&)

e-mail: tahmineh.tayebi@monash.edu

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_18
390 F. Sharifian and T. Tayebi
members of a speech community but examines how speakers show variations in

their access to cultural conceptualisations.
The chapter begins by providing an account of theoretical approaches that have
focused on (im)politeness research. It then introduces the three-layered methodology
adopted in this study. The later parts of the chapter focus on the analysis of some
examples from Persian, using the analytical tools of Cultural Linguistics, in particular
the notion of ‘cultural schema’, and revealing how perceptions of impolite language use
are associated with certain Persian cultural conceptualisations.
18.2 Impoliteness
Brown and Levinson’s (1987) classic politeness theory has undoubtedly exerted a
substantial influence in the field of politeness research. Brown and Levinson based
much of their theory on notions of ‘face’, ‘facework’, ‘face-threatening acts’, and
on ways to achieve harmonious interactions. They did not, however, specifically
account for impoliteness because they see impoliteness as an absence of, or a
deviation from, politeness. Brown and Levinson’s classic politeness theory has
often been criticised for its claim regarding the universality of the positive and
negative face wants and its applicability to diverse cultures. The criticisms directed
at their politeness model can also be levelled at the impoliteness studies that are
based on this framework (see, for example, Lachenicht 1980; Culpeper 1996).
Although classic approaches that deal with how communication works [e.g. the
cooperative principle of Grice (1975) and speech act theory of Austin (1962)] also
influenced politeness theories, with the new millennium, politeness research moved
away from face-based, maxim-based and Gricean-based models of (im)politeness
(Brown and Levinson 1987; Leech 1983) to what is known as ‘relational’ and
‘discursive’ approaches to politeness (Locher and Watts 2008; Mills 2003; Watts
2003).
In the ‘relational’ approaches to (im)politeness, such as the model proposed by
Locher and Watts (2005) and Spencer-Oatey’s (2000) rapport management model,
the focus is on the management of harmony and disharmony among people. In
other words, these approaches do not just focus on the performance and perception
of politeness, but rather on interpersonal relations in general. Moreover, while the
relational work addresses impolite behaviour, for it impoliteness is not the opposite
of politeness (see also, Culpeper 2011).
The ‘discursive’ or ‘post-modern’ approach (Locher and Watts 2008; Mills
2003) to (im)politeness questions the definition and meaning of the term ‘(im)
politeness’ and argues in favour of taking into consideration the lay-person’s per-
spective of (im)politeness in context and emergent discourse (also known as
politeness1), rather than focusing upon the researcher’s evaluation of sets of pre-
defined meanings of (im)politeness (or politeness2). As Locher (2006: 262) notes,
in the discursive approach there is a need to establish “the kind of relational work
18 Perceptions of Impoliteness from a Cultural Linguistics … 391
the interactants in question employ to arrive at an understanding of the then-current

norms of interaction.”
By focusing on the lay-person’s evaluations of (im)politeness, the discursive
approach has drawn attention to the fact that “there is nothing intrinsically impolite
about any utterance” (Mills 2009: 1049); rather, it is the evaluation of the partic-
ipants that determines how (im)polite a particular utterance in a particular context
is. The assertion that nothing is intrinsically impolite contrasts with the early
conceptions of impoliteness in which significant attention was paid to factors such
as the speaker’s intention (Bousfield 2008; Culpeper 2005; Kienpointner 1997;
Locher and Bousfield 2008) and impoliteness was defined as “intentionally gratu-
itous and conflictive face-threatening acts that are purposefully performed”
(Bousfield 2008: 132). It was assumed that impoliteness is provoked when “the
speaker communicates face attack intentionally” and/or “the hearer perceives and/or
constructs behaviour as intentionally face-attacking” or both (Culpeper 2005: 38).
However, as more data emerged and it was found that intentionality and the degree
of offence taken are not always moving in the same direction (see, Culpeper 2011;
Gabriel 1998), the notion of intentionality was removed from the definition of
impoliteness.
Recently, taking into account all the developments made in the field, Culpeper
(2011: 23) has proposed the following definition for impoliteness.
Impoliteness is a negative attitude towards specific behaviours occurring in specific con-
texts. It is sustained by expectations, desires and/or beliefs about social organisation,
including, in particular, how one person’s or a group’s identities are mediated by others in
interaction. Situated behaviours are viewed negatively—considered ‘impolite’—when they
conflict with how one expects them to be, how one wants them to be and/or how one thinks
they ought to be (Culpeper 2011: 23).
In this chapter, we adopt this definition of impoliteness and thus view impo-
liteness as a perception provoked by a clash of expectations, desires and beliefs. In
fact, what is evaluated as an impolite move in a particular social context may not be
evaluated as such in a different social context (for example, in the company, or
absence of, certain individuals), or between two other individuals with a different
type of social relationship. In this chapter, we will explore how certain cultural
schemas capture a number of expectations about appropriate behaviour, both lin-
guistic and non-linguistic, along the lines of speakers’ relationships with each other
and the social context. A failure to meet any element of such expectations or a
perception of such a failure may potentially be evaluated as impolite.
18.3 Methodology and Data
The following sources of data were used in this study:

1. Online data: one of the advantages of online sources is that they cover a wide
range of pragmatic, contextual and cultural factors than would data collected
from most recruits, as the participants come from a relatively wide range of
educational, cultural, geographical and social backgrounds. For the purpose of
this study, we used excerpts from a number of popular Persian lifestyle weblogs
that included discussions on various topics such as relationships (e.g. relation-
ships with in-laws), relationship dramas/break-ups, university experiences,
student life, lifestyle and other similar topics.
The way the forums operate is very basic and well established. The users post a
topic and explain a situation or a bad/good experience and often ask for other users’
opinions and suggestions. Sometimes the resulting discussion could be as long as
100 pages. The excerpts for this study were chosen based on topics likely to elicit
the cultural conceptualisations to be investigated as is the case with incidents
involving relationship conflicts and relationships with the in-laws. This type of data
was gathered from messages posted between 2013 and 2015. For the purpose of
confidentiality, all the names were pseudonyms and potentially private information
were either omitted or modified.
2. Field notes: The study also relied on field notes recorded and collected by the
authors. These were recorded during everyday linguistic interactions with
speakers of Persian in Iran over a period of one year, between January 2014 and
January 2015. The speakers from whom the data were collected were both male
and female and ranged from 17 to 50 years in age.
In this study, we also adopt a new methodology that comprises three layers:
(a) meta-discourse analysis, (b) discourse analysis and (c) conceptual analysis (see
also, Sharifian and Tayebi, in press). The meta-discourse analysis focuses on
identifying words or expressions that are frequently used by participants when
describing an impolite act that has taken place in an interaction. The discourse
analysis stage involves analysing the scenarios that led to an evaluation of impo-
liteness, for example a failure to extend an invitation to a particular person in a
particular context (see example below). The third stage examines the link between
the perception and evaluation of impoliteness and the underlying cultural concep-
tualisation, as well as the ethnography of relevant cultural conceptualisations. This
three-stage analysis may be diagrammatically presented as follows:
The three-stage analysis in Fig. 18.1 is presented as a cycle because, as the
analysis will show, the meta-discourse and discourse levels and the underlying
cultural conceptualisations are all interrelated. Using this three-layered analysis we
were able to (a) identify the markers used for an evaluation of (im)politeness,
(b) identify the scenarios in which this evaluation took place and (c) examine the
nature of the relationships between the evaluation of impoliteness and the under-
lying cultural conceptualisations, a relationship which may not always be noticed
by the interactants during the course of an interaction. The cultural conceptuali-
sation analysis also allows us to delve into one small, yet important, aspect of (im)
politeness norms in Persian.
18.4 Cultural Linguistics and Impoliteness:

Examples from Persian
As mentioned in the introduction, this chapter explores how Cultural Linguistics

can offer a fruitful framework for exploring the role of cultural conceptualisations in
perceptions of (im)polite language use. Instead of employing the abstract notion of
‘culture’, with its essentialist connotations, Cultural Linguistics focuses on exam-
ining conceptualisations that have their root in the cultural experiences of a speech
community. Cultural conceptualisations (Sharifian 2011, 2015, 2017) collectively
refer to the conceptual processes such as (a) schematisation, or abstracting con-
ceptual schemas from experience; (b) categorisation, or assigning experiences of
various kinds to pre-established cognitive categories; and (c) conceptual mapping,
or mapping between different conceptual domains. While the process of con-
structing meaning during communicative interactions relies on many factors, such
as the contextual resources available to speakers, part of that process relies on the
conceptualisations that speakers have access to, and often assume to be shared. In
fact, wherever the experiential basis for our linguistic interaction is cultural (as
opposed to idiosyncratic), cultural schemas, cultural categories, and cultural
metaphors are formed.
Discourse analysis
(linguistic scenario
analysis)
Conceptual analysis Meta-discourse

(impoliteness–cultural analysis
conceptualisation link (impoliteness
+ ethnography of markers; markers of
cultural cultural
conceptualisations) conceptualisations)
Fig. 18.1 The three-stage analysis

In this respect, certain instances of (im)polite linguistic behaviour appear to be

associated with culturally constructed conceptualisations (such as cultural schemas
and cultural metaphors) drawn on by speakers/hearers. This means that in certain
contexts evaluations of impoliteness seem to be influenced by certain cultural
conceptualisations that are heterogeneously shared. In this section, we elaborate on
this premise by examining a number of cases from Persian.
One of the meta-discourse markers that is pervasively used when a Persian
speaker evaluates an impolite act in various contexts is the adjective zesht (ugly). In
fact, the use of this marker is influenced by an important metaphorical conceptu-
alisation in Persian. In other words, at the most macro level, politeness in Persian
culture is conceptualised as POLITENESS IS BEAUTY. This is reflected in utterances
where an impolite move is evaluated as zesht ‘ugly’, as in the following:
(1) zesht-e1 bâyad berim didaneshun.
[It would be ugly (impolite) not to pay them a visit.]
In this example, the marker ‘zesht-e’ (it is ugly) helps the speaker describe the
evaluation impoliteness that is likely to be provoked if the addressee fails to pay the
people in question a visit.
The cultural metaphor of POLITENESS IS BEAUTY can also be encoded by use of the
positive meta-discourse marker ‘ghashang-e’ (is/would be beautiful), as found in
the following example:
(2) ehterâm be bozorgtar kâre ghashangi-ye.
[Respecting the elderly is a beautiful (polite) act.]
Based on this Persian metaphorical conceptualisation, conceptualisations of (im)
politeness seem to be expressed predominantly in terms of physical beauty.
Therefore, whenever an act or behaviour is perceived to deviate from the generally
accepted norms of conduct, expectations and responsibilities, that are couched in
certain cultural conceptualisations, the behaviour is likely to be assessed as impolite
and therefore labelled as ‘ugly’, or ‘not beautiful’.
Conceptualisations of (im)politeness in Persian are in general associated with the
over-arching cultural schema of ‘adab’, which can roughly be translated as
‘courtesy’, ‘politeness’, ‘social etiquette’ or ‘manners’ (cf. Sharifian 2011). The
notion of adab is closely associated and sometimes interchangeably used with other
important and influential cultural conceptualisations such as sho’ur, shaxsiyat,
tarbiyat and farhang, which are frequently observed in the meta-discourse of the
Persian speakers.
The word sho’ur refers to the (cognitive) ability to assess social situations
properly and then behave and speak appropriately. One common term that is fre-
quently used in Persian in relation to impoliteness is that of bi-sho’ur, which is an
insult meaning ‘lacking sho’ur’. Thus, a person who behaves or speaks impolitely
1
e is the spoken form for ast ‘is’.
is often viewed as lacking this social skill. The opposite of bi-sho’ur is bâ-sho’ur,
which is a compliment used for people who show a heightened awareness of
behaving and speaking appropriately in various social situations and with different
groups of people. Speakers often express the view that sho’ur is not necessarily
correlational with social factors such as wealth or education, and often view it as a
hereditary attribute.
The notion of shaxsiyat can roughly be translated as ‘character and personality’.
As Koutlaki (2002: 1742) notes, in Persian a person’s shaxsiyat is “mainly
dependent on the way s/he behaves and his/her educational background and is often
perceived as related to the socialisation and upbringing she has received.” It is a
term that is very frequently observed in the meta-discourse of the Persian speakers
and is concerned with “an individual’s concerted efforts at constructing a socially
acceptable image of shaxs ‘person’ in the eyes of others” (Sharifian 2011: 147).
Evaluations of politeness are often made about a person’s shaxsiyat and thus a
person who is bâ-shaxsiyat (lit. with character) is considered as polite and
respectful and a person who is bi-shaxsiyat (lit. without character) is an impolite or
rude person who does not “observe the expected codes of behaviour” and behaves
“in a way that may be perceived as offensive” (Koutlaki 2002: 1742).
Another equally important concept that reflects one’s adab is an individual’s
tarbiyat which can roughly be translated as ‘upbringing’. Unlike shaxsiyat which is
mainly associated with an individual’s behaviour, tarbiyat is closely tied to the role
one’s family has played in their upbringing. This concept is very closely associated
with the importance of the notion of family in the Persian-speaking society and with
what is known as ‘tarbiyat-e xânevâdegi’ or ‘family upbringing’. This phrase
reflects the cultural conceptualisation that if one’s family has invested enough in
raising a polite child, the child will eventually become a respectable and bâ-tarbiyat
(lit. with upbringing) member of the society. On the contrary, bi-tarbiyat (lit.
without upbringing) refers to someone who is viewed as impolite as their family has
failed to teach them the expected codes and norms of politeness.
In addition, the notion of being polite or having adab is also closely interwoven
with the notion of farhang or culture, particularly in the sense of the cultivation of
soul and personality. The notion of the possession of farhang is associated with
having sufficient knowledge and being educated, cultivated and civilised.
Therefore, bâ-farhang (lit. with culture) is a term that is used to refer to someone
who is polite, and bi-farhang (lit. without culture) is used to describe someone who
does not practice adab. It is to be noted that evaluations of farhang are often made
at the level of family background, that is, “uncultivated” individuals are usually
viewed as coming from “uncultivated” families.
In addition, adab, which captures the core cultural values related to social
relations, is formed from a network of several cultural sub-schemas (Fig. 18.1).
Usually, the enactment of adab is associated with practice of one or some of these
lower-level cultural schemas in different contexts.
As captured in Fig. 18.2, the cultural schema of adab is an over-arching macro
schema that includes several lower-level cultural schemas. In fact, the expression,
perception and evaluation of politeness in Persian are most often associated with
how these cultural schemas are practiced in interaction. This means that, depending
on the context and the interlocutors’ relationship status, the failure (either inten-
tional or unintentional) to act according to these schemas can potentially trigger
negative evaluations and ultimately provoke perceptions of impoliteness. In the
following section, an attempt is made to show how each of these schemas can
enable Persian speakers to express adab or politeness when used in the right
context. The examples provided in this section are both from our online sources and
field notes.
18.4.1 Cultural Schema of Shekasteh-Nafsi
Cultural schema of shekasteh-nafsi (Sharifian 2008) can be glossed as shekast-eh

‘break-PP’, nafs ‘*self’, and i (a marker of process/action/event). This schema
encourages individuals to restrain any thought or behaviour that has an egotistic
essence in an attempt to be more modest and ultimately polite. This cultural schema
may also be referred to as forou-tani: forou ‘lower/dip/plunge’, tan ‘body’, and i (a
marker of process/action/event). An instantiations of this schema is found in cases
Adab ‘politeness’
macro cultural schema
r udarbayesti
t a’ arof ‘state/feeling
‘ritual of distance - sharmandegi
courtesy’ out - being
of -respect’
ashamed’
shekasteh-
nafsi
‘self - âberu
lowering’ ‘ face’
Fig. 18.2 Cultural schema of adab

where a person disagrees with a compliment, tones it down, returns it to the

complimenter, or reassigns it to an interlocutor, a family member, and/or God.
According to the schema, success and achievement should be viewed in collective
terms and not merely as a result of an individual’s personal efforts. The schema of
shekasteh-nafsi spurns any thought of self-endearment. This schema embodies
values and norms that are associated with how one should view and talk about their
nafs ‘self, ego’, particularly in relation to other “selves” in the family and in the
wider society. This cultural schema underlies the use of many compliment
responses in Persian, as in the following example2:
(3)
1. Nazanin: vây! che ghadr ghazâtun xoshmazas!
[Wow! Your food is so delicious!]
2. Bahar: na bâbâ! kojâsh xoshmazas?!
[No way! It is not good at all, is it?!]
3. Nazanin: nafarmâin, shomâ ye âshpaze herfe-ei hastin!
[Don’t say that please, you are a professional chef!]
Example 3 is a very common conversation in which politeness is expressed by
practicing the cultural schema of shekasteh-nafsi which is in fact manifested in how
Bahar turns down the compliment in turn 3. Being modest or practicing shekasteh-
nafsi is a feature that is advocated and very positively evaluated in Persian culture.
Consider the following example:
(4) ostâd Mohebi besiyâr ostâde ghâbele ehterâmi hastan. vaghti harf az savâde
ishun mishe, hamishe shekasteh-nafsi mikonan. ishun besiyâr oftâde hastand…
[Professor Mohebi is a very respectable man. When we talk about his vast
knowledge, he always does shekasteh-nafsi. He is very down-to-earth…]
18.4.2 Cultural Schema of âberu
The cultural schema of âberu morphologically consists of two words: ‘âb’ (water)
and ‘ru’ (face) (see Sharifian 2007, 2011). In this schema, the notion of face
somehow represents one’s social image and is “a metonym for how a person as a
whole would appear to others” (Sharifian 2011: 141). As O’Shea (2000: 101) notes,
in Persian âberu “or honour, is a powerful social force. All Iranians measure
themselves to a great extent by the honour they accumulate through their actions
and social interrelations.” Since this schema is closely associated with the notion of
2
In excerpts, the English sentences are pragmatic approximations and not morpheme-to-morpheme
glosses.
face and social image, people are expected to maintain their own and other’s âberu
and to avoid damaging it (Tayebi 2016). Consider the following example which
shows a positive evaluation of maintaining another’s face:
(5) xeili mamnun ke âberu pesaram ro hefz kardi… in neshun dahande-ye adabe
shomâ va xânevâdatune
[Thank you so much for maintaining my son’s âberu… this shows how polite
you and your family are.]
As the example shows, maintaining others’ âberu is directly associated with
being polite and showing respect or adab to others.
18.4.3 Cultural Schema of Sharmandegi
Sharmandegi or the feeling of being ashamed is a cultural conceptualisation that is

used to express politeness and respect to others usually by means of several for-
mulaic expressions. This expression is frequently heard when one intends to per-
form various speech acts such as expressing gratitude, offering goods and service,
requesting good and service and apologising (see Sharifian 2011). For example, one
may use the phrase sharmandeh-am (I am ashamed) to thank someone for the
favour they have received. The underlying conceptualisation for the use of this
expression is that one is aware that “the other person may have undergone some
kind of trouble in providing the speaker with goods and services” and that that
person “is not necessarily obligated to provide such services” (Sharifian 2011: 104).
Consider the following example in which the speaker expresses sharmandegi when
expressing gratitude:
(6) xeili mamnun az hame komak-hâtun be man va mâdaram. vâghean mâro
sharmande kardin.
[Thank you so much for all you have done for me and my mother. You really
made us ashamed.]
In fact, the expression of the cultural schema of sharmandegi is one of the many
ways that Persian speakers express adab. Consider the following example from our
field notes: the speaker who has done a favour to a friend who has in turn shown his
gratitude by sincerely expressing sharmandegi, evaluates the friend as very polite.
(7) cheghadr Mohsen pesare mo’adabi-ye, chand ruz pish umad daftaram koli
tashakor kardo goft ke vâghean mano sharmande kardin!
[Mohsen is such a polite guy, a couple of days ago he came to my office to thank
me for what I did for him, and he kept on saying that he was really ashamed!]
It should be mentioned that expressing sharmandegi is among many strategies
that allow Persian speakers to practice another cultural schema known as ta’arof.
18.4.4 Cultural Schema of Ta’arof
Ta’arof is a cultural schema that plays a major role in everyday Persian social
interactions. This is reflected in the vast body of literature (Asdjodi 2001; Assadi
1980; Eslami 2005; Hillman 1981; Hodge 1957; Koutlaki 2002; Sharifian 2011)
that has been built up upon the notion of ta’arof. While Beeman (1986) describes
ta’arof as the language of politeness and praise, ta’arof, as the literature (Koutlaki
2002; Rafiee 1992) suggests, is most often associated with and described as
ostensibly and constantly offering goods and services, such as food and gifts, to
other interlocutors in certain interactions. The cultural schema of ta’arof generally
provides “a form of social space for speakers to exercise face work, project certain
social personas, and also to provide communicative tools to negotiate and lubricate
social relationships” (Sharifian 2011: 144). Previous studies (Asdjodi 2001;
Beeman 1986; Eslami 2005; Koutlaki 2002) have revealed that ta’arof has various
linguistic realisations depending on the context of the conversation and the rela-
tionship status of the interlocutors.
The cultural schema of ta’arof is most frequently associated with the speech acts
of making a request, offering goods and services, accepting goods and services and
making an invitation (Sharifian and Tayebi in press). Often, in the speech acts of
making an ostensible offer or an ostensible invitation, instead of saying, ‘da’vatam
nakard beram tu’, ‘didn’t invite me inside’, the speaker might use ta’arof at the
meta-discourse level and say, ‘ta’arof-am nakard beram tu’, ‘didn’t ta’arof me to
go inside’. Consider the following conversation in 8 below which took place at a
dinner table:
(8)
1. A: bekeshin bâzam!
[Please have more (food)!]
2. B: merci, xeili xordam.
[Thanks, I am pretty full.]
3. A: na bâbâ! bekeshin, dige bebaxshid age bad shode, sharmandam.
[Oh no! please have some more! I am sorry if the food is not good enough, I am
ashamed.]
4. B: xeili ham xoshmazas! dastetun dard nakone.
[It actually is really delicious! Thank you so much.]
As the example shows, speaker A, who is the host, is doing ta’arof in turn 1 by
offering her guests more food to eat and in turn 3 by repeating her offer again. It is
worth mentioning that by apologising for the quality of the food in turn 3, she is
acting according to the cultural schema of sharmandegi. The cultural schema of
ta’arof is a concept that is so deeply interwoven with notions of respect and
politeness that people will often go to any lengths to display it in order to be
considered polite or not unintentionally offend others. Consider the following
example to see how practicing ta’arof can lead to an evaluation of politeness:
(9) bâbâye Amin vâghean marde mo’adabi-ye, diruz raftam dame xunashun bâ
Amin harf bezanam, oomad dame dar koli ta’arof va esrâr ke beram tu.
[Amin’s dad is such a polite man, yesterday when I went to talk to Amin, he
came to the door and did ta’arof and insisted that I go in.]
It should be noted that one of the reasons Persian speakers often engage in
ta’arof in certain contexts and with certain people is because of another cultural
schema which is rudarbâyesti.
18.4.5 Cultural Schema of Rudarbâyesti
The cultural schema of ru-dar-bâyesti (lit. ‘face out-of-obligation’) can be trans-

lated as the state of respect one has for others due to distance. This cultural schema
arises from differences in people’s social and relational status. This means that one
is obligated to practice certain degree of respect and politeness with individuals in
certain role and positions. This feeling of respect is often associated with the degree
of sociocultural distance feel between a subject and other interlocutors, but could
extend to close relations such as between a father and a son. In this cultural schema
the “feeling of distance usually leads to a feeling of hesitation experienced by the
speaker when it comes to enacting a face-threatening act such as refusing an offer or
an invitation” (Babai and Sharifian 2013: 811).
In fact, the cultural schemas of ta’arof and rudarbâyesti are closely associated.
In fact, rudarbâyesti is a state or feeling which often stimulates the practice of
ta’arof. As the study by Babai and Sharifian (2013) shows, the more rudarbâyesti
one has with others, the more one feels the need to practice ta’arof. By way of
illustration, consider the following example in which the cultural schema of
rudarbâyesti can explain why the speaker is nervous about an upcoming party she
is hosting:
(10) re’isam ro bâ zano bachash da’vat kardam xunamun… nemixâm mehmu-
nim bad beshe… âxe bâhâshun rudarbâyesti dâram… xeili ezterâb dâram.
[I have invited my boss and his family over to my house… I don’t want the party
to be a disaster… I have so much rudarbayesti with them… I am so nervous.]
It should be noted that although these cultural schemas are frequently used by
Persian speakers, they are not equally shared by all members of the speech com-
munity (Sharifian 2011). This highlights the importance of the notion of ‘hetero-
geneous distribution’ of cultural conceptualisations, which is a pivotal theoretical
concept in Cultural Linguistics. Cultural cognition is a form of enactive cognition
(Stewart et al. 2011) which is formed as a result of interactions between individuals.
As a matter of fact, cultural cognition is not equally shared by speakers across a
speech community, but takes the form of (heterogeneously) distributed cognition
(Hutchins 1994). In other words, speakers show variations and differences in their
access to and internalisation of cultural cognition. Also, cultural cognition is
dynamic in that it is constantly being negotiated and renegotiated across generations
in a speech community, as well as through contact with other speech communities
In Cultural Linguistics, it is argued that the distribution of cultural conceptual-

isations among speakers in a speech community is heterogeneous and that vari-
ability in these conceptualisations is at the very heart of each speech community.
This is, in fact, how the misunderstandings between people within one speech
community can be accounted for. The heterogeneous nature of the distribution of
cultural schemas across a speech community in fact provides a basis for speakers to
evaluate other interlocutors’ communicative behaviour, for example as not adhering
to a particular schema, such as ta’arof, which then leads to the assessment that they
are ‘impolite’. Although in reality people are likely to access cultural schemas to
varying degrees, for example, in cases where the context of their upbringing has
differed, they still often operate on the assumption of shared cultural schemas. Such
assumptions of shared schemas then, can lead to the impression that an interlocutor
has consciously breached a particular cultural schema, such as ta’arof, for example
by not rejecting an offer several times. This issue will be further addressed in the
following section.
18.5 Analysis of the Data: Impoliteness and Breach

of Cultural Schemas
In this section, an attempt is made to show how the three-layered analysis and the
analytical tool of cultural schemas can account for the role of cultural conceptu-
alisations in the perception of impoliteness in Persian. To this aim, several incidents
of miscommunication between Persian speakers in which an evaluation of impo-
liteness is made are discussed. It should be noted that our analysis is based on the
personal evaluations that were provided by the interlocutors as the interactions
unfolded as well as at the level of meta-discourse. The analysis provided in this
section are based on examples that include one or more impoliteness markers, thus
we excluded those instances that, although appearing to be impolite to us, did not
generate any explicit impoliteness marker that directly revealed that the speaker had
taken offence.
The analysis of the meta-discourse markers and the cultural schemas in our data
suggests that speakers directly associate the breach of this schema with impolite-
ness. In this section, an attempt is made to describe (i) the situations in which the
breach of the cultural schema has provoked a perception of impoliteness and
(ii) how the interlocutors evaluate the breach of the schema in question. Consider
the following conversations held between a granddaughter (M) and a grandmother
(G) from our field notes:
(11)
1. M: in xânume X xeili bi adab-e!
[Mrs. X seems very rude!]
2. G: cherâ?
[How come?]
3. M: diruz ke raftam dame xunashun zarfesho pas bedam yek kalame nagof
befarmâ tu.
[Yesterday when I went to return her plate, she did not invite me in.]
4. G: xob hatman shoharesh xune bude
[Maybe her husband was home.]
5. M: bahse in nis ke! man ke nemiraftam, vali bâyad ye ta’arofe alaki mikard.
[That’s not the point! I would not have accepted her invitation, but she could
have even ostensibly done ta’arof.]
In this example the meta-discourse marker ‘bi-adab’ shows that Mrs. X has been
evaluated negatively by the speaker. The analysis of the discourse and the con-
ceptual level shows that M is offended because she expected X to invite her into her
house, however ostensibly. Inviting friends, family members or even distant col-
leagues and neighbours to one’s house when one is near one’s house while in
conversation with them is an important part of the schema of ta’arof and a failure to
do so can be negatively evaluated particularly by someone who actively uses this
schema. It should be noted that the speaker’s expectation extends to an ostensible
invitation, reflected in the expression bayaed ye ta’arofe alaki mikard (she should
have even ostensibly done ta’arof). This suggests that ostensible invitations are
perceived as polite strategies, which again reflects the relevance of ta’arof to per-
ceptions of impoliteness.
It is worth noting that we also came across cases in our data where an individual
intentionally refused to do ta’arof in a similar context as a strategy to offend the
addressee. Such examples are clear instances of that form of impoliteness in which
one intends to offend others by not adhering to a certain cultural schema. The
following example provides a case in point:
(12) be hame ta’arof kardam ke biyân bâgh, joz Minâ. hesâbi behesh barxord
va behem gele kard. manam behesh goftam ke az ‘amd nagoftam ke talâfi kâre
zeshte hafte pishesh ro bokonam.
[I did ta’arof and invited everyone to come to the garden except Mina. She was
seriously offended and even confronted me. I told her that I did intentionally not
invite her to retaliate what she did to me last week.]
In this example, the speaker is upset with how her friend had treated her on a
different occasion in the past. She therefore reciprocated her act by not inviting
(ta’arof) her to come to her garden to intentionally offend her. The breach of the
schema is clearly evaluated as offensive by Mina, and to the extent that she con-
fronted the speaker and even questioned her about her intention.
Consider another example from our online sources in which breach of another
schema was evaluated as impolite:
(13) 1. Ali: dâdâsh, man sharmandam nemitunam biyâm birun. bâyad porozhe
Nasrin ro tamum konam.
[Dude, I am sorry (ashamed3) I can’t accompany you tonight. I have to finish

Nasrin’s project.]
2. Naser: kâre Nasrin be to che?!
[What does Nasrin’s project have to do with you?!]
3. Ali: porru xânum, bedune rudarbâyesti, xeili râhat goft kâre mano barâm
anjâm bede. manam natunestam begam na.
[This cheeky girl asked me very simply, with no rudarbâyesti, to do her project
for her. I could not say no.]
4. Naser: che porru! nabâyad ghabul mikardi.
[That’s so rude! You shouldn’t have agreed to do it.]
In this example, Nasrin is interpreted as impolite or rude by both interlocutors
because of the request she made. In this extract, Nasrin who is a mutual friend has
asked Ali to do her project for her without drawing on the cultural schema of
rudarbâyesti. Similar to the cultural schema of ta’arof, rudarbâyesti can be
reflected in the amount of hesitation one intentionally shows or the hedges one
makes before making a request. As can be seen in turn 3, Ali is not impressed by
the way Nasrin approached him with her request as he uses the meta-discourse
marker (bedun-e rudarbâyesti) or with no rudarbâyesti to describe her behaviour.
As turn 4 shows, Naser is not impressed by Nasrin’s behaviour either, and notes
that Ali should not have agreed to do the work for her. Interestingly, the fact that
Ali’s behaviour can be further explained by both cultural schemas of ta’arof and
rudarbâyesti, which urge him not to reject the request made by Nasrin. Examples
such as 13 can explain the interrelated and complex nature of the cultural schemas
and can provide further explanation as to why in Fig. 18.2 above they are presented
as interrelated categories.
Example 14 from our online data is another noteworthy excerpt which shows a
clear example of intentional impoliteness in which the schema of rudarbâyesti is
breached:
(14) chand ruz pish duste bâbâm behem goft boro mâshinamo jâsho avaz kon.
manam bedune rudarbâyesti goftam man nemitunam, alân futbâle. xeili asabâni
shod va behesh barxord! injuri goftam ke dige be man dastur nade.
[A couple of days ago, my dad’s friend asked me to move his car to a different
place, but with no rudarbâyesti I told him that I could not do it because I wanted to
watch football. He got really mad and was offended! I did it intentionally so that he
would stop giving me orders.]
In example 14, the speaker has rejected his dad’s friend’s request abruptly and
with no show of hesitation to show how unhappy he is about the request in
question. The friend is most probably offended because he expected the speaker
who is younger than him not to reject the request (and to show some rudarbâyesti).
The fact that the speaker uses the schema of rudarbâyesti in the meta-discourse
reveals that the speaker is aware of the presence of such schema and the potential
3
The speaker draws on the schema of sharmandegi and uses the term ‘sharmandam’ (lit. I am
ashamed) to say he is sorry.
consequence of breaching it; however he intentionally breaches it as a strategy to

let his dad’s friend know he does not like to be ordered around. Such examples can
clearly be accounted for by the heterogeneous distribution of the cultural
conceptualisations.
There were other examples in our data which included similar evaluations of
impoliteness caused by breach of other cultural schemas such as âberu. Consider
Example 15 from our online data:
(15) dishab ye seri mehmun mohem dashtim… ghazâ kam umad! âberumun raft!
xeili zesht shod.
[Last night we had several important guests … but the food I had cooked was not
enough! We lost our âberu! That was ugly (awkward).]
In this example, the speaker had prepared insufficient food for all the guests, an
unfortunate incident which is often associated with one’s loss of âberu (face) and
can cause the speaker to feel embarrassed or ashamed. As the example shows, the
speaker believes that there is a possibility that she might be evaluated as incon-
siderate by her guests, particularly because she does not have a close relationship
with them. This example can to some extent explain the tremendous value that
Iranians place upon the notion of having guests. This is, in fact, so interwoven with
the history of Iranians that there is a very old and famous saying that says, “mehmân
habibe xodâst” roughly translated as ‘a guest is God’s friend’. Many Iranians
reserve a separate room (usually the best room in the house) furnished with
expensive/fancy furniture for entertaining visitors. According to this deeply rooted
cultural conceptualisation, the quality and quantity of the food one prepares for
his/her guests is often directly associated with one’s âberu or social image because
it is one of the many ways one can display respect and adab towards others.
In our data, we also found examples in which people were offended because the
cultural schema of âberu was breached such as 16 below from our online data:
(16) chand ruz pish, jelo yeki az pesarâ kelâs ke xeili azash xosham miyâd, Nedâ
yeho goft xaste nemishi enghadr kafshât pâshne bolande?! xeili behem barxord,
âberum ro bord jelo hame.
[A couple of days ago, right in front of one of the boys that I have a big crush on,
Neda told me that she wonders whether I ever get tired of wearing high heels?! I
was really offended because she ruined my âberu.]
As this example shows, the speaker particularly evaluated her friend’s comment
about her shoes as offensive because of the presence of a (significant) third party.
Based on the offence categories in impoliteness research, the comment about the
speaker’s high heels and the implied remark made about her short height can be
categorised as “quality face” offence in which our “personal qualities, e.g. our
confidence, abilities, appearance, etc.” is not positively evaluated (Spencer-Oatey
2002: 504). Quality face is also directly associated with one’s social image or
âberu; consequently, comments made about one’s personal qualities in public can
threaten one’s social image and be evaluated as offensive. Consider another
example from the online sources in which a breach of the cultural schema of
shekasteh-nafsi is negatively evaluated:
(17) âghâ Rezâ xeili pourro va bi-shaxsiyate! harjâ mirim, enghadr az xodesh
ta’rif mikone ke hâlet beham mixore.
[Mr. Rezâ is very rude and has no shaxsiyat (character quality)! Wherever we
go, he brags about himself so much that it makes you sick.]
As Example 17 shows, Rezâ is evaluated as rude or impolite only because he
seems to have breached the cultural schema of shekasteh-nafsi. This example refers
to the schema of shekasteh-nafsi according to which one is urged to practice
modesty and downplay their talents, skills and achievements (Sharifian 2008). As
the example shows, the speaker evaluated Reza as rude because he tends to show
off and brag about his achievements at every opportunity. Consider another
example in which the potential breach of the schema of shekasteh-nafsi can be
evaluated as impolite by others:
(18) man aslan ghasd nadâshtam az xodam ta’rif konam vali fek konam nâxâste
in kâro kardam. xeili zesht shod.
[I did not mean to brag about myself, but I think I unintentionally did that. That
was so impolite of me.]
Example 18 also displays the heterogeneous distribution of cultural schemas as it
reveals a case in which although the speaker is aware of the cultural schema of
shekasteh-nafsi and knows that she should not talk about herself in a boastful
manner, she recognises that she has unintentionally breached the cultural schema in
question. As a result of this unintentional breach, she now thinks that those who
heard her comments might evaluate her negatively; therefore, she evaluates her own
act as zesht (ugly) or rude in this context.
In our data, we also came across examples in which the speaker intentionally
breached the schema of shekasteh-nafsi to achieve certain goals. By way of illus-
tration consider example 19 from our field notes:
(19) to bahs koli az sabke neveshtârim ta’rif kardam, hes kardam hamkâra
xosheshun nayumad ke az xodam migam. vali aslan mohem nist! man darmorede
chizi ke vâsash zahmat keshidam shekasteh-nafsi nemikonam.
[I boasted about my writing style in the discussion but I felt like my colleagues
did not really like the fact that I bragged about myself. I don’t care! I do not do
shekasteh-nafsi for something I worked so hard for.]
In Fig. 18.2 above we also referred to the schema of sharmandegi which is used
to express politeness in certain contexts. Consider the following examples in which
the expression of sharmandegi in the speech act of apologising could avoid the
potential offence. Consider the following example:
(20) raftam barash xarid kardam vali yek kalame ozr xâhi nakard.
[I did her shopping, but she did not even apologise for that.]
Example 20 constitutes one of the contexts where the expression sharmandam
(or I’m ashamed) could have been used by the person in question to apologise for
the burden that she has placed on the speaker. The cultural schema of sharmandegi
is a strategy for the speaker to thank the addressee for a favour they have done and
by doing so they avoid the potential impoliteness.
18.6 Discussion and Concluding Remarks
The aim of this study was to apply the framework of Cultural Linguistics to
investigate whether the analytical tools of Cultural Linguistics can explain the
perception and evaluation of impoliteness, using data from Persian speakers. In this
study, instead of focusing on broad definitions of ‘culture’ and the assumption that
culture is comprised of certain fixed features that are unconditionally accepted by
all members of the speech community and passed on to the next generations, the
notion of ‘cultural conceptualisation’ from a Cultural Linguistics perspective was
adopted. As the study shows, by drawing on the analytical tools of Cultural
Linguistics we are able to argue that a large portion of cognitive conceptualisations
are both cultural and heterogeneously distributed across a speech community. In
fact, linguistic interactions lead to, and in turn rely on, conceptual processes such
as: (a) schematisation, or abstracting conceptual schemas from experience, (b) cat-
egorisation, or assigning experiences of various kinds to our pre-established cog-
nitive categories, and (c) conceptual mapping, or mapping between different
conceptual domains.
As Sharifian (2011: 1) argues, an important part of human cognition and con-
ceptualisation is cultural in nature because members of a speech community
“constantly negotiate ‘templates’ for their thought and behaviour in exchanging
their conceptual experiences” and so develop certain concerted conceptualisations
that are specific to the members of that speech community. Cultural linguistics is “a
framework that is particularly sensitive not only to the role of culture in linguistic
choices and perceptions, but also to the role of language in maintaining and
transmitting the cultural conceptualisations that these linguistic choices have pro-
duced over time under the influence of pre-existing cultural and linguistically
entrenched schemas” (Frank 2015: 493).
This study has developed a focused three-layer approach which draws on dis-
course analysis and the ethnography of cultural conceptualisations that was applied
to the analysis of the impoliteness data. A close scrutiny of the data suggests that
often speakers mark their evaluations of impoliteness at the level of meta-discourse,
for example through the use of a word like ‘ugly’. They may also explicitly
highlight the underlying conceptualisations that they believe have been breached
(e.g. ta’arof nakard ‘didn’t do ta’arof’) at the level of meta-discourse. It is, how-
ever, at the level of discourse where speakers provide details about the exact nature
of the act/move that has been evaluated as ‘violating’ or ‘breaching’ a particular
cultural conceptualisation.
It should be noted, however, that a comprehensive understanding of the cultural
conceptualisations that underlie such perceptions of impoliteness requires in-depth
ethnographic explorations, as speakers usually assume cultural conceptualisations
to be shared and thus they are not necessarily explicated at the level of discourse.
This is an example of an approach that borrows, in a complementary fashion, tools
of analysis from across more than one discipline, in this case linguistics (i.e. dis-
course analysis) and anthropology (ethnography). It is very much hoped that the
approach adopted in this study proves to be useful in examining data from other
languages.
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Author Biographies
Language (John Benjamins, 2011), the founding Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of
Language and Culture (IJoLC) [John Benjamins] and the founding Editor of Cultural Linguistics
book series [Springer].
Tahmineh Tayebi is a Ph.D. candidate within the HDR Programme of Linguistics and Applied
Linguistics at Monash University. Her current research is on impoliteness and offence in Persian.
Her areas of interest include Cultural Linguistics, im/politeness, pragmatics and intercultural
communication. Tahmineh has published in leading international journals such as Journal of
Pragmatics and Discourse Processes.
Chapter 19
Seoul Uncle: Cultural Conceptualisations
Behind the Use of Address Terms
in Korean
Hyejeong Ahn
19.1 Introduction
In the era of globalisation, intercultural encounters are far more frequent and sig-
nificant than in any previous time in human history. When people communicate
with each other, their linguistic behaviour is, to a large extent, drawn from or
governed by their cultural conceptualisations (Sharifian, 2017; Sharifian and
Jamarani, 2013). This is particularly noticeable in intercultural encounters, even in
spoken English where the ways people are addressed do not always follow English
speaking ‘norms’ (Scollon and Scollon, 2001) and when following English ‘norms’
of address is not always welcomed. Okamura (2009) investigates a case of effective
and successful intercultural communication in the usage of address terms between
Japanese and non-Japanese at a work place and argues that the significant efforts of
both groups of interlocutors to pay attention to each other’s norms regarding how to
address each other has been key in developing smooth and comfortable
inter-cultural communication.
Wierzbicka (2015) argues that terms of address are the most basic tool for social
interaction, and differences between languages in their use can create great potential
for miscommunication between interlocutors from different linguistic backgrounds.
It has also been noted in a number of studies that foreigners who live in S. Korea
often feel that finding an appropriate address term to use when referring to Korean
colleagues or friends causes confusion, embarrassment and uneasiness (Lee and
Lee, 2013; Midori, 2013). Korean students in Australia also report that they feel
embarrassed or uncomfortable calling their professors by their first name and the
requirement that they use the first name as an address term discourages them from
asking questions or contacting their professors. Choi (1997) reports that this
H. Ahn (&)
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
e-mail: mesya0801@gmail.com

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_19
412 H. Ahn
probably has had a negative influence on the development of mutual relationships

between Korean students and professors in Australia.
Despite the profound implications for successful intercultural communication,
address terms in Korean have been neglected by scholars. The aims of this study,
thus, are to present the cultural conceptualisation behind the use of address terms in
Korean to consolidate an understanding of the interrelationship between Korean
culture and address terms for both Koreans and non-Koreans. The data is collected
from a popular Korean reality TV show, The return of superman, and analysed
from a Cultural Linguistics perspective, using the three analytical tools of cultural
schemas, cultural metaphors and cultural categories. A particular focus is also given
to the examination of the use of kinship terms including teknonymy and geono-
nymy. The findings suggest that the Korean cultural schema of JANGYUYUSEO [THERE
MUST BE ORDER BETWEEN SENIORS AND JUNIORS] rigorously governs Korean linguistic
behaviour, particularly when it comes to address terms interwoven together with the
cultural metaphor of COMMUNITY MEMBERS AS KIN (Wolf 2008, p. 370). Although
JANGYUYUSEO can be found in virtually every aspect of the Korean language, the
present study focuses on consolidating the relationship between the address terms
and JANGYUYUSEO.
19.2 Cultural Linguistics
Cultural Linguistics has multidisciplinary origins and explores the interrelationship

between language, culture and conceptualisation, while drawing its central incep-
tion from cognitive linguistics. It has been argued that explicating the interrela-
tionship between culture and language use has been largely under-researched due to
the hitherto limited analytical frameworks available for breaking down the construct
of culture and examining its components. Cultural Linguistics, however, proposes a
theoretical and analytical framework that allows the features of human languages to
be systemically and rigorously explored in relation to culture (Sharifian, 2011,
2013, 2015c, 2017). This framework, which can be best described as one of cul-
turally constructed conceptualisations, sees language as a symbol of cultural cog-
nition, or cognition that emerges from the interactions amongst the members of a
cultural group. It utilises three analytical tools: cultural schemas, cultural categories
and cultural conceptual metaphors. Cultural schemas can be understood as the
collective cognitions associated with a cultural group, which are therefore, to some
extent based on shared experiences common to the group. They can be expressed in
a heterogeneous and idiosyncratic way, and may be subject to constant negotiation
and renegotiation. Examples of cultural schemas can often be found in culturally
incommensurable interpretations of words, for example ‘privacy’ (Nakada and
Tamura, 2005) or of speech acts, like, for example, of greetings. To elaborate, in
some languages, greeting is closely associated with the schemas of ‘eating’ and
‘food’ whereas in others it is associated with health (Sohn, 2006; Xu, 2014).
Sharifian (2011, 2015b) also reviewed the schema of Tarof that governs a Persian
19 Seoul Uncle: Cultural Conceptualisations Behind … 413
speaker’s behaviour to generate ‘ostensible’ invitations. Other examples can be

evidenced from the Chinese cultural schema of guanxi which roughly refers to
‘backdoor practice’ and how this schema governs Chinese linguistic and social
behaviour (Xu, 2010).
Regarding cultural categories, Sharifian (2015a) argues that categorisation is one
of the most fundamental human cognitive activities and that the categorisation of
many objects, events and experiences, food and vegetables, fruit and so on are
culturally constructed. For example, ‘a house-warming party’ as a cultural category
refers to an event that is opposed to ‘a farewell party’. The ‘house-warming party’
cultural schema includes all the other aspects of the event, such as the procedures
that need to be followed, the roles of various participants and expectations asso-
ciated with those roles. In the Korean context this would include guests bringing
typical gifts such as ‘a roll of toilet paper’ or ‘a packet of laundry detergent’ to the
host’s new house (Kim, 2015). As for the relationship between language and cul-
tural categories, many lexical items of human languages refer to the categories and
their instances. For example, the words ‘aunty’ and ‘uncle’ in Singaporean English
can be used to unflatteringly refer to a distinct group of people somewhat mar-
ginalised in Singapore (Wong, 2006). The use of ‘aunty’ and ‘uncle’ in
Singaporean English also provides evidence of the culture-specific metaphor,
COMMUNITY MEMBER AS KIN (Wolf, 2008). As for cultural metaphors, this refers to the
cognitive conceptualisation showing how our basic understanding is meditated by
conceptual metaphor. For example, time is represented as an animal that is not easy
to capture or that chases us in both English and Korean (Lee, 2009) and likewise,
adulthood is expressed as a kinship term in a number of languages such as
Singaporean English (Wong, 2006).
19.3 Cultural Schema of JANGYUYUSEO in South Korea
The cultures of East Asian countries, namely, China, Japan and Korea are con-
sidered to be heavily influenced by Confucianism. Confucianism has endured in
these countries as the basic social and political value system for over one thousand
years. In the case of Korea, the values of Confucianism were adopted as the official
philosophy more than 500 years ago (Yum, 2009). In addition, the values of
Confucianism were institutionalised and propagated both through the formal cur-
riculum of the educational system and through the selection process of government
officials. During this process, Confucian values have been conservatively adopted
in South Korea resulting in a notable emphasis on hierarchical and vertical social
relationships (Deuchler, 1992; Lee et al., 2011; Park and Cho, 1995; Zhang and Li,
2013). The core values of Confucian teachings in Korea are called Samgang Oryun,
commonly translated as the ‘Three bonds and five relationships’. The central pillar
of Samgang Oryun is to maintain and establish a harmonious social relationship by
adhering to a hierarchical social order and taking responsibility for being a member
414 H. Ahn
of a community. Samgang Oryun stipulates the ethical standards and moral disci-
plines that people are expected to follow. A brief interpretation of it is as follows:
Samgang is composed of three basic principles for governing a state virtuously, which are
Gunwisingang [the subject must serve the ruler], Buwijagang [the child must serve the
parent] and Buwibugang [the wife must serve the husband]. Oryun encompasses five moral
disciplines in human relations for a harmonious society, which are Bujayuchin [there must
be closeness between father and son], Gunsinyueui [there must be justice between ruler and
subject], Bubuyubyeol [there must be distinction between husband and wife], Jangyuyuseo
[there must be order between senior and junior] and Bunguyusin [there must be trust
between friend and friend] (Lee et al., 2011, p. 41).
The present study focuses on reviewing JANGYUYUSEO, the primary concern of which
is the maintenance of orderly social relationships between senior and junior. In so
doing, it has strongly influenced communication patterns in the Korean language
(Yoon, 2004). For example, the value placed on social order between seniors and
juniors is explicitly represented by the highly stratified linguistic codes found in almost
every aspect of the language via the famous Korean honorific system (Brown, 2011).
These include Korean address terms, which are basically reconcilable with the hier-
archical order of human relationships. In the next section, a detailed review of Korean
address terms demonstrates how address terms have been finely developed to index the
vertical social relationship between an addresser and an addressee.
19.4 Address Terms in Korean
The form of systems of address in Korean is complex. What complicates matters

from the outset is that the use of personal names and pronouns to designate a
status-superior addressee is considered extremely inadequate because they do not
sufficiently index the addressee’s social position in relation to the addresser and to
the community. This restriction consequently requires Koreans to develop a com-
plicated set of address terms that allow them to precisely signal status-superior
addressees without using a personal name. This is exemplified in the transition from
the use of personal names to the use of cultural categories of kinship terms,
teknonymy, geononymy and a person’s titles of occupation and so on in various
contexts (Brown, 2011; Kim, 2015; King, 2006; Koh, 2006; Lee and Harvey, 1973;
Park, 2013). The list below (Table 19.1), drawing from Kang and Jun (2013),
summarises the major patterns of address terms in Korean.
As can be seen in Table 19.1, the set of address terms for a status-inferior
addressee is less developed, largely because little concern is given to developing
various forms of address terms since referring to a status-inferior addressee by
a personal name is the most common practice. Therefore, this section focuses on
reviewing the complicated set of address terms that refer to status-superior
addressees. Firstly, cultural categories of kinship (kinship terms), whether in con-
sanguineal, affinal or fictive senses, are frequently used to address an adult,
status-superior. The pervasive use of kinship terms is seen as a strategy for
circumventing the taboo against the use of personal names in addressing adults (Lee
and Harvey 1973; Yoon 2004). For example, abeoji [father] can be used to refer to
a speaker’s consanguineal father, a speaker’s friend’s father or a male adult in a
respectful manner; likewise eomeoni [mother] can be used to refer to a similar range
of female adults. Samchon [paternal uncle] or imo [maternal aunt] sometimes
substitute for abeoji and eomeoni for the purpose of establishing or expressing
solidarity. Sibling address terms, based solely on age, are often used to indicate
intimates of superior age. Intimates of marginally older age are addressed as hyeong
[older brother] by a male speaker, and oppa, by a female speaker, nuna [older
sister] by a male speaker and eonni by a female speaker.
When these kinship terms are inadequate for unambiguously identifying an
individual who is positioned to share the same term of address with several others,
additional information is added to differentiate a particular addressee. Koreans
extensively employ both teknonymy and geononymy (King, 2006; Lee and Harvey,
1973). Teknonymy as a type of cultural category refers to the practice of addressing
an adult by the name of their child, adding the relationship between the child and
the adult (e.g. a mother of-so-and-so). Lee and Harvey, (1973) note that, since it is
extremely bad form to address an adult by his/her personal name, some people go to
the extreme of using a dog’s name to address its owner teknonymically rather than
address him/her by a personal name. The use of teknonymy is particularly popular
amongst married women to index closeness and solidarity (Kim, 2015).
Geononymy as a type of cultural category is the practice of using place names as a
qualifier for kinship terms. The name of a person’s place of origin or current
residence is added to the appropriate kinship terms to distinguish a particular ref-
erent. In this case, the Seoul samchon can refer to a male adult, who can be either a
fraternal uncle or a father’s or mother’s friend, who lives in Seoul. Lee and Harvey
(1973) suggest that because of the regular replacement of each adult’s personal
name with a series of teknonymical and geononymical titles, it is very common for
Koreans not to know the personal names of many of their status-superior adults and
relatives, including members of their immediate family.
Occupation-based titles are often used when addressers and addressees do not
have an intimate relationship. These terms are often combined with the honorific
suffix—nim (Lee and Lee, 2013; Yoo and Chae, 2011). Occupation titles without
the honorific suffix–nim convey no deference, therefore they are used only to
address subordinates and the addressees’ family name is added as a prefix for the
precise designation of individuals. For example, a high-ranking professor would
generally address a teaching assistant as (Kim) seonsaeng and the teaching assistant
would address the high-ranking professor as (Lee) gyosu nim.
When a pronoun substitute cannot be avoided, speakers will often resort to the
most generic noun forms of address such as ajeossi [less intimate male adult] or
ajumma or ajumeoni [less intimate female adult]. The most universally applicable
example of these forms is probably seonsaeng (nim) [teacher] and sajang (nim)
[boss] (Brown, 2011; Yoo and Chae, 2011). The Korean language also offers two
unique terms, seonbae and hubae, based on the seniority that accrues by joining an
organisation, such as a university, company or the military, in an earlier year.
Table 19.1 Korean address terms
416
Types of address terms For status-superior addressees For status-equal or -inferior addresses
Kinship terms (cultural categories) – Dongsaeng [younger brother and sister and referring to any younger
– Abeonim [esteemed father], abeoji [father], appa person]
[dad] – Personal name
– Eomeonim [esteemed mother], eomeoni [mother],
eomma [mum]
– Keun abeoji [paternal uncle, father’s older
brother]
– Jageun abeoji, samchon [paternal uncle, father’s
younger brother]
– Oe smachon [maternal uncle]
– Gomo [paternal aunt]
– Imo [maternal aunt]
– Nuna [older sister of male]
– Eonni [older sister of female]
– Hyeong [older brother of male]
– Oppa [older brother of female]
Teknonymy –Min-gug eomeonim/eomeoni/eomma
[Mother of Min-gug/so and so—]
Geononymy
– Seoul samchon [Seoul uncle]
Occupation titles (Personal name/family prefix) + (honorific particle – Haksaeng [student and less intimate young person]—family
suffix-nim) name + seonsaeng [teacher]
– Seonsaeng(nim), hunjang(nim) [teacher] – Family name + gyosu [professor]
– Gyosu(nim) [professor]
Other noun forms – Ajeossi [less intimate male adult]
– Ajumma, ajumeoni [less intimate female adult]
– Manura, samonim [one’s wife]
– (Personal name) seonbae(nim) [senior] – Hubae [junior]
Personal name + honorific particle suffix – Hyejeongssi, Hyejeongyang, Hyejeongnim Personal name
(ssi/nim/ya/kun/yang) Family name + occupation title + nim Personal/family name + occupation title
Or – (Kim) gyosu(nim) [Professor Kim]
H. Ahn
Personal name + occupation title + (nim) – (Kim) sajang(nim) [Boss Kim]

Seonbae refers to those who entered before oneself, and hubae refers to those
persons who entered after oneself. In addition, the honorific suffix—nim can be
attached to seonbae (i.e. seonbae nim) along with a personal name for precise
designation when more than one seonbae is present. Other examples of avoiding the
use of one’s name can be found in the reference to wives. Korean married men call
their wives manura, but call everybody else’s wife samonim, a term once reserved
for the wives of teachers (Kang, 1986). As will be appreciated, Korean address
terms are extremely elaborate and it is not relevant to the argument here to include a
more comprehensive review of such a system. For more details of Korean address
terms, refer to the following studies (Brown, 2011; Hwang, 1991).
19.5 Methodology
19.5.1 Data Collection and Analysis
The data for the study was drawn from spoken Korean that was broadcast on the
Korean reality television show, The return of superman. A dataset of approximately
540 minutes of spoken discourse was collected from five episodes of this programme
broadcast from the 9th of August to the 30th of November, 2015. The collected data
was analysed qualitatively from a Cultural Linguistic perspective using the three the-
oretical tools of cultural schema, cultural category and cultural metaphor.
The programme is about five celebrity fathers who are left to care for their
children without help from their wives for 48 hours. During the 48 hours the fathers
and their children are occupied and occasionally the fathers’ friends are invited to
come and play with the children.
This reality television programme was chosen because the address terms pre-
sented in the show are not scripted and are the ones that naturally occurred amongst
the five families: four Korean families and one Korean–Japanese family. The data is
mainly from the four Korean families. The address terms used by the Korean–
Japanese family were excluded as the issues raised were beyond the scope of this
study (see Table 19.2).
The four families are listed in the order of fathers’ names and the names of their
children. The children are listed from oldest to youngest: (1) the Song family
includes the father, Il-gug Song, who is a Korean actor, and his fraternal triplet
sons, Dae-han, Min-gug and Man-se. These three children were born in 2012. Next
is the Lee family, which includes the father, Hwi-jae Lee, who is a Korean
comedian, and his fraternal twin sons, Seo-eon and Seo-jun, who were born in
2013. The third family is the Eom family, which includes the father, Tae-eung Eom,
who is a Korean actor, and his daughter Ji-on who was born in 2014. The final
family is the Dong family, which includes the father Dong-gug Lee, and his five
children. He has two sets of fraternal twin daughters and a son. His children’s
names are listed from the eldest to the youngest: Jae-si (1st), Jae-a (2nd), Seol-a
418 H. Ahn
Table 19.2 The return of superman family members

Song’s family Lee’s family Eom’s Dong’s family
family
Song, Il-gug (father) Lee, Hwi-jae (father) Eom, Lee, Dong-gug
Dae-han (1st), Min-gug Seo-eon (1st) and Tae-eung (father)
(2nd) and Man-se (3rd) Seo-jun (2nd) (father) Jae-si (1st) and Jae-a
(fraternal triplet sons) (fraternal twin sons) Eom, (2nd) (fraternal twin
Ji-on daughters)
(daughter) Seol-a (3rd), Su-a
(4th) (fraternal twin
daughters)
Sian (Son, 5th)
(3rd), Su-a (4th) and the son, Si-an (5th), who is mainly addressed by his nickname,
Dae-bag. In the following analysis section, the first three fathers are coded by their
family names so that Il-gug Song is Song. However, Dong-gug Lee is coded as
Dong as he has the same family name as Hwi-jae Lee.
19.6 Findings
19.6.1 Cultural Schema of JANGYUYUSEO
This section demonstrates the governance of the cultural schema of JANGYUYUSEO, one of
the principles of Samgang Oryun in Korean address terms. Since using a personal name
or a pronoun, particularly a second person pronoun, to address a status superior
(status-senior addressee), is considered rude, a number of different terms besides per-
sonal names and the intimate neo [second person pronoun] have to be applied. The
following section shows the application of a range of noun forms and teknonymous
terms to precisely signal a status-senior addressee and to index his/her seniority.
Address terms for an adult male teacher which indexes his superior social status
in relation to the addresser is analysed first. The social status of a teacher in Korea is
highly regarded and a great amount of respect is often shown (Dunn, 2013). The
following data is excerpted from a situation where the teacher at a Yaejeol school
teaches Song’s triplet sons basic Korean manners. A Yaejeol school is a traditional
school that mainly teaches Korean moral discipline and manners. Five participants
are involved in the following conversation: Song, the father, Song’s triplet sons,
Dae-han (the eldest), Min-gug (the second eldest) and Man-se (the youngest) and
the teacher.
[Song is talking to his child, Min-gug]
(1) Min-gug: Appa, uli eodi gayo?

Where are we going, appa (Dad)?
아빠 우리 어디 가요?
(2) Song: Hunjang-nim hante…yejeol gyoyug…masissneungeosdo meogeulo gayo.
We are going to meet a hunjang-nim (teacher) at Yaejeol School and to eat something
delicious.
훈장님 한테…예절 교육…맛있는것도 먹으로 가요
[…the Song family is waiting for a teacher to arrive at Yeojeol school]
(3) Song: Hunjang-nim malsseum jal deuleoyahaeuh…Hunjang-nim osyeossdd.

You need to listen to hunjang-nim (him) well…oh…Hunjang-nim (he) arrived.
훈장님 말씀 잘 들어야해…훈장님 오셨다
[…]
[The teacher at the Yaejeol school is talking to the children]
(4) Teacher: Hunjang-nimi bolkkyeoyeo…Nugamoshana jalhana…Hunjang-nimi bogo

ijeneun neohui ileumi mwonya?
Hunjang-nim (I) will watch who does well or not. Once hunjang-nim (I) watch you…
What are your names?
훈장님이 볼껴여…누가 못하나 잘하나 훈장님이 보고…이제는…너희 이름이
뭐냐?
[…]
(5) Teacher: Yeogiseo nuga jeil keun hyeonginya?

Who is jeil keun hyeong (the eldest brother) here?
여기서 누가 제일 형이냐?
(6) Man-se: Nayo.

Me.
나요.
[…]
(7) Teacher: Niga hyeongiyeo? Min-gugiga dubeonjjae hyeongigo, Man-sega magnaego

yejeole isseoseo hyeongeul hyeongilago bulleoyadoeji…
‘Are you the oldest? Min-gug is the second and Man-se is the youngest… To be
proper, you need to call an older brother hyeong’
니가 형이여? 민국이가 두번째 형이고, 만세가 막내고…예절에 있어서 형을 형
이라고 불러야되지…
[…]
(8) Teacher: Min-gugi ileona. Hunjang-nimbogo, Min-gugi. Hunjang-nimi satang-

hangae juja… hunjang-nimi yongseo haessda. Dae-hani ililo wabwa. Dongsaengi
ulmyeon hyeongi eotteohge haeyhae?
420 H. Ahn
Stand up Min-gug. Come and see hunjang-nim (me). Hunjang-nim (I) will give you
some candy. Hunjang-nim (I) has forgiven you. Dae-han, come over here. What does
hyeong (you, older brother) do when dongsaeng (Min-gug, younger brother) cries?
Min-gug 이 일어나. 훈장님 보고, 민국이…훈장님이 사탕한개 주자…훈장님이
용서 했다. 대한이 이리로 와봐. 동생이 울면 형이 어떻게 해야해?
(9) Dae-han: Min-guga uljima.

Don’t cry Min-gug.
민국아 울지마.
(10) Min-gug: Dae-hani hyeong gomawo

Thank you Dae-han older brother.
대한이 형 고마워…
First of all, the use of hunjang-nim (i.e. a teacher at the Yaejeol school) is
examined. The hunjang-nim in this situation is an authoritative figure, who is
‘older’ and socially respected. This is demonstrated by the fact that all of the
speakers consistently refer to him as hunjang-nim. No other address terms, such as
pronouns or his name, are used in situations where pronouns and names could be
used in English, such as in sentences (2) and (3). For example, even though hun-
jang-nim is first used in sentence (2), Song repeatedly uses hunjang-nim for every
reference to the teacher, even where the pronoun ‘he’ could have been used as
shown in sentence (3), ‘You need to listen to hunjang-nim (him) well…oh…
Hunjang-nim (he) arrived’. The next two sentences (4) and (8) demonstrate that the
speaker, the hunjang-nim himself, also avoids using a first personal pronoun ‘I’ to
refer to himself when speaking to the children (4).
Hunjang-nim (I) will watch who does well or not. Once hunjang-nim (I) watch you…
What is your name? and (8), ‘Stand up Min-gug. Come and see hunjang-nim (me),
hunjang-nim (I) will give you some candy. Hunjang-nim (I) has forgiven you’. All these
examples indicate Song’s avoidance of using pronouns when referring to the hunjang-
nim and the avoidance of the first person pronoun ‘I’ when referring to himself by the
hungjang-nim clearly index the hunjang-nim’s social superiority in relation to his
addressees. As Park (1997, p. 512) notes, that when Korean job titles are involved, using
the honorific nim is one of the most typical ways to address adults in a respectful way.
Meanwhile, the following sentences (4), (6) and (7), show the contrast in addressing
those with lower social status than the addresser. The hunjang-nim uses the triplets’
names such as Min-gug, and the second person pronoun, neo [second person pronoun,
you] to refer to the children. The application of pronouns and personal names in this
situation indicates that the children are less powerful, less authoritative and younger
than the hunjang-nim. For example, in sentence (4), the hunjang-nim asks the chil-
dren’s names by using a second pronoun ‘you’ as shown in ‘neohui ileumi mwonya?
[What are your names?]’. In sentence (6), Man-se replies to the hunjang-nim’s question
by choosing to use the first person pronoun nayo [me] to refer to himself, although
jeoyo [a humble version of me] which signals he is lowering himself before an
authoritative figure would have been more appropriate. In sentence (7), ‘Niga hyeon-
giyeo? Min-gugiga dubeonjjae hyeongigo, Man-sega…? [Are you the oldest? Min-gug
is the second and Man-se is the youngest…?]’ also exhibit the use of ‘you’ and personal
names. This shows that while the hunjang-nim freely uses the triplets’ names and
pronouns to address them, this strategy is not reciprocated. The triplet sons and Song,
the father, do not once use pronouns or the hunjang-nim’s name to refer to the teacher
in this exchange. It is noted that relative power and status create reciprocal and
non-reciprocal exchanges of address terms. A reciprocal exchange means that the
relationship is equal, while non-reciprocal exchange implies a power difference
between the interlocutors.
In addition, a clear acknowledgement of the different status amongst the triplet
siblings based on their order of birth is found in this excerpt. The triplets refer to
each other by using sibling terms such as hyeong [elder brother] and dongsaeng
[younger brother]. In sentences (9) and (10), when Dae-han, the eldest triplet, says
‘Min-guga uljima [Don’t cry Min-gug]’ and Min-gug replies Dae-hani hyeong
gomawo [Thank you Dae-han hyeong], indicating that Dae-han, as an elder brother,
is positioned to call Min-gug by his personal name, while Min-gug acknowledges
Da-han’s superior social status as an elder brother by referring to him as Dae-hani
hyeong in his response. Differences in their status according to the order of their
birth are also explicitly acknowledged by the hunjang-nim. In sentence (5), he asks
who the eldest is by using the term, jeil keun hyung [eldest brother] and in sentence
(7), he states that Min-gug should be referred to as dubeonjae hyeong [the second
eldest], and Man-se as magnae [the youngest].
The next data set shows the use of various address terms for a teacher. The two
sentences (11) and (13) below are extracted from an interview with Lee, a father of
twins. He is talking to a television audience about his plan to visit his former high
school teacher to express gratitude on Teacher’s day. The remaining excerpts are
from the conversations amongst four interlocutors at Lee’s teacher’s house: Lee, the
father, Seo-eon (elder twin), Seo-jun (younger twin) and Lee’s high school teacher.
[Lee is talking to a television audience]
(11) Lee: Seuseungui naleul maji hayeo godeunghaggyo seonsaeng-nimeul chaja boe-
bgilo hayeossseubnida.
On Seuseung (Teacher’s) day, we are going to visit my high school seonsaeng-nim
(teacher).
스승의 날을 맞이 하여 고등학교 선생님을 찾아 뵙기로 하였습니다.
(12) Lee: Jeohanteneun eotteohge pyohyeon halsu eobsneun eunsa-nimeyo. Jega

goililttae, jeil
banghwanghalttae, i seonsaeng-nim hanteneun jeohui ban hagsaeng moduga da…
hangsang seonsaeng-nimege hangsang yeonlageulgyeolhonsig julyedo seonsaeng-
nimi haejugoyaega
…the most thankful and appreciated eunsa-nim (teacher) to jeo (me), beyond a word
to express. When Je (I) was a first year high school student, when I was lost… (I
think) everyone in jeohui (my) class was well looked after by the seonsaeng-nim
422 H. Ahn
(him). (I) have always stayed in contact with the seonsaeng-nim (him)…The seon-
saeng-nim (he) officiated our marriage…
저한테는 어떻게 표현 할수 없는 은사님에요. 제가 고일일때, 제일 방황할때,
이 선생님한테는 저희 반 학생 모두가 다…항상 선생님에게 항상 연락을…결
혼식 주례도 선생님이 해주고…
[…]
[The Lee family has just arrived at his teacher’s house and they are at the gate.]
(13) Lee: Seo-eona, Seo-juna, Seonsaeng-nim geulae.

Seo-eon, Seo-jun, call the Seonsaeng-nim (teacher).
서언아, 서준아 선생님 그래…
[…]
[Lee is talking to his teacher]
(14) Lee: Seo-juni …aega Se-eoni.

(This) is Seo-jun… (this) is Seo-eon.
서준이…얘가 서언이…
[…]
(15) Lee: Seonsaeng-nimi hwolssin yoli jalhasijyo. Seonsaeng-nim igeo deusyeo

boseyo…
Seonsaeng-nim, jega jogeumanhan seonmul junbi haesseoyo.
Seonsaeng-nim (you) is a much better cook… Seonsaeng-nim, try this
seonsaeng-nim … I have a small gift for seonsaeng-nim (you).
선생님이 훨씬 요리 잘하시죠…선생님 이거 드셔 보세요…
선생님, 제가 조그만한 선물 준비 했어요.
Firstly, in sentence (11), the teacher is addressed as seuseung. In the following

sentences, Lee refers to his high school teacher as eunsa-nim in sentence (12) and
seonsaeng-nim in sentences (12), (13) and (15), respectively. Seuseung, the term
used in sentence (11), was once the term used to address a teacher of the king, while
eunsa-nim literally refers to one who teaches the true meaning of learning and life.
In sentence (12), Lee uses eunsa-nim to express his respect and his gratitude for the
help which he received from his teacher during his troubled teens. He then uses
seonsaeng-nim to refer to him in a way that expresses solidarity. Seonsaeng-nim,
where seonsaeng can be literally translated as ‘a person who came to birth earlier’,
is the most commonly used term to address a teacher in Korea (Brown 2011). Once
again, the teacher’s personal name or pronoun to refer to him are avoided. Sentence
(12), ‘everyone in my class was well looked after by seonsaeng-nim (him)’ shows
the use of the noun term, seonsaeng-nim where the third person pronoun ‘him’
would probably have been used in English. This pattern reoccurs in sentence (13),
‘Seonsaeng-nim (you) is a much better cook… I have a small gift for seonsaeng-
nim (you)’. It is evident that where ‘you’ could have been used in English, seon-
saeng-nim is always used instead. In contrast, Lee’s sons are referred to only by
their names or by pronouns both by Lee and Lee’s teacher. Sentence (12) and
sentence (13) demonstrate the use of the twin’s personal names. In addition, Lee
also refers to himself using the humble first pronouns, jeo [my] or je [I], rejecting
the plain pronoun na [I]. Lee’s decision to address himself by a humble first
personal pronoun je [I] is an acknowledgement of his lower social position in
relation to his teacher. Sentences (1)–(15) show that a teacher, an authoritative
figure with a high social status is addressed as hunjang-nim, seonsaeng-nim,
seuseung, eunsa-nim and this is highly dependent on the context. There is no use of
pronouns in reference to the teacher. In contrast, pronouns or personal names are
only used to refer to other speakers including the fathers and their children, who are
socially lower in rank to, or younger than, the teachers.
The practice of avoiding the use of pronouns to address a person who is older
and socially of a higher rank is also evident within family relationships. Cousins
may count months and even days to work out who is the senior party. As for twins
or triplets, even though the age difference may only be a matter of minutes,
‘younger’ twins are likely to address the elder twins with terms such as ‘hyeong’,
rather than by a personal name. The follow excerpts show that Song, the father of
triplets, continuously addresses himself as ‘dad’ instead of ‘I’ when talking to his
triplet sons:
[Song is talking to Manse, the youngest son]
(15) Song: Appaga Man-se hante boyeo julge isseoyo

Appa (Dad) has something to show Manse (you).
아빠가 만세 한테 보여 줄게 있어요
[Manse doesn’t pay attention to him and Song wants to get his attention]
(16) Song: Abeojiga mansehante malhago issjanha, abeojimalsseum deuleoyaji.

Abeoji (father) is talking to Manse, listen to abeoji.
아버지가 만세한테 말하고 있잖아, 아버지말씀 들어야지.
Sentences (15) and (16) demonstrate Song’s avoidance in the use of ‘I’ to refer
to himself, instead using noun forms such as appa and abeoji. Appa and abeoji
could be translated as dad and father, respectively. The use of appa in sentence
(15) expresses solidarity, while the abeoji in sentence (16) asserts authority. Song
changes from appa to abeoji to address himself when he needs extra authority to
capture Man-se’s attention. The following excerpt (17) shows that Dong, the father
of another family, with five children, also avoids the use of the first person pronoun
when speaking about himself to his children.
(17) Dong: Seol-aya, appahante mul gajyeowa. Eonnido jwoyaji.
Seol-a!, Give it to appa (Dad) and eonni (elder sister).
설아야, 아빠한테 물 가져와. 언니도 줘야지.
As is evident in sentence (17), Dong refers to himself as appa instead of ‘me’.

He also refers to Seol-a’s twin sister, Su-a, as eonni [elder sister]. As shown in the
excerpts from the triplets in sentences (5), (7), (8), (9) and (10), Dong’s
acknowledgement of the birth order of the twins is also evident in his use of address
terms. This is apparent in Lee’s conversation as well.
424 H. Ahn
[Lee is talking to the younger twin, Seo-jun]
(18) Lee: bihaenggi jwo? (Seo- jun-a) hyeong hanbeon jwobwa. Appamal deuleoyaji.
Seo-jun, give the toy plane to hyeong (your elder brother, Seo-eon). Listen to appa (Dad).
비행기 줘? (서준아)형 한번 줘봐. 아빠 말 들어야지.
Sentence (18) shows Lee asking Seo-jun (the younger twin) to take turns with
Seo-eon as they play with toys. Lee refers to Seo-eon as hyeong [elder brother] in
relation to Seo-jun and he also addresses himself as appa instead of ‘me’ when
talking to his children. The sentences from (15) to (18) demonstrate that all three
fathers avoid using a first person pronoun (I) to refer to themselves and use, instead,
a reference to their social role as father in the presence of their children.
The next excerpts show the application of teknonymy, to refer to these fathers in
various contexts.
(19) Sarangi appa, dojeoneun gyesokdoenda.
Sarang’s dad, his challenges continue.
사랑이 아빠 도전은 계속된다.
(20) Ssangdungi appaneun himdeuleo.

Being a dad of twins is a challenging job.
쌍둥이 아빠는 힘들어…
(21) Samdungi appaui hunyuk bangbeob.

The triplet’s dad’s ways of disciplining his children
삼둥이 아빠의 훈육 방법
(22) Ttal babo, jioni Eomappa

Daughter’s daddy, Jion’s Eom dad
딸 바보, 지온이 엄아빠…
The sentences from (19) to (22) demonstrate teknonymical applications in the

address terms used to refer to the four fathers. In sentence (19), Dad, Chu
Seong-hun, whose daughter’s name is Sarang, is referred to teknonymically as
Sarangi appa [dad of Sarang]. The other fathers are also addressed teknonymically.
Hwi-jae Lee is referred to as ssangdungi appa [dad of the twins] and Il-gug Song is
addressed as samdungi appa, [dad of the triplets]. The address terms for Tae-eung
Eom are more elaborate: he is often referred to as his daughter’s daddy, when the
speakers want to emphasise his close bond to his only daughter Ji-on, but he is also
often referred to as Eom appa [Eom, family name, dad] as well as Ji-oni appa [dad
of Ji-on].
In sum, both the individual’s social status and the hierarchical relationship
between addressers and addressees are explicitly acknowledged in the use of
address terms in Korean. Since a teacher in Korea is a highly respected figure,
teachers are addressed by a number of respectful terms such as hunjang-nim,
seonsaeng-nim, seuseung, eunsa-nim. Correspondingly, pronouns are never used to
address teachers. In addition, all the fathers, Song, Lee, Eom and Dong are
addressed as appa [dad] or abeoji [father] and they themselves avoid pronouns
when referring to themselves and other fathers to index a father’s superior social
standing in relation to their children. All these fathers are also addressed
teknonymically, such as Sarangi appa, ssangdungi appa, samdungi appa and Ji-oni
appa as a way to avoid the use of pronouns to refer to them. This analysis shows
that interlocutors are more readily identified by their relative positions in the social
structure than by their individuality. This is achieved through the application of
a title, either professional or social, and the avoidance of personal names. It also
suggests the obligation Korean speakers are under to maintain a hierarchical social
structure, which is made explicit via their use of address terms.
19.6.2 Cultural Metaphor of COMMUNITY MEMBERS AS KIN
The following analysis demonstrates the applications of kinship terms in a fictive

sense to address the friends of these families and non-intimate people that they
accidently come across on the street and in shops. The next excerpt presents a
conversation with Lee’s friend, Jae-euk An. They have been friends since they were
university students. Jae-euk is one year senior to Lee at university.
[Lee is talking to Seo-eon, Lee’s son, introducing Jae-euk to him]
(23) Lee: Seo-eona, Samchon…

Seo-eon, Samchon [uncle]
서언아, 삼촌…
[Jae-euk is talking to Seo-eon]
(24) Jae-euk: Seo-eona. Annyeong hanbeonman haejuseyo. Seo-eona, keun appa wonlae
ileohge saenggin salamiya… Seo-eona, jangpungeul yaegi hago, haeyaji keun appa
kkamjag nollassjanha.
Seo-eon, please say hello to me. Seo-eon, Keun appa (I) normally look like this. Seo-eon,
(you) should have told me that (you) are going to do the ‘jang-pung’ to me.’ Keun appa (I)
was shocked.
서언아. 안녕 한번만 해주세요. …서언아, 큰 아빠 원래 이렇게 생긴 사람이야…서언
아, 장풍을 얘기 하고 해야지 큰 아빠 깜작 놀랐잖아.
[…]
[Lee is talking to Jae-euk]
(25) Lee: Hyeong, igeo masyeo. Nune joheun geoya. Masdo gwaenchanha.
Hyeong (older brother), drink this. It is good for your eyes. It is also tasty.
형 이거 마셔. 눈에 좋은 거야. 맛도 괜찮아.
[…]
426 H. Ahn
[Jae-euk is talking to Seo-eon]
(26) Jae-euk: Keun appado hanib…Keun appa gajima?

Keun-appa (my) turn to drink. …(Do you want) Keun appa (me) not to leave?
큰 아빠도 한입…큰아빠 가지마?
[Lee and Jae-euk are talking to Seo-eon]
(27) Lee: Keun appa jagoga?

‘Do you want Keun appa (him) to sleep over here?’
큰 아빠 자고가?
(28) Jae-euk: keun appa jagoga?

‘Do you want keun appa (me) to sleep over here?’
큰 아빠 자고가?
(29) Lee: Samchon jago gasseumyeon johgesseoyo? samchon jaemisseoyo? samchon

johayo? geunde hyeongneomu jalbonda
‘Do you want samchon (Jae-euk) to sleep over tonight? Was samchon (he) funny? Do you
like samchon (him)?’
삼촌 자고 갔으면 좋겠어요? 삼촌 재밌어요? 삼촌 좋아요?
[Lee is talking to Jae-euk]
(30) Lee: geunde hyeong…neomu jalbonda.

‘By the way, Hyeong (you) are so good at looking after the children.’
근데 형…너무 잘본다.
Jae-euk is referred to by three different kinship terms including samchon, keun

appa and hyeong. As shown in sentences (23) and (29), Lee introduces Jae-euk as
samchon [a paternal uncle] to his son. When his children are not present, Lee
directly addresses Jae-euk as hyeong [an elder brother] as shown in sentences
(27) and (30). Jae-euk in the meantime addresses himself to the children as keun
appa as shown in sentences (24), (26) and (28). Both keun appa and samchon can
be translated as a paternal uncle in English. Keun appa is often used to refer to a
father’s elder brother and also a married man, while samchon is often used to refer
to father’s younger brother or an unmarried man. Jae-euk is older than Lee and
married, thus Jae-euk addressed himself as keun appa when talking to Lee’s chil-
dren. However, Lee can chose to refer to Jae-euk as samchon when talking to his
children as a way of establishing an intimate relationship and sense of solidarity
between them and Jae-euk. However, Lee always addresses Jae-euk as hyeong
[elder brother], when his children are not involved in their conversation. Once
again, pronouns are never used to refer to Jae-euk by either Lee or by Jae-euk
himself. Sentence (27) by Lee, ‘Do you want keun appa (him) to sleep over here?’
and sentence (28) by Jae-euk ‘Do you want keun appa (me) to sleep over here’
show that pronouns (i.e. him and me) are strictly avoided as a means of referring to
Jae-euk in the presence of his children.
The frequent use in a culturally metaphorical way of kinship terms such as

samchon, imo and nuna was also noted. When Eom’s male friend, Si-gyeong, is
invited to Eom’s place, he is either referred to as samchon [a fraternal uncle,
younger] or kidari [long legged] samchon, due to his height. Si-gyeong is younger
than Eom, thus he addresses Eom as hyeong [an elder brother]. In addition, the
camera men working on this programme were frequently addressed as gongryong [a
dinosaur] samchon as they were male and dressed in dinosaur costumes. In addi-
tion, the female staff encountered at a shop and at a restaurant are referred to as imo
[aunt], regardless of their age, by Song and his children. For example, a KTX
female attendant, who appears to be in her 20s and a female staff member at a
dumpling restaurant who appears to be in her late 50s or early 60s are both referred
to as imo. Furthermore, Sarang, a daughter of Chu, who is marginally older than
other children in this programme is always addressed as nuna by other children.
Moreover, when Lee’s twin sons and Song’s triplet sons go outside and play with
some children who they have just met in the playground, they instantly address the
children as hyeong [elder brothers] or nuna [elder sisters]. In sum, avoidance of
pronouns and the extensive use of kinship terms in a metaphorical way to refer to
members in the community are evident. The metaphorical use of kinship terms also
expresses solidarity and also acknowledges the relative social positions of addressee
and addresser.
19.7 Discussion
The multitude of address terms in Korean cannot be reduced to a simple dichotomy.

Instead they are rooted in power and solidarity as they are interwoven into an
intricate community web. The findings suggest that the Korean concern for main-
taining hierarchical social relationships is finely encoded through a number of
address terms that are closely drawn from Korean cultural conceptualisations.
Although the complexity in terms of the number of choices that are open in any
specific context as well as the skills drawn upon to coordinate them appropriately in
a given context may appear complicated, the underlying principles are systemati-
cally dictated by the cultural schema of JANGYUYUSEO or the precept that one should
observe the proprieties prescribed by social relationships as well as by the cultural
metaphors and categories associated with COMMUNITY MEMBERS AS KIN (Wolf, 2008,
p. 370). Address terms in Korean are designed to clarify and accentuate the rela-
tionships between interlocutors by indexing their relative social position in the
context of a group, or a community, instead of focusing on a person’s individuality.
This is exemplified in the transitions from the use of personal names to social status
terms, such as when Lee is referred to as ssangdungi appa [father of twins] in the
presence of his children and also when his friend, Jae-euk is mainly referred to in
terms of his social positions, including hyeong [elder brother] in relation to Lee and
keun appa [a married fraternal uncle] or samchon [an unmarried fraternal uncle] in
the presence of Lee’s children.
428 H. Ahn
In the current globalised world, Korean speakers often live abroad or work with
non-Korean workers and it is increasingly common for Koreans to be involved in
intercultural communication. Consider the following intercultural case between a
Korean speaker, Kyong-hee and an Australian speaker, Tim. Tim is a few years
older than Kyong-hee and Kyong-hee has lived in Australia for one year. Tim has
been invited to Kyong-Hee’s house for dinner. The dialogue below is of Kyong-hee
introducing Min-Ju to Tim on Tim’s arrival. Min-Ju is a close friend of
Kyong-hee’s sister and she is visiting Kyeong-hee while she is Australia for work
for a short period of time.
Kyong-hee: Hi, Tim. Welcome. This is Min-Ju sister.
Tim: Hi Kyong-Hee and Min-Ju.
Although Tim is expected to understand the term ‘a sister’ used by Kyong-hee as

functionally equivalent to the English expression ‘a friend’, given his limited
familiarity with Korean conceptualisation of address terms, he fails to do so and
assumes Min-ju is Kyong-hee’s consanguineous sister. However, later on during
the dinner, Kyong-hee explains to Tim that she felt she would be too rude if she had
introduced her by her personal name alone in her presence, since she is a friend of
her elder sister in Korea. Kyeong-hee’s intercultural awareness in the usage of
address terms is demonstrated by this intercultural communication. Firstly,
Kyeong-hee follows the Korean cultural schema JANGYUYUSEO. She observes the
critical rule of acknowledging Min-ju’s higher social position by choosing to
address her as a sister, a move which is also governed by the cultural category and
metaphor of COMMUNITY MEMBERS AS KIN. However, she also demonstrates her
understanding of Australian cultural conceptualisation when she addresses Tim by
his personal name, despite his superior status as someone older than Kyong-hee.
She also adds Min-ju’s personal name, before ‘sister’, a move that takes Tim’s
perspective into account. If Kyong-hee had introduced Min-ju to a Korean speaker,
she would have been most likely to introduce her either teknonymically or
geononymically. Despite Kyong-hee’s effort to reduce the mismatch between the
two cultural conceptualisations behind the use of address terms, Tim, who is less
familiar with Korean address terms than he is with Australian address, still
misunderstands. Indeed, Tim simply draws on his own cultural conceptualisations
in his interpretation of ‘sister’ in this dialogue. This misunderstanding is later
resolved by Kyong-hee’s explanation. Sharifian (2013, p. 73) states that ‘intercul-
tural communication in the new era is a meeting point for different systems of
cultural conceptualisations’, and that intercultural misunderstanding may occur
when one or more parties has limited exposure to different cultural conceptuali-
sations. Therefore, it is critical for international participants to be exposed to and
educated about different cultural conceptualisations, if they are to become proficient
intercultural communicators.
Consider also the following case,
Megan, an ESL teacher in Australia, tells me that many Korean students prefer to address
her as ‘teacher’, instead of as Mrs Thomson or Megan. She also shows her concern that
Korean students have difficulties in using pronouns appropriately in their writing.
Megan’s observation has important pedagogical implications for the ELT

industry regarding the use of pronouns by Korean speakers when they are learning
English. The avoidance of pronouns and personal names in address terms in Korean
instantiates an internally coherent system that works as a template which allows
Koreans to coherently pattern their concrete linguistic behaviour. To address a
teacher by their first name, and refer to them with the pronouns you, he or she, is so
offensive in their own culture that many Korean students find it impossible to do so
in Australia even though they are aware that it is more appropriate in the local
culture (Kirkpatrick, 2015; Midori, 2013). Therefore, Megan’s observation and
concern about the use of the address terms by a Korean English speaker is
emblematic of the types of experiences which provide ESL practitioners with an
opportunity to investigate further the manner in which Korean conceptualisations
are expressed in the usage of address terms which have traditionally not been
associated with the English language.
19.8 Conclusion
The present study explores the cultural conceptualisation behind the use of address
terms in Korean, and discusses the potential implications for intercultural com-
munication. It is argued that Korean address terms are constrained to a large extent
by the cultural schema of JANGYUYUSEO and that they draw upon the cultural meta-
phors and cultural categorisation associated with COMMUNITY MEMBERS AS KIN (Wolf,
2008, p. 370). The study has also raised the issue that certain difficulties in inter-
cultural communication come from the significant differences between the cultural
conceptualisations that interlocutors rely upon. While Koreans actively participate
in global affairs using English to interact with international interlocutors around the
world, their use of address terms reflecting Korean cultural conceptualisations may
have been overlooked or considered ‘incorrect’. It is hoped the present study has
offered some concrete insight into the cultural conceptualisations behind the use of
Korean address terms. The findings of this study can inform international audiences
of the distinctive Korean use of address terms as well as help Koreans become more
conscious about their own use of address terms so that they can monitor and modify
them when communicating with international interlocutors. The integration of
studies into the forms of address within the analytical framework of Cultural
Linguistics has been highly beneficial as it allows an examination of the compli-
cated address terms in Korean to emerge more clearly. I argue that the Cultural
Linguistic approach needs to be closely incorporated particularly when promoting
intercultural competency.
430 H. Ahn
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Author Biography
Hyejeong Ahn is a lecturer in the Language and Communication Centre at Nanyang

Technological University in Singapore. She earned her Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics at Monash
University in Australia. Her research area focuses on Cultural Linguistics, and Educational
Linguistics, specialising in Teaching English as an International Language (TEIL) and World
Englishes.
Chapter 20
Evidentiality—A Cultural Interpretation
Enrique Bernárdez
20.1 Theoretical Prerequisites
20.1.1 Cultural Linguistics
“Cultural Linguistics is a multidisciplinary area of research that explores the rela-

tionship between language, culture, and conceptualization” (Sharifian 2015a, b:
473).
As stated in the preceding above, Cultural Linguistics attempts, among other
things, to understand the functioning of language, even at the level of grammar, in
its relation with cultural conceptualisations. The central idea, as I see it, is that
human language cannot be adequately understood by looking only at one of its
facets. Most frequently, in the recent history of the discipline, it is cognition—seen
as an individual process—that has been at the centre of research on language—
exclusively or nearly so. In my view, that approach obscures important things, as it
separates culture from language: mainstream cognitive linguistics talks about sit-
uated cognition without a full commitment to the cultural setting of cognition and
hence language itself.
Cultural Linguistics sees language as a complex phenomenon in the framework
of language as a result of adaptive evolution. The disciplines which can be seen as
part of the Cultural Linguistics enterprise share these views, which have been
gaining ground in recent years. Let me mention just a few references on the per-
spective of language as a complex system and its relation with evolution: Bernárdez
1995, in print; Corning 2014; Dupré 2014; Enfield 2015; Everett 2012; Frank 2015;
Hammarström 2016; LaPolla 2015; Massip-Bonet and Bastardas-Boada 2013;
E. Bernárdez (&)
Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
e-mail: ebernard@ucm.es

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_20
434 E. Bernárdez
Palmer 1996; Sharifian 2008, 2011, 2015a, b. It seems evident, then, that the views
of Cultural Linguistics do not inhabit alone the wide field where it is active.
20.1.2 The Concept of Culture
Culture will be understood here a set of practices and their underlying individual
and collective conceptualisations. That is, I follow Pierre Bourdieu’s proposals on
the topic, including the distinction between practical and theoretical thinking—
which may be and frequently are at odds with each other. This view is ultimately
related to such theories of social action as Vygotsky’s and his school in the 1920s
and their later developments (Bernárdez 2005, 2008a, b, 2009; Blommaert 2015;
Bourdieu 1972, 1980; Eco 1999; Hank 2005; Sharifian 2011; Vygotsky 1978;
Wenger 1998; Wilson 2004; Lev 2015).
To make things brief, the central idea is as follows: the humans’ experience of
the world gives rise to a problem, which in turn leads to the finding of adequate
practical strategies that may solve it. In most cases experience and strategies are
shared, i.e. they do not stay at the level of the individual; the strategies are then
repeated with increasing frequency and in due time they are taught to younger
members of the group, with the result of being cognitively entrenched in the
individuals. In this way, collective experience of the world leads to individual
cognitive entrenchment and—at the same time, as human cognition is necessarily
also collective and distributed—collective or social cognitive entrenchment. We can
then speak of ‘cultural conceptualisation’, one of the central ideas of Cultural
Linguistics.
The process of culture-driven grammaticalisation is also compatible with the
main tenets of Cultural Linguistics, let me quote Lev (2015: 99):
Culture-driven grammaticalisation theory posits that cultural influence on linguistic form is
mediated by the emergence of communicative practices which increase the frequency of
particular lexical items, pragmatic inferences, and patterns of discourse, thereby putting in
place a crucial pre-condition for their grammaticalisation.
Quite recently, new light has been shed on the neural mechanisms involved;
some scholars have documented, within the new area of cultural neuroscience,
“factors that affect biological and psychological processes that reciprocally shape
beliefs and norms shared by groups of individuals Hyde et al. (2015: 75)”;
Social and cognitive neuroscience has documented how repeated engagement in daily tasks
shape the ways that we use our brains and hence how they are built and function (…). Such
examples provide a window into the ways in which culture might take hold—the repeated
practice of rituals and events within particular environments reinforces some biological and
neural pathways and not others. Culture provides individuals with behavioral norms and
scripts that direct how an individual is likely to behave in a given context or in response to a
given task. Repeated engagement in these cultural practices reinforces neural pathways that
are recruited in the accomplishment of these cultural tasks, which ultimately leads to
changes in neural structure and/or function (Hyde et al. 2015: 77).
20 Evidentiality—A Cultural Interpretation 435
Oyserman et al. (2014) propose a subdiscipline called culture-as-situated-

cognition:
We conceptualize culture as a set of human universals that are dynamically triggered in
context. In doing so we integrate culture-as-situated-cognition (CSC) and neuroscience
prediction (NP) models to yield a number of novel predictions: first, all societies include
cues triggering both individualistic and collectivistic mindsets. Second, whether a mindset
is triggered by a particular cue and what a triggered mindset implies for judgment, affective
and behavioral response depends on spreading activation within the associative network
activated at that moment. Third, universal features of culture are likely necessary from an
evolutionary perspective; societies develop and sustain specific instantiations of these
universals whether or not these particular instantiations were ever optimal, simply because
they are the way ‘we’ do things (p. 1).
On the other hand, language cannot be seen as a set of abstract, acontextual

structures: real discourse has to be considered, as it reflects the speakers’ com-
municative activity, which is the level at which the effects of cultural conceptual-
isation are primarily visible (Bartmiński 2009; Bernárdez 1995; Sharifian 2011).
The purpose of this chapter is to advance a Cultural Linguistics-based view of
Evidentiality. The points highlighted above will have to be a part of the endeavour.
My aim is not to offer the final and/or complete explanation on this complex topic,
as it is limited to a few languages and the hypothesis introduced here still need to be
confirmed—or disconfirmed—through further empirical research. It has to be seen
as a first—and rather tentative-step in that direction.
20.2 Evidentiality
20.2.1 Definition(s)
The term and concept of ‘evidentiality’ were first proposed to cover a very precise
fact in certain languages. This definition, going back to Franz Boas’ work in 1938,
is well represented in the following one by Aikhenvald (2004: 3): “Evidentiality is a
linguistic category whose primary meaning is source of information” and in much
more detail as:
Evidentiality proper is understood as stating the existence of a source of evidence for some
information; this includes stating that there is some evidence, and also specifying what type
of evidence there is. Evidentiality systems differ in how complex they are – some distin-
guish just two terms (eyewitness and noneyewitness, or reported and everything else),
while others have six (or even more) terms (Aikhenvald 2003: 1)
From this perspective, evidentiality is a grammatical category present only in

some languages. This relative exceptionality can trigger the search for a cultural
interpretation, say “why do these languages have the category and most others do
not?” Aikhenvald herself, in fact, proposed some possible cultural motivations
which were liable to falsification, as will be shown below.
436 E. Bernárdez
Later on, the term was reinterpreted in more abstract terms: “Broadly speaking,
evidentiality is the expression of the source of evidence for a proposition.
Cross-linguistically, different morphological means are used to express eviden-
tiality”. (Peterson et al. 2010: 1).
In this view, evidentiality is seen as a universal cognitive category, necessarily
present in all languages. Things can get further, admitting other, not only mor-
phological, ways of linguistic expression of evidentiality, as Aikhenvald points out
in her review of Diewald and Smirnova (2010): according to her, the view
underlying the papers in that volume considers evidentiality as covering
‘a lexico-grammatical’ continuum. This would include, inter alia, grammatical and obli-
gatory markers of information source, verbs of perception, verbs of thinking, and epistemic
adverbs such as English probably. In other words, every language in the world can be seen
as having evidentials (Aikhenvald 2012: 433).
For Aikhenvald, this makes no sense, as “[e]extending a category ad infinitum

results in lack of clarity, and general confusion. Following the same logic, every
language will have every category” (loc.cit.). These are the editors’ own words
(Diewald and Smirnova 2010: 40–41):
It is common ground among linguists that evidentiality is a semantic and functional
domain, which, like temporality or modality, may be expressed by lexical or grammatical
means” (…) “The term evidential expression is a neutral label (a hypernym) used to denote
any kind of linguistic string with evidential meaning in a particular context, regardless of its
linguistic structure and degree of grammaticalization”.
Aikhenvald (2007: 209) rejects such extension of the meaning of evidentiality

and compares the category of evidentiality to the distinction between time and
tense, or sex and gender:
The term “evidential” primarily relates to information source as a closed grammatical
system whose use is obligatory. The term “information source” relates to the corresponding
conceptual category. This is akin to the distinction between the category of ‘tense’, as
grammaticalised location in time, and the concept of ‘time’. Expressions related to infor-
mation source are heterogeneous and versatile. They include closed classes of particles and
modal verbs, and an open-ended array of verbs of opinion and belief. The term ‘lexical
evidentiality’ is misleading in that it obscures these vital differences.
It can be added that—in the standard cognitive linguistics view—not much place
is left for cultural explanations. In a purely cognitive view of evidentiality or any
other category, it necessarily has to be present in every language. The only dif-
ferences could be found in the forms of expression, as in Peterson et al.’s definition
above. This is indeed the standard view nowadays:
Evidentiality in linguistics concerns how the source of knowledge is expressed in linguistic
communication, whether grammatically coded, lexically coded, or merely inferred (Ekberg
and Paradis 2009: 5).
The continuum of evidentiality expressions. Some authors opt for a continuum

of grammaticalisation (e.g. Cornille 2007: 110):
there is a continuum between lexical and grammatical constructions (…) The claim is that
the lexical and grammatical endpoints of the continuum are related to specific evidential
types, whereas constructions that occupy a position in between can combine several evi-
dential types.
This view can be readily accepted as not lacking valuable antecedents:

Hansjakob Seiler’s UNITYP programme of typological linguistics showed the basic
‘dimensions’ of language along continua ranging from a general, not grammati-
calised form of expression, for instance lexical elements, to those with the highest
grammaticalisation degree, usually at the morphological level.
20.2.2 Incomparable Magnitudes?
The situation is confusing: what is the difference between a language like English,
with no grammatical or specialised lexical means for the optional expression of
evidentiality, and that of Tucano, with up to six morphological, obligatory elements
marking precise types of evidentiality according to the culturally selected types of
source for the speaker’s knowledge? Is evidentiality the same phenomenon in those
two cases, or even in all the languages of the world? What is the relation between
the conceptual or cognitive phenomenon and the grammatical phenomenon?
Aikhenvald (2007: 209) proposed a terminological distinction that can be useful
indeed:
The term ‘evidential’ primarily relates to information source as a closed grammatical
system whose use is obligatory. The term ‘information source’ relates to the corresponding
conceptual category.
This useful distinction, however, is very seldom followed—if ever. The same
happens with the one proposed by Guéntcheva (1990, 1996), Guéntcheva and
Landaburu (2007) between médiatif and énonciation médiatise, which can be
translated as evidentiality and evidential enunciation:
Médiatif is the category systematically present formally in a language, which allows the
speaker to speak of ‘situations (…) s/he has not assumed any responsibility for because s/he
has come to know them through indirect means’ (Guéntcheva 1996: 11).
Énonciation médiatisé, on the other hand, does not imply the presence of any
such systematic formal means of expression; for instance, in discourse different
lexical (but, I’d like to add) also paralinguistic elements can be used in a cer-
tain situation to express the source of our knowledge, our responsibility in the
transmission of that information, etcetera.
438 E. Bernárdez
20.2.3 Enunciation, Use and Discourse in the Study

of Evidentiality
Unfortunately, discussions of evidentiality are most frequently carried out without

reference to use, only taking into account grammatical and/or lexical terms in
isolation from any context and situation of discourse. A certain particle, e.g.
Afrikaans glo, is defined as an evidentiality marker and it then engrosses the
universal repository of evidential markers. In these conditions, finding cultural
explanations of anything having to do with evidentiality seems hopeless.
But in the framework of Cognitive Semiotics, Brandt (no date) understands
evidentiality as rooted in enunciation:
Statements are made in sentences whose grammar in some languages allows or demands
morphological indication of the validity of the information or instruction given, and hence
of the source, reliability or authority of this information or instruction, according to the
speaker. Evidentials are the morphemes (particles, inflections) implied in this phenomenon
as its signifiers, and evidentiality is the universal semantic dimension of validity, whether
signified by evidentials, explicitly mentioned by phrases or clauses in the sentence, or just
implicitly present.
Since the speaker—(…) is implied in the semantics of evidentiality as the presumed inten-
tional transmitter of the involved information, the structure underlying evidentiality is the part
of linguistic semiosis that refers to and characterises speakers, hearers, and general relations
between content and instance of speech—the dimension that French theoreticians of language
and text call l’énonciation, and which cognitive semiotics has therefore named enunciation.
In this chapter, I will adopt a view similar to that of Brandt, Guéntcheva and
others, making a difference between the formal means—viewed, moreover, on a
gradual continuum of grammaticalisation—at the disposal of the speaker and the
speech activity (enunciation) carried out in context, with an intention, etc. Such a
perspective seems to be gaining ground among linguists dealing with evidentiality
—and other linguistic phenomena (cf. Ahn and Yap 2015; Fetzer and Oishi 2014;
Squartini 2007):
Previous studies have shown that evidential markers can serve not only as indicators of
source of information, but can also function as pragmatic or interactive devices as well.
This study, which expands on previous works from an interactionist framework, helps to
distinguish the unique semantic niche of each hearsay evidential marker, particularly in
their role as interactive devices that can be used to negotiate the epistemic rights of each
interlocutor in Korean conversation, and which in turn can also be used as linguistic devices
to manage the face needs for oneself and for others (Ahn and Yap 2015: 76)
20.2.4 A Few Examples of Languages Showing

Non-obligatory Evidentiality
In order to have a clearer idea of the topic, let me briefly analyse a couple of
languages with evidentials. A brief analysis of some real texts—both literary and
journalistic—will show how the elements usually termed ‘evidential markers’ are
used, in accordance to what was said above. In a framework like that of Cultural
Linguistics, language has to be seen in its use, not as abstract(ed) structures deprived
of any context, participants, etc. We have to go farther than sheer structure in order to
find the contact between language and culture: we have to go from a view of language
centred on usage, to one considering its use (Bernárdez 2008a, 2009).
The first part of this analysis will consider such particles as Afrikaans glo,
Swedish lär, and Icelandic ku, as well as a syntactic-morphological construction in
German with the verb sollen.
20.2.4.1 Afrikaans Glo
In Afrikaans, the particle glo is usually defined as an evidential marker, signalling that
the information transmitted has been learnt by hearsay from some source different to
the speaker (or writer). The reliability of the information is therefore not guaranteed.
However, the purely evidential function, viz. marking the secondary character of the
source, is most often not immediately obvious and reference to the source can—and
usually is—made by other means. Glo is in fact a verb developed from Dutch geloven
‘to believe’, and can be used as any other Afrikaans verb, as in (1):
(1) Nelson Mandela het geglo onderwys is noodsaaklik
(http://www0.sun.ac.za/fvzs/nelson-mandela-het-geglo-onderwys-is-
noodsaaklik/)
N.M. believed/thought education is necessary1
where glo appears in its past tense form het geglo.
When used as an evidential/modal particle it is invariable and never preceded by
a subject, and occupies positions not allowed to common verbs. For instance (2):
(2) ’n Minderjarige meisie van die Sandveld is glo deur drie van haar klasmaats
seksueel aangerand.
Die 12-jarige meisie, (…) is in Augustus glo in haar eie klaskamer aangeval
terwyl die onderwyser nie daar was nie.
A young girl from the Sandveld was allegedly sexually assaulted by three
classmates.
The 12-year-old girl was allegedly assaulted by her own classmates while the
teacher was not present
(http://www.netwerk24.com/nuus/2014-11-07-leerders-in-hof-n-meisie-glo-
seksueel-aangerand-is)
In (3) a reason is given for the suspicion mentioned in the headline; the argument in
the body of the text lacks any evidential or modal marking:
(3) Majuba-bestuur het glo geweet van verval.
1
All translations are by the author of this chapter, unless indicated otherwise. The translations of
the examples are as much literal as possible, with no aim to idiomaticity in English.
440 E. Bernárdez
Die bestuur van die Majuba-kragstasie weet sedert Januarie dat sy sentrale
steenkoolsilo vibreer en tekens van stres in die beton-struktuur wys.
The administration of Majuba allegedly knew of the ruin.
The administration of the Majuba power station knows since January that the
coal silo of the central vibrated, what pointed to stress in the concrete structure.
(http://www.netwerk24.com/nuus/2014-11-04-majuba-bestuur-het-glo-geweet-
van-verval)
In (4) direct reference is made to the source of the information
(4) Advokaat was glo gedreig met die dood.
Adv. Tom Sawyer, wat Sondagnag op sy plaas naby Greylingstad vermoor is,
het volgens betroubare inligting die afgelope tyd verskeie klagtes by die polisie
ingedien nadat hy glo doodsdreigemente ontvang het.
An advocate was allegedly threatened with death.
Adv. T. S., who Sunday night was murdered on his farm near Greylingstad,
had, according to reliable sources, lodged several reports at the police, after he
had allegedly received death threats
(http://www.netwerk24.com/nuus/2014-11-04-advokaat-moord-nog-feite)
In (5), on the other hand, the evidential meaning is basically absent: a general
inference is made that might be based on some information received from a third
party, although it is our general knowledge what allows the inference, glo just
marking that the information is not fully reliable.
(5) Bejaarde van Ottosdal glo vir R50, munte vermoor
Niemand is nog in hegtenis geneem vir die moord Vrydagaand op die 82-jarige
Dirkie van der Merwe in haar huis in Ottosdal, Noordwes, nie. Sy is glo vir net
R50 en ’n paar bronsmunte vermoor.
An old woman from Ottosdal seemingly killed for 50 Rand and some coins.
Nobody is yet in custody for the murder, on Friday evening, of the 82 year old
D. v.d.M. in her huis at Ottoslad, Northwest. She was killed seemingly for just
50 Rand and a few copper coins.
(http://www.netwerk24.com/Nuus/Misdaad/bejaarde-van-ottosdal-glo-vir-r50-
munte-vermoor-20160229)
In (6), glo is used in the headline whereas the source of the information (the
prosecutor) is given in detail in the first sentences of the text itself.
(6) Ma weer in hof oor sy glo baba se keel wil afsny
’n Jong vrou wat daarvan aangekla word dat sy haar pasgebore baba se keel
met ’n skêr wou afsny, het Maandag weer in die Kaapstadse streekhof verskyn.
Die staat voer aan dat Fatima Gasant (26) van Kensington op 1 Januarie 2015
by die huis geboorte gegee het aan ’n babaseuntjie. Na bewering het sy toe ’n
skêr geneem en die baba daarmee in die nek, rug en maag gesteek.
Mother again in court for her supposed attempt to cut her baby’s throat
A young woman that had been accused of trying to cut her new-born baby’s
throat with scissors, appeared again Monday at the regional court at Cape town.
The prosecutor adduces that F. G. (26) from Kensington gave birth to a son in
her house on 1 January, 2015. According to the accusation she took a pair of
scissors and stabbed the baby in the neck, back and stomach.
(http://www.netwerk24.com/Nuus/Hof/ma-weer-in-hof-oor-sy-glo-baba-se-
keel-wil-afsny-20160229)
From this rapid overview it can be concluded that glo (a) is optional, (b) does not
suffice to show the kind of source the information comes from, or even that there is
a more or less definite source, as the speaker’s inference can be the main reason for
the unreliability of the information provided; glo is therefore frequently accom-
panied by precise indication of the source; and (c) it has a clear modal meaning of
unreliability of the information as only alleged, supposed, or inferred.
In her corpus study of glo in Afrikaans newspapers, Bakx (2014: 40) noticed an
increase in the frequency of the particle on a par with the increase in the formality
of the corpus. She sees as the semantic function of the particle the marking of
unconfirmed information (p. 41). In order to make the information source explicit
other elements have to be used, such as volgens and luidens (both meaning ‘ac-
cording to’).
20.2.4.2 Swedish Lär
The Swedish particle lär is frequently defined as a marker of evidentiality: what is

told has been learnt from someone else, not from the speaker’s own experience. Lär
is a form of the verb lära “learn” but is used in an invariable form and in positions
where ‘real verbs’ can never be used. The grammaticalisation is complete, as was
also the case for Akrikaans glo. Whereas the base verb in Afrikaans clearly referred
to a belief, a supposition etc., lär seems to indicate that the speaker has ‘learnt’ from
someone else the information s/he is transmitting, i.e. it does not stem from her/his
own experience.
Lär seems to be less frequent in the press than glo was; it is most frequent in
literary narratives. A clear instance:
(7) – Han lär ju vara poet, din svåger, sade revisorskan.
He allegedly is a poet, your brother in law, the reviewer said.
(H. Strindberg: Röda rummet Ch. 13)
The reviewer (a woman) emphasises that the man’s brother in law is thought or
said to be a poet. Similarly (8):
(8) Nå ja, det lär ju finnas ett annat och bättre
Oh well, there can be found a different, better one (so they say).
(P. Lagerkvist: Clownen Jack, Ch. 1)
442 E. Bernárdez
On the other hand, (9) is an inference based on general knowledge of the world:
(9) Det lär finnas människor som lever uteslutande efter förnuft och beräkning.
There must be human beings that live exclusively according to reason and
calculation (so they say).
(Clownen Jack, Ch. 8)
There must be human beings that live exclusively according to reason and
calculation (so they say).
Sometimes, however, the idea of a source is apparently left out and what is left is
just a feeling of insecurity about the truth of the assertion:
(10) För resten är det alldeles onödigt - ert pladder lär inte intressera mig.
Anyway it is absolutely unnecessary: your chatter does not interest me much.
Among the (very few) instances in newspapers, (11) and (12) are of interest:
(11) Punkten efter Dagens Nyheter har funnits med allt sedan det första numret
23 december 1864. Grundaren Rudolf Wall lär ha satt dit den med tanken att
Dagens Nyheter inte bara är ett namn. Det är också en avslutad mening, ett
konstaterande av vad som hänt.
The dot after “Dagens Nyheter” (i.e. the title of the journal) has been there
ever since the first issue of December 23rd, 1864. Its founder, R.W. is said to
have set it with the idea that D.N. is not just a name. It is also a complete
meaning, a verification of what happens.
(Dagens Nyheter. 26-12-2015)
Reference is made to, say, ‘oral tradition’, according to which the founder said
that. Lär is being used in an evidential (or evidentiality-close) sense.
(12) Några sådana rön är fortfarande inte publicerade. Men de lär komma snart.
Some similar experiments have not been published yet. But they will
probably come soon.
(Dagens Nyheter. 26-12-2015)
The article discusses the list of important scientific discoveries of 2015.
A foreign source does exist—although it is not mentioned in this excerpt—and we
may assume or infer that it is ‘according to that source’ that we may expect for the
experiments to be published in the short term.
Quite frequently it is very difficult indeed to identify the precise meaning of lär:
(13) min morfar lär ha varit neger
my maternal grandfather is said to have been black
(H. Strindberg, Götiska rumen)
(14) Nej, jag har inte sett dem, men det lär vara en skandalbok.
No, I haven’t seen them, but it is said to be a scandalous book
(loc.cit.)
Mention is made of the reviews of a book but the speaker has not read them, so
they cannot be the source for what he says; one could infer that he has heard people
talk about the book. In fact, no mention is made of any possible sources but a hint is
given that the speaker is not talking on the basis of his/her own experience.
As was also the case with Afrikaans glo, Swedish lär is far from being a clear
marker of evidentiality; it simply seems to assert that the speaker is not ultimately
responsible for his information or comments. It is our pragmatic and cultural
knowledge which decides whether the meaning is just uncertainty or an external
source for the information has to be assumed.
20.2.4.3 Icelandic Ku
This particle behaves similarly to the ones considered above for Afrikaans and
Swedish. Interestingly, its origin is now in the verb kveðja ‘say’ and its gram-
maticalisation is complete. It is generally used to show that what is being said was
uttered by someone else, usually with a general, unprecise referent; it is thus an
equivalent to ‘it is said’, as we have also seen above.
A clear example is (15):
(15) “Ég tala ítölsku við sendimenn, frönsku við konur, þýsku við hermenn, ensku
við hross en spænsku við Guð,” ku Karl fimmti hafa sagt.
“I speak Italian to ambassadors, French to women, German to soldiers,
English to horses and Spanish to God” Charles the fifth is said to have said.
(From Facebook)
In other instances, however, the evidential meaning is apparently lost and what
remains is an expression of the speaker’s lack of responsibility on what is told, or a
general sense of uncertainty:
(16) Sá maður ku ekki vera fæddur að hann finni ekki…
No man has probably been born that he cannot feel…
(H. Laxness: Brekkukotsannáll, Ch. 21)
In the following sentence, however, an explicit reference is made to the source of
information as different from the speaker, and ku is apparently used to express the
uncertainty of the fact:
(17) … hælnum á mínum skóm einsog mér er sagt að nú ku vera móðins í París.
… the heels of my shoes as I have been told that they are fashionable in Paris
now.
(Brekkukotsannáll, Ch. 20)
In the following example, again, reference to an external source coexists with ku
as a marker of uncertainty, as the speaker has been told when he has to do
something, but not that he has little time left; this is rather his own inference:
444 E. Bernárdez
(18) …í vor snemma, en þeir segja það sé um seinan. Ég ku ekki eiga eftir nema
nokkrar vikur.
… in early spring, but they say it is late. So I do not have but a few weeks
left.
(Brekkukotsannáll, Ch. 13)
20.2.4.4 The German Modal Verb Sollen as an Evidentiality Marker
A standard definition of one of the functions of the modal verb sollen is as follows:
It marks that the assertion is made by a person different from the subject and the
speaker (Helbig and Buscha 1974: 113), e.g.
(19) Er soll krank sein.
he is said to be ill.
(20) Er soll sie später wieder getroffen haben.
It is said that he met her again later.
The construction with the main verb in the perfect tense is the one most clearly
definable as evidential, as in the following examples;
(21) Auf den Philippinen soll ein amerikanischer Soldat einen Menschen getötet
haben.
In the Philippines an American soldier is said to have killed a man.
(7/11/14; www.faz.net/)
(22) Bei einem amerikanischen Drohnenangriff in Syrien ist angeblich ein
französischer Islamist getötet worden. - Der konvertierte Bombenbauer soll
Mitglied des Terrornetzes Al Qaida gewesen sein…
Reportedly, a French Islamist has been killed by an American drone attack in
Syria. The converted bomb-maker is said to have been a member of the
terrorist organisation Al Qaida…
(7/11/14; www.faz.net/)
This construction is frequent in journalist texts, especially in news about court
dealings and crimes. It is systematically used in Michael Möseneder’s pieces on the
courts in the Austrian newspaper Der Standard, in what seems a feature of indi-
vidual style more than anything else.
(23) Ein 19-Jähriger soll eine Frau vergewaltigt haben, die ihn nach dem Weg
gefragt hatte.
A 19 year old man is said to have raped a woman who had asked him for
directions.
(27-12-2015)
(24) Eine Mutter soll ihre Tochter in der Wohnung eingesperrt haben, da die am
Vorabend spät heimgekommen ist.
A mother should have her daughter locked up in the apartment, since she had
come home late the night before.
(17-12-2015)
(25) Ein Fußballer soll im Streit seine Ex-Freundin auf der Straße gewürgt und
verprügelt haben.
A footballer is said to have choked and beaten his ex-girlfriend in a dispute
in the street.
(29-2-2016)
The construction occurs in newspapers from all the German-speaking countries
(Germany, Austria, Luxembourg and Switzerland), irrespective of their ‘character’
and ideological orientation, but always in texts of the same general type. Its use
seems to be discourse and style-dependent. As in Swedish and Afrikaans, whenever
the precise indication of the source is necessary, other means have to be used. In
(26) the sollen-construction goes together with the explicit mention of the source
(the digital edition of Bild Zeitung). In (27), however, the construction is not used.
(26) Einer der zwei Fahrer soll nach einem Bericht von Bild.de der Berliner
Rapper Fler gewesen sein.
One of the two drivers should have been the Berliner rapper Fler, according
to a report in Bild.de.
(Suedeutsche Zeitung 28-12-2015)
(27) Die Vereinigten Staaten nähern sich einem früheren Erzfeind an: Präsident
Obama sucht laut einem Medienbericht im Verborgenen den Kontakt zu
Irans Ajatollah Chamenei.
The United States are approaching a former archi-enemy: According to a
media report, President Obama is secretly seeking contact with Iran’s
Ayatollah Khamenei.
(Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 7-11-14)
As can be seen from this brief analysis, the sollen-construction seems to be
neither exclusively nor mainly evidential. It is a construction with an array of
meanings and uses, which includes uncertainty as to the truth content of the
expression.
20.2.5 Languages with Evidential Systems
20.2.5.1 Navajo
The Navajo verbal form jiní (‘someone says’) is used in narratives as a marker of
‘hear-say evidentiality’, as in (27); it can be termed ‘quotative’. In this short excerpt
from a larger tale on Coyote (the trickster of Navajo culture), originally taken from
an oral narrator, this verbal form is used sometimes together with fully referential
jiní pointing to some individual person. Evidential jiní is added in bold in the
446 E. Bernárdez
English version whenever it appears in the Navajo text, to make things clearer. No
attempt is done to provide a detailed analysis of the Navajo text, neither morpho-
logical nor lexical, as it is not necessary and would just make things harder. Text
and translation have been taken from F. Berard Haile. Navajo Coyote Tales.
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997.
(27)
And so, it seems (jiní), he started out again jiní. Suddenly, a Cottontail
jumped up at his feet jiní. In no time he overtook and caught it jiní. “Wait,
wait, wait, My Cousin, first let us tell each other something!” that Rabbit
said. “No, you will run away from me!” Coyote said. “I will sit at your crotch
while we are telling each other”, he said. “All right, then”, Coyote said.
“What is it you are going to tell me?” Coyote asked.
As can be seen, the marker is used in all the sentences at the beginning of the
text, to mark the facts reported as not having been personally, directly observed by
the narrator. In the following sentences, i.e. ‘within the tale’ itself, the same verbal
form (jiní) appears but with an explicit subject: Coyote or Rabbit. This is very
different from what was seen in the preceding examples, where the use of an
evidential marker was only optional—and not very frequent. This Navajo evidential
construction can therefore be seen as the first example that can be readily used for
some cultural explanation: the use of jiní, although it has not been grammaticalised
in the usual sense of the term, points to the habit of clearly and constantly marking
the utterance as originating outside the space of the speaker/narrator. It seems to be
mainly used in the ‘framework’ of the story, not so much in the narrative as such.
Apache, a close relative of Navajo, uses the cognate ch’iníí, defined by de Reuse
(2003: 82) as a quotative. The quotative particle ch’iǹíí occurs in (28), the first
sentence of a traditional story of the Coyote genre.
(28)
Coyote on.the.other.side 3SG.P.lie QUOT
‘Coyote was lying on the other side (of the fire), it is said.’
Let us see a new Navajo example, from a text on the Holy Wind (McNealy
1997: 100)
(29)
Good one-walks well good jiní. Not right one-walks he then not with-him
good jiní.
(When a person lives in the right way, that is good; when he is not living this
way, he (Wind) does not like it).2
This is traditional knowledge, and the speaker’s lack of responsibility on this
teaching in marked with the quotative. In religious, not strictly narrative chants, as
those included in Matthews (1997), the quotative is not used even in the short
narrative sections. The reason is probably that in such chants what matters is the
invocation itself and the curative character of the words; the source is therefore
secondary. In connection with this, we can recall Aikhenvald’s (2004: 344ff)
comments on the culturally determined use of evidentials in dreams, supernatural
phenomena and feelings: It is possible for the “supernatural world of magic [to] be
viewed as an extension of the real world” (348). Also Lazard (2001: 366) makes
reference to the importance of considering traditional knowledge when dealing with
evidentiality. It has to be mentioned that jiní is the fourth person of the verb, whose
referent is of a general character or someone outside the discourse space proper.
The presence or absence of the quotative evidential in Navajo seems to follow
similar paths to those mentioned by Aikhenvald. More concretely, while in
legendary or mythological narratives the evidential is pervasive, as the text is
presented as a traditional narrative per se, distinct from the real world, in the chants
—akin to magic, as some result is expected from their delivery—things seem to be
viewed as if they existed or took place in the real world.
20.2.5.2 Evidentiality in Cha’palaa
Cha’palaa (official name of the language previously called Cayapa) is spoken by a

few thousand people in NW Ecuador, mainly along the inland rivers Santiago and
Cayapa. It is a part of the small Barbacoan group of languages, together with
Tsáfi’qui (Colorado) and Awá (Coayquer), spoken in near-by areas (Curnow and
Liddicoat 1998). All three languages have been object of studies on evidentiality to
a larger or lesser degree (e.g. Bernárdez 2004; Curnow 1997; Dickinson 2000),
especially in connection with the adjunct/disjunct distinction in the first and second
persons in verbs. Cha’palaa territory is very deep rainy forest.
If a sentence is elicited, for instance during field work, or whenever a sentence is
presented without any context, to exemplify a structure, the result can be as follows:
(30) rukula kasangdeñu dejive
‘men marrying went’
(the) men went to marry
(Own elicited data)
2
McNealy’ translation.
448 E. Bernárdez
Note that -ñu indicates that the men going are not the same that get married. The
verbal ending -ve refers to a third person. But that is not even half the story. In this
sentence, the speaker considers him/herself fully responsible for the truth of the
assertion, probably because s/he has witnessed it. If that is not the case, a different
set of forms needs to be use, with the singular ending -mi, plural -la (like the
nominal plural -la in ruku-la) for the same tense, instead of the personal endings -
yu, -ve. This form occurs systematically in traditional narratives, tales, legendary
stories on the origin of the people, etc. Its use is compulsory.
Interestingly, and certainly due to the influence of Christianisation (which began
in the seventeenth century), when talking about divine things (not traditional
Chachi legends, as above) the ‘certainty’, direct-experience form is used if what is
said belongs to the dogma, i.e. it is (or better: has to be) seen as real. When we go
over to the realm of legend, the indirect source evidential form is ubiquitous.
(31) Kumuinchi kataradeishu juntsa, pi, chijudeeshu juntsa, dyusapaa kive.
Kaspelaya pi putyu waami, virgen maria nakatu tichi jali manvipuntsaañu,
pi kimaa …
Everything we see around, rivers, trees, everything existent, god (dyus-apaa:
God-father) created (ki-ve: direct source [faith!?]). In all times there was
(waa-mi: indirect source) no river, the Virgin Mary seeing there was nowhere
she could wash the nappies, made rivers (kimaa = kimi-aa).
(Añapa et al. 2013: 31)
Similarly, the traditional legend explaining the origin of the Chachi people and
their migration uses the -mi/-la form systematically:
(31) aakela main faami… hiñaa tsai jimaa… benesha tsaa chachilla dejila…
aapala vela katami…
A jaguar came out… going he went… behind, Chachi went… a big place
saw…
(Vittadello 1988, vol. 2: 5–6; the text was produced orally by a Chachi
‘chief’)3
Apart from this distinction between direct and indirect knowledge or experience
of the facts told, Cha’palaa has other means at its disposal. For instance, there are
ways to mark that the speaker is not certain about the time or place of what is being
told, or that they have doubts about what s/he is telling; or that they are telling
something for their own account, as their individual, personal opinion; or that what
is told goes against previous expectations (i.e. mirativity); the possibility also exists
to express by means of specific verbal affixes (e.g. -wa) that an action happened in
3
As one of my referees pointed out, this may be due to conscious and long-standing effort on the
part of the catholic priests who tried to avoid their teachings to be expressed as simple stories: they
had to be seen and expressed as real and undeniable. I fully agree with this view. On the other
hand, cfr. the absence of evidentials in the Navajo ritual chants (yeibichai): even in the narrative
passages, jiní is absent, probably because the chants are assumed to correspond to reality, albeit a
different one from our own. See Aikhenvald (2004: 344ff.) and Lazard (2001: 366).
an extremely remote time or location, so far away that the indirect marker is not
enough.
We can add a peculiar set of locatives pointing to very precise, punctual location
(-bi), a general location usually corresponding to a bigger place (-sha), to something
located inside an extended area where other things are also located (-tala). As well
as the peculiarity of using the verbal endings for the ‘speaker’s experience’ inter-
changeably for first and second/third persons: -yu is first person in assertions,
second in questions, while -ve is second/third in assertions, first in questions
(Vittadello 1988; Wiebe 2004; Bernárdez 2016). Finally, what in Tsafi’ki is simply
a set of deictic elements, in Cha’palaa appears to have been developed into a set of
elements that distinguish ‘cultural’ versus ‘wild’ space (Bernárdez 2004) similarly
to the cultural conceptualisation of the territory described for the Canadian Inuit
(Collignon 1996).
In a small-scale society, traditionally living in houses along the rivers, without
any villages or groups of houses, in an environment which allows only visual
contact with things in the immediate vicinity, precision in what is told and the scope
of the speaker’s responsibility seems to be of the outmost importance. We’ll come
back to these points, of a clear cultural significance, in the next section.
20.2.5.3 A Brief Note on Quechua
The Quechua language has a triple evidential system, as is well known. As in other
languages, the use of the markers is not strictly obligatory, although extremely
frequent. Basically, the same system is found from Southern Quechua (Bolivia,
Cuzco), to Central Peru (Ancash), and Ecuadorian Kichwa (cf. Faller 2002, 2011;
Hintz 2012; Kichwa 2009). But Quechua was—and is—a language with a very
large number of speakers (about 10 million nowadays) and used to be the ‘official
language’ of the Inca Empire (ca. early thirteenth to mid-sixteenth centuries). Even
if most people lived in small villages, the Tawantinsuyu was far from being a
‘small-scale society’ as is the case of Cha’palaa and the Amazonian languages. As
pointed out by one of my referees, the absence of literacy, i.e. the fact that the
language existed only in a spoken form, could be the key for its keeping (up to the
twenty-first century!) the old, traditional evidential system. I cannot enter into the
details but literacy should probably be taken into account in the treatment of evi-
dentiality at large.
20.3 The Cultural Interpretation of Evidentiality
According to what has been shown in the preceding sections, a cultural interpre-
tation only seems feasible if the unrestrictedly universalist cognitive view, centred
on the ‘isolated brain’, is overcome. If something is universal because it is part of
human cognition, in the sense of being ‘wired’ in the brain, no room seems to be
450 E. Bernárdez
left for culture, as culture is necessarily a multifarious phenomenon: variation is the

essence of culture -and language.4 We shall keep in mind the case of languages like
the ones discussed above as having obligatory evidentials, not those which have
been shown to use evidentiality in discourse depending on such factors as topic,
style, etc. This does not mean that the expression of evidentiality lacks any cultural
overtones in those languages, too, but they are not the best examples to begin with.
Mention will be made at the end of Icelandic which, in addition to the already
discussed particle ku has a number of neither strictly nor basically evidentiality
marking elements which fits in the framework introduced in the following pages.
20.3.1 Possible Cultural Premises of Evidentiality
Some authors, beginning with Benjamin Lee Whorf, have advanced possible cul-
tural interpretations of evidentiality. As was pointed out in (2.1.),5 this is not the
case among those who see evidentiality as a universal cognitive category—the
dominant trend nowadays in cognitive linguistics. As opposed to those linguists
who refrain from—and reject—any attempt at a cultural interpretation, Aikhenvald
(2004: 360) wrote:
Having obligatory evidentials implies being precise in stating one’s information source.
[…] Failure to demonstrate one’s competence in the use of evidentials or a breach of
evidential conventions may inflict a blow to the speaker’s reputation and stature as a
responsible and valued member of the community. […] Those who speak a language with
evidentiality find it hard to adjust to the vagueness of information source in many familiar
European languages—such as English, Portuguese, and varieties of Spanish other than
those spoken in the Andes.
An even more precise point is made in the next page (361):

Speaking a language with obligatory evidentials implies adhering to strict cultural con-
ventions. Beliefs, mental attitudes, and patterns of behaviour appear to correlate with these.
A correlation seems to exist between the size of the community and the presence
of obligatory evidentials. A plausible explanation is advanced by the same author
(p. 359):
Being specific in one’s information source appears to correlate with the size of the com-
munity. In a small community everyone keeps an eye on everyone else, and the more
precise one is in indicating how information was acquired, the less the danger of gossip,
accusation and so on. No wonder that most languages with highly complex evidential
systems are spoken by small communities.
4
The literature on the topic is immense; the following touch it from different but coherent per-
spectives and have proved useful for some ideas introduced and developed in the present paper:
Bernárdez (2008a, 2016), Hammarström (2016), Handwerker (2002), Maffi (2005), Sidnell and
Enfield (2012).
5
The main reference could be Ekberg and Paradis (2009).
Another author (Trudgill 2015: 133): raises an apparently minor point that may
be considered as evident but that is much too frequently overlooked: “For
ninety-seven percent of their history, human languages were spoken in neolithic
and pre-neolithic societies which were societies of intimates, characterized by small
size and dense social networks.” Some linguists, sometimes, think about language
throughout human history (and pre-history) as if things were exactly the same now
as in any other moment of the past, in any other place.
In a paper dealing with evidentiality in the Arawak language, Nanti, Lev (2015:
99) writes:
[…] Nanti quotative evidentials grammaticalized from inflected verbs of speaking that
achieved high discourse frequencies due to communicative practices that link respectful
communicative conduct towards others with the avoidance of speculation about others’
actions and internal states. As part of this communicative practice, Nantis largely restrict
their discussion of others’ actions and internal states to two domains: reported speech
regarding others’ actions and internal states, and actions that they witnessed themselves,
which can also serve to index internal states.
This process is related to the emergence of some

norms of respectful communicative conduct embodied in Nanti communicative habitus.
(…) Nantis demonstrate respect for others by avoiding speculation about others’ actions
and their internal states. The result is an evidential ethic that restricts discussions of others’
actions to those that the speaker has witnessed themselves, or via reported speech, actions
which were reported to them by witnesses. Likewise, Nantis’ discussion of others’ internal
states are largely restricted to quoting speech that reports on those internal states – generally
reports by those experiencing those states – or reporting on actions that index those states
(125).
Lev’s (p. 125–126) conclusions are close to Aikhenvald’s:

evidentials, and quotative evidentials in particular, are likely to arise in societies in which
communicative practices are informed by attitudes towards respectful communicative
conduct similar to those found in Nanti society. Reuse’s (2003, pp. 95–96) discussion of
evidentials in Western Apache. De Reuse suggests that the high frequency grammatical-
ized, but non-obligatory, evidentials in Western Apache stem from “[…] Athabaskan
attitudes about the autonomy of the person […] resulting in a reluctance to speak for
another person, or to impute feelings to another person.” Like Nanti, Western Apache
exhibits a quotative grammaticalized from an inflected verb of speaking.
We shall take these ideas as our point of departure for an analysis in the terms of
Cultural Linguistics. First of all, a very brief consideration of the languages with
(alleged or real) evidentials presented above.
In Swedish, Afrikaans, Icelandic and German, the markers of evidentiality are
always optional. Moreover, they are used only or mainly in a few discourse types
and are usually associated with certain registers. Swedish lär is typical of a high
register, whereas Icelandic ku is fairly colloquial. The Afrikaans and German forms
are not exclusive of any register of speech but are rather strongly associated with
journalistic language. These languages, therefore, even if they have some elements,
grammaticalised particles or a morphosyntactic construction in the case of German,
cannot be seen as having a clear-cut category of evidentiality. Only a historical
452 E. Bernárdez
analysis of the process of grammaticalisation and partial specialisation of these

elements could shed some light on the cultural conditions.
History and the development of evidentials. A historical perspective is fre-
quently necessary or at least useful (Bernárdez 2007b). I’ll provide just one
example. In discussions on evidentiality in Spanish, frequent reference is made to
the use of dizque as a quotative. It is usually analysed in reference to a few varieties
of Latin-American Spanish and in connection with Quechua, with a well-known
system of evidentiality. It is frequently asserted that it does not exist in Spain’s
Spanish, which is untrue although dizque is nowadays only used in regional,
non-standard varieties. However, the quotative use of dizque (from dice que, “(-
someone) says that”) is much older and is present in Spain at least from the end of
the fifteenth century. The Spanish Historical Corpus (CORDE) includes, for
instance, utterances like the following:
(…) Gabriel de Monros, mercader de la ciudat de Valencia, ha embiado ahy, a essa vuestra
ciudat de Napoles, un nieto suyo, llamado Juan de Monros, con muchos panyos y mer-
caderia, que toma suma de circa mil e quatrocientos ducados; el qual, en llegando ahí,
dizque començo a vender e fazer muy bien sus fechos
Gabriel de Monros, a merchant in the city of Valencia, has sent there, to that town of yours
of Naples, a grandson of his, named Juan de Moros, with many clothes and merchandise,
whose value is as high as ca. 1,400 ducados; who, on arriving there it is said began to sell
and do his trade (…)
1489; REAL ACADEMIA ESPAÑOLA: Banco de datos (CORDE) [en línea]. Corpus
diacrónico del español. <http://www.rae.es> [12-03-2016]
This quotative evidential stands at the same level as those considered for other
European languages or for Latin-American Spanish.
20.3.2 A Cultural Linguistics Analysis of Evidentiality
The factors influencing the keeping and/or development of a complex system of

evidentiality, as in the case of Cha’palaa, can be summarised as follows:
• Small groups living in isolated environments enhance the probability of
developing evidentials.
• Difficulties in accessing the world around enhance the probability of developing
evidentials; such difficulties can be the impenetrability of the forest, as is the
case in the Amazon6 and also the rainy forest inhabited by the Chachi. They can
also be due to the impossibility of easy travel even over short distances due to
weather conditions, etc. As we saw above, absence of literacy, as in the case of
Quechua, is another fundamental factor.
6
“They have evidentials because in the forest you cannot see anything”, Elsa Gómez-Imbert, a
Colombian specialist in Tucano, explained (in an informal way) at the International Linguistics
Conference in Bogotá, Colombia, September 2014. Also in the Chachi forest visibility is extremely
limited, as I witnessed myself.
• Very tight relations within the group and with neighbouring groups also enhance
the probability of developing evidentials.
Evidentials reflect the cultural conceptualisation of three factors mentioned.
These have to be seen on a cline, not as absolute magnitudes. Navajo, for instance,
shows lower degrees of all three factors in comparison with Cha’palaa, which could
be reflected in the presence of a less-developed, less complex evidential system. At
the same time, this could help explain the historical development of the evidential
markers in Afrikaans, Swedish and Icelandic that were considered above.
This means to that no evidential system at such could be expected in English,
and only in a very limited manner in other Western European languages. History,
geography and the vicissitudes of cultural and political life in Eastern Europe could
thus be set in relation with the presence of stable but simple evidential systems,
basically limited to ‘personal experience versus hearsay’. But this is just a hint not
an explanation: much work has to be done on these languages, considering not only
their present linguistic and cultural state but their changes over time.
We can posit the following propositions integrating cultural scripts (Wierzbicka
2015):
The point of view of speaker A
I want to know something
I do not have direct access to it
I can know about it through someone else
I know I can trust that person because I know him/her
S/he will tell me how well and why s/he knows it (source)
The point of view of speaker B
Case 1
Someone is asking me about something
I have direct access to it /I know/I am sure
I can tell that person how/what it is
I know s/he will trust me
I shall tell the truth
Case 2
Someone is asking me about something
I do not have direct access to it/I do not know/I am not sure
I can tell that person how/what it is
I know s/he will trust me
I say exactly what I have been told or what I have inferred or what I assume…
This way I shall tell the truth
As can be seen, the use or one form of expression or the other will depend on the
interaction process (as in Brandt’s semiotic enunciation model).
454 E. Bernárdez
The core of this script is a cultural view of the situation that can be summarised
as follows.
If A wants to know something but cannot have direct access to it, due to its being
a remote (legendary etc.) fact, being obscured by the environment or any other
reason, the only way to know is to ask someone. As A knows everybody in the
group, s/he knows they will do their best to tell her/him the truth. Their information
will be as correct and precise as possible, and if they do not know for certain (for
A’s some reasons) they will be precise as to why they (think they) know or assume.
A will be able to know as much as possible in the conditions given.
A small set of culturally determined principles are at work here:
(1) Every member of the community knows—to a greater or lesser degree—all, or
most other members.
(2) Members of the community trust each other—except perhaps in a few cases.
(3) Sincerely telling (what one believes to be) the truth is a basic principle of
behaviour in the community.
(4) Whenever someone cannot say that something has been directly experienced,
s/he will say that what is being told is indirect experience, inference, etc.
The central point is of course the need to guarantee the group’s cohesion: as loss
of cohesion leads to conflict and eventually to the disaggregation of the group,
strategies were developed to avoid it. These strategies came to be incorporated
(embodied) in the individuals’ minds, in such a way that the whole community has
at its disposal a number of common strategies, learnt, accepted and used by
everyone, with the same purposes.
20.3.2.1 Cha’palaa
The social, cultural and environmental features of life among the Chachi fit per-
fectly with the conceptualisations and principles given above. This seems to be
confirmed in the vocabulary. In Cha’palaa, the word ura’-paa- means ‘to say the
truth’ but also ‘to speak according to the social and cultural rules’. The root cha- is
strongly associated to the front of the body, and to light: cha-ka- is ‘to light fire, to
make light’, cha- ‘to dawn’, cha-be ‘clarity’, cha-chi ‘(real) human being’ (as
opposed, e.g. to uya- ‘foreigner, someone who is not Chachi’). It is also the vowel
of the root pa- ‘to speak’ (Bernárdez 2004; Tiapuyo 2009). The association
speaking-truth-politeness-humans seems therefore quite evident.
20.3.2.2 Navajo
To a slightly lesser degree, the traditional situation of the Navajo was similar. The
strength of the cultural need to respect everybody—and manifest and guarantee that
respect—is certainly related to the development of some evidential elements and
markers. The regulation of life and communication by means of an extremely

complex set of behaviours, social practices and taboos could perhaps guarantee
mutual trust to such a sufficient degree, as to make it idle to further develop the
evidential system—but remember that evidentiality is not common in the
Athabaskan languages.
The Navajos have a large array of traditional (religious) ceremonies and chants,
as well as folk tales and traditional stories. The use of the quotative evidential
allows the precise picturing of everything as belonging to the real, the magical or
the supernatural worlds. This was also the case in our Cha’palaa examples, as
shown above.
20.3.2.3 Icelandic
We saw above that Icelandic has a special, colloquially used, particle ku used to
report something (probably) said by someone else (indirect evidence). It can be
added that, as is also the case in Danish, the verbs sjá ‘to see’ and heyra ‘to hear’
are used respectively for direct and indirect evidence (Bernárdez 2013). Some other
elements can be related to the cultural conceptualisation of being trustful in the
community; for instance, the use of a whole array of markers of certainty of what is
said, together with a clear separation between what is due to an actor’s conscious
vs. non-conscious, also unintended, unwilling action (Bernárdez 2007a). The
interesting history of the word eðli in Icelandic can also be added: it refers to what
is ‘essential’ to something, be it (in most cases) a person or anything else
(Bernárdez 2006).
Interestingly, the way of life in traditional Iceland (i.e. before WWII), especially
in the countryside, shared some features with the—geographically extremely dif-
ferent—situation of the Chachi as presented above: difficulties of communication,
small, tightly-knit communities where mutual trust was paramount, etc. Confronted
with a situation akin to that of the Chachi, the Icelanders developed a set of
strategies destined to guarantee the cohesion of the group by avoiding unprecise
information. Literature shows many examples of this situation.
Although it is necessary to enter into much more detail in both cases (Chachi and
Icelanders), the similarities seem clear and may invite further research.
Interestingly, some of the features of Icelandic culture mentioned above developed,
not in mediaeval times but in the ‘dark ages’ of poverty and isolation during most of
the Danish control of the country.
20.4 Conclusions
It seems possible and convenient indeed to try to interpret Evidentiality in the

framework of Cultural Linguistics as driven by cultural and cognitive factors at the
same time and through history. In these pages a first attempt has been given, a first
456 E. Bernárdez
step towards a more in-depth understanding of the development of this grammatical

and lexical category. It has been shown that evidentiality goes on a par with the
cultural conceptualisation of trust in communicative situations—and with the
external, environmental conditions of the community. The way of life of a com-
munity can lead to a conceptualisation of communication in cultural, not ‘objec-
tivist’ terms, together with the need to keep cohesion through mutual trust, and all
that can lead to the development of an evidential system. Although no mention has
been made to it in these pages, evidentiality is also a feature of language-contact, as
is sufficiently well known. But of course, language contact goes together with
similarity of environment and—in most cases—with cultural similarities.
Much work still needs to be done in order to (dis)confirm the hypothesis pre-
sented in this pages. Not only on the languages considered but in many others with
different types of evidential system.
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Author Biography
Enrique Bernárdez (1949) is Professor of Linguistics at Complutense University, Madrid (Spain)

where he graduated in German (1971). His main areas of research are the relations between
language and culture, cognitive linguistics, and text linguistics. He has published several books,
including: Introducción a la Lingüística del Texto (Madrid 1982); ¿Qué son las lenguas? (Madrid
1999, 2004, Second edition); El lenguaje como cultura (Madrid, 2008), and Viaje lingüístico por
el mundo (Madrid 2016). Recent articles include: On the cultural character of metaphor; Simile: Its
use and function in Musil’s Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften; A cognitive view on the role of culture
in translation; From Butchers and Surgeons to the linguistic method.
Chapter 21
Noun Classes and Toponyms
in Shüpamem
Lydie Christelle Talla Makoudjou and Victor Loumngam Kamga
21.1 Introduction
Noun class systems are grammatical systems used overtly by some languages to
categorise/classify nouns. Apart from Hombert (1980) and Nchare (2012), very few
studies on Shüpamem have highlighted the use of noun classes. Shüpamem is
spoken in the Kingdom of Bamun which is ruled by the Sultan and the main town
of the Kingdom is Foumban. Shüpamem is a language located in the Noun Division
of the West Region of Cameroon. Classifiers have been selected as an object of
categorisation and study as they portray how Bamuns view and think about the
world and how they conceptualise it.
Cultural Linguistics explores conceptualisations that have a cultural underpin-
ning and are encoded in and communicated through various features of human
languages (Sharifian 2015). In this work, the relationship between language, culture
and thought will be explored through examining locatives employing the analytical
tools of Cultural Linguistics, namely cultural categories and cultural schemas.
21.1.1 Language Classification of Shüpamem Among

the Grassfield Bantu Languages
The Bamun language, also referred to as Shüpamem by its speakers, literally

means: the talk of Bamuns. It is one of a complex group of languages spoken in the
L.C. Talla Makoudjou (&) V. Loumngam Kamga

University of Yaounde I—Ecole Normale Supérieure, Yaoundé, Cameroon
e-mail: tallachristy@yahoo.fr
V. Loumngam Kamga
e-mail: vloumngam@gmail.com

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_21
462 L.C. Talla Makoudjou and V. Loumngam Kamga
West region of Cameroon (Central Africa). It belongs to the geographically defined

group of languages known as Grassfields Bantu (GB) languages of the
Niger-Congo family. According to Ethnologue (Lewis 2009), Shüpamem is clas-
sified as being of Niger-Congo, Atlantic-Congo, Volta-Congo, Benue-Congo,
Bantoid, Southern, Wide Grassfields, Narrow Grassfields, Mbam-Nkam and Nun
origins. There are differences in points of view among scholars on the classification
of GB languages in general and Shüpamem in particular. Shüpamem can be viewed
as related to the Bantu languages group and to Western Sudanic languages and
there is little doubt that Bamum shows elements that are Bantu and at the same time
similarities in vocabulary and structure with the Western Sudanic group.
The Grassfields Bantu Working Group (GBWG) realised that Shüpamem is a
closely related language to the Bamileke languages around the Nun River (Hyman
1980: 181). This discovery was based on similarities in vocabulary items that show
a relationship between the Shüpamem noun class system and that of many other
Bantu languages. Dieu and Renaud (1983) groups Shüpamem in what is known as
Zone 9 including the languages Greenberg (1966) claims to belong to the
Niger-Congo-Kordofanian Phylum. The GB languages to which Shüpamem
belongs has two sub-groups according to Dieu and Renaud’s classification, namely
(a) the Western GB languages and (b) the Eastern GB languages. Therefore, within
the Benue-Congo family, Shüpamem belongs to the Nun group that, according to
Piron (1995), falls under the Mbam-Nkam Grassfields Bantu languages. Although
the Bamum people uncompromisingly view their language as different from the
Bamileke languages, Shüpamem is significantly similar to those languages as
shown by Voorhoeve (1971) who has demonstrated that, from a linguistic stand-
point, it is a dialect of those languages (Fig. 21.1).
Shüpamem is considered a language of wider communication with about
420,000 speakers (Lewis 2009). Many studies have been carried out on the lan-
guage by linguists such as: Hyman (1977), Hombert (1980) and Nchare (2012), and
an attempt has been made to generate a grammar. Like other Bantoid languages, the
issue of gender is very significant in Shüpamem.
While Hombert (1980) attributes six noun classes to the language on the basis of
plural/singular, animate/inanimate distinction, Nchare (2012) mentions fifteen noun
classes based on the grammatical system of the language. However, none of these
scholars refer to locatives as constituting a noun class. A close look at toponyms in
Shüpamem clearly demonstrates that names of places always depend on altitude,
proximity and instrument. It is thus against this backdrop that we suggest the
inclusion of locatives in the noun class system of Shüpamem.
21.2 Cultural Linguistics and Toponyms
Cultural Linguistics is a multidisciplinary field of research aiming at exploring the

relationship between language and cultural conceptualisations (Sharifian 2011,
2015). In Shüpamem, the way phonemes, morphemes and words are shaped, their
21 Noun Classes and Toponyms in Shüpamem 463
Fig. 21.1 Map placing Bamun within the Niger-Congo language. Source Niger-Congo map.png|
Niger-Congo map
range and use reflects people’s lifestyle, particularly how they manage their lan-
guage so as to make it more explicit and understandable at both the micro and
macro level in the community. In this work, we will discuss the relationship
between and Cultural Linguistics and toponyms in Shüpamem
The topography of the Noun Region is diverse, including mountains, plains,
valleys, rivers and streams. The Nun is the name of the main stream flowing in this
area. The royal palace is the reference point for naming any locality or to give
directions to go anywhere. Many references to localities are made with respect to the
palace. This is why, depending on where one is, the designation of an area changes
with reference to the position of the palace. Although the palace is the focus, it
should be noted that each village or district has a chief called a Nji. Every Nji’s
territory could in turn become a reference point for surrounding areas. It is therefore
noted that references that are used to name places fluctuate depending on the focal
point, with the focal point itself usually referring to the residence of a dignitary.
Using classifiers, toponyms in Shüpamem enable an insight into various cultural
conceptualisations belonging to the Bamun way of thinking and viewing the world
(worldview) especially as related to location and place, hence the study’s rela-
tionship to Cultural Linguistics.
21.3 Method
In order to attain the objectives of the study, data composed of maps and names of
places of the Noun Division were collected. The emphasis was laid on the meaning
of affixes, particularly on prefixes, which are morphemes that always precede the
stem of a noun. The maps were useful because they allowed to see the position of a
given area in reference to the royal palace. Finally, interviews with proficient native
speakers enabled Cultural Linguistics analysis.
Ten participants, some over 50 years of age and living in Foumban, were asked
to name the different localities of the Bamun area, to contribute their understandings
of the different meanings and settings. These names were transcribed and compared
with those found on the maps. The participants’ pronunciation enabled to distin-
guish prefixes that seemed to be absent in the official documents due to the
Francisation process. The orthography used in the charts is the one used by the
authors, but in the tables, the International Phonetic Alphabet is used.
21.3.1 Proto-Bantu Classification
Any other gender classification in any Bantu language can be derived from this
chart (Table 21.1). Noun prefixes are adapted according to the writing system and the
semantic domain of a given language. Classes for locatives (16, 17, 18), which are the
concern of this study, describe close, precise, remote and imprecise places, respec-
tively. As we will see, the instrument mentioned in class 18 is different in Shüpamem.
21.3.2 Hombert’s Classification
Just like other Bantoid languages, Shüpamem makes use of tones as distinctive
features of phonemes. This language exhibits two level tones: high, low, (H, L) and
two contour tones: high low, low high (HL, LH) (Table 21.2).
Hombert’s use of noun classes lays much emphasis on the nominal prefixes and
agreement with no reference to locatives.
Table 21.1 Proto-Bantu Classes Noun Approximate semantic domains

classification (Guthrie 1948) prefixes
1- mu- Humans
2- ba- Plural of 1
3- mu- Plants, inanimate
4- mi- Plural of 3
5- d(i)- Miscellaneous, increasing
6- ma- Liquids, plural of 5, 11, 12, 14,
15
7- ki- Miscellaneous, decreasing,
manners
8- n- Plural of 7
9- n- Animals, inanimate
10- n- Plural of 9
11- du- Abstracts
12- ka- Decreasing
13- tu- Plural of 12
14- bu- Abstracts
15- ku- Infinitive
16- pa- Locative (close, precise)
17- ku- Locative (remote, imprecise)
18- mu- Locative (interior), instrumental
19- pi- Decreasing
Table 21.2 Hombert’s classification

Classes Nominal prefix Examples Agreement
Bamoun Proto-Bantu
Ia 1 N- «stranger» ŋgʉn Ø̀
Ib 9 mʌ «woman» mʌmgbí
Ø- «thief» ɣɛn
N- «sheep» nžʉt
mʌ «bird» mʌsí
Ø- «pot» tɛt
II 2 pʌ- «strangers» pʌɣùn pʹ
p- «children» pɔn
Ø- «friends» sún
IIIa 3 N- «net» ndám Øʹ
IIIb 7 Ø- «bag» pàm
IVa 10 (4?) N- «axes» njàm šʹ
IVb 8 P- «birds» pʌsí
Ø- «bags» pàm
V 6 Ø- «egg» pùm šʹ
VI 6 (4?) N- «eggs» mbùm mʹ
21.3.3 Nchare’s Classification
Building on Hombert (1980: 145) who, after comparing both noun prefixes and
consonant onsets for possessive concords, identified six noun classes in Shüpamem,
Nchare (2012) expanded his analysis of noun classes to other nouns that have not
been discussed hitherto. Thus he provides additional data to illustrate each noun
class with respect to possessive concords and other noun modifiers (Table 21.3):
• Class 1 and 2
Classes 1/2 and their subclasses 1a/2a and 1b/2b represent a major class that
includes most human nouns (kinship terms, proper names, titles, etc.) as well as
a number of animals.
• Class 3 and 4
Classes 3 and Class 4 include some names of animals, small items (e.g. boxes,
containers, etc.) and other plants among other things.
• Class 5 and 6
The majority of nouns that belong to Class 5 are signalled by a zero prefix (ø -)
• Class 7 and 8
The nouns that fall in classes 7 and 8 are mostly monosyllabic.
• Class 9 and 10
Classes 9 and 10 represent the pairs of nouns (mostly disyllabic) that only differ
in terms of their surface tones. Class 9 nouns that encode the singular forms
have an underlying Low (L-L)
• Class 11 and 12
Classes 11 and 12 represent a group of nouns (mostly dissyllabic), which differ
only in terms of their surface tones.
• Class 13 and 14
Class 13 with the prefix jín- primarily functions as an infinitive.
Table 21.3 Nchare’s classification

Class Noun prefix Noun concords on post-nominal modifier
POSS DEM Numeral. adj.; relative pro.
1/2 m-/p- ø-v/p-v
̀ ́ ø ̀
-v/p-v̆ / ø ́
-v/p-v ́
1a/2a N-/ø- ø -v/p-v
̀ ́ ø ̀
-v/p-v̆ ø ́
-v/p-v ́
1b/2b ø -/pa- ø -v/ʃ-v̀ ́ ø -v/ʃ ̀ -v̆ ø -v/ʃ ́ -v́
3/4 mɯ-/pɯ ø -v/ʃ ̀ -v́ ø -v/ʃ ̀ -v̆ ø -v/ʃ ́ -v́
5/6 ø -/N- ø -v/m-v ̀ ́ ø -v̀/ʃ v̆ ø -v́/ʃ v́
7/8 CV/red. ø -v̀/ʃ -v́ ø -v̀/ʃ v̆ ø -v́/ʃ -v́
9/10 LL/LHH ʃ -v̀/ʃ -v́ ø -v̀/ʃ v̆ ø -v́/ʃ -v́
11/12 L-HL-/LH-HLH ʃ -v̀/ʃ -v́ ø -v̀/ʃ v̆ ø -v́/ʃ -v́
13/14 Jìn-/pìn- – – –
15 N- – – –
• Class 15
Class 15 is the last class in Nchare’s classification. It is indicated by a nasal
prefix N- that usually attaches to the verb root to form a class of what he refers
to as verbal adjectives and to some extent a participle.
21.4 The Analysis of the Maps
Figure 21.2 of the Noun Division illustrates the processes used in Shüpamem to
name places or localities. From this map, 51 names of villages were listed and
analysed. In fact, the names of places within the Division make use of morphemes
that precede their stem. The authors have also presented the map of the Foumban
Sub-division (See Fig. 21.3). 13 names of localities were listed and analysed. The
same phenomenon in the nomenclature of places is observed. The results are
grouped in Table 21. 4 and 21.5.
21.5 Cultural Conceptualisations and Toponyms
Sharifian (2011), defines conceptualisation as a generic term referring to funda-

mental cognitive processes such as schematisation and categorisation and con-
ceptualisations refers to the end result of these processes, which are constantly
updated against new experiences. While schematisation stands for “a process that
involves the systematic selection of certain aspects of a referent scene to present the
whole, disregarding the remaining aspects” (Talmy 1983: 225), categorisation is a
process by which distinct entities are treated as somehow equivalent (Rosch 1978).
To better discuss this issue, firstly the concepts of referent, relative referent and
global referent are introduced. A referent is defined in this context as an entity from
which one situates a place. When this entity is widely recognised or accepted in the
imagery of the community at the macro level, then the referent is global as, for
example, the Bamun Royal Palace; if the entity is just at the level of the individual,
i.e. the micro level, then the referent is relative (see Fig. 21.3).
Cultural schemas are often based on more or less shared experiences of a speech
community. Cultural schemas allow individuals to convey cultural meanings and
makes sense of cultural experiences (Sharifian 2015). In the case of the Bamuns,
cultural schemas capture, for instance, the relative and global referent, i.e. the royal
palace, a dignitary or merely their house.
With categorisation, the focus is on the acquisition and use of categories shared
by a culture in relation to language. Among cultural categories, there are objects,
events, personalities, etc. These categories are typically acquired through living our
Fig. 21.2 The Map of the Noun Division. Source National Institute of Cartography, Topographic
map of Bafoussam 1/50,000
Fig. 21.3 The map of Foumban Town. Source Google Maps, 2014
cultural life and speaking our language(s) (Sharifian 2015). As such, place names
and settings are cultural categories, which play a significant role in Shüpamem.
The cultural categories of place name and setting are indicated by the four main
locative morphemes used in Shüpamem namely: ma, nku, nfə and nji. These
morphemes are nominal prefixes because they always precede the stem of the name
of the place. They are either indicators of altitude, direction or distance. At first
sight, one might be tempted to think that the data suggests a fifth morpheme ba,
since the names Bangouren and Bagambi both start with ba. However, an in-depth
analysis shows that the prefix ba or more precisely pa means the people of … thus
Ba-ngouren will mean ‘the people of Ngouren’ while Ba-gambi will mean the
people of Gambi. It should be borne in mind that native speakers use the names
Nkoungourain and Nkoungambi, respectively, to refer to these cities. In fact, there
is a generic part in each of these names that does not undergo change (i.e. Ngourain
and Ngambi). When the focus is not on the site but on the people, ba is added to
this generic part to give Ba-ngouren and Ba-gambi; but when focus is on the site,
then one of the four locative morphemes mentioned above is added instead.
Figure 21.4 gives a general overview on how place naming works in
Shüpamem.
470
Table 21.4 Place names as pronounced by native speakers (1)

N° Official name Original name* N° Official name Original name* N° Official name Original name*
1 Nkoumbou nkumbu 19 Mfelap nfəlap 37 Matoufa matufa
2 Makam makam 20 Mfeyet nfəyet 38 Manguiébou magyebu
3 Maloure malure 21 Foumban nfəmben 39 Foumbot nfəmbwot
4 Magba magba 22 Nkangnam nkǎnyam 40 Mankouombi makwɔmbi
5 Mayo mayo 23 Njigoumbé njigûmbe 41 Massagam masagàm
6 Mabouo mabwo 24 Nkounden nkuden 42 Maripa maripa
7 Koutoupi nkutupi 25 Koutaba nkutaba 43 Maka maka
8 Bangourain nkuŋgurὲŋ 26 Malantouen malǎntuen 44 Maloua malwà
9 Nkoumban nkumbaŋ 27 Matoum matùm 45 Makouopsap makwɔpsap
10 Manki maŋkì 28 Mangoum magum 46 Maloung malúŋ
11 Mabicham mabiʃàm 29 Koufen nkufen 47 Mansen manseŋ
12 Mawa mawa 30 Ngoundoum nfəguntùm 48 Maladen malǎden
13 Njimom njimom 31 Nkoupare nkupǎrə 49 Machatoum maʃatum
14 Bangambi nkugambí 32 Njindoun njidun 50 Mfessang nfəsàŋ
15 Njitapon njitǎpɔn 33 Kouoptamo nkwoptam 51 Magna manya
16 Nkoupa-Matapit Nkupǎ 34 Baïgom nfeperə
matǎpít
17 Mafouatié mafwatye 35 Mantcha manʃa
18 Mapou mapu 36 Makpa magwa
*Original name stands for the name used by native speakers to designate localities of the Noun Division
L.C. Talla Makoudjou and V. Loumngam Kamga
Table 21.5 Place names as pronounced by native speakers (2)

N Official name Original N Official Original N Official Original
° name* ° name name* ° name name*
1 Maroum marəm 6 Kounga nkuŋga 11 Njindare njidare
2 Njilom njiləm 7 Njiden njidὲn 12 Njikasen njikǎsέn
3 Nkoufomshou nkufɔmʃu 8 Njisse njise 13 Mambain mamben
4 Njintout njintət 9 Fontain nfətέn
5 Njinka njiŋka 10 Njiyouom njiyɔm
*Original name stands for the name used by native speakers to designate localities of the Noun
Division
Mandap
Nfendap
Njindap
Ndap
(house)
Nkundap
Fig. 21.4 Different variations of the name house according to the relative referent (the speaker)
21.6 Results
Below is a discussion of each locative.
21.6.1 The Locative ma
The locative ma is used whenever a speaker is going down to the referent, i.e. to a
lower altitude from the speaker at the time of speaking, a valley for instance. It can
also be used for very close distances as well as for very remote and uncertain
places. For example:
– Mǎ na shù manka’, I live in Manka; (They are used to go down, especially from
the global referent, they live down the royal place)
– Shín kwɔ pὲέ puá majàmndáp. The guava is behind the house (very close
distance)
– Montɛrə na shù maamerica. My brother lives in America; (very remote and

uncertain)
– Mǎ na guɔn mangaoundere. I am going to Ngaoundéré. (Despite the fact that
Ngaoundéré is situated at a higher altitude, “ma” can be used because the
distance is far and uncertain.)
21.6.2 The Locative nku
Nku in its turn is used when the speaker goes up, to a higher altitude, from the referent.
It can also be used for less remote areas than “ma”. In the above maps, the names of
places starting either with Kou or Nkou fall within this category. For example:
– Shín kwɔ pὲ puá nkujàmndáp. The guava tree is behind the house (proximity
but going up)
– Mǎ guɔn nkufú’. I am going to Bafoussam (not so far and up)
– Mǎ guɔn nkuguren. I am going to Bangouren (going up from the global
referent)
21.6.3 The Locative nfə
In nfə, there is an idea of proximity. However, most importantly, is the fact that the
place is situated at the same altitude as the referent and there is no obstacle (valley,
mountain) on the way. For example:
– Mǎ guɔn nfəndákishin. I am going to the kitchen (same altitude, no barrier).
– Mǎ ndɔ nfəndálerwa. I come from school (same altitude, no barrier).
The prefix nfə can also be used regarding close distances as in, Mǎ guɔn fədùntέn,
I am going to the market (not so far). Names of places starting with Fo, Nfo or Nfe
fall into this category. “Foumban” seems to be the only exception to this rule; as it
literally means “Fem Mben” that is, the ruins of Mben, there is no prefix in this case
rather it is the global referent, that is, the locality where the kingdom is located.
21.6.4 The Locative nji
Nji for its part indicates the fact that the place is situated at the same altitude as the
referent, but there is an obstacle on the way, generally a valley that must be crossed.
For example:
Table 21.6 Examples of locative prefixes

Prefix Example Referent Explanation
Nku I am going to Royal Palace Idea of a place (often subjective
Koutaba global referent representation) located at a higher altitude
Mə nǎ guɔn (stabilised) than the referent. The distance does not
Nkutabe matter but it rarely applies to communities
located beyond the Department: e.g. Nkufü
(Bafoussam) though, we do not say
Nkufrenchi (France)
Ma I live in Koutaba relative Idea of locality at a lower altitude than the
Mataba referent referent
Mǎ na shù The distance does not matter but Ma is
Matabe particularly appropriate to some remote
places or geographic areas Ex: Mafrenchi
(France)
Nfə Take this Royal Palace Idea of locality at the same altitude but some
package to global referent distance away, with the reference generally
Foumbot. used for small or medium distances with no
Ya’ njap hindrance in the way. This is applicable to
pami the names of local neighbourhoods and
nfəbouot communities, e.g. Mfənten, Mfətame,
Let us go Position of the Mfəbouot (Foumbot), Mfəsèt
back home speaker relative
Puɔ lo’ referent
nfəndap
Nji I come from Position of the Idea of a locality situated at the same
church speaker relative altitude but requiring the crossing of an
Mǎ ndɔ referent obstacle (e.g. a valley)
njidényi Increasingly used for short and medium
distances, particularly at the scale of a city,
or to name some areas, e.g. Njitout, Njiséé,
Njimbam
– Njù’ú pà njindare. Our house is situated at Mandare (across the valley).

– Mə nǎ fà’ njisse. I work in Njissé (across the valley)
Some prefixes have become fixed to the name of a locality. This is typically the
case of large areas that could be likened to cities such as Koutaba (Nkoutabe) or
Foumbot (Nfembouot). The original referent is the palace around which the sec-
ondary referents are oriented. Table 21.6 provides some examples.
21.7 Perspectives and Conclusion
Given the fact that Nchare (2012) identifies 15 noun classes for Shüpamem in his
thesis, and with regards to classes 16, 17 and 18 of the Proto-bantu classification
(see Table 21.1), the authors suggest that classes of locatives with the prefixes: ma,
nku, nji and nfə be recognised in the noun class system of Shüpamem. The study of
noun classes in relation to toponyms in Shüpamem could contribute to knowledge
in many domains such as Cultural Linguistics, cognitive anthropology, cultural
anthropology, linguistics and the study and preservation of Shüpamem.
Firstly, in the field of Cultural Linguistics, this study is particularly relevant
because it presents the relationship between language and cultural conceptualisa-
tions through cultural categories, in this instance as related to location of place.
Whether it is the Sultan’s palace or the location of each village or Nji’s (chief’s
territory) the name for each location is specified in relation to either of these foci
and specifies within it the difficulties of reaching that location.
In the field of cognitive anthropology, the importance of the palace to the Bamuns
is significant. In fact, the altitude, proximity and direction of locations are always
given with reference to the palace. Once it is established that the palace is the standard
and the focus of everything, the relevant worldview can better be understood. Again,
the fact that ma is used for unknown and remote areas reveals that in the minds of the
Bamuns, as one moves further from the palace, one moves downwards.
For cultural anthropology, this study is relevant in that it aids in the localisation
and partial description of an area without too many details. As such, it is possible
for someone to know if he has to go up or down, near, far or at the same altitude,
just by hearing the name of the setting or the referent.
This study contributes to linguistics by identifying a set of locatives or noun
prefixes that are attached to the root of the name of a place in the noun class system
of the language. An understanding of cultural relevance of these noun prefixes in
relation to indicating a location can be a great aid to translation.
Finally, in terms of this study and the preservation of Shüpamem, the findings
could also be useful for people interested in testing for proficiency in the language,
in the sense that the acquisition (or not) of these prefixes and the underlying
principles are a measure of a certain degree of competency, while in teaching, the
use of locative morphemes could gradually be introduced from primary to sec-
ondary school.
References
Dieu, M., & Renaud, P. (1983). Atlas Linguistique du Cameroun. Paris: Agence de Cooperation
culturelle et technique and Yaoundé: ACCT/CERDOTOLA/DGRST.
Greenberg, J. (1966). Some Universal of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements. In H. Joseph (Ed.), Universal of language (pp. 73–113). Greenberg,
Cambridge: MIT Press.
Guthrie, M. (1948). The classification of the Bantu Languages. London: Oxford University Press.
Hombert, J. (1980). Le groupe Noun. In L. Bouqiaux (Ed.), L’Expansion Bantou I (pp. 143–163).
Paris: SELAF.
Hyman, L. M. (1977). On the nature of linguistic stress. In L. M. Hyman (Ed.), Studies in Stress
and Accent (pp. 37–82). Los Angeles, California: Southern California Occasional Papers in
Linguistics 4, USC.
Hyman, L. M. (1980). Noun classes in the Grassfields Bantu borderland. Southern California
Occasional Papers in Linguistics 8. Los Angeles: Department of Linguistics, University of
Southern California.
Lewis, M. P. (Ed.). (2009). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (16th ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL
International.
Nchare, A. (2012). The grammar of Shüpamem. A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Department of Linguistics, New York
University.
Piron, P. (1995). Identification lexicostatistique des groups bantoides stables. The Journal of West
African Languages, 25(2), 3–39.
Rosch, E. (1978). Principles of categorization. In E. Rosch & B. Lloyd (Eds.), Cognition and
categorization (pp. 27–48). Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Sharifian, F. (2015). The Routledge handbook of language and culture. New York/London:
Routledge/Taylor & Francis.
Sharifian, F. (2017). Cultural Linguistics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: JohnBenjamins.
Talmy, L. (1983). How language structures space. In H. Pick & L. Acredolo (Eds.), Spatial
orientation: Theory, research, and application (pp. 225–282). New York: Plenum Press.
Voorhoeve, J. (1971). The linguistic unit Mbam-Nkam (Bamileke, Bamun and related languages).
Journal of African Languages, 10(2), 1–12.
Author Biographies
Lydie Christelle Talla Makoudjou teaches Cameroonian Languages and Cultures at the Higher
Teacher Training College of Yaoundé I and is a Ph.D. student In General and Applied Linguistics.
After focusing on the analysis of cultural facts in her thesis, she is now studying Language
Awareness from an educational perspective by investigating the grammatical structure of
marginalised varieties.
Victor Loumngam Kamga has studied Mathematics, Informatics and Educational Technology in
Cameroonian, French and Chinese universities. He taught IT for several years in The Computer
Science’s Department of the Higher Teacher Training College (Yaoundé—Cameroon). His
professional interest is also in the design and the implementation of cultural-based digital tools and
resources for education. His recent research concerns the domains of e-assessment, big data in
education and graph colouring (Mathematics).
Chapter 22
Corpora and Cultural Cognition: How
Corpus-Linguistic Methodology Can
Contribute to Cultural Linguistics
Kim Ebensgaard Jensen
22.1 Introduction
According to Sharifian (2011, p. 29), language is arguably one of the main commu-
nicative systems through which cultural cognition is transmitted, and, consequently,
“it is also instantiated in the content and the use of language”. Cultural Linguistics is
“an analytical framework for breaking down cultures and examining their compo-
nents, so that features of human languages could be explored in terms of the rela-
tionship between language and culture” (Sharifian 2015, p. 477; see also Sharifian
2017). In cases where cultural conceptualisations are directly encoded into the lexicon
and grammar, this instantiation may be readily observable. However, as suggested in
Jensen (2015a), cultural cognition may also be instantiated in less overtly accessible
patterns of language use, such as the discursive behaviour of constructions (Gries and
Stefanowitsch 2004), collocations (Ooi 2000), and the frequency of use of both closed
and open word classes (Leech and Fallon 1992; Elsness 2013). Very often, such
instantiations can be difficult to capture and document using experimental techniques
and introspection, because they emerge as patterns in language use. This poses a
potential methodological challenge, because, since Cultural Linguistics is a
usage-based approach to language (Frank 2015, p. 502), such patterns are part of the
language system but can only be pinned down in naturalistic settings. One method-
ological framework, however, which does allow the analyst to observe patterns
emerging in language use in naturalistic settings is corpus linguistics.
K.E. Jensen (&)

Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies,
University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
e-mail: ebensgaard@hum.ku.dk

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_22
478 K.E. Jensen
This chapter addresses how corpus-linguistic methodology, which has seen

rather limited use in Cultural Linguistics so far, can contribute methodologically to
the Cultural–Linguistic endeavour. Seeing that both Cultural Linguistics and corpus
linguistics take usage-based linguistics as one of their main premises, it makes
sense that corpus-analytical techniques can be used in addressing instantiations of
cultural conceptualisation in language use.
The chapter consists of three parts, the first of which introduces the fundamental
principles of corpus linguistics more broadly. The second part discusses some
examples of corpus studies in which culture is addressed so as to show how the
information generated in such studies can be beneficial to the study of cultural
cognition as instantiated in language use. In the third part of the chapter, three case
studies are presented to illustrate the analysis of cultural conceptualisation through
corpus-linguistic techniques. The first case study addresses Danish pseudocoordi-
nating constructions1 based on posture verbs and how such constructions can reflect
cultural schemata. The surfacing in discourse of stereotyping cultural categorisation
and what could be called cultural metonymy in the X enough to V construction in
English is addressed in the second case study. The final case study addresses the
conceptualisation of sexual intercourse as reflected in the interaction between
argument structure and the expression X make love to Y in twenty varieties of
English.
22.2 Corpora and Culture
22.2.1 Corpus Linguistics
A corpus is a principled database of spoken or written texts documenting naturally

occurring language (Biber et al. 1998, p. 4) which has been specifically compiled
for linguistic analysis such that it represents the type of discourse under investi-
gation, be it a language in general or one or more specific domains of language use
(Baker et al. 2006, p. 48; Gries 2009, pp. 8–9). Most corpora are annotated for
linguistic and extralinguistic information, ranging from parts of speech over syn-
tactic functions to sociolinguistic and pragmatic contextual information.2 Corpora
serve as the main source of data to the corpus linguist, and corpus linguistics is
ultimately “the study of language based on examples of ‘real life’ language use”
(McEnery and Wilson 2001, p. 1).
1
While we will not go into detail with this, we use the term ‘construction’ in the sense embraced in
construction grammar (i.e. Fillmore et al. 1988; Goldberg 1995; Croft 2001). Gries and
Stefanowitsch (2004) and Jensen (2014, 2015a) have shown that construction grammar theory can
be linked up with cultural cognition.
2
For discussions of corpus compilation, see Kennedy (1998, pp. 70–85).
22 Corpora and Cultural Cognition … 479
Corpus linguistics is strongly empirical and often characterised primarily as a

methodology (Kirk 1996, pp. 250–251). Au fond corpus-linguistic research consists
of identifying and quantifying association patterns in the corpus (Biber et al. 1998,
pp. 5–8). Association patterns are defined as “the systematic ways in which lin-
guistic features are used in association with other linguistic and non-linguistic
features” (Biber et al. 1998, p. 5) subsuming linguistic associations (more specif-
ically lexical and grammatical associations) and non-linguistic contextual associa-
tions. Examples of linguistic association patterns are collocations, colligations, and
collostructions, and examples of non-linguistic association patterns are genre,
gender and other sociolinguistic variables as well as situational contexts. Corpus
linguistics is primarily quantitative, and corpus-linguistic analysis typically
involves a variety of statistical methods, ranging from simple raw or normalised
frequencies to complex statistical tests and multifactorial analyses. This type of
linguistic analysis requires corpus linguists to use the computer as a central tool in
the process of analysis. Corpora are digitally stored, and, by using concordancers3
and statistical software packages, association patterns are identified, quantified and
analysed. Corpus linguistics is not merely a matter of counting things though: “it is
important to note that corpus-based analyses must go beyond simple counts of
linguistic features. It is essential to include qualitative interpretations of quantitative
patterns” (Biber et al. 1998, p. 5). This way, corpus linguistics essentially combines
quantitative and qualitative analysis.
Corpus-linguistic inquiry focuses on language use, since that is what can be
observed in a corpus. However, this does not mean that corpus linguists are not at
all interested in the language system or language competence as such. In fact, the
observed patterns and the interpretations thereof typically serve as foundations for
models of the linguistic phenomenon in question. Thus corpus-linguistic method-
ology is, in my opinion, inseparable from usage-based linguistics in which it is held
that language competence is based on language use, and patterns observed in
language use are indicative of the state-of-affairs in the language system (e.g.
Kemmer and Barlow 2000; Bybee and Hopper 2001). In usage-based linguistics,
language is viewed as a complex adaptive system (Beckner et al. 2009; Torre 2015)
that emerges from the linguistic interactions of multiple agents and is based on past
experiences of use and subject to a range of general cognitive and sociocognitive
processes (Beckner et al. 2009, p. 2). Seeing that a corpus documents such instances
of interaction, corpus-linguistic methodology enables one to address patterns that
emerge in the corpus as reflections of patterns emerging in the language system.
Exactly because language is seen as a complex adaptive system distributed over
multiple agents, many such patterns are extremely difficult to pin down if relying on
introspective rationalist modes of inquiry (for a discussion, see McEnery and
Wilson 2001, pp. 5–13).
3
For a discussion of concordancers, see McEnery and Hardie (2012, pp. 37–48).
480 K.E. Jensen
Cultural cognition and its interaction with language constitute a complex

adaptive system (Frank 2015, pp. 494–497). With this in mind, it should not be
inconceivable that corpus linguistics may contribute to Cultural Linguistics. In a
nutshell, Cultural Linguistics is the study of the interplay between language and
cultural conceptualisations. Interdisciplinary at heart, Cultural Linguistics draws on
several fields of research, such as cognitive science (distributed cognition, cognitive
psychology, cognitive anthropology, and cognitive linguistics), complexity theory,
and anthropological linguistics as well as several areas within applied linguistics
(Sharifian 2011, pp. xv–xvii). Given the interdisciplinary nature of Cultural
Linguistics, a wealth of research methods can be, and have been, applied in the
exploration of the interrelation between language and cultural cognition, such as
word association tasks (e.g. Sharifian 2011, pp. 61–76; Xu and Dinh 2013),
questionnaires (e.g. Polzenhagen and Wolf 2007), discourse completion tasks (e.g.
Sharifian 2011, pp. 111–137; Shishavan and Sharifian 2016), stimulus-based sur-
veys (e.g. Lorette and Dewaele 2015), and more traditional functional-semantic
analysis (e.g. Dam 2016). While more traditional philological modes of inquiry and
a range of experimental methods, which elicit responses of various types in what is
best described as laboratory settings, are successfully applied in Cultural
Linguistics, corpus-linguistic methodology would allow the researcher to observe
actual patterns in language use in naturalistic settings and to infer, or reconstruct,
cultural–cognitive cognitive structures and processes. I have argued elsewhere
(Jensen 2015a p. 134) that corpus-methodology has the potential to be a valuable
addition to the inventory of methods applied in the empirical study of cultural
cognition. The three case studies in this chapter illustrate how corpus-linguistic
techniques can be used in inferring cultural conceptualisations from patterns of
language use. The techniques used here are covarying collexeme analysis (Gries
and Stefanowitsch 2004; Stefanowitsch and Gries 2005), an enhanced version of
semantic prosody analysis (Stewart 2010), and heatmap analysis as well as simple
frequency counts. Corpus linguists have a very large number of analytical tools and
techniques at their disposal, and the tools presented here are only a very small
fraction of an arsenal of corpus-linguistic analytical techniques that could be
applied in Cultural Linguistics. My point is not that corpus-linguistic methodology
should take over from the research methods already applied in Cultural Linguistics,
but that quantitative and corpus-linguistic techniques and qualitative and experi-
mental techniques can complement each other in a triangulatory fashion. The
controlled and noise-free data generated via experimental methodology and the
naturalistic and noisy data collected via corpus methodology should complement
each other very well.4
4
The reader is invited to read Sharifian’s section on ‘Research methods in Cultural Linguistics’ in
Chap. 1 in this volume for more on methodology in Cultural Linguistics.
22.2.2 Corpus-Linguistic Studies Addressing Culture
Perhaps one of the most important culturally oriented studies within English corpus
linguistics is Leech and Fallon (1992)5 in which, using data from the London-Oslo-
Bergen corpus (LOB) of British English and the Brown corpus of American
English, they identify divergences and convergences in culturally salient concepts
in British and American English in 1961 (both corpora consist of naturally
occurring language from that year). For example, they found lexical divergence in
the domain of SPORTS in which lexemes like cricket and rugby were salient in LOB
while baseball was salient in the Brown corpus. They also found that lexical terms
pertaining to SPORTS and PHYSICAL ACTIVITY were generally more salient in the Brown
corpus than in LOB, indicating that “the American way of life has a more dominant
interest in sporting activities” (Leech and Fallon 1992, p. 38). Moreover, in the
domain of TRAVEL/TRANSPORTATION, lexemes pertaining to TRANSPORTATION, such as
aircraft, car, wagon, mileage, and river, were significantly more frequent in the
Brown corpus than in LOB which, according to Leech and Fallon (1992, p. 39),
shows that this domain was given more emphasis in American culture than British
culture probably due to the huge distances to be covered when travelling in the
USA. Furthermore, terms such as boy, man, and the masculine personal pronouns
were salient in the Brown corpus, while gentleman was salient in LOB (Leech and
Fallon 1992, p. 43). Lexemes belonging to the domain of FAMILY, such as father,
mother, and marriage, were salient in LOB. This leads Leech and Fallon (1992,
pp. 43, 44–45) to conclude that American culture at that time was characterised by
MASCULINITY as an important cultural concept while FAMILY was more important in
Britain.
In another comparative study, Fina (2011) investigates the discourse of tourism
reviews in Italian and English in a corpus compiled from TripAdvisor reviews. Fina
discovers a tendency for Italian reviews to use abstract and generic terms, such as
struttura, casa, and verde, while the English reviews tend to use more specific
terms, such as hotel, trees, and courtyards. Drawing on cultural theory by Hall
(1983, 1990), Hofstede (2001), and Katan (2004), Fina (2011, p. 74) argues that
[i]n Italian reviews, the use of all-encompassing words and the use of nominalization
suggest that Italian travellers tend to focus on the full picture and grasp only its general
features. In contrast, English reviews tend to be more detailed and itemized.
This, she concludes, suggests that, in the discourse of travel reviews, Italians
display traits of a high-context culture, while Englishmen display traits of a
low-context culture.6
5
For a follow-up study, see Elsness (2013).
6
Fina (2011) does not overtly address cognition as such, but her findings can be interpreted as
evidence for the instantiation of cultural cognition in the discourse of Trip Advisor reviews in
English and Italian. Using cognitive–scientific terminology closer to that of Cultural Linguistics,
one could argue that, in preferring more generic terms, Italian reviews operate with superordinate
and basic levels of categorisation (Ungerer and Schmid 2006, pp. 84–113) as well as construal
482 K.E. Jensen
Moving beyond the individual lexeme, Ooi’s (2000) study of collocations in

Singaporean English and Malaysian English collocations in a newspaper corpus is
particularly interesting, as he finds a number of instances of Singaporean and
Malaysian cultural conceptualisations surfacing in collocational patterns. Below are
some examples, accompanied by Ooi’s (2000) own definitions:
• killer litter: “[T]he term reflects a concern with this social menace [items thrown
out from high rising buildings—KEJ], in a high-rise, high-density living society:
Singapore comprises only about 500 km2” (Ooi 2000, p. 81)
• urine detector: “While one might wonder whether this term has anything to do
with urinalysis, it actually refers to a sensor inside a lift which, when someone
urinates inside it, triggers an alarm and traps the offender in the elevator until the
police arrive” (Ooi 2000, p. 81)
• normal stream: “It is part of Singapore’s competitive educational ‘streaming’
process where pupils are selected, on the basis of their school results, to go to
the Gifted, Express, Normal or Technical Streams. Thus, a pupil who gets into
the ‘Normal’ Stream is actually less than normal and is regarded as being merely
average” (Ooi 2000, p. 83)
• weekend car: “… weekend car is a productive compound noun (at least for
1994), referring to a car that can be driven only during off-peak hours, i.e. 7 pm
to 7 am on weekdays and all day on weekends” (Ooi 2000, pp. 85–86)
It should be clear from Ooi’s definitions that all of these collocations express
cultural schemata based on generalised scenarios that characterise everyday life in
Malaysia and Singapore.
Quite overtly addressing cultural cognition, Gries and Stefanowitsch (2004,
pp. 232–233), in their analysis of patterns of verb–construction interaction in the
causative V into V-ing construction in the British National Corpus, find that verbs
of TRICKERY, COERCION, and NEGATIVE EMOTION tend to co-occur with verbs of
COMMERCIAL TRANSACTION. For instance, verbs of BUYING, PURCHASING, and SELLING
tend to co-occur with TRICKERY verbs such as mislead, hoodwink, lure, entice, con,
and dupe. Verbs of SELLING tend to occur with verbs that express NEGATIVE EMOTION,
such as panic and terrify, and verbs of COERCION, like force and entrap. This reflects
an underlying cultural schema7 in which COMMERCIAL TRANSACTION is strongly
associated with TRICKERY, and BUYERS are passive participantS, while SELLERS are
active participants. Consequently, BUYERS are more easily exploitable because of
their passivity, while SELLERS display more determination and are less easily
coerced.
operations of schematic attention patterning (Croft and Wood 2000, pp. 57–60) while English ones
operate with basic and subordinate levels of categorisation and construal operations of specific
attention patterning.
7
Gries and Stefanowitsch (2004) use the term ‘cultural frame’.
Similarly, in addressing lexeme–construction interaction patterns in the too ADJ

to V construction in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)
(Davies 2016), I have found that a number of patterns of adjective–verb pairings in
the construction seem to reflect cultural schemata8 of force–dynamic prevention
(Jensen 2014, 2015a). That is, the ADJ-unit construes a high degree of whatever
attribute the adjective expresses, and this high degree of ‘adjectiveness’ prevents
the situation expressed by the to-infinitive from happening. For instance, young
tends to appear with verbs of COGNITION and EVALUATION, such as know, remember,
understand, recall, appreciate, realize, comprehend, learn, recollect, question,
grasp, evaluate, process, and recognize, reflecting a cultural conceptualisation of
AGE in which young age is associated with limited cognitive, evaluative, and moral
capacity. Old tends to co-occur with verbs such as hire and work, which reveals an
underlying cultural conceptualisation of old age as making one less desirable in
terms of employability. In fact, several cultural conceptualisations of behaviour
emerge via co-attraction patterns in the construction. For example, old also fre-
quently occurs with cry, suggesting a there is a perceived upper limit in terms of the
age span at which crying is socially acceptable. Polite tends to co-occur with verbs
of VERBAL INTERACTION such as point (out), ask, add, disagree, inquire, comment,
mention, object, question, complain, express, protest, tell, and speak which suggests
that certain types of speech act, such a as disagreeing, questioning, and com-
plaining, are culturally conceptualised as face-threatening in certain situations.
Finally, it should be acknowledged that corpus-work has been carried out under the
banner of Cultural Linguistics by Polzenhagen and Wolf (2007; see also Wolf and
Polzenhagen 2009). In their study of expressions from the domain of POLITICAL
LEADERSHIP in African English, they make use of a corpus of data from the Corpus of
English in Cameroon (CEC) and the WCL database as well as the Freiburg-Brown
(FROWN) and Freiburg-London-Oslo-Bergen (FLOB) corpora of American English
and British English respectively. Using keyness analysis9 in which CEC is compared
to FROWN and FLOB, Polzenhagen and Wolf (2007, pp. 146–148) find that lexical
items from the domain of CORRUPTION, such as corruption, corrupt, exploit, fraud,
embezzlement, and bribe have high statistical keyness, suggesting that this is
indicative of CORRUPTION as such being a cultural key concept in West African English.
Furthermore, Polzenhagen and Wolf (2007; Wolf and Polzenhagen 2009) find
instantiations of several metaphorical conceptualisations of corruption such as
CORRUPTION IS A DISEASE and CORRUPTION IS AN EATER as well as A BRIBE IS A FOOD GIFT,
BRIBING IS NEGOTIATING, and A BRIBE IS A TRIBUTE TO A PREDATORY AUTHORITY.
8
In those particular studies (Jensen 2014, 2015a), I use the term ‘cultural model’.
9
Keyness is a statistical comparative analysis—in fact, Leech and Fallon’s (1992) method is an
early variant of keyness analysis—applied in the comparative analysis of frequencies across two
corpora. See Rayson (2013) for more on this technique.
484 K.E. Jensen
22.3 Cultural Schemata, Cardinal Posture Verbs,

and Pseudocoordination in Danish
While Danish does not have a progressive construction as such, speakers of Danish
do have at their disposal several constructions that they can use to express a variety
of types of imperfectivity. One set of such constructions involves pseudocoordi-
nation of either the cardinal posture verbs ligge (‘lie’), stå (‘stand’), and sidde (‘sit’)
or the verbs of self-propelled motion gå (‘walk’), rende (‘run’), løbe (‘run’) as the
first coordinand verb (V1) and another verb as the second coordinand verb (V2);
both verbs are morphologically identically realised. This type of construction can be
used imperfectively or to express habituality:
(1) Jeg husker – nej, jeg husker det ikke, men jeg har lige siddet og genlæst det –
en fuldstændig tilsvarende debat for 2 år siden her i salen… (Korpus2000)
I remember – no, I don’t remember it, but I have just been rereading it (while
siting) – a completely superfluous similar debate two years ago here in this
hall…
(2) Det spørgsmål grubler jeg over, mens jeg som en levende mumie indsmurt i
varmt mørkegrønt mudder og polstret i tre lag plastic og bomuldstæpper ligger
og venter på, at min massør skal komme tilbage (Korpus2000).
I ponder that question as, like a living mummy smothered in hot dark-green
mud and stuffed into three layers of plastic and cotton blankets, I am waiting
(while lying) for my masseur to come back.
(3) Selskaberne bliver det, der hedder portefølje-investorer hvor de ligger og
køber og sælger aktier, og hvor de ikke tænker så meget på, hvad de køber og
sælger (Korpus2000).
The companies turn into what is called portfolio investors who buy and sell
stocks (*while lying), and who do not think a lot about what it is they buy and
sell.
Semantically, this type of construction does not coordinate two separate events:
V2 expresses a situation, which is construed imperfectively or habitually via V1.
V1 has not necessarily become completely semantically bleached. In many cases, it
retains its semantics, understood such that it highlights the bodily posture or
self-propelled motion of the primary participant in the V2 scenario. Thus, in (1) and
(2), which express imperfectivity, sidde and ligge retain their bodily posture
semantics, as they specify the AGENTS’ bodily postures while reading and waiting. In
other cases, V1 seems completely bleached as seen in (3), which expresses habit-
uality, where ligge does not literally refer to the bodily posture, but seems to only
serve as a marker of habituality.
Since V1 retains its semantics in many cases and highlights an aspect of the
semantic frame (Fillmore 1982) evoked by V2, it might also give us some insight
into bodily postures or types of self-propelled motion that are considered typical of
certain types of activities in Danish culture. In other words, studying this type of
construction may enable us to address underlying cognitive and cultural schemata
of a range of different types of activities.
22.3.1 Data and Method
We will draw on data in Korpus2000, a subcorpus within KorpusDK (DSL 2007).

Korpus2000 is a general corpus of written Danish from the period 1998–2002 and
represents a variety of different domains, registers and genres.10 It consists of 28
million words. All instances of stå/sidde/ligge/gå/løbe/rende og V were retrieved,
and, after a manual pruning for non-instances, this amounted to 3,719 instances.
The method we will apply in this study is co-varying collexeme analysis (Gries
and Stefanowitsch 2004; Stefanowitsch and Gries 2005), which allows one to
measure the degree of co-attraction between the lexemes in two schematic slots of a
construction. Covarying collexeme analysis is based on four input frequencies
inserted into a contingency table as seen in Table 22.1.
The total sum is run through a Fisher–Yates Exact Test or a similar statistical test
in Gries (2007), yielding a p-value, called collostruction strength, which indicates
strength of the co-attraction of the two lexemes in the construction. In this particular
study, we will use log-transformed p-values, as they allow for somewhat more
fine-grained distinctions between the most strongly co-attracted items in a con-
struction.11 This type of analysis produces a ranked list, based on collostruction
strength, of pairs of co-attracted lexemes within the construction: the higher the
score, the stronger the relation of co-attraction. The major premise of covarying
collexeme analysis is engendered by the following two principles:
• Semantic compatibility: “words can (or are likely to) occur with a given con-
struction if (or to the degree that) their meanings are compatible” (Stefanowitsch
and Gries 2005, p. 4).
• Semantic coherence: “since a word in any slot of a construction must be com-
patible with the semantics provided by the construction for that slot, there should
be an overall coherence among all slots” (Stefanowitsch and Gries 2005, p. 11).
Following these principles, patterns of attraction and co-attraction within a con-
struction can indicate semantic relations within the construction and conventional
inter-lexeme collocational relations among the lexemes that appear in the construction.
10
For a list of contributors to Korpus2000, visit http://ordnet.dk/korpusdk/fakta/korpusser/
tekstleverandorer_k2000.
11
For a discussion of the advantages of log-transformation, see Stefanowitsch and Gries (2005,
p. 7).
486 K.E. Jensen
Table 22.1 Covarying collexeme analysis contingency table (Stefanowitsch and Gries 2005)
Lexeme 2 in Other lexemes in Row totals
slot 2 slot 2
Lexeme 1 in slot 1 x a x+a
Other lexemes in slot 1 y b y+b
Column totals x+y a+b column totals + row totals
22.3.2 Analysis
Table 22.2 shows the fifty most strongly co-attracted verbs in the construction.
The semantic coherence principle seems to apply here with such strongly
co-attracted pairs as ligge-sove, ligge-dø, gå-feje, sidde-læse, and sidde-spise. In all
cases, V1 expresses a bodily posture or, in the case of gå-feje, a type of
self-propelled motion that seems to be the natural, or prototypical, posture or
self-propelled motion of the participant in the activity in question.
There are a few pairs in Table 22.2 that seem to reflect cultural conceptualisa-
tions of such prototypicality within the schematic representation of the action or
event expressed by V2. One such example is sidde-forhandle. Forhandle is argu-
ably an INTERACTION verb. Alongside other verbs that express INTERACTION—namely,
diskutere, drøfte, kommunikere, lytte, snakke, and tale—forhandle’s co-attraction to
sidde suggests that, in Danish culture, it is customary to sit down while interacting
such that sitting is a prototypical posture in schematisations of such scenarios.
Table 22.3 lists these verbs in accordance with their strength of attraction to
sidde, with lytte being the most strongly co-attracted lexical item. This suggests that
sitting is conventionally associated with the act of listening to what other people say
in Danish culture. To get a better picture of the co-attraction between sidde and the
verbs of INTERACTION, we can isolate the V2 and address how closely co-attracted it
is to each V1 verb. While kommunikere and drøfte only occur with sidde in the
corpus, the remaining verbs occur with two or more of the other V1 verbs.
Tables 22.4, 22.5, 22.6 and 22.7 account for these other V2 verbs. More infor-
mation is included in these tables, as we now need to account for the type of
collostructional relation at play (i.e. whether the relation is one of attraction or one
of repulsion). This is determined by calculating an expected frequency and com-
paring it to the actual observed frequency of each pair. Calculated in Gries (2007),
the expected frequency is actually not an additional step, but part and parcel of the
overall covarying collexeme analysis, so it is based on the parameters seen in
Table 22.1. If the expected frequency is smaller than the observed one, then the
relation is one of attraction, and, if larger, is a relation of repulsion. With both types
of relation, the higher the collostruction strength, the stronger the relation. This
Table 22.2 Top 50 co-attracted verbs

Rank V1 V2 Collostruction Rank V1 V2 Collostruction
strength strength
1 ligge flyde 146.4526 26 stå vaske 16.5570
2 ligge sove 123.4703 27 stå sige 16.1527
3 stå mangle 121.1872 28 sidde glo 16.0765
4 sidde skrive 77.3812 29 ligge vride 16.0506
5 gå tro 63.8541 30 ligge brække 15.6126
6 gå lave 46.7262 31 ligge dø 15.6126
7 sidde spise 45.5418 32 ligge duve 15.6126
8 løbe lege 42.4986 33 ligge slås 15.6126
9 sidde drikke 37.4307 34 ligge rode 15.4657
10 stå råbe 33.2422 35 gå foretage 15.1134
11 stå skulle 31.7861 36 gå rydde 15.1134
12 sidde læse 27.2750 37 sidde krybe 14.9321
13 ligge ulme 25.3017 38 stå læne 14.3171
14 gå drømme 24.5081 39 gå glæde 13.1033
15 ligge lure 22.7972 40 ligge vippe 12.8944
16 gå bilde 22.6882 41 stå skrige 12.5008
17 gå feje 22.6882 42 gå gemme 12.0407
18 sidde lytte 22.3126 43 gå tænke 11.9176
19 ligge gispe 21.6318 44 sidde høre 11.8344
20 gå tumle 20.9167 45 gå fundere 11.8066
21 ligge sprælle 19.5239 46 gå overveje 11.8066
22 stå vinke 19.0993 47 ligge sole 11.7579
23 stå kigge 17.3896 48 ligge slumre 11.7046
24 sidde chatte 16.8024 49 stå trippe 11.4000
25 stå trække 16.5570 50 sidde forhandle 11.3749
See the appendix for a glossary of V2 verbs
Table 22.3 Verbs of INTERACTION co-attracted to sidde

V1 V2 Collostruction strength
sidde lytte 22.3126
sidde forhandle 11.3749
sidde snakke 9.7695
sidde drøfte 5.5933
sidde diskutere 5.0343
sidde kommunikere 1.8636
sidde tale 0.7067
means that a high collostruction strength score for a repulsion pair indicates a strong
relation of repulsion, just like a high score for an attraction pair indicates strong
attraction. Table 22.4 accounts for the V1 verbs that snakke occurs with.
488 K.E. Jensen
Table 22.4 V1 verbs of snakke

V1 V2 Observed Expected Relation Collostruction
frequency frequency strength
sidde snakke 57 41.36 Attraction 9.7695
ligge snakke 8 14.96 Repulsion 4.5430
stå snakke 25 31.9 Repulsion 2.3098
gå snakke 15 15.92 Repulsion 0.0660
Table 22.5 V1 verbs of tale

stå tale 29 21.27 Attraction 3.8950
sidde tale 31 27.57 Attraction 0.7067
gå tale 10 10.62 Repulsion 0.0436
Table 22.6 V1 verbs of lytte

sidde lytte 25 12.21 Attraction 22.3126
stå lytte 3 9.42 Repulsion 7.7704
ligge lytte 3 4.42 Repulsion 0.5922
Table 22.7 V1 verbs of forhandle

sidde forhandle 11 5.12 Attraction 11.3749
stå forhandle 1 3.95 Repulsion 4.0350
gå forhandle 1 1.97 Repulsion 0.6706
As is clear in Table 22.4, only sidde is co-attracted to snakke while ligge, stå,
and gå are repelled. This suggests an affinity between the concepts of SITTING and
TALKING as a norm of behaviour in Danish culture. As Table 22.5 shows, tale is
co-attracted to both sidde and stå while repelled by gå.
This might at first seem surprising, seeing that snakke and tale appear to be
synonymous. However, the latter, unlike the former, may refer to more formal
situations of INTERACTION, such as key note presentations and speeches, which are
very often delivered while standing up.
A pattern similar to that in Table 22.4 applies to lytte and forhandle, as seen in
Tables 22.6 and 22.7.
Now, with forhandle, one might argue that it makes sense that the prototypical
bodily posture should be that of sitting, seeing that negotiations can take place over
an extended period of time—from hours to days—and that sitting is a preferred
bodily position to standing, as it offers more rest. However, lying also offers rest
and might, to some extent, be more comfortable, but ligge does not even appear
with forhandle in the corpus. In this connection, it is interesting to note that par-
lamentere does not appear with any other V1 verb than stå (displaying an
attraction-type collostruction strength of 2.3830), which reflects that participants in
the type of interaction expressed by parlamentere, such as discussions in parlia-
ment, often stand up while interacting verbally. It should be mentioned that dis-
kutere only occurs with sidde and stå in the corpus. It is attracted to sidde with a
collostruction strength of 5.0343 and weakly repelled by stå with a collostruction
strength of 0.0515.
Now, let us look at another type of verbal communication—namely, yelling.
Table 22.8 provides an overview of the V1 verbs that råbe co-occurs with in the
construction.
Unlike the verbs listed in Table 22.3, råbe is not attracted to side in Table 22.8.
It is repelled by sidde alongside gå and ligge. Thus, unlike the other INTERACTION
verbs we have discussed so far, yelling is, probably not surprisingly, conceptually
more associated with the bodily posture of standing than sitting in Danish culture.
Since yelling is arguably associable with aggression, it makes sense—in Danish
culture and probably many other cultures—that standing, which can be more
threatening than sitting, should be the typical posture assumed when yelling.
In sum, a pattern emerges in the use of aspect-indicating pseudocoordinating
constructions in Danish in which many verbs of INTERACTION are co-attracted to
sidde, suggesting that, in Danish culture, sitting is the most common posture
associated with verbal interaction.
Having explored the cultural underpinnings of pseudocoordinating aspect con-
structions in Danish, let us turn to English. In the next section, we will address
gender stereotyping via metonymy as expressed by two instantiations of the X
enough to V construction.
Table 22.8 V1 verbs of råbe

stå råbe 22 7.9 Attraction 33.2422
sidde råbe 2 10.24 Repulsion 13.7375
gå råbe 1 3.94 Repulsion 3.5366
ligge råbe 1 3.71 Repulsion 3.1230
490 K.E. Jensen
22.4 Cultural Metonymy, Cultural Categorisation

and Semantic Prosody in the English
X Enough to V Construction
The X enough to V construction, as in light enough to lift, is a scalar force–dynamic

construction in which the X-position expresses a scalar attribute, the degree of
which is construed as enabling the situation expressed by the verb phrase (Jensen
2015b, see also Fortuin 2013). Thus, in light enough to lift, a degree of lightness is
construed such that it makes the lifting possible. As with the constructions dis-
cussed in Sect. 22.3, it is argued that underlying cultural conceptualisations surface
in patterns of use of this construction.
In this case study, we are going to investigate two specific instantiations of this
construction—namely, man enough to V and woman enough to V—and see how
they reflect cultural conceptualisations of gender and behaviour in American
English. In both instantiations, it is reasonable to assume that the following
underlying cultural–cognitive process is at play: in addition to the constructional
semantics described above, these two instantiations involve what could be called
cultural metonymy, in which the label for an entire social category is used with
reference to the entire category or some aspect of the category (thus, the category
itself is metonymically reduced to stereotypical behavioural features). Thus, in man
enough to V and woman enough to V the MAN and WOMAN categories are construed
scalarly, and a degree is set up that enables the V-events to take place such that the
V-events are construed as stereotyping behavioural features of the categories in
question.
By looking at the items that appear in V-position and applying an enhanced, or
more fine-grained semantic-preference-based, version of semantic prosody (Stewart
2010), in this study we assume that semantic prosodies in the V-position will
indicate stereotyping conceptualisations of behaviour associated with the two
categories.
Semantic prosody is a phenomenon that was discovered thanks to corpus linguis-

tics. In essence, it covers semantic patterns across collocates of a given expression,
thus transgressing its structural boundaries. These collocaitonal patterns are con-
sidered to be pragmatico-semantic features of the expression itself. In most incar-
nations of semantic prosody theory, semantic prosody is limited to attitudinal
pragmatic meaning. For instance, if the expression a load of N collocates with
primarily negative nouns, like crap, hogwash, bullshit, or nonsense, then it has
negative semantic prosody. That is, part of speakers’ knowledge of a load of N is
that it is used primarily in negative contexts.12 Now, it would make sense to expand
semantic prosody—at least within the perspective of Cultural Linguistics and its
cognitive–scientific framework—from mere attitudinal meaning into more
fine-grained semantic functions, such as, for instance, semantic categories of enti-
ties, people, actions, and other features that emerge as usage-patterns; that is, it
arguably makes more sense to operate with semantic prosody at the level of what is
typically considered semantic preference. In this case study, we shall expand
semantic prosody into covering such patterns, which is more in tune with the
fine-grained perspective on semantics that usage-based linguistics, in my opinion,
naturally calls for.
Our method of analysis is fairly simple and actually more qualitatively oriented
than in the previous case study. The corpus used for this study is the
520,000,000-word COCA (Davies 2016), which is a general reference corpus of
written and spoken American English from the period 1990–2015. All occurrences
of man enough to V and woman enough to V were retrieved, and, after non-
instances were weeded out, there were 107 instances of the former and 13 of the
latter. With both instantiations, the V-elements were sorted, and semantic classes
were inferred from them. These classes constitute the semantic prosodies of the
instantiations. The prosodies are interpreted as types of actions or behaviours that
are culturally associated with the two gender categories.
22.4.2 Analysis
Below are some examples from the corpus:

(4) I got sick as a dog on the first loop, but was man enough to hold my bile till I
made it to the bathroom. (COCA 2004 FIC Bk:SchoolingClaybird)
(5) But I still wanted to believe I was man enough to take all the pressures on my
shoulders (COCA 2012 NEWS USAToday)
(6) If you think someone is treating you unfairly, be woman enough to speak to
that person about it. (COCA 1999 MAG Essence)
An important thing to notice is the asymmetrical distribution of man enough to V
and woman enough to V, with the former having a frequency of 107 (89.2%) and
the latter a frequency of 13 (10.8%). This could be indicative of man, and the
cultural metonymy it entails, being conventionally more associated with X enough
to V than woman is; in other words, the two instantiations have different statuses in
the language system.
Let us turn to the semantic prosodies of the two instantiations. Table 22.9
provides an overview of the lexemes that appear in V position in man enough to V.
12
For a discussion of semantic prosody as such, see Stewart (2010).
492 K.E. Jensen
We can observe a range of different prosodies here. For instance, we find verbs
that express potentially face-(self-)threatening situations, such as accept, admit, ask,
and own up. These verbs can be associated with behavioural patterns of moral
character, constituting what we could call a semantic prosody of MORAL STRENGTH.
Another set of verbs arguably have in common that they express situations that
require a certain degree of POWER in the AGENT, such as fire, handle, stand up, stick
to, protest, and wrest—be it SOCIAL POWER as in fire in the sense of TERMINATING AN
EMPLOYEE’S EMPLOYMENT, PHYSICAL POWER or STRENGTH as in handle and wrest, or
POWER OF WILL as in stand up, protest, and stick to. It might even be argued this
prosody of POWER is related to the prosody of MORAL STRENGTH. Finally, a prosody of
VIOLENCE is seen in kill, pull the trigger and wipe from the face of the earth. Each
prosody relates to a set of situations, and, by virtue of the X enough to V con-
struction, the main feature of the type of AGENT-behaviour associated with those
situations is metonymically associated with the MALE GENDER as a social category.
For instance, the situations within the prosody of MORAL STRENGTH require a certain
degree of MORAL STRENGTH to enable the AGENT to make them happen. Man enough
to VMORAL STRENGTH promotes the feature of MORAL STRENGTH as the main feature of the
MALE GENDER category. From the three prosodies emerge activities that seem to be
considered stereotypically MALE, arguably involving a process of cultural concep-
tualisation that subsumes cultural metonymy and cultural categorisation.
We shall limit ourselves to these three prosodies, but it is not inconceivable that
others emerge from the collocational field in Table 22.9. Let us turn to woman
enough to V. Table 22.10 provides an overview of the collocational field of this
instantiation.
Woman enough to V shares collocates with man enough to V—namely, accept,
admit, do, keep, stay, and take. Apart from speak and tell and accept and admit,
there are simply too few verbs to identify any prosodies as such. What is interesting
is that the use of woman enough to V seems to mimic that of man enough to V as
seen below:
(7) a. He has to be man enough to accept when and if it’s over (COCA 1993
NEWS NYTymes)
b. Are you woman enough to accept the challenge? (COCA 1997 MAG
Cosmopolitan)
Table 22.9 Overall collocational field of man enough to V

Man enough accept, admit, ask, take, be, beat, buy, come, dance, do, elect, fire, get, give,
to V handle, have sex, hold, ignore, keep, kill, know, laugh, make, meet, own up,
own, play, protest, pull the trigger, run, satisfy, say, seek, sense, show, stand
up, stay, stick around, stick to, stop, take, talk, try, walk, warrant, wear, wipe
from the face of the earth, wrest
Table 22.10 Overall collocational field of woman enough to

Woman enough to accept, admit, clean house, do, keep, leave, raise, settle, speak, stay,
V take, tell
(8) a. I am man enough to admit I just wanted to hear his voice. (COCA 2006
FIC MassachRev)
b. Made mistakes and was woman enough to admit I made them but
didnøt slay myself for it. (COCA 1997 FIC Bk:HowStellaGot)
In (7) and (8), it is quite clear that woman construes a sufficient degree of MORAL
STRENGTH and WILLPOWER respectively in a process identical to that which we saw
with man enough to V. Does this mean that MORAL STRENGTH and WILLPOWER are
equally associated with the MALE and FEMALE social categories such that there are no
differences between them? The answer is likely to be negative, as man enough to V
and woman enough to V have different statuses in the language system qua their
distributional asymmetry. The distribution of the two suggests that the former is
more conventionalised than the latter, such that woman enough to V might be an
anomaly (it may, of course, become conventional, too, if used frequently enough in
the future).
The present study cannot answer this question, but it does at least suggest that
these two instantiations of X enough to V are worth following up on, as there are
differences and overlaps in their discursive behaviours. Ultimately, this study raises
a question about the instantiation of gender stereotypes based on patterns of lan-
guage use, which night be answered in subsequent corpus studies combined with
experimental studies.
Staying within the realm of English language, in the next section, we will turn to
conceptualisations of sexual intercourse across twenty World Englishes, as we
explore conceptualisations of agency and patiency in the X make love to Y
construction.
22.5 Making Love All Over the World: Cultural

Conceptualisations of Gender and Agency
in Representations of Intercourse in Twenty
National Varieties of English
Sex, sexuality, and gender are arguably intertwined with cultural values, and,
consequently, it might be interesting to investigate the linguistic instantiation of the
interplay between conceptualisations of intercourse and gender across cultures. In
this case study, we will look at X make love to Y and gendered realisations of AGENTS
and PATIENTS in the INTERCOURSE scenarios expressed in usage events in which this
expression used.
In terms of its underlying semantics, X make love to Y is unidirectional in that it
expresses a situation in which there is an AGENT that exercises control (in the sense
of Diver and Davis 2012), and a PATIENT that exercises no control. In other words,
the AGENT acts upon the PATIENT. In contrast, in the intransitive use of make love, as
in William and Deanna made love, the participants are equally active. Seeing that X
make love to Y expresses a transitive scenario, it enables us to measure gender- and
494 K.E. Jensen
animacy-specifications of the participants, such that we can see whether there are
differences in terms of the assignment of gender to the AGENT and PATIENT in the
13
INTERCOURSE scenario as expressed by X make love to Y.
This case study draws on data from the corpus of Global Web-Based English
(GloWbE) (Davies 2013). GloWbE is a corpus of 1.9 billion words and documents
twenty national varieties of English as used in genres of Internet communication.
This means that this study is restricted to Internet Englishes. Table 22.11 provides a
general overview of the corpus and its contents.
Note that the corpus represents Inner Circle and Outer Circle Englishes (e.g.
Kachru 1992). Consequently, the Englishes we compare have different statuses,
with the Inner Circle varieties having L1-status, and the Outer Circle ones having
L2-status. This means that the Outer Circle varieties may display crosslinguistic
influences from other languages spoken in their territories, which may spill over
into the use of X make love to Y. There may also be cross-cultural influences. Since
crosslinguistic influence and the specifics of world Englishes are beyond the scope
of this chapter, we will not pursue it in detail here, but the reader is advised to keep
in mind this caveat.14
All forms of X make love to Y were retrieved from the corpus. For each instance,
the subject and the to-complement were classified in terms of the gender/animacy of
the participants in accordance with the five categories in Table 22.12.
In many cases, the gender/animacy of the participant was easy to determine.
Examples of such cases are subjects and to-complements realised by personal
pronouns (9a), proper nouns (9b), gender specific common nouns (9c), and nouns
determined by third person singular possessive pronouns (9d):
(9) a. That day’s events at the beach and then in the hammock and bedroom later
were as fresh in his mind as ever, because all that morning, from they had
gone to the beach, he had been thinking of making love to her (GloWbE
JM G…oasttimesjamaica.com).
b. Austin was out of his mind and thought he was making love to Carrie not
Sami (GloWbE US G…ofourlives.com).
13
This expression is quite euphemistic compared to many other ways in which intercourse can be
linguistically encoded in English. A comparison of different expressions of intercourse to see
whether they differ in terms of gender/animacy-specifications of AGENTS and PATIENTS would
definitely be interesting. However, that would be beyond the scope of this particular chapter, and
we shall not pursue that here.
14
For instance, in varieties spoken in territories where Mandarin Chinese is an L1, there may be
crosslinguistic influence from the Mandarin cognate of X make love to Y, in which the preposition
is closer to with than to to. Thanks to Jesper Bonderup Frederiksen for pointing this out to me.
Table 22.11 GloWbE overview

Country Code Size
United States US 386,809,355
Canada CA 134,765,381
Great Britain GB 387,615,074
Ireland IE 101,029,231
Australia AU 148,208,169
New Zealand NZ 81,390,476
India IN 96,430,888
Sri Lanka LK 46,583,115
Pakistan PK 51,367,152
Bangladesh BD 39,658,255
Singapore SG 42,974,705
Malaysia MY 42,420,168
Philippines PH 43,250,093
Hong Kong HK 40,450,291
South Africa ZA 45,364,498
Nigeria NG 42,646,098
Ghana GH 38,768,231
Kenya KE 41,069,085
Tanzania TZ 35,169,042
Jamaica JM 39,663,666
Total 1,885,632,973
Table 22.12 The five gender/animacy categories

MALE The referent is a human male
FEMALE The referent is a human female
ANIMAL The referent is an animal
OBJECT The referent is an inanimate object
UNSPECIFIED It is not possible to identify the gender/animacy of the referent
c. Virago women made love to other females… (GloWbE IN G galva108.org).

d. Yet another, more persuasive part of his mind was convinced that two
vampires were making love to his body and it was exactly what he wanted
(GloWbE GB G sundive.co.uk).
In some cases, the participant appeared to be unspecified gender-/animacy-wise,
but could be determined from the co-text, while in other cases, the gender/animacy
could be determined from more contextual factors such as target readers and text
authors. A number of duplicates occurred in the data. In cases where the duplicates
were restricted to the same variety, all but one were weeded out. Duplicates that
appeared across varieties were removed altogether, as it was always impossible to
496 K.E. Jensen
identify the originals. Quotes from movies, pop songs and the like were removed as
well, because many of these were from British and American movies and songs that
had been quoted or, in the case of many song lyrics, reposted in their entirety.
Instances where reciprocal forms, such as each other, appeared after to were
removed, as they do not express unidirectionality, but bidirectionality between
equally active participants. One might object that bidirectionality should be
included as a neutral perspective; had this been a study of directionality as such as a
semantic feature of X make love to Y, it would make sense to address bidirec-
tionality too. However, this particular study is a study of unidirectionality in X make
love to Y and its intertwinement with cultural conceptualisation of gender, agency,
and patiency in sexual intercourse, so bidirectional encodings are irrelevant. After
this pruning, there were 872 instances of X make love to Y in which the
gender/animacy of AGENT and PATIENT was identified in accordance with in
Table 22.12.
Seeing that the subcorpora are of different sizes, as seen in Table 22.11, com-
parison across them necessitates normalisation of frequencies. Frequencies have
been normalised to per million words whenever comparing frequencies across
corpora; when we address corpus-wide frequencies, treating the corpus as one unit,
raw frequencies are used.
22.5.2 Analysis
To begin with, we can get our bearings simply by comparing the frequencies of
occurrence of X make love to Y across the GloWbE varieties. Figure 22.1 shows us
this initial comparative analysis.
As seen in Fig. 22.1, the expression X make love to Y is most frequent in the
Nigerian subcorpus with a normalised frequency of more than 1.5. The Nigerian
subcorpus is followed by the Jamaican one in which the expression has a nor-
malised frequency slightly above 1.0. With the exception of the Canadian sub-
corpus, in the remaining subcorpora, the normalised frequencies fall within the
range of 0.25–0.75.
Figure 22.1 may raise some interesting questions; however, it does not tell us
anything about what we are interested in—namely, cultural conceptualisations of
gender, agency, and patiency in INTERCOURSE. To address this, we must look at the
distributions of the five categories in Table 22.12. In Fig. 22.2, we see the distri-
butions of the five categories in the X- and Y-positions respectively.
While the UNSPECIFIED, OBJECT, and ANIMAL have frequencies below 100 in both
participant role categories, MALE and FEMALE are dominant. AGENTS are most fre-
quently realised be the MALE category while PATIENTS are realised by the FEMALE
category. This hints at a cross-variety conceptualisation of the AGENT as MALE and
the PATIENT as FEMALE. Interesting though it is, Fig. 22.2 tells us nothing about the
interaction between agency, patiency, and gender/animacy within each variety.
Fig. 22.1 Cross-variety frequencies
Fig. 22.2 Distribution of gender/animacy categories (raw frequencies)
Figures 22.3 and 22.4 show, in the form of stacked percentage bar charts based
on the normalised frequencies, the distributions of the five gender/animacy cate-
gories across the subcorpora. Not surprisingly perhaps, the MALE category is the
proportionally most frequent realisation of AGENT roles across the subcorpora.
498 K.E. Jensen
Fig. 22.3 Cross-variety distribution of gender/animacy categories as AGENT
Fig. 22.4 Cross-variety distributions of gender/animacy categories as PATIENT

Similarly, the FEMALE category is the most frequent realisation of the PATIENT role.
Overall, Figs. 22.3 and 22.4 suggest that in the varieties documented in GloWbE a
cross-cultural conceptualisation of INTERCOURSE, when conceptualised as a unidi-
rectional action via X make love to Y in which AGENTS are typically conceptualised
as men and PATIENTS as women.
Since we have identified the gender/animacy specifications of both AGENTS and
PATIENTS, we can also address potential variation, or lack thereof, across the sub-
corpora in terms of prototypical conceptualisations of sexuality in that we can
quantify gender-/animacy-specified agency–patiency combinations. That is, we can
compare the frequencies of, for instance, MALE-FEMALE, FEMALE-MALE, MALE-MALE,
and FEMALE-FEMALE combinations across the twenty GloWbE varieties.
While we could represent our findings in stacked bar charts like Figs. 22.3 and
22.4 in one chart per combination, if we are also interested in addressing the
intercategorial interactions, we can apply an analysis that combines heatmapping
with agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis. Heatmap analysis visualises
associations between two dimensions of datapoints—in this case, the agency–pa-
tiency combinations and the twenty national varieties of English. It allows us to see
for each combination and each variety how strongly associated they are with each
other. Agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis is a similarity measure that sets
up clusters in a dendrogram based on similarities and differences between the data
points in question. In heatmapping combined with cluster analysis, a heatmap is set
up in which the interacting datapoints are clustered into dendrograms. In the study
at hand, the normalised distributions were used as input into the generation of a
heatmap, and the agency–patiency combinations, on the one hand, and the varieties
on the other, were clustered using a combination of Euclidean distance calculations
and Ward’s clustering method. The outcome is seen in Fig. 22.5.
The heatmap shows strength of association by means of colours or, in this case,
shades of grey: the darker the shade of grey, the stronger the strength of association
between the agency–patiency combinations at the bottom and the Englishes to the
right. If the area that links a variety and a combination is dark grey or black, then
the combination is strongly associated with the variety, and, if it is light grey, then
the association is weak. At the top and to the left, we see the dendrograms, in which
the data points are organised into category-like clusters. For instance, if you look at
the dendrogram to the left, you will see that it consists of two superordinate clusters:
one which contains Nigerian English and Jamaican English (this reflects that these
two varieties are where X make love to Y is the most frequent), and one which
contains the rest. The second cluster consists of further subclusters, subsubclusters
etc. The heatmap shows that the MALE-FEMALE configuration, in which the AGENT is
MALE and the PATIENT is FEMALE, is strongly associated with all varieties, again
confirming that this conceptualisation of SEXUAL INTERCOURSE is prevalent in both the
Inner and Outer Circle varieties represented in GloWbE. Secondly, while much less
prominent, the FEMALE-MALE configuration, in which the agency–patiency distribu-
tion is the opposite, is the second most prominent. With most other configurations,
including FEMALE-FEMALE and MALE-MALE, the association between combination and
variety is very low. The heatmap also shows that the FEMALE-MALE combination—
500 K.E. Jensen
Fig. 22.5 Heatmap of interaction between agency–patiency combinations and varieties
i.e. heterosexual intercourse with a woman as the AGENT—is absent in a number of

varieties: Jamaican English, Canadian English, Hong Kong English, Irish English,
Ghanaian English, Filipino English, Indian English, and British English. Many of
these appear in clusters together. For instance, British English, Indian English, and
Filipino English appear together in a cluster. As for the agency–patiency combi-
nations, MALE-FEMALE forms its own cluster, reflecting that it is dominant in all
varieties. Note that, within the cluster that MALE-FEMALE is separated off from, we
find FEMALE-MALE forming its own cluster, which reflects its status as the second
most frequent combination in most of the varieties. This could indicate that, rather
than a set of culture-specific heteronormative conceptualisations of intercourse, we
may be dealing with heteronormativity as a kind of conceptual universality across
the twenty varieties.
In this case study, keeping all disclaimers in mind, we have seen that, despite
whatever preconceptions one might have about differences in advancement in terms of
sexual liberation and gender equality in the territories represented in the corpus, the
same conceptualisation of SEXUAL INTERCOURSE applies across the twenty national
varieties and the cultures they represent. MALES have agency, while FEMALES have
patiency. Moreover, the conceptualisation is heteronormative such that HETEROSEXUAL
INTERCOURSE is more prototypical than HOMOSEXUAL INTERCOURSE and it might be a
conceptual universality.
22.6 Corpus-Linguistic Methodology in Cultural

Linguistics
Treating language and culture as complex adaptive systems, it seems only logical to
investigate language use for emerging patterns of cultural conceptualisations. Our
three case studies have arguably shown that corpus-linguistic analysis can reveal
patterns of instantiation of cultural conceptualisations in language use. In our first
case study, we saw that patterns of co-attraction of lexical items in the Danish
pseudocoordinating imperfectivity-marking constructions indicate underlying cul-
tural schemata of prototypical bodily postures in certain types of situations. More
specifically, we found that SITTING emerges as the prototypical bodily posture of
VERBAL INTERACTION as such. Case study two, in addition to suggesting that cultural
metonymy may be a process in cultural cognition, showed that stereotypical
activities and states associated with certain categories emerge from observing
patterns of use of the X enough to V construction. Finally, case study three indicated
that, in patterns of use in twenty national varieties of English of X make love to Y, a
cross-cultural schema, or conceptual universality, of INTERCOURSE emerges which is
characterised by heteronormativity and in which males are AGENTS and females
PATIENTS.
The advantage to using corpus-methodology as a means to identify patterns of
cultural cognition is that it enables the analyst to address the emergence of these in
actual language use in a naturalistic setting, which is not possible in introspective
and experimental approaches. Moreover, because of its emphasis on quantitative
analysis and use of considerably large data sets, corpus linguistics enables for the
identification and measurement of actual patterns (i.e. structures or phenomena that
recur in language use). However, corpus-linguistic methodology is not without its
limitations. Corpus analysis will always be restricted to the limits of the corpus
itself. That is, any genre, register, or discourse not included in the corpus will not be
covered by the analysis.
Ultimately, corpus-methodology and experimental methodologies complement
each other such that one may produce results that can be tested via the other. The
findings presented in the three case studies could be followed up on using, for
instance, psycholinguistic experiments or questionnaires. If the interdisciplinary
nature of Cultural Linguistics is to be taken seriously, its array of methods should
enable for triangulation, such that both naturalistic and experimental settings figure,
and quantitative and qualitative analyses can be applied.
502 K.E. Jensen
22.7 Conclusion
The purpose of this chapter was to address how corpus-linguistic methodology can
contribute to the cultural–linguistic endeavour. It was argued that since language
and culture are seen as complex adaptive systems in Cultural Linguistics, and since
Cultural Linguistics is a usage-based theory of language, it would make sense for
Cultural Linguists to add corpus linguistics to their methodological arsenal, as it
allows for data collection and analysis of patterns of actual language use in natu-
ralistic settings. This chapter is of course in no way exhaustive, as corpus linguistics
is extremely broad and covers several descriptive techniques and principles that
cannot be covered here. While corpus-linguistic methodology has seen only limited
use in Cultural Linguistics so far, one of the few studies here being Polzenhagen
and Wolf (2007),15 many corpus-linguistic studies have addressed the instantiation
of culture in language, such as Leech and Fallon (1992), Elsness (2013), Fina
(2011), and Ooi (2000) as well as Gries and Stefanowitsch (2004) and Jensen
(2014, 2015a). Our three case studies should illustrate different ways in which
cultural cognition as instantiated in language use can be addressed using
corpus-techniques. An important thing to keep in mind, though, is that
corpus-linguistic methodology has its limits and would probably work best within
Cultural Linguistics in triangulatory tandem with the more experimental methods
that have already seen use in Cultural Linguistics. This would, I argue, strengthen
Cultural Linguistics methodologically, as it would allow the analyst to collect data
from both naturalistic settings and from laboratory settings.
Appendix: Glossary of Danish V2 Verbs
bilde = ‘imagine’/‘make believe’/‘believe’, brække = ‘break’, chatte = ‘chat’,

dø = ‘die’, drikke = ‘drink’, drømme = ‘dream’, duve = ‘pitch’, feje = ‘sweep’,
flyde = ‘float’, foretage = ‘make’/‘do’, forhandle = ‘negotiate’, fundere = ‘pon-
der’, gemme = ‘hide’, gispe = ‘gasp’, glæde = ‘please’/‘look forward’, glo = ‘
gawk’, høre = ‘hear’, kigge = ‘look’, krybe = ‘creep’, læne = ‘lean’,
læse = ‘read’, lave = ‘make’, lege = ‘play’, lure = ‘lurk’/‘observe’, lytte = ‘listen’,
mangle = ‘need’/‘miss’, overveje = ‘consider’, parlamentere = ‘discuss’/‘negoti-
ate’/‘parlay’, råbe = ‘yell’, rode = ‘make a mess’, rydde = ‘clear’/‘clean up’,
sige = ‘say’, skrige = ‘scream’, skrive = ‘write’, skulle = ‘should’, slås = ‘fight’,
slumre = ‘slumber’, sole = ‘revel in’/‘enjoy the sunlight’, sove = ‘sleep’, spise =
‘eat’, sprælle = ‘wiggle’/‘writhe’, tænke = ‘think’, trække = ‘pull’, trippe = ‘
shuffle about’, tro = ‘think’/‘believe’, tumle = ‘tumble’, ulme = ‘smoulder’,
vaske = ‘wash’, vinke = ‘wave’, vippe = ‘tilt’, vride = ‘twist’.
15
That said, a perusal of the volumes of the International Journal of Language and Culture that
have been published so far, as well as some of the chapters in the present volume, will reveal that
corpus-linguistic methodology is finding its place in the world of Cultural Linguistics.
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Author Biography
Kim Ebensgaard Jensen is Associate Professor of English Linguistics at the University of

Copenhagen where he teaches courses on English grammar, corpus linguistics, academic writing,
and language and cognition. His research focuses on the intersection between language, discourse,
and cognition (including cultural cognition), and he has contributed to the fields of corpus
linguistics, cognitive linguistics, construction grammar, and language variation as well as cognitive
poetics, cognitive anthropology and metal music studies.
Chapter 23
APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS Is Cultural
Linguistics, but Is It CULTURAL LINGUISTICS?
Bert Peeters
23.1 Not All “cultural linguistics” Is CULTURAL LINGUISTICS
The claim that “the Cognitive Linguistics movement as we know it today was born
out of polemical opposition to Chomskyan linguistics” is unlikely to raise many
eyebrows. I made it 15 years ago (Peeters 2001: 85), using words (“polemical
opposition to Chomskyan linguistics”) that weren’t mine—and uppercase initials
(“Cognitive Linguistics”) that most definitely were. For some reason, a formulation
used by John R. Taylor in his contribution (Taylor 1993) to a volume I had
reviewed for the journal Word (Peeters 1998) had stuck in my mind.1 I combined it
with the deliberate decision, grudgingly accepted by the editors of the volume in
which my 2001 paper was published, to call “Cognitive Linguistics” what Taylor
and many others referred to as “cognitive linguistics”. I was convinced a distinction
had to be made between Cognitive Linguistics (uppercase initials), the theoretical
framework based on and associated with the work of Ronald W. Langacker and
George Lakoff, and cognitive linguistics (lowercase initials), which extends a lot
further and encompasses work that, in its basic premises, is diametrically opposed
to that of Langacker and Lakoff. Chomsky himself has referred to his work as
cognitive linguistics, even though he appears not to have adopted that naming
practice for a long time (Fortis 2012: 6). As I noted in Peeters (2001: 84):
1
The precise quote from Taylor (1993: 205) is as follows: “The thesis of the non-arbitrariness of
syntax is, of course, in polemical opposition to some major assumptions of Chomskyan linguistics,
as well as to post-Bloomfieldian structuralism, out of which Chomskyan linguistics developed.” It
also appears in an almost identical form in a later revision of that paper (Taylor 2008: 42).
B. Peeters (&)
Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
e-mail: Bert.Peeters@anu.edu.au
B. Peeters
Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_23
508 B. Peeters
Generativists in particular have more than once expressed their annoyance regarding what
they see as the “misappropriation” of the term by Cognitive Linguists. Their research
interests, and that of many others, carry an equal entitlement to identification by means of
the label cognitive linguistics. It is an entitlement which, in the current climate, they will
find increasingly difficult to claim.
I am pleased to report that my proposal to differentiate between Cognitive

Linguistics and cognitive linguistics hasn’t fallen on deaf ears. There is now
widespread agreement that using the exact same label for a broad field of scientific
endeavour as well as for a more narrowly defined framework within that field has to
be at least potentially misleading.2
How does all this relate to the topic of cultural linguistics? The answer is that,
several years prior to my plea for the use (in relevant circumstances) of uppercase
initials, Langacker (1994: 31) had underscored as follows the importance of culture
for language:
Modern linguistic theory—especially generative theory—has (…) tended to minimize (if
not ignore altogether) the status of language as an aspect of culture. Most of linguistic
structure is regarded as being both innate and modular, leaving little scope for cultural
intervention and transmission. However, the advent of cognitive linguistics can also be
heralded as a return to cultural linguistics.
This passage wasn’t about cognitive linguistics (the broad field of scientific
endeavour which arguably includes Chomskyan linguistics as well) but about
Cognitive Linguistics—or, as I would now rather put it, COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS (one
of a number of cognitively oriented approaches within the broader field of cognitive
linguistics).3 On the other hand, it was about cultural linguistics rather than
CULTURAL LINGUISTICS, which at the time hadn’t eventuated. Leaving aside
Anusiewicz’s 1995 book Lingwistyka Kulturowa, written in Polish and so far not
available in English (for details and a handful of translated quotes, see Głaz 2017),
CULTURAL LINGUISTICS saw the light of day 2 years later, with the publication of
Palmer (1996).4
2
The naming convention I put forward in Peeters (2001) was relayed by others (Taylor 2002: 5;
Geeraerts 2006: 3) and eventually adopted in at least two major reference works: the Oxford
Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics (Geeraerts and Cuyckens 2007) and the Bloomsbury
Companion to Cognitive Linguistics (Littlemore and Taylor 2014).
3
The suggestion to use uppercase initials as a distinguishing device was a step in the right
direction, but it wasn’t the right step. My reasons for deciding in favour of small capitals rather
than uppercase initials include the fact that, in the German-speaking world, where Cognitive
Linguistics (Kognitive Linguistik) is very well established, the use of uppercase initials is the norm
for nouns. The original proposal thus didn’t lend itself to systematic implementation in that
language.
4
Another approach called CULTURAL LINGUISTICS, with strong links to COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS (like
Palmer’s; see below), is that of Janda (2008). Several COGNITIVE LINGUISTS are referred to, but
Langacker isn’t one of them. Palmer isn’t quoted either. See also Janda (2009).
23 APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS Is Cultural Linguistics … 509
In tracing the origins of the term cultural linguistics, CULTURAL LINGUIST Farzad
Sharifian repeatedly refers to Langacker (1994: 31). For example, in his own
contribution to the monumental Handbook of Language and Culture, which he
edited in 2015, Sharifian (2015a: 473) writes:
The term “Cultural Linguistics” was perhaps first used by one of the founders of the field of
cognitive linguistics, Ronald Langacker, in a statement he made emphasizing the rela-
tionship between cultural knowledge and grammar. He maintained that “the advent of
cognitive linguistics can be heralded as a return to cultural linguistics (…)” (Langacker
1994: 31, original emphasis).
As the above quote shows, Sharifian isn’t among those who systematically refer to
Cognitive Linguistics (with uppercase initials), but he appears to have no difficulties
with the idea of calling his own framework Cultural Linguistics, thereby leaving the
door open for those who take culture seriously, but don’t wish to fully identify—for
whatever reason—with Cultural Linguistics, to refer to their work as cultural lin-
guistics (Sharifian 2014: 99–100). And this is exactly as it should be, except that I
would, and in this chapter will, differentiate between CULTURAL LINGUISTICS, the
framework (printed in small capitals), and cultural linguistics, the broader field
(printed in lowercase). Sharifian (2015b: 515–516) describes the latter as “the
general area of research on the relationship between language and culture, which
dates back at least to the eighteenth century and the work of influential scholars
such as Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835), and later Franz Boas (1858–1942),
Edward Sapir (1884–1939), and Benjamin Whorf (1897–1941).”
23.2 CULTURAL LINGUISTICS: From Imagery to (Cultural)

Conceptualisations
CULTURAL LINGUISTICS, on the other hand, as defined by Sharifian (2015b: 516), is “a

rather recent multidisciplinary area of research that explores the relationship
between language and conceptualisations that are culturally constructed and that are
instantiated through features of languages and language varieties.” In his 1996
book, Gary Palmer had conceived of it as a synergy between COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS
and “three traditional approaches that are central to anthropological linguistics:
Boasian linguistics, ethnosemantics (ethno science), and the ethnography of
speaking” (Palmer 1996: 5), but it is Farzad Sharifian who, as early as 2003, thanks
to his multidisciplinary background in anthropology, cognitive science, and lin-
guistics, provided CULTURAL LINGUISTICS with its current interdisciplinary base. At
the time, he didn’t yet refer to his own work as CULTURAL LINGUISTICS, reserving that
label to talk about Gary Palmer’s writings. However, most if not all of the para-
phernalia of what would eventually become his own take on the field were actually
510 B. Peeters
in place. The tools were lined up; all that was lacking was a kit to store them. It
would take several years and at least two trips to Bunnings before cultural crafts-
man Farzad found the toolkit that was right for him.5 On his first trip, around the
time of his inaugural professorial lecture (Sharifian 2011a), he settled for one called
cultural conceptualisations and language, after the title of a monograph (Sharifian
2011b) published that same year by John Benjamins. It wasn’t too long, though,
before he traded it in for another one that belonged to the same brand as partner
Gary’s and that was able to accommodate most of Gary’s trusted tools. To put it
more plainly, it wasn’t too long before Sharifian appropriated the label cultural
linguistics, applying it to his own theoretical framework. The decision had been
made easier by Bagasheva (2012) and Athanasiadou (2013)—both of whom, in
their respective reviews of Sharifian (2011b), referred to it as foundational for the
newly emerging field of “Cultural Linguistics”.
The upgrade from Palmer’s toolkit to Sharifian’s is not unlike the upgrade in the
world of computing from, let’s say, Windows 8 to Windows 10. While it would no
doubt be an exaggeration to claim that the world had been waiting for it, it is at least
safe to say that the two toolkits happily coexist. Like Windows users who haven’t
made the switch, company founder Gary has no difficulty hanging on to the
CULTURAL LINGUISTICS equivalent of Windows 8, whereas junior business associate
Farzad swears by the CULTURAL LINGUISTICS equivalent of Windows 10. Some tools
are missing from Sharifian’s toolkit; one of them is imagery, a term used by Palmer
since the early days and inherited from Langacker (Głaz 2017: 45).6 In his latest
writings, Sharifian (2014: 100, 2015a: 474, b: 516–517) has explicitly disavowed
Palmer’s tool and term, which is to some extent like a hammer used at the same
time as a screwdriver. Imagery goes well beyond the visual and refers to any form
of culturally constructed conceptualisation, hence Sharifian’s decision to use a tool
of his own, one that goes back to the kit-less days and that has played a pivotal role
in just about everything he has published in the last 15 years, viz. cultural con-
ceptualisation. Imagery, on the other hand, remains part of Palmer’s toolkit. In a
recent paper that acknowledges only his own take on CULTURAL LINGUISTICS, Palmer
(2015: 22) differentiates the latter as follows from the so-called Lublin School of
Ethnolinguistics, founded by Polish scholar Jerzy Bartmiński (italics added):
The Lublin school of ethnolinguistics appears to have a humanistic preoccupation with
discovering the values and presuppositions implied by usages of value-laden words and
phrases in common use by communities of speakers. Cultural linguistics seems from my
perspective to take a more scientific and objective interest in discovering how patterns of
grammatical constructions are governed by culturally defined and value-laden imagery.
To examine aspects of cultural cognition and its instantiation in the languages of the
world (and therefore in language as a universal cognitive phenomenon), CULTURAL
5
Bunnings is the name of a major Australian hardware store.
6
Another one is scenario, on which see Sect. 23.5 below.
LINGUISTICS, as understood by Sharifian, uses a variety of analytical tools, including

cultural categories, cultural metaphors, cultural schemas, and cultural models, all
of which are forms of cultural conceptualisation. Like most if not all other English
words ending in –ation, the word conceptualisation can refer to a process or to the
result of such a process, so much so that individual instances of categories,
metaphors, schemas, and models are not only forms of cultural conceptualisation
(singular), but also cultural conceptualisations (plural) in their own right. Oddly
enough, the term cultural value, which is part of common parlance in the language
that CULTURAL LINGUISTS use in just about all of their writings, i.e. English, appears to
be shunned. A fairly exhaustive search, taking in most of Sharifian’s publications
(including those of the kit-less period) has netted no more than fifteen occurrences.7
The shorter term value is marginally more common; occurrences of the combina-
tions moral value(s) and social value(s) are few and far between. Values are typ-
ically conceived of as belonging to a “cognitive system” (Sharifian 2004: 121) or a
“value system” (Sharifian 2009b: 174), with core values belonging to a “core value
system” (Sharifian 2009a: 418 = 2011b: 197; Sharifian and Jamarani 2013: 353).
On the other hand, values are often mentioned in one breath with other aspects of
cultural heritage: “beliefs and values” (Sharifian 2003: 191 = 2011b: 6, 2004: 121),
“values and beliefs” (Babai Shishavan and Sharifian 2013: 815, 2016: 79), “beliefs,
values and norms” (Sharifian 2004: 121), “norms and values” (Sharifian 2007a:
183 = 2011b: 48, 2008: 252 = 2011b: 27; Babai Shishavan and Sharifian 2013:
802, 829), “values and norms” (Babai Shishavan and Sharifian 2013: 829, 2016:
84), “values and principles” (Sharifian 2009b: 173), “rules, values and traditions”
(Sharifian 2015b: 520), “beliefs, norms, customs, traditions, and values” (Sharifian
2007b: 34, 2013: 91), and finally “beliefs, worldviews, customs, traditions, values
and norms” (Sharifian 2011a: 3). As also noted by Głaz (2017: 53), no definition of
the term value is provided anywhere, which is a reasonable, but not a foolproof
indication that we aren’t dealing with a technical term that belongs in the toolkit.
This raises the question of whether any bridges can be built between CULTURAL
LINGUISTICS on the one hand, and my own framework, known as APPLIED
ETHNOLINGUISTICS, on the other.
23.3 APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS and Cultural Values
Developed without reference to either CULTURAL LINGUISTICS or cultural linguistics,

APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS (which is but one form of applied ethnolinguistics) is a
by-product of the so-called Natural Semantic Metalanguage (or NSM) approach,
7
A few more, if the updated versions in Sharifian (2011b) are included in the count. The original
occurrences include two references to “cultural norms and values”, another two to “socio-cultural
norms and values”, and one to a “core value of culture”. See also note 13.
512 B. Peeters
illustrated in countless papers by Anna Wierzbicka, Cliff Goddard, and others

(including myself). Like the NSM approach, on which I will have more to say later,
it makes prolific use of the term cultural value, which is fundamental to its
endeavours. On this score, APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS has a lot in common with
Bartmiński’s (2009) COGNITIVE ETHNOLINGUISTICS and related work such as
Anusiewicz (1995).
My own interest in cultural values was triggered by Béal’s (1993) ground-
breaking study of French conversational data published in the journal Langue
française (issue 98, guest-edited by myself), as well as by Wierzbicka’s (2003: 69)
reference to cultural values in what she calls the “four basic premises in intercul-
tural communication”:
(1) In different societies, and different communities, people speak differently.
(2) These differences in ways of speaking are profound and systematic.
(3) Different ways of speaking reflect different cultural values, or at least different
hierarchies of values.
(4) Different ways of speaking, different communicative styles, can be explained
and made sense of in terms of independently established different cultural
values and cultural priorities.
I came to realise that it is through immersion in a foreign culture that the most
important differences with one’s own culture come to the fore, and that the most
important differences aren’t differences in customs, traditions, art forms, etc. Rather,
the most important differences are differences in cultural values. But talking about
cultural values is one thing; defining them is another. So, what do we mean by
cultural values? The answer obviously depends in the first instance on our definition
of the term value. In the French sociological tradition exemplified by Stoetzel
(1983), values are defined as models, ideals stored deep in the human psyche that
guide individuals to act in certain ways. Unlike opinions and behaviours, which are
surface phenomena, they can only be reached through inference based on external
observables. People may waver in their values, and values may change over time,
but they will always be there to inspire our actions and to define who we are. In the
oft-quoted formula used by the American philosopher John Dewey, values are
“what we hold dear.” At a different level, they are general beliefs that determine
how we assess real or imagined behaviours (others’, not our own), deeming some of
them appropriate, desirable, or valued, and others inappropriate, undesirable, or
poorly valued. Australian psychologist Norman Feather (1996: 222) adds a few
interesting points:
The values that people hold are fewer in number than the much larger set of specific
attitudes and beliefs that they express and endorse. Values are not equal in importance but
they form a hierarchy of importance for each individual, group, or culture, with some values
being more important than others. Values have some stability about them but they may
change in relative importance depending on changing circumstances. They are not cold
cognitions but are linked to the affective system. People feel happy when their important
values are fulfilled; angry when these values are frustrated.
Now, what about cultural values? In light of what has just been said, they can be
defined as values that appear to be widespread within a languaculture, values that
underpin the beliefs, convictions, attitudes, and communicative habits generally
associated with that languaculture. They aren’t all equally important, hence the idea
of a hierarchy. They aren’t universally shared by all members of a languaculture
either, hence the use, in the second sentence of this paragraph, of the words
widespread (with direct reference to cultural values) and generally associated (with
reference to the kinds of things that are arguably underpinned by cultural values).
The realisation that many foreign-language textbook authors do not seem to be
very good at singling out and commenting on cultural values led to the elaboration
of what I originally called the ethnolinguistic pathways model (Peeters 2009), a
series of pathways that can be used in the advanced foreign-language classroom and
that are specifically intended to do two things: on the one hand, help advanced
language learners use their burgeoning foreign-language skills to discover the
cultural values commonly attributed to speakers of their chosen language; and on
the other, make them aware that the language they are learning contains numerous
cues they can use to enable them to gain a better understanding of those cultural
values. The ethnolinguistic pathways model was eventually renamed and is now
known by the term APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS (Peeters 2013a, 2015a).
There are currently five pathways, mostly illustrated by means of French data,
that may be used to posit hypothetical cultural values, depending on whether the
starting point is a culturally salient (Peeters 2015a) word or word-like unit
(ETHNOLEXICOLOGY), a culturally salient phrase (ETHNOPHRASEOLOGY), a culturally
salient syntactic pattern (ETHNOSYNTAX), a culturally salient figure of speech
(ETHNORHETORICS), or a culturally salient communicative behaviour
(ETHNOPRAGMATICS). The discovery procedure relies on an abductive process
(Peeters 2015a): a sixth pathway, known as ETHNOAXIOLOGY, is available to cor-
roborate initial hypotheses reached on the basis of the other pathways. What led to
the choice of these labels rather than any others is the fact that two of them
(ETHNOPRAGMATICS and to a lesser extent ETHNOSYNTAX) were already in use in work
carried out using the NSM approach, which I have always insisted on relying on in
my own experiments with APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS. I simply coined a few addi-
tional ones, and provided definitions for all. These have evolved somewhat over the
years; the current versions are as follows8:
• ETHNOLEXICOLOGY is the study of culturally salient lexical items (such as langue
de bois in French; see Peeters 2013b). It relies on linguistic as well as
non-linguistic evidence, with a view to discovering whether any cultural values,
previously known or newly discovered, underpin these items. This may or may
not be the case, but if it is, values that were previously known will be better
8
The first five definitions are highly repetitive, the only difference being what each of the pathways
takes as its starting point. Greater variation could no doubt have been achieved, but would have
masked the fact that the approach within each of the pathways is fundamentally identical.
514 B. Peeters
understood, whereas the reality of newly discovered values will subsequently

have to be proven via other means.9
• ETHNOPHRASEOLOGY is the study of culturally salient phrases and idioms (such
as On va s’arranger and C’est pas ma faute in French; see Peeters 2014a, b). It
relies on linguistic as well as non-linguistic evidence, with a view to discovering
whether any cultural values, previously known or newly discovered, underpin
these phrases and idioms. This may or may not be the case, but if it is, values
that were previously known will be better understood, whereas the reality of
newly discovered values will subsequently have to be proven via other means.
• ETHNOSYNTAX is the study of culturally salient productive syntactic patterns
(such as the pattern Un X peut en cacher un autre in French; see Peeters 2010).
It relies on linguistic as well as non-linguistic evidence, with a view to dis-
covering whether any cultural values, previously known or newly discovered,
underpin these patterns. This may or may not be the case, but if it is, values
which were previously known will be better understood, whereas the reality of
newly discovered values will subsequently have to be proven via other means.
• ETHNORHETORICS is the study of culturally salient metaphors and other stylistic
devices (such as the café du commerce metaphor in French or the tall poppy
metaphor in Australian English; see Peeters 2015b, c). It relies on linguistic as
well as non-linguistic evidence, with a view to discovering whether any cultural
values, previously known or newly discovered, underpin these devices. This
may or may not be the case, but if it is, values that were previously known will
be better understood, whereas the reality of newly discovered values will sub-
sequently have to be proven via other means.
• ETHNOPRAGMATICS is the study of culturally salient communicative behaviours
(such as la râlerie in French; see Peeters 2013c). It relies on linguistic as well as
non-linguistic evidence, with a view to discovering whether any cultural values,
previously known or newly discovered, underpin these behaviours. This may or
may not be the case, but if it is, values which were previously known will be
better understood, whereas the reality of newly discovered values will subse-
quently have to be proven via other means.
• ETHNOAXIOLOGY is the pathway aimed at confirming the reality of hypothetical
cultural values commonly thought of as being defining features of the langua-
culture they are usually associated with (such as la méfiance and la débrouille,
both in French; see Peeters 2013d, 2015d). The corroborative process is pred-
icated on a search for linguistic as well as non-linguistic data in support of a
presumed value. An ETHNOAXIOLOGICAL examination will often be preceded by
one of the other approaches, but may also be carried out in its own right,
independently of any preceding investigation.
9
ETHNOLEXICOLOGY is a successor to what, in earlier work (e.g., Peeters 2009), was called
ETHNOSEMANTICS.
ETHNOPRAGMATICS as defined here has a more limited scope than it has in

NSM-inspired work outside of APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS. The list of forms of lin-
guistic evidence relevant for work in ETHNOPRAGMATICS in the broader sense
(Goddard 2006: 14–16; Goddard and Ye 2015: 71) suggests that the area covered
by the latter is more or less the same as that covered by APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS as
a whole. Similarly, ETHNOSYNTAX as defined here is more limited in scope than the
broadly defined ETHNOSYNTAX defined by Goddard (2002) and, in his wake, by
Gladkova (2015). Both Goddard and Gladkova recognise the possibility of a more
narrowly defined ETHNOSYNTAX, and this is the approach adopted within APPLIED
ETHNOLINGUISTICS. In addition, in my own work at least, all pathways have been
essentially applied in nature; that is, applied with the foreign-language classroom in
mind. But they can be “applied” in other ways as well, as most contributions to a
recently published special issue of the International Journal of Language and
Culture (Peeters 2015e) demonstrate, provided they contribute to a better under-
standing of the language-culture nexus and underscore the rich and complex rela-
tionship between language and cultural values.
23.4 CULTURAL LINGUISTICS and Cultural Values
As pointed out before, in Sharifian’s work at least (including that produced during
the kit-less period), the term cultural value is hardly ever used, unlike (cultural)
conceptualisation (as a process) and (cultural) conceptualisations (as the outcomes
of that process), which surface hundreds of times. One of the occurrences is found
in an assessment of the NSM approach that runs as follows:
Wierzbicka and her colleagues have developed an approach for exploring the cultural
underpinning of speech acts which is known as Natural Semantic Metalanguage (…).
Within this approach, cultural values and attitudes, or what they term ‘cultural scripts’,
which give rise to pragmatic devices, are explicated in terms of a set of fundamental
meanings, termed ‘semantic primes’, which are alleged to be universal. This approach has
some appeal to both ‘relativists’ and ‘universalists’. (Sharifian 2005: 341 = 2011b: 113)10
CULTURAL LINGUISTICS, at least in Sharifian’s writings, does recognise the importance

of (cultural) values, albeit in a roundabout kind of way. In some texts, it does so by
linking values with cultural conceptualisations. The link can be fairly vague. When
Babai Shishavan and Sharifian (2013: 810, 2016: 83) refer to “first language values
and cultural conceptualisations” and to “L1 cultural values and conceptualisations,”
respectively, they posit some sort of concomitance or coexistence, but leave its
exact nature undisclosed. Sharifian’s (2003: 191 = 2004: 121 = 2011b: 6) claim
10
The same passage, up until “alleged to be universal,” can also be found in Sharifian and Jamarani
(2011: 229–230).
516 B. Peeters
that cultural conceptualisations “can even emerge in very small cultural groups,
where people have rather uniform lifestyles and cognitive systems of beliefs and
values” doesn’t provide much relevant information either. Nor does the reference in
Sharifian (2011b: 51, 2012: 101) to so-called dyadic terms, a “feature of some
Aboriginal languages which reflects cultural values attached to family ties”; dyadic
terms are said to result from a particular conceptualisation in terms of which “the
minimal unit in any social domain is at least two family members” (Sharifian
2011b: 51, 2012: 101).11 Elsewhere (Sharifian 2003: 198 = 2011b: 12), Aboriginal
conceptualisations are said to “embody (…) Aboriginal morals, law, and cultural
values” (emphasis added). Fast readers presumably don’t pay much attention: they
are convinced they have understood. But have they? What exactly does the verb
embody mean? Is it a reference to embodiment, one of those fashionable concepts
that COGNITIVE LINGUISTS have borrowed from other disciplines, including psychol-
ogy, philosophy, and cognitive science, then tweaked to suit their own require-
ments? As COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS and CULTURAL LINGUISTICS have a lot in common,
and the link between both has been explicitly recognised (see above), references to
embodiment in the latter shouldn’t come as a surprise. Alternatively, does the verb
embody mean what it means or might mean in everyday language? Does it mean
something like “to represent in a clear and obvious way,” “to represent in visible
form,” “to give form to,” or “to be a symbol or example of”?12 All of the above
could be the case. The clearest statement is probably the one in Sharifian (2007b:
34, 2013: 91), where it is pointed out that the conceptualisations developed within
cultural groups for virtually every aspect of thought and behaviour are “usually
referred to as beliefs, norms, customs, traditions, and values.” There is an unam-
biguous indication here that the term conceptualisation is intended as a technical
cover term for a number of widely used but essentially nontechnical terms, one of
which is the term value.
But as we have seen, the term conceptualisation is also a cover term for a string of
other technical terms used in CULTURAL LINGUISTICS. Cultural categories, metaphors,
schemas, and models are all forms of cultural conceptualisation. Which of these is
closest to what APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS refers to as cultural values? It looks as though
the prime candidate is cultural schema. The link between cultural values and cultural
schemas is made in a variety of ways, ranging from the vague to the not so vague. To
show “how intercultural communication may reveal certain cultural norms and values,”
Sharifian (2004: 119 = 2011b: 101) intends to exploit “the notion of cultural schema.”
At this early stage of the text (the excerpt quoted is from the opening sentence), this is
all we are being told. Describing the Persian cultural schema of shekasteh-nafsi
11
Thus, in Kaytete (Central Australia), the suffix -nhenge, added to a kinship term, refers to a child
when added to the word for “father,” to a younger brother or sister when added to the word for
“elder sister,” etc.
12
These definitions are taken from Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary (http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/embody).
(“humbleness”) as “a good example of an emergent conceptualization, where a value

system originally part of a spiritual tradition finds its way into the literary works of a
speech community and then into the cultural cognition of a group,” Sharifian (2009b:
174) posits some sort of concomitance or coexistence between a cultural schema and a
“value system”, much like he did in one of the excerpts quoted above that links values
with conceptualisations, but once again leaves the exact nature of that concomitance or
coexistence undisclosed. On the other hand, the verb embody is used on several
occasions, with schemas embodying (cultural) norms and values (Sharifian 2004: 121,
2007a: 183 = 2011b: 48, 2008: 252 = 2011b: 27). As before, this raises the question of
what exactly the verb embody means in this context. A number of other verbs are used
as well, including (in alphabetical order) capture, define, embrace, and (be) relate(d) to.
Sharifian (2009b: 173) points out that the above-mentioned cultural schema of she-
kasteh-nafsi captures one of the core values of contemporary Iran; in more general
terms (Sharifian 2015b: 520), schemas capture “bodies of rules, values and traditions.”
Sharifian (2004: 125 = 2011b: 106) distinguishes between lower-level and higher-level
schemas; he mentions a higher-level schema that “defines a core cultural value related
to social relations.”13 According to Sharifian (2004: 121), cultural schemas “may
embrace any kind of knowledge, including a group’s core beliefs, values and norms.”
In the same text, on the same page, there is a reference to “schemas related to
Aboriginal morals, law, and cultural values.”
23.5 APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS and CULTURAL LINGUISTICS
A direct implication of the above findings is that, although in CULTURAL LINGUISTICS

the term cultural value doesn’t play the prominent role it does in either APPLIED
ETHNOLINGUISTICS or the NSM approach, detailed study of culturally specific con-
ceptualisations in general, and of culturally specific schemas in particular, may lead
to a more detailed understanding of the cultural values that are upheld in the various
languacultures of the world. Language plays an important part in the study of those
cultural schemas, as one would expect—we are, after all, among cultural linguists.
Nowhere does this appear to be stated more clearly than in the following excerpt
from Sharifian (2004: 121), which, I regret to say, was left on the cutting room floor
during the write-up of Sharifian (2011b).
A kind of knowledge that may be embodied in cultural schemas is cultural knowledge,
including cultural norms and values, which may be reflected in the use of language. Various
levels and units of language such as speech acts, idioms, metaphors, discourse markers, etc.
may somehow instantiate aspects of such cultural schemas.
13
In the older of the two texts, the term value of culture is used instead of cultural value. See also
note 7.
518 B. Peeters
In APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS, speech acts would be studied in ETHNOPRAGMATICS,

idioms in ETHNOPHRASEOLOGY, metaphors in ETHNORHETORICS. For discourse markers,
an important part of most if not all languages, I haven’t yet found a clear-cut niche,
which is something I can’t say I am proud of. I hasten to add, though, in my
defence, that the framework remains very much work in progress. Peeters (2015e)
includes a study of the Danish discourse particle lige (Levisen and Waters 2015)
that was described as “an exercise in ethnopragmatics, both in the broader and the
more narrow meaning of the term” (Peeters 2015e: 139). Broader refers to
Goddard’s approach, more narrow to my own. I am now wondering whether lige,
as a discourse marker, would not qualify as a culturally salient lexical item, which
would make its study an exercise in ETHNOLEXICOLOGY, not ETHNOPRAGMATICS.
What are the implications of this attempt to overlay CULTURAL LINGUISTICS with
APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS? As pointed out in the opening lines of Sect. 23.3, the
latter was developed without reference to either CULTURAL LINGUISTICS or cultural
linguistics. If I had to find a home for it, which of the two would it be? In my
current thinking, I must admit there appears to be little prospect for an eventual
amalgamation of APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS and CULTURAL LINGUISTICS, irrespective of
whether we adopt Palmer’s or Sharifian’s take on the latter. The main obstacle
appears to be NSM, which is one of the cornerstones of APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS.
The descriptive tool or natural semantic metalanguage after which the NSM
approach is named is the result of decades of empirically validated research by an
expanding group of linguists with expertise in a large number of geographically and
typologically diverse languages.14 At its heart lies the concept of “reductive para-
phrase”. To understand what it involves, we need to remind ourselves of an
apparently basic assumption that—somewhat surprisingly—many other frame-
works appear to have little or no time for. That assumption holds that there is only
one worthwhile way to successfully account for what is semantically complex
and/or culturally specific: the complexities and specificities have to be removed.
This can only be done by providing a paraphrase that is simpler and easier to
understand than the original, i.e. a so-called reductive paraphrase. As explained on
the NSM home page (see note 14):
Reductive paraphrase prevents us from getting tangled up in circular and obscure defini-
tions, problems which greatly hamper conventional dictionaries and other approaches to
linguistic semantics. No technical terms, neologisms, logical symbols, or abbreviations are
allowed in reductive paraphrase explications—only plain words from ordinary natural
language.
14
For a broad introduction that isn’t overly technical, see Goddard (2011). Hundreds of other
bibliographical references dealing with many different languages and cultures are available on the
NSM home page (https://www.griffith.edu.au/humanities-languages/school-humanities-languages-
social-science/research/natural-semantic-metalanguage-homepage).
I will return to the term explication in a short while. Something that needs to be
spelled out first is that not everything can be subjected to reductive paraphrase.
Some meanings are already maximally simple and can’t be reduced any further.
A central tenet of the NSM approach is that, despite enormous differences, all
natural languages share the same set of maximally simple meanings. NSM
researchers have painstakingly established that common, irreducible core through a
long process of trial and error. This process, which has now gone on for almost half
a century, has resulted in an inventory of 65 conceptual building blocks called
semantic primes (or primes for short). Vietnamese is one of the most recent lan-
guages against which the list of primes has been extensively tested. The Vietnamese
and English exponents of the primes are reproduced in Appendix 1 (taken from Vo
2016).
Reductive paraphrases are thought of as being made up of primes (and some-
times molecules): not just strings of primes, but primes combined into universally
intelligible segments, in accordance with universal combinatorial properties.15 Each
prime comes with its own set of combinatorial properties, its own rigorously
controlled grammar, replicated—like the primes themselves—in all the languages
of the world. This lends extra credibility to the claim that NSM is true to its name
and is indeed an intuitively intelligible mini-language, unlike other semantic met-
alanguages that are neither intuitive nor semantically simple. What’s more, unlike
these other semantic metalanguages, NSM exists in as many isomorphic versions as
there are languages in the world. This is because, in the absence of convincing
evidence to the contrary, all its ingredients (primes and grammar) are deemed to be
universal. Although, for obvious reasons, the English version has been privileged,
all other versions lend themselves equally well to the explication of language- and
culture-specific ways of speaking, acting, thinking, and feeling. Explication is the
term used by NSM scholars for a sequence of reductive paraphrases that, together,
explicate semantically complex and culturally specific meanings in a way that is
maximally transparent and culturally neutral. Because they are couched in a cul-
turally neutral metalanguage and can be readily translated from one version of the
metalanguage into another, without loss or distortion of meaning, explications are
universally intelligible. This, in turn, facilitates cross-cultural comparison and cir-
cumvents the dangers of Anglocentrism, to which many areas of linguistics (and
other scientific disciplines) often unwittingly succumb.
NSM explications also allow the cultural norms and values that underpin the
lexical resources of a language to be revealingly studied, compared, and explained.
Explications of norms and values are referred to as cultural scripts. To talk about
“cultural values and attitudes, or what [NSM scholars] term ‘cultural scripts’,” as
Sharifian (2005: 341 = 2011b: 113) does in his appraisal of the NSM approach
referred to above, is therefore not entirely accurate. In an encyclopaedia entry on
15
Semantic molecules function as integrated units or conceptual chunks, and may be used
alongside semantic primes for the explication of concepts of great semantic complexity. They must
be explicated separately, and can’t be taken for granted.
520 B. Peeters
cultural scripts, using Russian examples, Wierzbicka (2010a: 94) refers to “values
such as iskrennost” (where iskrennost is a culturally salient word roughly equiva-
lent to “sincerity/frankness/spontaneity” in English), and in a paper on cultural
scripts and intercultural communication she presents “the Russian cultural script of
‘iskrennost’” (Wierzbicka 2010b: 66), reproduced in Appendix 2—but this doesn’t
mean that cultural values and cultural scripts are one and the same. Rather, cultural
scripts explicate or are explications of cultural values, using NSM. In other words,
scripts make values—which often remain deeply embedded in the human psyche—
accessible to cultural insiders and outsiders alike.
Unfortunately, Palmer’s pronouncements on the perceived usefulness of the
natural semantic metalanguage don’t augur well for the use, in CULTURAL
LINGUISTICS, of cultural scripts—or indeed of any other form of semantic explication
using semantic primes. The following are taken from Palmer (2003a: 67–68 =
2006: 16) and Palmer (2015: 22).16
The scenario concept is particularly important in cultural linguistics because the term
directs attention to the imagery of social action and discourse, which has largely been
overlooked by cognitive linguistics, particularly in the study of non-Indo-European lan-
guages. (…) The approach pursued here resembles that of Anna Wierzbicka in that her
cultural scripts are something like scenarios (…). However, unlike Wierzbicka, I do not
reduce scenarios to statements composed of a small set of semantic primes [arranged
according to the rules of a semantic metalanguage].17
[T]he cultural linguistic emphasis on scenarios as important culturally defined images is
much like Anna Wierzbicka’s focus on scripts, except that cultural linguistics does not find
it essential that scenarios be described by a semantic metalanguage consisting of a small
inventory of universal terms.
Palmer’s most recent assessment, in which he goes on to refer to Wierzbicka’s

“cogent reasons for the practice, such as the advantage of making definitions
understandable to native speakers as well as researchers,” is more conciliatory than
what he had said before, but it is easy to see that, no matter how “cogent”
Wierzbicka’s reasons are, Palmer is not about to change his mind.18 Sharifian’s
16
The term scenario, which surfaces repeatedly in these excerpts, is a borrowing from cognitive
science, where it became popular from the 1980s onward. Scenarios capture a sequence of events.
Palmer refers to scenarios as one kind of imagery, but like imagery, the term scenario has not
made it into Sharifian’s toolkit. For Sharifian, scenarios are cultural schemas of a particular kind;
no separate tool is needed.
17
The passage in square brackets only appears in the 2006 version.
18
Palmer’s judgment may be clouded by a misunderstanding of some of the fundamental
assumptions behind the NSM approach. For instance, in his introduction to a special issue of the
journal Cognitive Linguistics on thinking across languages and cultures, he refers to the “uncer-
tainty over whether THINK as we know it in English is in fact a semantic universal as asserted by
Anna Wierzbicka” (Palmer 2003b: 98). But this is not at all what Wierzbicka is saying. It is not
THINK as we know it in English that is a semantic universal, but THINK as it is used in the natural
semantic metalanguage, where it is restricted to one of the meanings the verb think has in English,
a meaning that is irreducible to more simple meanings and that empirical research spanning several
decades suggests may be lexicalised, one way or the other, in all the languages of the world.
(2005: 341 = 2011b: 113) carefully worded claim that the NSM approach “has
some appeal to both ‘relativists’ and ‘universalists’” also remains relatively unac-
commodating. He seems to be saying: “Some appeal, yes, but I don’t think I will be
using it in a hurry…” Too bad. There is no way that APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS is ever
going to disavow NSM. No way.
APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS is also not about to give up the term cultural value.
I can’t see anything wrong with the use of everyday terms as an alternative to
scientific jargon, as long as reasonable attempts are made to come up with workable
definitions if such everyday terms are ill-defined and could therefore be a potential
source of confusion. I would like to think that a theoretical framework that uses
everyday terms as the cornerstones of its scientific endeavours might have a broader
appeal than one that confines itself to, or at least focuses on, scientific jargon. And a
broad appeal is exactly what APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS needs, perhaps more so than
CULTURAL LINGUISTICS, in that it was conceived for (but not intended to be limited to)
use in the advanced foreign-language classroom. Of course, the names of the six
pathways that have so far been posited within APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS are not
exactly everyday terms. Labels such as ETHNOLEXICOLOGY, ETHNOPHRASEOLOGY,
ETHNOSYNTAX, ETHNORHETORICS, ETHNOPRAGMATICS, and ETHNOAXIOLOGY are not very
user-friendly; some roll off the tongue, whereas others don’t. I would like to argue,
though, that they aren’t among the cornerstones of APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS. Rather,
they are convenient ways of referring to each of the pathways, and as such they
don’t even need to be used in the advanced foreign-language classroom. The term
cultural value, on the other hand, can’t be dispensed with, and is certain to appeal to
students, as it is a term that they are familiar with through exposure to the media.
Is there any chance that CULTURAL LINGUISTICS will give the term cultural value
wider currency? Time will tell. One thing we know for sure is that it didn’t happen
in the wake of Malcolm’s (2007: 53) discussion of situations where “the natural
phenomena of linguistic and cultural difference come up against the humanly
contrived phenomena of inequality which enable one cultural group to reduce the
life chances of others by making one language variety the only path to education
and opportunity.” He went on to say that a “constructive approach” to such situ-
ations requires “a method of inquiry that is able to keep in focus both linguistic
difference and competing cultural values” (emphasis added), and claimed that “it is
here that cultural linguistics has a unique contribution to make” (2007: 54). There is
no doubt in my mind that the “cultural linguistics” Malcolm was referring to was
CULTURAL LINGUISTICS, since he made his claim in a text originally presented at a
workshop on APPLIED CULTURAL LINGUISTICS convened by Farzad Sharifian and Gary
Palmer as part of the proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Cognitive
Linguistics held in Logroño, Spain, in 2003. Nor is there any doubt in my mind that
CULTURAL LINGUISTICS has made a unique and hopefully lasting contribution, not so
much in terms of cultural values as in terms of cultural categories, metaphors,
schemas, and models, i.e. cultural conceptualisations.
Malcolm (2007) is one of eight chapters in a book titled Applied Cultural
Linguistics, edited by the conveners of the Logroño workshop. It was arguably not
until 2007 that Palmer’s take on cultural linguistics, i.e. CULTURAL LINGUISTICS,
522 B. Peeters
became more widely known, thanks to Sharifian’s input. However, as it turns out,
only six of the eight chapters were originally presented at the workshop. One of the
newly added ones was by Cliff Goddard and Anna Wierzbicka, who were invited at
a later stage to contribute to the book (Farzad Sharifian, personal communication,
December 18, 2015). Although they use the term (cultural) value more often than
the other contributors taken together, their chapter doesn’t seem to have had any
terminological impact on the field of CULTURAL LINGUISTICS either. One reason could
be the inevitable presence in Goddard and Wierzbicka (2007) of large chunks of
NSM. Another reason could be the near absence of the term cultural linguistics,
which appears only once, preceded by the adjective applied, at the very end of the
paper; in addition, not one entry in the bibliography is associated with work con-
ducted under the CULTURAL LINGUISTICS banner. It makes one wonder whether
Sharifian and Palmer (2007) is about APPLIED CULTURAL LINGUISTICS (in line with the
Logroño workshop) or about applied cultural linguistics…
23.6 APPLIED ETHNOLINGUISTICS and “cultural linguistics”
I would like to end on a high note. Even though it is unlikely that APPLIED
ETHNOLINGUISTICS will eventually amalgamate with CULTURAL LINGUISTICS, I do hope
they can learn from one another and engage in a mutually enriching dialogue,
thereby contributing to “greater cross-cultural understanding and tolerance” (Palmer
1996: 296). “A noble endeavour, worthy of every effort,” notes Głaz (2017: 54) in
his comments on these words. I couldn’t agree more. I believe both APPLIED
ETHNOLINGUISTICS and CULTURAL LINGUISTICS provide useful methodologies for the
study of language and culture. Both are forms of a kind of linguistics that recog-
nises that language is so much more than a matter of cognition. Both have a
legitimate place in the broader field of cultural linguistics—as do other frameworks,
including but not limited to Bartmiński’s COGNITIVE ETHNOLINGUISTICS, which he
hopes will contribute to “a better coexistence of nations” (Bartmiński 2009: 221).
Acknowledgements An earlier version of this chapter was delivered as the Annual Lecture of the
Language and Society Centre at Monash University, Melbourne, on 8 March 2016. I am grateful to
Adam Głaz, Gary Palmer, and Farzad Sharifian for comments that have led to further improve-
ments of this chapter, which was originally published in the International Journal of Language
and Culture (IJoLC, 3(2), 2016) and is reprinted here with the permission of the original publisher
(John Benjamins; DOI: 10.1075/ijolc.3.2.01pee).
Appendix 1: Vietnamese and English Exponents of NSM

Semantic Primes (Vo 2016)
̀ GÌ*CÁI GÌ, NGƯƠÌ TA, CƠ THỂ

TAO, MÀY, NGƯƠÌ NÀO, ĐIÊU Thực thể từ
I, you, someone, something*thing, people, body Substantives
LOẠI, PHÂN ̀ Thực thể từ quan hệ
kind, part Relational substantives
NÀY, CÙNG, KHÁC Định từ
this, the same, other*else Determiners
MỘT, HAI, [MỘT] VÀI*MỘT SỐ, TẤT CẢ, NHIỀU, [MỘT] CHÚT * [MỘT] ÍT Lượng từ
one, two, much*many, little*few, some, all Quantifiers
TỐT, XẤU*TỒI Từ đánh giá
good, bad Evaluators
LỚN, NHỎ Từ mô tả
big, small Descriptors
NGHĨ, BIẾT, MUỐN, KHÔNG MUỐN, CẢM THẤY, THẤY, NGHE Vị từ tâm thức
think, know, want, don’t want, feel, see, hear Mental predicates
NÓI, LƠÌ , THẬT Lơì nói
say, words, true Speech
LÀM, XẢY RA, DI CHUYỂN Hành động, sự kiện, di
chuyển
do, happen, move Actions, events,
movement
Ở (ĐÂU), CÓ, LÀ (AI/CÁI GÌ) Vị trí, hiện hữu, đặc tả
be (somewhere), there is, be (someone/something) Location, existence,
specification
CỦA TÔI Sở hữu
(is) mine Possession
́ , CHÊT
SÔNG ́ ́ và chêt́
Sông
live, die Life and death
KHI*LÚC, [BÂY] GIỜ, TRƯƠĆ [KHI], SAU [KHI], MỘT LÚC LÂU, [MỘT] CHÔC
́ Thơì gian
LÁT, MỘT LÚC, [MỘT] THOÁNG
when*time, now, before, after, a long time, Time

a short time, for some time, moment
ĐÂU*NƠI, ĐÂY, TRÊN, DƯƠÍ , XA, GÂN ̀ , BÊN, BÊN TRONG, CHẠM Không gian
where*place, here, above, below, far, near, side, inside, touch Space
KHÔNG, CÓ LẼ, CÓ THỂ, BỞI VÌ, NẾU Khái niệm logic
not, maybe, can, because, if Logical concepts
RẤT, NỮA Tác tử
very, more Augmentor, intensifier
NHƯ Đồng dạng
like Similarity
524 B. Peeters
Appendix 2: Wierzbicka’s (2010b: 66) Cultural Script

for the Russian Cultural Value Iskrennost (with modified
indentation for increased clarity)
[many people think like this:]

at many times someone says something good to someone else
because this someone wants this other someone to know what this someone is
thinking at that time
not because of anything else
it is good if it is like this
at many times someone says something good to someone else
because this someone wants this other someone to know what this someone feels
at that time
not because of anything else
it is good if it is like this
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Wierzbicka, A. (2010a). Cultural scripts. In L. Cummings (Ed.), The pragmatics encyclopedia
(pp. 92–95). London: Routledge.
Wierzbicka, A. (2010b). Cultural scripts and intercultural communication. In A. Trosborg (Ed.),
Pragmatics across languages and cultures (pp. 43–78). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Author Biography
Bert Peeters is an Honorary Associate Professor at the Australian National University, Canberra,
and an Adjunct Associate Professor at Griffith University, Brisbane. His main research interests are
in French linguistics, intercultural communication, and language and cultural values. His
publications include Diachronie, phonologie, et linguistique fonctionnelle (1992), Les primitifs
sémantiques (ed., 1993), The lexicon-encyclopedia interface (ed., 2000), Semantic primes and
universal grammar (ed., 2006), Tu ou vous: l’embarras du choix (ed. with N. Ramière, 2009),
Cross-culturally speaking, speaking cross-culturally (ed. with K. Mullan and C. Béal, 2013), and
Language and cultural values: adventures in applied ethnolinguistics (ed., 2015).
Chapter 24
Expanding the Scope of Cultural
Linguistics: Taking Parrots Seriously
Roslyn M. Frank
Source https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Psittacus_erithacus_-perching_on_tray-8d.jpg
What the data suggest to me is if one starts with a brain with a

certain complexity and gives it enough social and ecological
support, that brain will develop at least the building blocks of a
complex communication system (Pepperberg 2003).
24.1 Introduction
For the past five years I’ve been doing research on the cognitive abilities of African
Grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus), attempting to document not only their remark-
able linguistic abilities but also examining the way that they interact with their
human caretakers, specifically Greys who have been home-raised and hence
exposed to a language-rich environment. Given that literally no work has been done
on the linguistic abilities of Greys raised in home environments, the research I’ve
R.M. Frank (&)

University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA
e-mail: rozfrank14@yahoo.com

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_24
530 R.M. Frank
carried out to date and which will be discussed in this chapter must be viewed as
preliminary, although not necessarily ground-breaking for that term needs to be
applied to the outstanding research that Dr. Irene Pepperberg has carried out in her
laboratory where she demonstrated the remarkable cognitive abilities of her Greys,
Alex, Griffin and Arthur.
However, Pepperberg’s work has been focused on experimentally proving the
general level of intelligence of parrots housed and extensively trained in a labo-
ratory setting (Pepperberg 1999, 2010b, 2011b). Her avian subjects were “being
trained to communicate—to use labels referentially—rather than being exposed to
an environment that allowed consequence-free acquisition without necessarily
teaching meaning” (Pepperberg 1999: 214).1 In other words, she was not concerned
specifically with exploring the linguistic abilities of the birds and the cultural world
they inhabit and/or create for themselves in a home environment. Rather her goal
and one that she certainly achieved was to produce statistically meaningful data
concerning the ability of these birds to reason. Fitch described Pepperberg’s
approach in this way, saying that “most of Pepperberg’s attention has been focused
on cognition, with speech being a means to an end rather than the primary focus of
research” (Fitch 2010: 169).
Pepperberg’s conclusion—which is accepted by animal behaviourists—is that
the cognitive abilities of Greys allow them to be ranked as having reasoning skills
equivalent to those of a 2- to 3-year-old human child and in some specific areas the
tests showed that a Grey is capable of performing at the level of a 5-year old. Quite
surprisingly, leaving aside the outstanding work of Pepperberg and her highly
insightful commentaries on the speech production and verbal interactions that her
Greys had with her and members of her laboratory staff (Pepperberg 2009), to my
knowledge, there still has been no inquiry into how the proven cognitive abilities of
these laboratory-trained birds relate to the way that home-raised Greys communi-
cate verbally with humans. While there is a plethora of studies and speculations
about how songbirds acquire their songs, no such similar work has been done on
Greys in home settings. In any case, Pepperberg’s remarkable research results
provide support for the following proposition: that there would be nothing inher-
ently wrong with suggesting complex cognitive interpretations of the verbal per-
formance of home-raised Greys given that the species in question has already been
proven to have high intelligence (Waal 2016: 41–42).
24.2 Expanding the Scope of Cultural Linguistics
In this chapter I will attempt to show how the scope of Cultural Linguistics can be
expanded to include the study of interspecies communication, specifically, the
linguistic abilities and ‘cultural world’ of these other-than-human creatures. Since
1
Emphasis in the original. Cf. also Krashen (1976) and Lambert (1981).
24 Expanding the Scope of Cultural Linguistics … 531
the chapter is an introduction to the topic, I begin by giving a brief overview of the
research that has been done on the linguistic abilities of parrots, concentrating on a
particular subspecies, African Grey parrots, parrots who are recognised as being the
most proficient in accurately modelling human speech. In the latter sections of
the chapter, concrete examples of parrot–human interaction will be analysed. The
research focuses almost exclusively on home-raised Greys who, therefore, grew up
in a language-rich environment, inhabited by humans, and in close contact with the
sociocultural surroundings of their human caretakers.
Overall, the chapter has two interrelated objectives. The first is to show how the
field of Cultural Linguistics can benefit from expanding its scope to include the study
of the communication skills of nonhuman animals, concretely, the skills evidenced
by African Grey parrots. The second objective is to demonstrate how the tools and
concerns of Cultural Linguistics are especially appropriate once we move beyond the
deeply entrenched semantic cliché that all parrots do is ‘parrot’ and turn our attention
to the task of taking parrots seriously. Whereas for many years animal behaviourists
and those working in the area of language evolution have been concerned with
replicable experiments, testing and quantification of results, when we approach the
available data from the perspective of Cultural Linguistics, our focus becomes the
cognitive aspects of parrot speech, how these creatures process their interactions
with humans, how they build up their own cultural conceptualisations and cultural
schemas, their own cultural worlds, and associated cognitive frameworks which in
turn allow them to make sense of what is taking place around them, establish and
maintain their relationship with their human caretakers.
The latter is often the person with whom the bird bonds as if the human were its
own mate. In addition, the parrot interacts verbally with other birds and animals
who might be living in the same house. As we will see, much like young children,
Greys acquire categories through verbal interactions with their human caretakers
and at the same time they also begin to discover how the language and culture of
their human interlocutors categorise events, objects, settings and experiences
(Sharifian 2015: 479–481). And in the case of home-raised Greys, the resulting
cultural categories “are acquired through normal exposure to caregivers and culture
with little explicit instruction” (Glushko et al. 2008: 129).
24.3 Why Have the Cognitive Aspects of the Linguistic

Performance of African Grey Parrots Been Ignored?
While a number of reasons could be cited for this profound lack of interest in the
linguistic performance of African Greys, leaving aside the highly entrenched
expression ‘to parrot’, there are two reasons that should be kept foremost in mind.
First, there is the assumption that the abilities shown by Alex who was Pepperberg’s
532 R.M. Frank
first and most well-known laboratory-trained Grey, resulted from his intensive
training in the laboratory. Although his performance is understood to reflect the innate
cognitive abilities of other Greys, it has been assumed that unless the bird is trained
under laboratory conditions, it will not exteriorise its innate cognitive capacities. For
example, in her review of The Oxford Handbook of Language Evolution, Lyon talks
about the chapters in that volume dedicated to exploring possible parallels between
bird song and human language, adding these comments about Alex: “Another aspect
is Pepperberg’s research with the remarkable grey parrot Alex […], with its reported
ability to learn symbolic representation to perceive, imitate and produce new
sequences of vocal sounds in a quasi-dialogue with a human. It will be interesting to
see if this can be produced in another parrot” (Lyon 2014: 130).
Lyon’s last statement sums up what seems to be the prevailing consensus among
those working in the field of language evolution and interspecies communication
studies. They seem to hold the view that what Alex achieved was totally unique in the
sense that his verbal abilities are not shared by parrots who have not undergone similar
extensive training. For example, Pepperberg demonstrated that, just as Arbid (2006)
points out is the case for young children, “Alex goes beyond simple imitation; he
acquires the phonological repertoire, some words, and basic “assembly skills” of
his trainers and appears to parse complex behavior patterns (words and phrases) into
recombinable pieces and familiar (or semi-familiar) actions” (Pepperberg 2006).
However, the assumption has been that home-raised African Greys are not capable of
doing the same thing.
In short, for these researchers, not only is the jury is still out, the only way to prove
otherwise is for someone else to spend years training a Grey in a laboratory setting so
as to replicate the results that Pepperberg achieved with Alex. There is no discussion of
the possibility of looking at other types of evidence, for instance, accessing a corpus
that is a readily available: the incredibly vast amount of audiovisual material afforded
by the Internet, concretely, the literally hundreds of videos that can be found on
YouTube which show Greys at home, vocalising alone by themselves as well as
interacting with humans and not just in English, but in many other languages. There
are many YouTube celebrity Greys who have their own fan clubs, birds that have their
own YouTube channels and followers, a Facebook page and often an elaborate
interactive website from which these video clips can be easily accessed and viewed.2
Taken collectively, these video clips represent a corpus that can be subjected to study,
raw material documented in audiovisual form which shows hundreds of Greys who
have acquired their communication skills, however minimal, through social interac-
tions with humans in informal settings.3
2
A list of some of the celebrity parrots who have followings on the Internet can be found at the end
of this chapter.
3
When viewing these videos and attempting to understand what the bird is saying, I recommend
you do the following: watch the video once, then, go to another screen, that is, eliminate the visual
element so that you are not distracted by the visual imagery and are listening only to the audio
track of the clip. After listening to the clip several times, you will discover that you will follow far
better what the bird is saying.
As will become apparent in this chapter, the advantages of having access to this
corpus of audiovisual materials on YouTube are manifold. The materials are readily
available in an open-access format and are down-loadable so that the results of the
analysis of a clip by one researcher can be compared to those of other researchers.
The videos are time-coded making it possible to pin-point the segments under
discussion. Moreover, in them not only do we have direct access to the bird’s
vocalisations, we can also see how the bird uses its repertoire of L1 vocalisations,
chirps, whistles, clicks and squawks along with specific gestures—vocalisations
and gestures that are typical of the species itself—to punctuate what it is saying,
inserting them as it communicates by means of L2 words and phrases.4
A second reason that has led to the neglect of this area of research lies in the way
that disciplines are walled off from each other. Until now, research on the com-
municative abilities of parrots has been discussed exclusively from two perspec-
tives: language evolution and animal behaviour. As a consequence, little attention
has been paid to this area by those working in other disciplines and fields, such as
Cultural Linguistics. Indeed, topics relating to interspecies communication have not
penetrated the disciplinary boundaries, much less brought about multidisciplinary
attempts to sort out the various theories and evidence concerning the cognitive
abilities of parrots and, more narrowly, the abilities repeatedly demonstrated by
African Greys.
There is one other factor that needs to be mentioned and which may have acted
to keep these concerns from coming to the attention of the wider community of
linguists and anthropologists working outside the aforementioned areas, e.g. outside
the fields of language evolution and animal behaviour. I refer to the deeply
engrained belief that what sets humans apart from the rest of the members of the
animal kingdom is our ability to use language. If we take the linguistic abilities of
parrots seriously, the gulf separating us seems to narrow, as we find ourselves
communicating in a meaningful way with a creature whose linguistics skills make it
capable of responding to us in our own language, albeit with the same limited level
of sophistication that young children display in the early stages of their language
learning. While the communication code that Greys acquire is not fully isomorphic
with human language, the verbal interactions allow us a means of gaining cognitive
access to their world (Pepperberg 1999: 209–214). The degree to which this direct
4
Regarding the use of the term L1 to refer to the use of whistles, chirps and squawks by
‘home-raised’ Greys, Bush (2016) notes that in some instances ‘home-raised’ Greys spend their
first several months of life with their parrot parents (in a human home, to be sure, but in constant
contact with their parents, and often other Greys as well), from whom they might in fact acquire
some basic ‘Grey language’. Whether these various calls are the same as those used in the wild,
with the same meanings, is impossible to say at this point. Consequently, it would be a mistake to
regard those calls as necessarily innate or instinctive, without further research. It is at least possible
that parrots a few generations removed from the wild have continued to pass along to their
offspring the calls that they themselves may have learned as babies. Cf. also Berg et al. (2012).
534 R.M. Frank
type of bridging communication is possible will become more evident in the sec-
tions that follow. Inversely, to continue to argue that all parrots do is ‘mimic’ or
‘parrot’ is a way to maintain the divide between human animals and the rest of the
animal world.
24.4 Self-talk and Practice Sessions
African Greys have a remarkable personality trait, one that makes it easier for us to
analyse, albeit always tentatively, what is going on inside their heads: on a daily
basis they engage in solitary ‘musing’ sessions where they seem to entertain
themselves by practicing the pronunciation of new words and phrases,
question-and-answer routines which were provided by the human caregiver as well
as question-and-answer routines of their own invention. Usually only after they
have mastered the new word or phrase is it used in public. Furthermore, these
sessions of self-talk often take place with the parrot perched all alone on the top of
the bathroom shower, a favourite location. They are readily caught on camera
providing an intriguing glimpse into what the parrot must assume is its private
space. Indeed, the fact that they prefer to practice new words away from the
limelight is intriguing in itself.
Like human children, Greys often practice verbalising and engage in word play
when they are alone. They also prefer to do so in a specific location away from
prying eyes. Some authors suggest that “the observed playing with sounds may
occur because it allows children and parrots alike to practice without receiving
negative feedback for errors. Children have been observed to engage in such
solitary word play through age 7 […]” (Hillix and Rumbaugh 2004: 250). In
contrast, parrots seem to continue to engage in these solitary behaviours over the
course of their entire lives. Given that their life expectancy is nearly as great as that
of many humans on this planet, 40–60 years in captivity, this means the language
learning sessions that they create for themselves and which often produce
remarkable results, are not momentary blips on their cognitive radar.
The following comments by Pepperberg are relevant to this discussion of
‘self-talk’ or ‘monologue speech’:
Although phylogenetically remote from one another, Grey parrots and humans share certain
cognitive and communicative abilities. Greys learn simple vocal syntactic patterns and
referential elements of human communication; on certain tasks (e.g., label acquisition,
categorization, numerical competence, relative size, conjunction, recursion) their process-
ing abilities and learning strategies may parallel those of young human children […] despite
their walnut-sized brains that are organized somewhat differently from those of primates
and even songbirds (Jarvis and Mello 2000; Jarvis et al. 2005; Striedter 1994). (Pepperberg
2010a: 359)
Like children, Grey parrots use sound play (phonetic ‘babbling’ and recombination)
to produce new speech patterns from existent ones. This implies that they acous-
tically represent labels as do humans and develop phonetic categories. Pepperberg
emphasises that parallels also exist in the ways that birds and children learn to
produce the sounds that make up their vocalisations. In short, both birds and
humans engage in various types of practice, including constructing private mono-
logues (Pepperberg 2010a: 359).
Pepperberg dedicates an entire section to how Greys in captivity utilise “practice
and monologue speech”, whereas how
parrots might use this behavior in nature is unknown, but given the complexity of their
learned vocalizations (May 2004), their behavior might parallel human children’s practice
of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics (West and King 1985), that is, both children’s early
babbling and their later monologue speech. Such monologue speech, although not essential
for human language acquisition, has been observed for most children (Kuczaj 1983; Nelson
1989) and has two components: private speech produced in solitude, and social-context
speech produced in the presence of potential receivers but without obvious communicative
purpose (e.g., undirected commentary while playing with toys; Fuson 1979; Kuczaj and
Bean 1982). Interestingly, in our laboratory Alex demonstrated certain parallels with
children’s practice of both types of monologue speech (Pepperberg 1999). (Pepperberg
2010a: 364)
Preferring to practice their new words and phrases in private is common behaviour
for Greys.
Over a designated period, my students and I taped and transcribed evidence (Pepperberg
et al. 1991) showing that Alex practiced his labels in private, often (though not always) for
several weeks before he uttered them in public. He would generally start with sounds
already in his repertoire, then recombine and vary them until he hit upon something that
resembled the targeted pattern that he heard during training. He also occasionally repro-
duced sets of questions and answers, reconstructing and reinventing scenarios not involved
in formal training. Monologues included utterances from daily routines (e.g., “you go
gym”, “want some water”) and strings involving often-heard patterns (e.g., “you be good,
gonna go eat lunch, I’ll be back tomorrow”). Question-answer dialogues (e.g., “snap, snap,
snap,” “How many?” “Three”) also emerged. Such performance may be integral to
development and, because it occurs across many species, suggests an evolutionary theory of
language play (Kuczaj 1998). Pepperberg 2010a: 364)
As noted, these musings or periods of self-reflection sometimes include practice

sessions, monologues in which the bird tries to improve its pronunciation of a word
or phrase. Those sessions indicate that the bird has a mental image of the correct
pronunciation of what it has heard and that its repeated attempts are efforts on its
part to bring that acoustical mental image into sync with what it is producing.
Hence, there are two levels of monitoring going on: first, there is evidence that the
bird has monitored what the human has said and second, that using that image the
bird monitors its own performance trying to match the two acoustical images,
the one held in its memory and the one(s) that it is producing as it practices the
pronunciation of the word or phrase.
536 R.M. Frank
24.5 The Complexity of Being Bilingual
At this juncture, I will discuss some of the factors that need to be taken into
consideration when examining the way that these remarkable creatures exteriorise
their understandings of their second language (L2), namely, how birds who have
never lived in the wild switch back and forth between their first (‘native’) language,
referred to here as L1 which they employ vocally and gesturally, and their second
enculturated language, designated as L2. Our discussion will concentrate on Greys
who have acquired their L2 code in a language-rich home setting, rather than in a
laboratory. There is also the question of how Greys draw on aspects of their L1
body language to underline what they are communicating verbally in their L2 code.
Moreover, just as has been noted in human face-to-face interactions, it appears that
the bird’s L1 gestures may be initiated slightly ahead of the vocalisation to which
the movement is attached cognitively: the gesture is keying what is to come. Given
that reading parrot body language is a way to determine the bird’s state of mind as
well as to assess know how it is feeling overall, the way they use their bodies to
communicate has been studied intensively over the years. There are many books,
articles, online websites and videos that discuss the way that Greys use body
language to express their emotional state. Hence, there is little mystery about how
many of their L1 gestures, those that appear to be genetically programmed, should
be read (Heidenreich 2008).
The question is how these gestures are used to punctuate or otherwise illustrate
their L2 utterances as well as the way they interrelate to their complex L1 vocal-
isations, those chirps and clicks whose precise meanings still have not yet been
deciphered. Thus, we have a situation in which the bird is switching back and forth
between two codes and in the process creating multimodal utterances that have a
verbal and gestural component. Whereas in recent years a great deal of attention has
been paid to multimodality in human interaction and with both remarkable and
fascinating results, this area of investigation is still in its infancy when it comes to
parrot–human communication (Dancygier and Sweetser 2012; Müller et al. 2014;
Waal 2016).
When the human learns to read the gestural language of the bird, this helps
immensely in the communication process. However, there are examples where the
parrot begins by trying to communicate gesturally with its human interlocutor but
the human fails or refuses to understand. And at the juncture the parrot sometimes
resorts to using its L2 verbal code, making its point verbally, that is, explicitly,
when it sees that the human has not responded to the L1 gesture. A concrete
example of this switching between the L1 gestural code and the L2 verbal code will
be discussed in a later section of this chapter.
Leaving aside the pioneering work of Dr. Irene Pepperberg, most of what has
been written about these parrots can be divided into two basic camps, each
characterised by a very different perspective. On the one hand, there is the point of
view shared by animal behaviourists who have little or no knowledge of linguistics,
yet alone Cultural Linguistics, and therefore are engaged in ‘testing’, producing
statistically significant empirically replicable experiments, that is, studying birds
living under laboratory conditions. On the other hand, there is the perspective that
shows up in popular books written by owners of Greys in which the authors talk
about their personal experiences, the problems and joys of living with a Grey, and
how the bird relates to them. These narratives often include fascinating anecdotal
information about what the bird does and says (Burger 2002; Gardiner 2010) and at
times significant insight into the parrot–human communication process (Craige
2010; Pepperberg 2009). For the most part, however, these are books oriented
toward the large audience of parrot owners, parrots being the most common pet
after dogs and cats. Although the birds described in these books have been
immersed in a language-rich home setting, rather than a laboratory, there is no
objective way of proving that the utterances the authors attribute to the birds ever
took place.
With the advent of YouTube the situation changed radically, for now we have
direct access to hundreds of videos of Greys in home settings and often multiple
videos are available which feature the same bird talking either to itself or to a
human interlocutor. Consequently, there is corpus of material accessible to those
who are interested in expanding the scope of Cultural Linguistics so that the lin-
guistic abilities and cultural understandings of these other-than-human animals can
be studied.
At the same time, I should point out that with a few notable exceptions
(Colbert-White et al. 2011; Pepperberg [1999], 2011a) investigations carried out by
members of the first group have been done by people who are interested in a broad
category of creatures called ‘vocal learners’ (or ‘vocal mimicking species’) and
have not had the opportunity to be in close, daily contact with a Grey, interacting
personally with it. As a result, there has been little discussion of the ‘culture’ or
‘world’ of these birds, how they view and interact with their human ‘mate’, what
topics they bring up repeatedly, that is, activities and events that are of particular
interest or concern to them and about which they have acquired a certain fluency,
using learned conversational routines and occasionally original ones. Many of the
recurring topics might be classified as having a bodily component in that they relate
to food and the act of eating, naming or requesting different foods;5 showering, one
of their favourite activities; controlling unwanted behaviours, such as biting,
5
The following sequence is a mini drama that comes from a monologue created by a parrot named
Poppy: “Poppy, what do you want for breakfast? Eggs, butter, milk, toast, yoghurt? I want tators!”
Cf. at 5:31 min. in “Poppy the African Grey’s Hottest New Video.” https://www.YouTube.com/
watch?v=D9sKaEMBB64.
538 R.M. Frank
squawking and pooping, either improperly or properly;6 and requesting affection

(scratches, kisses, cuddles, hugs). However, the list of frequently recurring topics
found in their verbal conversational routines goes far beyond those with a bodily
component, again depending on what they have learned from listening to and
interacting with the humans with whom they live.
Other more linguistically oriented areas of interest are the ways that Greys
manipulate pronouns, construct verbs and deal with collocations, use or fail to use
singular–plural contrasts. They are also capable of coming up with their own
vocabulary items, spontaneously creating compound words they have never heard
spoken (Bush, in preparation; Pepperberg 2011b). Of particular interest are the mini
dramas that they invent while practicing monologue speech in which the bird
portrays itself and/or its human caretaker as participants, a topic that will be treated
in more detail in the sections that follow.
Admittedly, there are many unanswered questions about the upper limit of their
vocabulary as well as the syntactic complexity of their constructions. For instance,
relative clauses seem to be totally absent. A related area has to do with the way that
certain words are used by Greys to create cover terms, categories or prototypes that
can sometimes strike us as quite mundane, but at other times are quite unusual
and/or totally unexpected. At the same time these cover terms—these semantic
generalisations—can often reveal to us or at least suggest to us the underlying
cognitive processes that led to the creation of the category.
Finally, there are the many concrete examples of the often bizarre sense of
humour which these birds manifest verbally. Moreover, what they seem to find
funny frequently reveals a level of cognitive complexity and complicity, e.g. the
recognition that the human will understand the joke, implicit in such exchanges. For
instance, instead of crying out when the phone rings using the standard routine,
“Telephone for Betty Jean!” (the bird’s human), Betty Jean’s Cosmo often pipes up
saying “Telephone for Cosmo!” or “Telephone for bird!” (Craige 2010).7 Their
sense of humour—that is, what the birds themselves find humourous—often seems
to be based on their intuition of the absurd, their enjoyment in creating
contrary-to-fact situations, e.g. utterances in which they assign ‘feathers’ to their
caretaker, or they can engage in ‘telephone games’, e.g. by making up fake phone
conversations beginning with the sound of beeps, marking the number they are
supposedly dialling and playing the role of both parties in the conversation,
although the other person’s voice always tends to be muffled, and then ending with
6
While Greys are house-trained to ‘poop’ only in approved locations, accidents often happen,
accidents that the bird itself often monitors, talking about this bodily action, just before and after it
occurs.
7
For further examples of the wild sense of humour that Cosmo has, cf. http://www.cosmotalks.
com/books/.
a ‘good-bye’.8 Another common strategy relies on their ability to perfectly replicate

the sound of a phone ringing. By doing this, they can trick their caretaker into
coming into the room to answer the non-existent call. The cognitive aspects of this
verbal playfulness need to be investigated in more depth.
In other instances, we find examples of a Grey trying to make sense of what the
human is saying. Sometime it is the bird who asks a question of its human interlocutor.
And because of the way the question is formulated we can see that the bird is confused
about what has been said and wants clarification. One of these examples demands
detailed discussion for it is truly remarkable in terms of the mental processing that
precedes the formulation of the bird’s question. The sequence appears clearly docu-
mented in a video of a very loquacious 2-year-old Grey named Halo who speaks
English with a Scottish accent, a sequence that will be discussed in detail in the latter
section of this chapter, along with material from several other video clips.
Indeed, there is ample evidence that parrots are conscious of their own internal
mental activities. Online videos and personal narratives by owners provide many
examples of utterances which show that these parrots understand categories and are
capable of constructing untaught variations of a learned template or routine.
Detailed study of the spontaneous vocalisations of Pepperberg’s Alex has shown
that his spontaneous vocalisations were combinations and phonological variations
of specific vocal English labels that the bird had previously acquired. Although
initially these recombinations were not necessarily used intentionally by the bird to
describe or request novel objects or circumstances, it is clear that the bird did come
to use such vocalisations referentially and intentionally to identify, request, refuse
and categorise various objects (Pepperberg 1990a, b).
This is also true of other Greys included in this study: the birds often engage in
intentional behaviour. In other words, we can find the birds attaching functional signif-
icance to their utterances. In short, Greys are capable of commenting about or requesting
objects, actions or information. They monitor their surroundings and verbally react to
changes in them. Moreover, given that African Grey parrots may live for 40–60 years in
captivity and have excellent memories, these little creatures with a brain the size of
shelled walnut have plenty of time to acquire and improve their communication skills.
24.6 Implications of Rhythmic Synchrony for Verbal

and Gestural Performance
In 2009, the first evidence for rhythmic entrainment, long believed to be an

exclusive prerogative of humans, was demonstrated in several bird species, raising
interesting questions, according to the investigators, about the evolutionary biology
8
An excellent example of the fascination that phone calls hold for Greys is the case of Larry who in
this short video makes repeated fake phone calls: “Larry the parrot dials an imaginary phone
number, rambles a little, then starts laughing.” Cf. https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=CB6-
QCzBZgc.
540 R.M. Frank
of music. The mechanism, frequently touted as uniquely human, is rhythmic syn-

chronisation to music: the capacity to move one’s limbs or body to a complex
external beat. Until 2009 such entrainment, necessary for ensemble musical playing
and dancing and found in all human cultures, had not been demonstrated in
other-than-human animals. The researchers in question made the startling discovery
after a video link was sent to them of an Internet sensation, a Sulphur Crested
Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita eleonora) called Snowball.9 The video was first
uploaded to YouTube in 2007. By 2008, at the time it was brought to the attention
of Drs. Aniruddh D. Patel and John R. Iversen of the Neurosciences Institute in La
Jolla, California, it had already garnered over two million hits. After viewing the
video, the two experimenters contacted the bird’s caretaker and using versions of
Snowball’s favourite song, they video-taped the bird’s dancing while modifying the
underlying beat.
What Patel et al. (2009b) discovered was that as the tempo of the musical excerpt
was modified, Snowball entrained appropriately to the beat by slowing down his
bobbing or speeding it up. Even though Snowball’s sense of rhythm was not perfect
—it went slightly in and out of synchrony—the team’s use of Monte Carlo sim-
ulations allowed them to show that the bouts of entrainment were unlikely to have
occurred by chance. Later, a second set of experiments was conducted on Alex, the
African Grey trained by Pepperberg, with similar results (Schackner et al. 2009). In
summary, research carried out on two species of parrots, Cockatoos (Cacatua
galerita) and African Greys (Psittacus erithacus), led the two teams of researchers
to reach the same conclusions and hypothesise that the human capacity for
entrainment could be a byproduct of the vocal learning mechanisms that allow us to
learn speech sounds and musical melodies. However, the hypothesis did not extend
to posing the question of whether the head bobbing of parrots such as African Greys
had anything to do with their remarkable capacity to produce human-like
vocalisations.
As noted, African Greys spontaneously entrain to a beat: they have a sense of
rhythm just as we do (Dreifus 2010; Patel 2009, 2014; Patel et al. 2009a, b, c;
Schackner et al. 2009). And this may be connected to their often uncanny ability not
only to talk but to whistle a melody and sing the words, at times even making up
9
There is even a Wikipedia entry dedicated to Snowball which gives more details of the bird’s life
and how it became famous overnight. Cf. links in the reference section below to Snowball.
A lessor known but equally amazing dancing sensation is Frostie, a 27-year-old Bare-Eyed
Cockatoo, whose moves are even flashier than those of Snowball. Cf. https://www.facebook.com/
karla.larsson/videos/10202328761997126/. So far, Frostie’s original video has collected
11,252,000 hits since it was uploaded in 2009 and the number is growing every day. As is the case
with many of these Internet sensations, Frostie has her own following, e.g. some 360,000 ‘likes’ on
her Facebook Fan Club Page: https://www.facebook.com/FrostieTheDancingCockatoo. Moreover,
a perusal of these videos will reveal that, much like young children, each bird has invented its own
preferred dance moves, some of which are quite unique, for example: https://www.YouTube.com/
watch?v=qTl1asCDOgs.
their own lyrics to the song when they have forgotten or don’t understand the
original ones. In addition, because of their unique vocal apparatus and heightened
sense of hearing, they are able to mimic the intonation and contours of the voice of
their human mate so accurately that if you can’t see the bird’s beak moving, it can
be difficult to figure out who is actually doing the talking,10 which can be frustrating
to those pets, often very obedient dogs, who hear their name being called only to
discover they have been tricked: that it was the parrot not their owner whistling and
asking them to come into the room.11
The musical abilities of parrots—their ability to entrain to a beat—have caught
the attention of researchers, but not in relation to what this means in terms of the
richness and complexity of the cognitive processes that are going on inside the
heads of the birds as they bob, dance and sing.12 Rather those who have investi-
gated the tendency in nonhuman animals to move in rhythmic synchrony with a
musical beat (e.g. via head bobbing, or the rhythmic body movements we associate
with dancing) have been concerned with looking at whether animal models can
provide insights into the neurobiology and evolution of human music, and the role
of entrainment in the evolution of human language (Fitch 2006, 2009; Patel 2009;
Patel et al. 2009a, b). The hypothesis, originally formulated by Patel (2006: 102;
2008: 411), predicted that only members of vocal learning species, such as humans,
some species of birds, bats, cetaceans and pinnipeds, but not nonhuman primates,
would be capable of synchronising movements to a musical beat. Furthermore, in
2006 Patel stated that the hypothesis “suggests that if primates do fail at BPS [beat
perception and synchronization] it would be premature to conclude that BPS is
10
The degree to which these birds can mimic the sound of the voice of their human mate is
demonstrated in a book by Betty Jean Craige, an Emeritus Professor at the University of Georgia.
Betty Jean tells of an attempt that was made to document the way her parrot Cosmo interacted
verbally with her under different circumstances. Initially, the experiment was documented using a
tape recorder. But the experimenters soon realised there was a problem: they discovered that the
bird imitated the contours of Betty Jean’s voice so accurately that at times when reviewing the
audial tapes they couldn’t tell whether it was the bird or the human who was doing the talking. So
they started video-taping: that way they could see whose mouth was moving. The results of the
video-taped sessions provided the basis of a fascinating article which includes an extensive list of
Cosmo’s utterances. The list consists of two parts: vocalisations making up the bird’s native
repertoire—chirps, whistles, squawks and clicks—along with imitations of the sound of a variety
of other creatures and entities (owl hoots, hawk cries, frog croaks, dog barks, doors creaking open,
beeps from a telephone dialling, telephone rings, the sound of kisses, etc.) and then a listing of his
L2 utterances, his statements, questions and responses in English (Colbert-White et al. 2011).
11
Here is an example of an African Grey called Larry, imitating the husband’s voice and trying to
trick Max, the family dog, into coming to him: “Larry the Parrot calls out for his friend Max the
Dog.” https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=GcbYHWUnE0I.
12
The video called “Einstein’s Shower Speech: Talking, Singing, & Dancing!” is a good example
of what goes on in a musing session as the bird entertains itself by engaging in ‘self-talk’: https://
www.YouTube.com/watch?v=fJCsI6j-8Zc.
542 R.M. Frank
unique to humans. Determining whether nonhuman vocal learners can acquire BPS
will be an essential part of probing the human-specificity of musical abilities” (Patel
2006: 102). As noted, subsequent research on two species of parrots by Patel et al.
(2009b) and Schackner et al. (2009) confirmed this position.
After analysing some four thousand YouTube videos of animals moving to
music and examining each for any evidence of synchronised movements,
Schackner et al. (2009) found that only videos featuring vocal mimics fell into that
category, and only those of 15 species—14 types of parrots and the Asian elephant.
In the case of at least 9 of those, the movements were consistent enough that they
were unlikely to have arisen through chance. Previously, the ability to entrain to the
beat, fundamental both for music production and for coordinated dance, had been
repeatedly highlighted as a uniquely human characteristic. What is especially
striking in this study is the innovative data-mining technique utilised by the
researchers who were able to create an extensive comparative data set from a global
video database which was then systematically analysed for evidence of entrainment
in hundreds of species, both capable and incapable of vocal mimicry.
Source Schackner et al. (2009).
Despite the higher representation of vocal nonmimics in the database and

comparable exposure of mimics and nonmimics to humans and music, only vocal
mimics showed evidence of entrainment. Therefore, the researchers concluded that
entrainment was not unique to humans and that the distribution of entrainment
across species supports the hypothesis that entrainment evolved as a byproduct of
selection for vocal mimicry (Schackner et al. 2009). Summarised, the hypothesis
can be expressed as follows: that having the neural circuitry for complex vocal
learning is a necessary prerequisite for the ability to synchronise with an auditory
beat. However, things are a bit more complicated because having the capacity for
544 R.M. Frank
vocal learning, although necessary, is not sufficient for auditory entrainment. As

these studies show, there are many vocal learning species that do not show
entrainment even though they are capable of ‘vocal mimicry’ and often trained by
humans (Fitch 2009).
Meanwhile, there is little discussion of whether having the neural circuitry for
complex vocal learning and also having the ability to synchronise to a beat, as is the
case of parrots, might constitute part of a basic package of cognitive abilities and as
such be prerequisites for acquiring, using and understanding a complex commu-
nication code such as human language and furthermore relating to humans using
components drawn from the human’s own language. Rather the study of musically
relevant abilities in other species has been dedicated almost exclusively to
addressing “the evolutionary and neural foundations of human musical abilities”
(Patel et al. 2009c).
While humans are included in the category of ‘vocal learning species’, the term
itself does not refer specifically to species that have the ability to learn and use
language, but rather only to those species who have the ability to mimic sounds. On
this view, vocal learning species, including parrots, merely imitate the sounds they
hear around them without true comprehension of what they are saying. Hence,
vocal learning is viewed as a neurobiological substrate, but not equivalent to having
the ability to acquire and use language.
In order to understand what is at stake when we apply this assumption to parrots,
especially African Greys, we need to begin by examining the particular way that the
term ‘vocal learning’ is defined.
Vocal learning, the substrate of human language, is a very rare trait. It is known to be
present in only 6 groups of animals: 3 groups of birds (parrots, songbirds, and hum-
mingbirds) and 3 groups of mammals (bats, cetaceans [whales/dolphins], and humans). All
other groups of animals are thought to produce genetically innate vocalizations. To
understand this concept, it is important to distinguish vocal learning from auditory learning.
Auditory learning is the ability to make sound associations, such as a dog learning how to
respond to the sound “sit”. All vertebrates have auditory learning. Vocal learning is the
ability to imitate sounds that you hear, such as a human or a parrot imitating the sound “sit”.
Currently only vocal learners have been found to have forebrain regions dedicated to vocal
learning and production of these learned vocalizations. Vocal non-learners only have been
found to have non-forebrain vocal regions responsible for the production of innate
vocalizations. (Jarvis 2004a)
According to Chakraborty et al. (2015), vocal learning is thought to have

evolved to allow for more complex communication and cultural transmission of
learned conspecific vocal repertoires that are important for social cohesion.
Moreover, since complex vocal learning is not found in close relatives, it is gen-
erally thought that each vocal learning lineage evolved this trait independently
(Fitch 2000; Slater 1997; Nottebohm 1972, 1975).
While the study of the neurobiology of the three avian species of vocal learners
(songbirds, hummingbirds and parrots) is still in its infancy, investigators use the
following terminology, classifying parrots as the species exhibiting “the most
advanced vocal mimicry among non-human animals” (Chakraborty et al. 2015).
While the linguistic abilities of parrots are still regularly referred to as nothing more
than the “ability to imitate complex sounds”, researchers are now beginning to
examine the differences in connectivity, brain position and shape in the vocal
learning systems of parrots relative to those of songbirds and hummingbirds. The
results, albeit based only on the examination of one parrot species, the budgerigar,
are interesting. Although no differences in the presence of song system structures
were encountered when compared with other avian vocal learners, investigators
found the following:
The parrot brain uniquely contains a song system within a song system. The parrot “core”
song system is similar to the song systems of songbirds and hummingbirds, whereas the
“shell” song system is unique to parrots. The core with only rudimentary shell regions were
found in the New Zealand kea, representing one of the only living species at a basal
divergence with all other parrots, implying that parrots evolved vocal learning systems at
least 29 million years ago. Relative size differences in the core and shell regions occur
among species, which we suggest could be related to species differences in vocal and
cognitive abilities. (Chakraborty et al. 2015)
Understood even more broadly, birds such as African Greys, although having
diverged from the lineage leading to humans approximately 280 million years ago,
can provide models for the evolution of vocal communication. As Pepperberg has
stated, “Grey parrots, despite considerable phylogenetic separation from humans,
acquire comparable human-like communication skills and, unlike present-day apes,
can imitate human speech because they can learn novel vocalizations. Specifically,
they acquire species-specific and heterospecific vocalizations by actively matching
their progressive production of specific sound patterns to live interacting models or
memorized templates” (Pepperberg 2011b: 110). Here I would add that in contrast
to those who regularly classify parrots merely as ‘vocal mimics’, Pepperberg
(2011b: 110) states that “Imitation is most stringently defined as purposeful,
meaningful replication of an otherwise improbably novel act (Thorpe 1963), dis-
tinguishing it from mimicry (meaningless replication of physical actions or
vocalizations) […].”
In summary, parrots regularly display evidence of rhythmic entrainment, i.e. the
ability to sync the movements of their body with an external source of sound or
music. Even more remarkably they do this when the source of the music is in their
heads: you can see that they are thinking, silently, about a melody and then they
start bobbing to the rhythm they themselves have invented for their own enter-
tainment. Similarly, the human can key them with the words ‘dance’, ‘sing’ or
‘music’ and they will begin bobbing away, clearly having associated the words,
generically, with the sound and rhythm of music. At many times in sessions of
self-talk it is the bird itself that uses the word ‘dance’ to initiate its dance moves, as
546 R.M. Frank
if it were a response to a request by the human caretaker or that the bird were
addressing itself: “Dance, bird!”.13 The mystery behind all of this is whether the
musical abilities of parrots—abilities shared by parrots and humans, but not non-
human primates—have anything to do with the unique wiring of their brains and
hence, by extension, with the evolutionary path taken by humans who did develop
complex linguistic codes absent from parrots in the wild.
Just how complex the L1 vocalisations of Greys are is another question but one that
could be explored by carefully studying the way that Greys intersperse their L2
utterances with specific vocalisations drawn from their L1 repertoire. In other words, it
might be possible to gain access to how the bird is using these L1 vocalisations, very
distinct calls, whistles, clicks, chirps and squawks, to underline or otherwise commu-
nicate pragmatic aspects of the conversation that they are carrying on, literally, by
code-switching between L1 and L2. Until now, although the meaning attached to these
distinctive L1 vocalisations has not been studied, they do seem to be part of their native
repertoire. Whereas in the case of home-raised parrots, these L1 vocalisations fall on
deaf ears, that is, they are not understood by the human, in the wild such vocalisations
probably play a far different role (Berg et al. 2011).
24.7 Cognitive and Linguistic Significance of Mini

Dramas: Parrot Theatrics
In the wild, Greys are social animals. They live in large flocks whose social
complexity may rival that of primates (Pepperberg 2010a: 359). And they seem to
recognise their conspecifics by the nature of their contact calls, another indication of
their auditory sensitivities (Farabaugh et al. 1994). Greys are also monogamous,
spending most of their time not only with their mate but in almost constant
back-and-forth vocal communication with him or her. In the case of home-raised
birds, they regularly bond with one of the humans in the household, treating the
person as a replacement mate. And this might help to explain why Greys tend to be
so keen on interacting vocally with their human caregivers throughout the day. For
instance, they clearly enjoy interactions consisting of a question and answer which
is analogous to a kind of contact call-and-response, a type of verbal interaction that
requires the active engagement of both parties.
13
In the following video clip Einstein uses the gerundive form ‘dancing, dancing’ while bobbing
about, but without giving himself a self-command to do so. Here we might say that ‘dancing,
dancing’ is the way he is describing or illustrating verbally his own actions. A bit later he adds a
command from an imaginary interlocutor into the mix, saying, “Dancing, Dance, birdie! Dancing”
which he accompanies with the appropriate bobbing body gestures. The bird also whistles a few
bars of different melodies, e.g. the Andy Griffith song—a melody that for some reason is quite
popular among Greys—as well as singing a few snippets of lyrics taken from other songs. Cf.
18:26 to 23:59 min. in “Einstein’s Shower Speech: Talking, Singing, & Dancing!” https://www.
YouTube.com/watch?v=fJCsI6j-8Zc.
Any parrot owner can attest to the strong social bonding that occurs between human
caregivers and their home-raised African Greys. Home-raised parrots often treat their
human caregivers like a conspecific pair mate. Because speech can replace or be used in
conjunction with species-typical vocalizations in captive parrots, we hypothesized that one
function of the spontaneous speech (and other discrete nonword vocalizations) that
home-raised parrots produce is to maintain social contact with their owners. Thus, we
expected that a linguistic analysis would provide evidence that some vocalizations in the
parrots’ repertoire serve the function of a wild parrot contact call. (Colbert-White et al.
2011: 176)
In summary, since home-raised Greys regularly employ these distinctive L1

species-typical vocalisations, frequently interspersing them with words and phrases
whose meanings we usually can understand, it is possible that eventually the
communicative import of each of their different L1 vocalisations will become
accessible to us, albeit in a hypothetical fashion.
As noted, in the wild African Greys not only mate for life, they rarely leave the
side of their mate—interacting constantly with him or her. Hence, they have a
built-in need to be interacting with the human who is now their surrogate mate. And
this may be one of the reasons that they attempt to engage us in conversation with
them. But, as noted above, they also like to talk to themselves in private, sometimes
using mirrors. As Pepperberg et al. (1995) have shown, parrots pass the ‘mirror test’
while Gallup (1991) has suggested that mirror recognition indicates a concept of
self. In short, there is evidence that Greys recognise themselves in the image. What
is more significant, however, is what happens when they are alone and entertain
themselves by inventing mini dramas in which they often physically act out the
scripts they create for themselves.
In these mini dramas the parrot regularly plays the role of both interlocutors and
often acts out what it is saying, pretending, for instance, that the human has said
“Want a grape?” And then as if the imaginary interlocutor were giving the object to
the bird, the parrot grasps the equally imaginary grape in its claw and brings it to its
mouth, making munching sounds or other sounds of approval like “Yum, yum!”14
Thus, even when the bird is alone, it can create an imaginary companion with
whom to talk. We could argue that one of the motivating factors for these solitary
theatrical performances is the deeply felt need to interact verbally with a mate. This
could explain why during their musing sessions they engage in play-talk and invent
mini dramas in which often they play the roles of both parties, that is, verbally
imitating the voices and words of the characters involved, the bird itself and one or
more of its human caretakers. Another motivating factor might be that, as noted
previously, these are practice sessions in which the bird is reflecting verbally on the
interactions that it has had with its caretakers during the day and then attempting to
improve its pronunciation and fluency by bringing the expressions into sync with an
internal audio image, the memory that it has of what it heard earlier, that is, it may
be actively matching its speech production to a memorised audial template.
14
For multiple examples of this acting-out routine with imaginary food, cf. “Einstein has a lot to
talk about.” https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=SOb5z3fWFm4.
548 R.M. Frank
24.8 To What Degree Do Parrots ‘Parrot’: What Does It

Actually Mean to Employ a Routine?
As is well acknowledged, humans regularly utilise conversational routines. In fact,

a large percentage of face-to-face interactions between adults are governed by such
routines. When a young child is first learning language, routines are a key com-
ponent of the child’s repertoire, often being rehearsed and practiced in private.
Early on, these routines consist simply of memorised whole utterances or phrases
that the child may use without any knowledge of their internal structure (Aijmer
2014; Krashen and Scarcella 1978). Although the utterances begin as prepackaged
routines—rote memorisation of segments of speech—they can result in patterns
consisting of partly memorised wholes that have an open slot allowing for creative
variations. Moreover, it is common for parents to use routines made up of question
and answers with their young children. Greys, too, are capable of storing, repeating
and remembering chunks of language and employing them in socially appropriate
situations. This means that they must have an awareness of the scenarios into which
these pieces of formulaic speech fit and should to be used. In the section that
follows segments from several YouTube videos will be analysed, examples which
will allow us to see how prepackaged routines can be altered, often very creatively
by the avian speech participants.
The first video features Halo, a 2-year-old African Grey Parrot who lives in the
UK.15 The clip begins with a series of exchanges between a young man and Halo in
which the bird is prompted to give an answer to a question or fill in a missing word.
Both of them speak with a charming Scottish accent. The routines are ones that they
both have engaged in many times past. While the man is talking, however, the bird
is also talking and making a variety of sounds. The interactions include question–
response routines to questions phrased as “Where’s Ryan?” to which Halo is to give
an answer, in this instance, “bed”. Meanwhile, as Halo entertains himself by
making odd sounds imitating sneezes, farts and burps, the man says to him “That’s
rude!”—which again is obviously part of a scripted routine, familiar both to the bird
and his interlocutor. Halo also makes the sounds and comments on his actions by
saying “That’s rude!” In the video the bird interacts with the human. Sometimes it
is the human who initiates the exchange and the bird responds. Other times it is the
bird who initiates the conversation, introducing a new topic or asking for attention
(a kiss, cuddles, tickles). Although some of this dialogue is unintelligible to me, the
human seems to understand most of what the bird says. There is a rather random
flow to the conversation, in part because the human tries to elicit responses from the
bird, at times based on what the bird has just said; at times because of the bird’s
body language.
Off and on during the clip, as mentioned, we find the human asking Halo
questions concerning where the other members of the family are, e.g. “Where’s
Cf. “African Grey swearing.” https://www.YouTube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&v=nuYdJ3Ovb-

15
E&NR=1.
Daddy?”, to which the bird gives a response. In this initial set of question and
answers, if you listen very carefully, you’ll hear the bird say something rather
remarkable. This occurs while the two of them are engaged in question–answer
exchanges about where the other members of the family are. There are also intervals
in which they sing songs together and engage in other call–response routines. Then
you’ll hear the bird ask at 3:33, albeit rather quietly, “Where’s Rude?”, having
assumed that the comment “That’s rude” must refer to a person whose name is
Rude, perhaps reaching that conclusion from the earlier contextual clues. A further
assumption might be that the bird believes that the vocalisation on its part that elicit
the comment about ‘being rude’ somehow refers to that individual.
I recognise that at first glance it doesn’t seem possible that a bird could reanalyse
an English sentence in this way, using the contextual clues available to it in the
conversational setting and come up with what is an erroneous conclusion, but one
that isn’t all that illogical. Moreover, it represents an attempt on the part of the bird
to define the word ‘rude’ in a very creative fashion and at the same time it shows
that the bird was paying attention to what was said at a meta-level that is far
removed from that of mere mimicry. It is not mindlessly repeating routines that it
has memorised and whose meaning it doesn’t comprehend. Rather it is attempting
to give meaning to a word whose meaning is not clear to it.
When the question ‘Where’s Rude?’ is first posed by the bird (3:33), his human
interlocutor misses it entirely which is not surprising given that at that point the bird
is making random noises and repeating to itself the phrase “that’s rude” which the
human understands in one context and the bird, apparently, in another. The first
time around it’s clear that the human doesn’t hear the question. This lack of
comprehension on the human’s part is also due to the fact that the rising intonation
contour that should accompany a question isn’t at all present the first time around.
In other words, the bird is asking the question and the words are correct, but the
intonation is too flat. At 6:56 the bird makes another attempt but the human still
doesn’t comprehend what he’s saying. He thinks it’s just random chatter. Then at
7:12 the bird tries again. Still no response from the human who is busy with his next
question, “Where’s Moma?”. At this point, however, the human does notice that the
bird seems to be repeating the word ‘rude’ a lot and tells him “You can’t just use
rude in every sentence”.
Two minutes later, the bird finally gets the intonation right and as he does you
can almost see the gears turning in his head. This happens at 9:09. By now he’s
asked the question at least three or perhaps four times without getting a response
from the human. Listen carefully this segment and you’ll hear the bird say “That’s
rude”. The bird then hesitates, cocks its head toward the human and articulates his
question very clearly and with the appropriate rising intonation at the end: “Where’s
Rude?” And this time around, the bird gets a response from the human, who
recognising the mistake the bird has made, chuckles, repeats the bird’s question, a
clear indication that he has understood it, and then explains: “Where’s Rude? But
rude isn’t a person”.
In summary, we have a concrete example of how Halo was processing language
and by extension insight into the cognitive processes that were going on inside his
550 R.M. Frank
head. It would seem that the bird concluded from what it understood to be con-
textual clues, that ‘rude’ had to be the name of someone. As a result, Halo was
asking the human for more information about that person, namely, the person’s
whereabouts. Unquestionably, Halo’s inquiry is also a variation on the routine he
already has in his repertoire in which the human asks the bird where the different
members of the family are: “in the kitchen”, “in the bathroom”, “in bed” and “at the
computer”. At a minimum the bird would seem to be formulating a question he
hasn’t heard before. Moreover, the response by the young man seems to indicate
that the bird’s question was totally unexpected and therefore not part of the set of
routine question–answer drills they had practiced before.
Finally, it would be helpful to have a study focused on the cognitive implications
that derive from the parrot’s interpretations and responses to certain types of sen-
tence constructions. For example, we have constructions in which the human
attempts to elicit a response from the bird to statements involving negotiations
related to the bird’s behaviour, such as “If you do X, you will get Y” or implied
threats of punishment, e.g. “You know what happens if you do X.” In the latter
case, the admonition usually comes about as an ultimatum after the bird has failed
to behave as the human wants it to. Hence, the response to the warning on the part
of the parrot appears to indicate that the bird is processing not so much possible
future consequences of a hypothetical set of actions, but rather weighing what
might happen to it if it continues to behave as it has to that point, a behaviour that
has led to the same consequences in the past.
For example, we have the case of a video of Tui16 who normally interacts quite
gregariously with Andrew, her mate, while both of them speak to each other with
proper Kiwi accents. In this video, Tui alternates whistling and squealing away in
L1, while making other comments to Andrew in L2, such as “Shut up! Sssh.
Quiet!” As she does so, she continues to let out these whistles, clicks and shrill
squeals. Tui appears to be fully aware that what she is doing irritates Andrew and
that she should shut up. But there is more to this story. Even though she is the one
making the racket, she repeatedly tells Andrew to “Shut up!” In doing this, she is
using the same two words that Andrew had directed earlier to her earlier in the day
in an attempt to get her to quiet down. However, in doing so, Andrew made the
mistake of losing his temper which Tui remembers. At one point in their interac-
tions, Andrew starts to say “You don’t…” and Tui finishes the sentence for him,
filling in with the word “squeal”, even though Andrew was probably going to say
something quite different, namely, “You don’t tell me to shut up”. The completion
of the sentence suggests that the bird knows that its L1 noise-making is a no-no.
Andrew, fed up with the distraction, asks the bird a question with a threat implied:
“You know what happens to you if you squeal?” And then Tui replies with her own
question–answer sequence, showing that she knows perfectly well the possible
The sequence appears at the beginning of this video clip: “Tui the African Grey has a Tantrum.
16
When parrots attack! Parrot gives a verbal bashing.” https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=

NdhlPHEIkss.
consequences of her actions. She repeats Andrew’s question but with a different
intonation, as if to say, “You are asking me if I know what happens if I squeal—of
course, I know”. Tui’s words are literally: “What happens if you squeal? What
happens? Go in cage”.
In addition, in the extensive corpus of YouTube videos there are many other
interactions that are cognitively rich in their implications. For instance, a common
interaction consists of routines in which it is the parrot who poses the question to
the human and/or itself and then gives the correct answer or, more remarkably, a
deliberately wrong answer. Even when the bird obviously knows the right answer,
the wrong answer is given quite clearly to mess around with the caretaker who has
asked the question in the beginning and expects the bird to give the correct answer.
The parrot named Einstein provides many examples of this playfulness and con-
sequently insight into the sense of humour that Greys often reveal. When inter-
acting with Jeff in a question–answer routine, Einstein refuses to give or rather
chooses not to give the right answer. For example, after being asked, “What does a
dog say?”, Einstein whinnies like a horse. Then, only seconds later, as if to make
clear to the human that he was acting silly, the parrot asks itself “What does a horse
say?” and responds correctly with a whinny.17
While the above examples of creative usage of the parrot’s L2 repertoire are
somewhat subtle, the following nine-second video which has garnered nearly four
million hits leaves little doubt about the bird’s intentional use of a L2 phrase—a
command—that it has learned. Initially in the clip, the Grey, called Jasper, tries to
use body language to show the human that it doesn’t want to be touched, that is, by
threatening to bite the person’s finger and then when the bird’s L1 body language
doesn’t work, it resorts to human language, saying with a very proper British
accent: “Don’t touch me!” It is a request that the human, although obviously
surprised, acknowledges that he has understood, even though the man continues in
his efforts to pet the bird.18
24.9 Resources for Future Studies of the Languaculture

of Greys
Given the millions of parrot owners scattered throughout the English-speaking

world, it is not surprising that there are parrots who have become quite famous with
large followings on the Internet. As mentioned, these websites often take the form
of blogs, filled with photos, links to videos and comments from viewers. In some
instances, the parrot is portrayed as responding to questions and writing his or her
own first-person commentaries on the blog. Other parrots are lesser known film
Cf. “Einstein talking and acting silly.” https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=cdhqkWIgkLY.

17
Cf. “Don’t touch me!” https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=hmeUSSEaxfQ.

18
552 R.M. Frank
stars, but still famous in their own right, appearing in dozens of videos all of which
are available on YouTube where each parrot has its own group of followers.
Still the vast majority of these websites and commercial enterprises are oriented
toward the care and handling of parrots, and rarely discuss issues relating to the
linguistic abilities of these birds or how to help them to acquire a L2 code. The one
major exception is the online Avian Cognition Forum (ACF) on Yahoo Groups, run
by Virginia Bush, a woman with years of experience as a teacher of ESL and who
has kept a meticulous record of the progress of her Grey named Chaucer. It is a
record that documents quite literally his actions from day one when he arrived at her
house as a 3-month-old baby.19 AFC is a forum where cognitive aspects take the
centre stage and where parrot owners, academics and non-academics alike, come
together to discuss and debate the cognitive abilities of their feathered housemates
as well as the latest academic research and videos related to this topic, and as such
AFC represents a valuable resource for investigators.20 In short, the plethora of
videos available on YouTube videos, the materials posted on AFC along with the
substantial body of research carried out by Pepperberg provide a solid basis for
future research on the languaculture of home-raised Africa Greys.
24.10 A Final Observation
As mentioned, the fact that mates recognise each other by their contact calls is well
known. Moreover, studies have shown that adults have signature contact calls used
in individual recognition (Berg et al. 2011, 2013). However, how parrots come to
acquire their unique contact calls, which allow them to identify themselves to their
mates and other members of the flock, has been a mystery. Similarly, it is well
known that horizontal transmission of enculturated utterances can take place
between parrots in the wild. Specifically, when flock members incorporate captive
birds who have learned vocalisations from their human caretakers, other flock
members can learn to use the utterances. According to Berg et al. (2012), in
presumably all of the 350 parrot species, individuals of both sexes commonly learn
vocal signals throughout life to satisfy a wide variety of social functions.
In contrast, to this type of horizontal learning, previously there had been no
evidence of vertical transmission from parrot parents to their offspring—that is,
examples of baby parrots in the wild acquiring vocal signatures taught to them by
their parents. However, this has now changed. In contrast to research on the lin-
guistic behaviour of Greys in the wild which is still quite limited, fieldwork carried
19
At present Bush (in prep.) is completing a book-length study of Chaucer’s verbal abilities, called
Talking with Chaucer: A Parrot’s English, which will represent the first in depth investigation of a
home-raised Grey by a linguist and in this instance using the framework of Cultural Linguistics.
20
A second forum called Parrot Speech, although less frequented by academics, is run by
Michael S. Dalton, who has written extensively on the cognitive abilities of Arielle, his Blue and
Gold Macaw (Dalton 2007).
out by Karl Berg and his team in Venezuela on another species of parrots, the
green-rumped parrotlets (Forpus passerinus), revealed something quite remarkable.
Using video and audial recordings Berg discovered that parent birds give unique
names to their children which the offspring learn. Both the baby birds and parents
recognise the distinctive names, used as contact calls.
After spending several months recording the sounds and activities of
green-rumped parrotlets in and out of video-rigged nests, the team detected slight
variations in the calls that parent birds used to communicate with different off-
springs in the nest. The baby birds appeared to recognise and learn the unique,
individualised calls used by their parents to address each of them. Both sexes of
naive nestlings developed individually unique contact calls while still in the nest.
Berg’s research has also demonstrated experimentally that signature attributes are
learned from both primary caregivers: “This represents the first experimental evi-
dence for the mechanisms underlying the transmission of a socially acquired trait in
a wild parrot population” (Berg et al. 2012: 1).
Unfortunately, in contrast to the work carried out on the easily accessible and
well-studied population of parrotlets in Venezuela, no such similar population of wild
Greys has been available to investigators. Indeed, Greys are notoriously difficult to
study in the wild for in addition to being extremely shy, reclusive birds they nest in
remote, hard to reach areas.21 The habitat of the Red-tailed African Grey is Central
Africa, ranging from the Ivory Coast to western Kenya and northwest Tanzania, where
it frequents swamps and mangrove forests while the subspecies, the Timneh African
Grey (Psittacus erithacus timneh), has its range in a different region, inhabiting
Western Africa, southern Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and westernmost Ivory Coast.
This situation contrasts starkly with the easy accessibility to the parrots studied
by Berg and his team. Moreover, the social system of these green-rumped parrotlets
has been studied since 1988 at Hato Masaguaral in the state of Guarico, Venezuela
where the habitat consists of tropical savannah, gallery forest and pastures. There
the parrotlets commonly breed in 106 polyvinyl chloride tubes (1 m length, 0.1 m
diameter) lined with hardware cloth. Thus, the researchers were able to randomly
select 17 nests of 34 colour-banded adults between June and December in 2007 and
2008 for their study.22 In short, to date there is no such controlled accessibility to
African Greys, their nesting habits and behaviour in the wild. As a result, we cannot
say for certain whether the parents of the latter parrot species also give their
children names while the babies are still in the nest. If true, this would need to be
taken into consideration in the future when appraising the communication abilities
of home-raised Greys.
As Berg et al. (2012) suggest for their Venezuelan parrotlets, the practice pre-
sents an intriguing parallel with humans in which vocal development is often
21
For two short videos of African Greys in the wild, cf. http://www.arkive.org/african-grey-parrot/
psittacus-erithacus/video-00.html.
22
A selection of audial recordings as well as a large number of videos documenting the research of
Berg and his team are available online: http://www.utb.edu/vpaa/csmt/biology/Pages/Dr–Karl-S–
Berg.aspx.
554 R.M. Frank
contemporaneous with parents naming infants. In any case, research on these

parrotlets provides the first example of a nonhuman animal assigning names to its
offspring. Although the cognitive and linguistic implications of this type of vertical
transmission of learned signatures in a wild parrot species are significant, they are
outside the scope of this introductory study.
24.11 Conclusions
One of the claims of human exceptionalism has always been that we are the only
animals that developed the kind of complex verbal system of communication that is
manifested in human languages around the world. And that is an irrefutable fact.
However, that overall claim of human exceptionalism might need to be modified
somewhat in light of the cognitive abilities parrots demonstrate, the creativity that
they can display once they are given access to human language and the opportunity
to learn the basics of the highly complex linguistic code employed by their
caretakers.
As we have seen, until now one of the major focuses of research into vocal
learners has been on mapping and studying the neural network that supports this
ability.23 And those studies have revealed that vocal learning itself is a rare trait,
found only in three distantly related groups of mammals (humans, bats and ceta-
ceans) and three distantly related groups of birds (parrots, songbirds and hum-
mingbirds). Moreover, as discussed above, vocal learning is also believed to be the
substrate for human language. Thus, the current hypothesis concerning the rela-
tionships and evolution of brain pathways for vocal learning among birds and
humans is that these brain pathways are comparable in a number of ways.24 The
vocal pathways in question are not found in vocal non-learning birds and mammals.
23
On a related note, a recently published study (Olkowiecz et al. 2016) has shown that the brains of
songbirds and parrots contain very large numbers of neurons, at neuronal densities considerably
exceeding those found in mammals. Moreover, given that these ‘extra’ neurons are predominantly
located in the forebrain, large parrots and corvids have the same or greater forebrain neuron counts
as primates with much larger brains. In short, the investigators argue that such avian brains contain
on average twice as many neurons as primate brains of the same mass and, consequently, have the
potential to provide much higher ‘cognitive power’ per unit mass than do mammalian brains.
Hence, it is not surprising that corvids and large parrots with their walnut-sized brains are capable
of cognitive feats comparable to those of great apes.
24
Jarvis (2004b: 749) summarises these findings by saying “The three vocal learning bird groups
each appear to have seven similar but not identical cerebral vocal nuclei distributed into two vocal
pathways, one posterior and one anterior. Humans also appear to have a posterior vocal pathway,
which includes projections from the face motor cortex to brainstem vocal lower motor neurons,
and an anterior vocal pathway, which includes a strip of premotor cortex, the anterior basal
ganglia, and the anterior thalamus. […] Thus, I argue that if vocal learning evolved independently
among birds and humans, then it did so under strong genetic constraints of a pre-existing basic
neural network of the vertebrate brain”.
In contrast to the vast amount of research has been done on songbirds, on

laboratory-trained Greys, and on investigating the brain pathways underlying vocal
learning in general, the rich corpus of materials discussed in this chapter have not
been subjected to serious study. As noted, parrots are skilled mimics, perfectly
capable of memorising extended lyrics of a song and singing them, often without
any indication that they understand what the words mean. Consequently, the
question is not whether Greys are capable of reproducing words and phrases that
they have learned from humans, but rather to what extent they understand what they
have learned and whether they are able to use it meaningfully, intentionally and
even creatively. And more importantly for those working in Cultural Linguistics
and interested in exploring how language can be learned, this material sheds light
on how cultural conceptualisations can evolve and be transmitted, in this instance
from humans to their avian companions. In short, we have a corpus before us that
could allow for pioneering work to be carried out, that is, as long as we take parrots
seriously.
Acknowledgements I would like to express my deep appreciation to Virginia Bush for her
insightful comments and suggestions on this chapter. In many respects the chapter draws on what
I’ve learned from the highly stimulating discussions about parrot cognition I have had with her
over the past three years.
Online Resources (URLS)
Videos of parrots
Dancing parrots:
Snowball:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_%28cockatoo%29. Accessed April 15,
2016.
https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=N7IZmRnAo6s. Accessed April 15, 2016.
https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=-xwD2tyMTF4 Accessed April 15, 2016.
https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=cJOZp2ZftCw. Accessed April 15, 2016.
https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=-xwD2tyMTF4. Accessed April 15, 2016.
Frostie:
https://www.facebook.com/karla.larsson/videos/10202328761997126. Accessed
April 15, 2016.
https://www.facebook.com/FrostieTheDancingCockatoo. Accessed April 15, 2016.
Miscellaneous dancing parrots:
“Parrot dancing Gangnam style.” Posted May 13, 213. https://www.YouTube.com/
watch?v=qTl1asCDOgs. Accessed April 15, 2016.
556 R.M. Frank
“Funny Parrots dancing compilation.” Posted April 4, 2014.https://www.YouTube.

com/watch?v=7t-m4x92Nvg. Accessed April 15, 2016
Talking parrot informants:
Alex and Griffin:
Pepperberg and Alex on NOVA: http://www.YouTube.com/watch?feature=
endscreen&v=SzPiTwDE0bE&NR=1. Accessed April 15, 2016.
Pepperberg and Alex (on number conception and the concept of ‘none’): http://
www.YouTube.com/watch?v=P3w6OYsKJCc. Accessed April 15, 2016.
Pepperberg and Griffin: http://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=O_Fpad20Zbk.
Accessed April 15, 2016.
Pepperberg and Alex on CNN: http://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=c4gTR4tkvcM.
Pepperberg and Alex (counting blocks): http://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=
VZ2j1jOwAYU. Accessed April 15, 2016.
Pepperberg and Alex at World Science Festival: http://www.YouTube.com/watch?
v=hG3_CYv65cE. Accessed April 15, 2016.
Pepperberg and The Alex Foundation: http://alexfoundation.org/. Accessed April
15, 2016.
Einstein:
“Einstein has a lot to talk about.” Posted Feb. 20, 2015. https://www.YouTube.com/
watch?v=SOb5z3fWFm4. Accessed April 15, 2016.
“Einstein’s shower speech: Talking, singing, & dancing!” Posted Nov. 26, 2013:
https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=fJCsI6j-8Zc. Accessed April 15, 2016.
“Einstein the Parrot talking and acting silly.” Posted June 10, 2010. https://www.
YouTube.com/watch?v=cdhqkWIgkLY. Accessed April 15, 2016.
Halo:
“African Grey swearing.” Posted Mar. 25, 2011. https://www.YouTube.com/
watch?feature=fvwp&v=nuYdJ3Ovb-E&NR=1. Accessed April 15, 2016.
Jasper:
“Don’t touch me!” Posted July 16, 2009. https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=
hmeUSSEaxfQ. Accessed April 15, 2016.
Larry:
“Larry the Parrot calls out for his friend Max the Dog.” Posted April 16, 2011.
https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=GcbYHWUnE0I. Accessed April 15, 2016.
“Larry the parrot dials an imaginary phone number, rambles a little, then starts
laughing.” Posted Aug. 6, 2009. https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=CB6-
QCzBZgc. Accessed April 15, 2016.
Poppy:
“Poppy the African Grey’s best talking video.” Posted Dec. 31, 2010. https://www.
YouTube.com/watch?v=vWS77c5epZ0 Accessed April 15, 2016.
Tui:
“Tui the African Grey has a tantrum. When parrots attack! Parrot gives a verbal
bashing.” Posted Dec. 30, 2007. https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=
NdhlPHEIkss. Accessed April 15, 2016.
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Author Biography
Roslyn M. Frank is Professor Emeritus at the University of Iowa, co-editor of Cognitive Models
in Language and Thought (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2003), Language and Ideology. Vol. 2.
Cognitive Descriptive Approaches (John Benjamins, 2001), Body, Language and Mind, Vol.
1 Embodiment and Vol. 2 Sociocultural Situatedness (Mouton de Gruyter, 2008), and author of the
chapter “A future agenda for research on language and culture” in Farzad Sharifian (ed.), The
Routledge Handbook of Language and Culture (Routledge, 2015). Her research areas are cultural
linguistics, cognitive linguistics, ethnography and anthropological linguistics with a special
emphasis on the Basque language and culture.
Chapter 25
Where Japanese and Occidental Cultural
Conceptualisations Meet: Reading Manga
Which Anthropomorphise Nations
as Kyara ‘Characters’ Through the Lens
of Cultural Linguistics
Debra J. Occhi
25.1 Animism and Anthropomorphism

in Japanese Language
It is well known that Japanese verbal beauty relies heavily on the use of nature
imagery, for example in the use of seasonal reminders in haiku poetry and even
letter writing. This tendency and its history of usage forms a structure of
conventionalised meanings from which writers may draw for various rhetorical
effects. And although use of traditional imagery drawn from the natural sur-
roundings itself is ongoing, considerable agency in how images may be used and
combined is exercised in contemporary use.
25.1.1 Cultural Linguistic Research on Japanese
Ongoing research into Japanese multimodal discourse shows the effectiveness of

Cultural Linguistics (Sharifian 2011, 2015) in analysing Japan’s rampant tendency
to animate and anthropomorphise entities of all kinds. Entailments of this tendency
also include the projection of human emotion into natural phenomena, and the
concomitant ability to describe cultural ideals as natural. These elements of
Japanese communication are a historically entrenched cultural schema of verbal and
visual aesthetics (Occhi 2014) that may be misread in other cultural contexts. It
D.J. Occhi (&)

Miyazaki International College, Miyazaki, Japan
e-mail: docchi@sky.miyazaki-mic.ac.jp

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_25
562 D.J. Occhi
provides the rhetorical basis for naturalising culture, as is seen in the use of flower
metaphors analysed in (Horie and Occhi 2001; Occhi 2009). The phenomenon is
discussed as well as Maynard (2007) and Ohnuki-Tierney (1987, 1993, 2002).
However, as products of Japanese popular culture cross borders, their contexts are
often lost, and these deeply meaningful communicative phenomena may be met
with disdain by non-Japanese consumers.
25.1.2 Introducing Kyara (Characters)
A wide range of concrete and abstract entities can be discussed by reference to their
imagined anthropomorphised, animated or zoomorphic forms. Places, objects,
ideologies and nations can be represented as persons or other creatures who interact
in ways reflective of the artistic imagination of their authors and the cultural schema
they employ. For example, Kumamon, originally a PR character for Kumamoto
Prefecture, is a local character with global aspirations (Occhi 2016). He is stout,
red-cheeked and chubby, like a black teddy bear (though he is not officially a bear).
His cute identity traits coexist with other aspects befitting his role as a public official
including a tendency towards overweight and possible metabolic syndrome. His
name derives from the prefecture’s name kumamoto (place of bears) along with the
dialectal version of mono, (person) mon. Japanese local mascot characters such as
these often include such mashups of fantastic and humanlike qualities.
Anthromorphised kyara are thus crystallisations of qualia, cultural systems of
qualities that Mogi and Tamori state “underlie the human creative process, along
with information input and stochasticity” (1997). Various encyclopaedias, dealing
with items as disparate as battleships, belief systems and Java Beans, have been
recently published in which cute, often feminised characters thus embody traits of
those entities they represent. This encyclopaedic tendency itself stems from the
cultural legacy of Japan’s late premodern collections of natural history and fantastic
goblins (Foster 2009).
25.1.3 Examples of Japanese Kyara Cultural

Conceptualisation
Successful Japanese kyara have narratives of origin, personality, and often, family
connections. Sanrio’s globally successful decorative character Hello Kitty, for
example, lives in England with her parents and sister Mimi, is as tall and as heavy
as three apples, wears a red bow on her head, and has a boyfriend named Dear
Daniel. She is catlike in her facial features, but is officially not a cat. She visually
25 Where Japanese and Occidental Cultural Conceptualisations Meet … 563
exhibits femininity as the ‘marked case’ with the red bow, heteronormativity via her
association with Daniel, and is attributed with a variety of stereotypically female
identity markers, including a fondness for small cute items (Sanrio HP).
Dokin-chan, (Little Heartthrob) is the domestically famous femme fatale of the
Japanese preschoolers’ anime An-Pan Man. Dokin-chan is red with a pointy tail, a
single horn and bright green eyes. She has the power to cause palpitations, and has
been known to carry a weapon that can either enlarge or shrink whatever she
touches with it. She lives with her boyfriend Baikin Man (Bacteria Man) who is
charged to obey her constant demands. She goes zipping around in a racy red flying
car, neither cooks nor cleans, and is known to engage in subterfuge to appeal to
White Bread Man (Shoku-pan Man) on whom she has a crush. She provides a ‘bad
girl’ contrast to Batako (butter-girl), the breadmaker’s helper whose role is moth-
erly. Japanese girls overwhelmingly prefer Dokin-chan to Batako and the other
female characters of the long-running television show An-Pan Man.
25.1.4 Kyara Representatives of Place
Though the broadest interpretation of the Japanese category known as ‘kyara’ also
includes living persons, they will not be explored in this study. The kyara of interest
here are those drawn images designed and employed specifically as ‘spokespeople’,
sponsored representatives of a company, product, place, event, organisation (in-
cluding governmental). They may appear in publications, as figurines, stuffed toys
or other products, or embodied at public events as large, typically furry costumes
(kigurumi) worn by anonymous human actors. Many are singular entities; others
appear in pairs, small groups or family configurations—the latter providing rep-
resentations of ‘family’ as well. Some are described as having third or unknown
gender, an issue especially worth further exploration (Occhi 2011a).
25.2 Nations as Kyara in Multiple Cultural

Linguistic Contexts
The Japanese mangaesque media-mix is famous for including aspects of animism

and anthropomorphism. Of course, nations themselves can partake in this repre-
sentational style. In globally popular manga narratives, nation anthropomorphism
may reflect not only the Japanese cultural schemas but also Occidental ones, and
thus frame a globalised imaginary. Miyake (2015) investigates the characters and
story of the gag manga known as Axis Powers Hetalia, aiming to “critically address
the hegemonic range of Occidentalism in contemporary Japan” (2015, 93). In
564 D.J. Occhi
Hetalia, Miyake finds the expressions of countries as personalities (reminiscent to

some of the twentieth century genre of national character studies). In the Western
uptake of this and other stories based on animism and anthropomorphism, however,
I argue that Occidentalism is inherent to audience response as well.
Comparing the cultural schemas that underlie these responses requires us to
juxtapose the Japanese tendencies to mesh human and natural worlds with the
Western tendency, rooted in Cartesian thought, to separate nature and culture.
Further complicating this dichotomy, however, is a host of Western animate and
anthropomorphised characters that cannot be ignored. For instance, Uncle Sam, the
embodiment of the USA, is a character created in 1812 and based on a man named
Sam Wilson who supplied meat to the army of The War of 1812 (Elder 2013).
There is as well the longstanding tactic of English political satire comics printed in
newspapers in the UK and USA to represent political parties, politicians or nations
metaphorically as animate entities, often as humans or animals. However, this tactic
is not so widespread beyond that satirical genre, and for many contemporary
English speakers the representational tactic seen in kyara such as Kumamon is
deemed childish and unacceptable. The panoply of Japanese cute characters are
often derided in popular English-language media on Japan as excessively silly
(Occhi 2014). And animated entities constructed in Occidental multimodal narra-
tives are often negative ones. Japanese-style animism/anthropomorphism itself is
problematised as childish; that attitude can be considered part of the Occidental
cultural schema for Japan generally. This was explicated clearly in the 10 May 2015
episode of HBO’s Emmy-winning comedy television show Last Week Tonight.
The English host, John Oliver, described local mascot kyara as “quintessentially
Japanese”, introducing several with satirical commentary. One of these was
Kumamon, whose economic power he praised. Then, after showing a brief clip of
Kumamon’s theme song video, Oliver quipped, “That’s it. I’m done interacting
with humans now. If you ever want to talk to me, wear a Kumamon outfit or get the
fuck out!” Following similar treatment of several other Japanese examples, he
provided several characters representing government agencies of the USA, who
danced to the audience’s roars of laughter (Oliver 2015). Hello Kitty herself has
suffered in translation; the missing mouth often overlooked by Japanese because of
their tendency to focus on the eyes as the locus of emotion (Occhi 2011b) has been
reinterpreted abroad as a stereotypical icon of silent submissive Asian femininity
(Yano 2013).
Laura Miller has analysed zoomorphic depictions of Vietnam-era soldiers in
Kobayashi’s 1998 manga and anime Cat Shit One (Apocalypse Meow in its USA
release) that depicts the American soldiers as rabbits, Vietnamese as cats, French as
pigs, Russians as bears and Koreans as dogs, finding them “somewhat disturbing, to
say the least” (2010, 78). Furthermore, she shows that this and other examples of
zoomorphism not only endear characters to the viewer but also serve to camouflage
stories of war and death. The next section takes a similar stance towards anthro-
pomorphic depictions of nations in military contexts.
25.2.1 Two Contemporary Examples of Nation

Anthropomorphism
This chapter compares popular (and controversial) works that anthropomorphise

nations, are created by Japanese authors, and enjoy a global audience. These are the
Axis Powers Hetalia gag comic series (Miyake 2013), and Maritan, a series of
works that purport to teach English, whose author also created the official manga
celebrating the fiftieth year anniversary of the US–Japan military alliance (starring
Arai Anzu and USA kun). Each of these employs similar strategies through their
representations of Japan and other nations as humans in interaction. These char-
acters and narratives, however, also incorporate aspects of a common schema
highlighting both Occidental hegemony and patriarchy; furthermore, their gendered
renderings of Japan and others are subject to controversy and deserve close anal-
ysis. Cultural Linguistics allows this analysis, and in so doing shows us how
multiple cultural schemas can interact, here, in the genre of popular multimodal
media. Gender and sexuality are foregrounded in the data, both in the fan-generated
homoerotic imagination of several nations in WWI (Hetalia) and in a pair of
government-sponsored kyara explicating the heterosexualised imagination of post
WWII Japan and the USA (Arai Anzu) played out in globalised, military contexts.
Maritan, a related project by the same author, can be considered as the basis of the
cultural conceptualisation presented in Arai Anzu, with the target readership taking
one role or the other depending on their identity (female or male, language learner
or military comic aficionado).
25.2.1.1 National Kyara Expressing the Cultural Conceptualisation

of Occidentalism/Orientalism in Homoerotic Context:
WWI/II Countries Embodied in Axis Powers Hetalia
Hetalia is a gag comic manga based on the interactions of cute male kyara as
anthropomorphised representatives of several countries—especially Europe and
Japan—set in the era between WWI and WWII. Hetalia exhibits what Miyake calls
“the reproduction of the imagined geography of the ‘West’ in contemporary Japan”
(20: 93). I interpret this “imagined geography” as a cultural conceptualisation
shared widely and expressed in the global mediascape through works such as this.
As suggested above, the cultural conceptualisation includes Occidentalism and
Orientalism. Created first in 2006 as a webcomic by Himuraya Hidekaz, a student in
a New York city art school, it has been published and animated and is the subject of
countless media-mix projects, fan-made derivative works and cosplay. His original
website still exists at the time of writing (2016) and explains the story simply: イタリ
ア、ドイツ、日本を中心とした国の擬人化歴史ギャグマンガです(´ー`*)イタリア万歳。
“Banzai to Italy! This is a historical gag manga anthropomorphizing countries, with
566 D.J. Occhi
Italy, Germany, and Japan as central characters” (Himuraya n.d.). As a gag manga,
Hetalia avoids dealing with the real historical issues of war and colonisation, by
representing nations as persons and reducing international relations to homoerotic
relations of domination and submission following the genre of BL (boy’s love)
manga.
Most of the characters in Hetalia are male, and among the Asian countries Japan
is the most prominent. Associations between the characters are framed by fans as
homoerotic pairings between stronger and weaker characters that are depicted in fan
fiction and enacted in cosplay at fan fiction conventions (108). Italy is a lovable
loser; the title Hetalia is a portmanteau of hetare (Japanese ‘incompetent’) and
Italia, Italy (106). Japan is the most popular but is also a less powerful character,
fond of gadgets, well mannered and shy (109). In contrast, America is a
self-confident hamburger eater who wishes to be a hero (109).
Hetalia’s Japanese artist claims to have based the characters’ parodic person-
alities on stereotypes from ethnic jokes told by his American friends in New York,
so we may interpret these anthropomorphisms as representing American cultural
conceptualisations for people from the respective countries. Miyake suggests that
“the interiorisation of a Eurocentric cartography plays a prominent role in the
popularity” of this franchise worldwide. Following the works of Gramsci on
hegemony and Said on Orientalism, Miyake analyzes the anthropomorphism in
Hetalia as embodiments of Occidentalism and Orientalism. He identifies
Occidentalism with the concepts and processes of colonialism, capitalism, moder-
nity, whiteness and the West (each of these concepts deserving a thorough CL
treatment in their own right). Orientalism stands in relation to this as a “hierarchic
othering process” (Ibid.: 97). When these issues are not understood nor examined,
they inevitably lead to judgements of Japan and other non-western countries as
lesser entities (96).
The intersection of the mechanisms Miyake describes operating in the Hetalia
narrative (Occidentalism/Orientalism) and the differences in the underlying
philosophical/religious cultural conceptualisations for animism and anthropomor-
phism (Occhi 2014) creates an internationally prevalent cultural conceptualisation
through which Japan as creator of anthromorphised characters in media is con-
structed as a subordinate, immature entity in relation to the USA and other Western
countries. Even though the entertainment created through these stories is consumed
worldwide, those consumers are often in turn denigrated as childish or immoral,
particularly when participating in associated cultural practices of cosplay and
derivative works. This intersecting conceptualisation is, in a sense, embodied in the
anthropomorphic representations themselves, as works of Japanese authors who, as
creators, exemplify the tendencies themselves as well. The overall effect is the
creation of Japan as a cute, harmonious and immature nation (along with other
stereotypes that follow a national identity construction known as nihonjinron,
‘theory of Japaneseness’). This theory, a cultural conceptualisation enjoying global
support, underlies many popular and some scholarly assessments of Japanese
people and society. And it reflects the status of Japan as dependent on and sup-
portive of the USA’s military defense through alliance in the post-WWII era.
Sugimoto lists four main characteristics of nihonjinron discourses: that (1) all
Japanese (2) share a purportedly unique trait, (3) to the same degree, with (4) no
historical variation (2014, 5). Repercussions of this set of conceptualisations at the
global level include the incredulous and unpleasant reactions of foreign students to
topics of inequality and power taught as part of a factually based sociology course
on Japan the author has been teaching for over 10 years. The students may be
reflecting the conventional discourse (a cultural schema that is seen in need of
defence, see Strauss 2015, 395) that ‘Japan is a Nation of Harmony and
Cooperation’. This combination of cultural conceptualisations underlies the narra-
tives of both Hetalia and the following example as well.
25.2.1.2 National Kyara in Heterosexual Context: Female Japan

and Male USA as Arai Anzu and USA-Kun
In this section, I will introduce the pair of kyara starring in a four-part manga called
Watashitachi no doumei; eizokuteki paatonaashippu (Our Alliance—a lasting
partnership) published in Japanese (in print and on the web) and produced in 2010
in honour of the fiftieth anniversary of the military alliance between Japan and the
USA.1 I will refer to it below as Arai Anzu, the main female character’s name,
representing Japan. Both countries are anthropomorphised; the USA is represented
by a male kyara. Japan’s military dependence on the USA in post-WWII times has
doubtless contributed to the construction of this narrative, the identities of these
characters, and their relationship. In large measure these characters, a heteronor-
mative pair, echo the conceptualisation emerging from Kelsky’s (2001) research on
how such depictions of Japan and the West motivated the real experiences of
Japanese women whose faith in the cultural conceptualisation prompted their
acquisition of English and desire for overseas experience. We see further social
underpinnings for this gendering of Japan and the USA in the arena of English
teaching in Japan, a field in which three-quarters of the teachers are native
English-speaking males (Appleby 2014) with a majority female studentship
(Appleby 2013). The following is a description of the Japanese text with com-
mentary on its narrative and imagery.
The main characters of this free publication are Arai Anzu (新居あんず), a
glasses-wearing girl in a T-shirt and dress representing Japan, and USA-kun, a
blond, blue-eyed boy who has ‘come to live as a freeloader in her house’. He wears
short pants and a white hoodie with long rabbit ears that, the text suggests, may be
attached to his head. Their names exhibit the wordplay common to this genre of
1
Hirao Yukio, Watashitachi no doumei; eizokuteki paatonaashippu (Our Alliance—a lasting
partnership), CFAS (Commander, Fleet Activities Sasebo) www.usfj.mil/Manga.
568 D.J. Occhi
kyara: not only is her name a homonym for the Japanised loanword form of
‘alliance’, but the Sino-Japanese kanji characters of her family name symbolise
“new residence”. His name is derivative of the abbreviation USA, and his
long-eared image suggests that of a rabbit (usagi) (2010). Naming kyara in this way
suggests the emergent qualities of the entities represented, in this case those of two
superpowers depicted as a heteronormative pair. On the cover he is running ahead
as they hold hands; he is smiling, though her mouth is round in apparent alarm. We
can read this as a metaphor for USA–Japan relations; Japanese people often speak
of the USA as one of Japan’s driving forces, both with respect to the current
constitution and also in regard to the ongoing joint military activities of the two
countries on Japanese soil.
In the opening chapter of this manga USA-kun poses before the USA flag:
having apparently come to protect ‘our house’ (wagaie), he then marches noisily
back and forth in Arai Anzu’s Japanese-style house (i.e. Japan) wielding a rolled
newspaper while she sits on the tatami mat munching snacks in front of the TV.
Soon he brandishes a cockroach he has killed in the kitchen. The implications of
this symbolism are clear enough; the USA stands ready to defend Japanese interests
and territory. Depiction of a cockroach in this context is a politically loaded
metaphor, especially in the light of potential US involvement in Japan’s current
disputes over outlying islands also claimed by—and from the Japanese perspective,
potentially invaded by—neighbouring countries. The image of Arai Anzu being
entertained and fed while he patrols is also telling.
The following narrative establishes the characters’ common ground (they both
love human rights and family, and despise carrots). The story proceeds to introduce
the military forces stationed throughout Japan. In these sections Japan’s military
bodies are also anthropomorphised as female. Anzu’s mother is depicted as a figure
in black embodying pre-alliance Japan, that is, the defeated postwar Japan of the
occupation years. Embodying Japan as female is a common representational
strategy for military and police agencies in Japan as well, where such female images
appear either as human or drawn kyara in promotional materials. Frühstück (2010)
discusses the manga’s production and contents in detail. She compares the Arai
Anzu manga to the Self Defense Forces’ 1990s Prince Pickles manga, whose
fairytale representation of Japanese military replace references to Japan and other
countries with “vegetable countries” (Frühstück 2009). Her research shows,
moreover, that Japan and its military, are most often represented as feminised.
Frühstück (2013) also discusses the SDF’s tendency to overrepresent female
membership and as well, the infantilisation and feminisation of Japan in a 2005
promotional video.
These representations of Japan and the Japanese military as female, engaged in
the Arai Anzu manga in a heteronormative relationship with a male-identified
American military, mesh neatly with Kelsky’s analysis wherein a variety of
Japanese and other media converge in the production of globalised gendered
imagery. In the manga Arai Anzu and USA-kun symbolise what she found in other
data to be the canonical international couple, a Japanese woman whose “western

dreams” are embodied by her male counterpart. The representation of Japanese
military by female characters in the manga also, as in Kelsky’s data, render
Japanese men (and western women, who are neither shown nor mentioned)
invisible in the text. And as with the advertisements Kelsky examined and deemed
“orientalist fantasy”, this manga “…is one that reinscribes the narrative of white
men’s global phallic authority and that communicates the leverage of white men to
broker others’ access to the world dominant”.2
Moreover, the style of representation in the Arai Anzu manga establishes a
connection with the author Hirai’s prior work, described in the following section.
Having encountered the officially sponsored anniversary manga first, I was sur-
prised to see what its author had already published, a far more explicit rendering of
feminised Japanese military forces. However, Frühstück’s (2010) interview data
states that the fact that this artist’s company had a history of creating such
military-themed popular culture products appealed to the selection committee.
25.2.2 Maritan: A Contemporary Predecessor of the Arai

Anzu/USAkun Narrative
Maritan is a set of ostensive EFL materials with several volumes containing a CD

and book. Each aims to teach military style cursing and slang in English using the
lines from the 1987 film Full Metal Jacket, a variety of female military characters
and a thinly disguised representation of Fidel Castro.3 As the author explains,
Maritan is “an English learning comic that uses military slang used by the American
marines as the central theme to teach extremely vulgar English conversation not
taught in textbooks as Maritan spews it out! 『ぴくせる☆まりたん』は英語学習コミッ
クです! アメリカ海兵隊で使われる軍隊スラングを中心に教科書では教えてくれな
い“超下品英会話”をまりたんが吐きまくります! The conceit of using feminised kyara
representing military orders to utter lines originally created extemporaneously by a
former boot camp drill sergeant is heightened by putting most of those curses in the
mouths of Japanese voice actresses. One can easily accuse Hirai of “pimping Japan”
as Miller has discussed (2011). In doing so, he is reflecting the enmeshed
Occidentalism/Orientalism we see in the previous examples. From a cultural lin-
guistics perspective, we can possibly see this strategy echoes of Dewaele’s (2015)
observations that for language learners, the use of cursewords in the L2 lacks the
same emotional valence as in the L1. The sexualised speech of the feminised
military agents also echoes the cultural conceptualisations emergent in the discourse
2
Kelsky (2001, 198).
3
Hirai Yukio, Maritan to hanasou! F•X•C•K (Let’s talk with Maritan! F•U•C•K, with the “U”
scribbled on in red) Hobby JAPAN: Tokyo, 2007.
570 D.J. Occhi
of Japanese commercial English-language conversation schools, in which “the

pedagogical and the sexual coexist” (Appleby 2013, 122).
25.3 Conclusions
This chapter shows examples from popular media created by Japanese supporting the
argument that interlocking cultural conceptualisations (Occidentalism/Orientalism)
for international political relations are echoed in nation anthropomorphism and also,
in the narratives in which those anthropomorphised characters (kyara) appear. These
media instantiate a Japanese cultural conceptualisation supporting animism and
anthropomorphism, that is well known abroad. The Japanese conceptualisation also
commonly evokes negative reactions among Westerners that reflect a cultural con-
ceptualisation based on Cartesian separation of humans and nature. The latter con-
ceptualisation leads to judgements of Japanese as immature and inferior. Gender (of
the kyara) forms an essential part of these media narratives, including gendered
relations that stand in for political relations between the nations (and their respective
citizens) themselves. The gendering itself is a political act reflecting the imposition of
the Western conceptualisation as well as the actual status of the nations, if we project
military might into the frame of patriarchal social structure. Cultural Linguistics
provides a valuable framework for combining these aspects of media data, its cre-
ation, reception and parallels with other aspects of social life.
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Sitography
Himuraya Hidekaz Hetalia, http://www.geocities.jp/himaruya/hetaria/index.htm, http://www.

geocities.jp/himaruya/hetaria/story.htm
Hirai Yukio. http://pixel-maritan.net/about.php
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2013/09/uncle-sam-the-man-and-the-meme-the-origins-of-uncle-sam.html
Author Biography
Debra Occhi is a linguistic anthropologist at Miyazaki International College. Her current research
includes leisure, gender, regionality, cuteness, characters, and the use of characters as popular
pedagogy. Recent publications include Sloppy Selfhood: Metaphor, Embodiment, Animism, and
Anthropomorphisation in Japanese Language and Culture (Language, Culture and Cognition in
the 21st Century:Intersection of Cognitive Linguistics and Linguistic Anthropology).
Yamaguchi et al., eds., Palgrave Macmillan, Kyaraben (character bento): The cutesification of
Japanese food in and beyond the lunchbox (East Asian Journal of Popular Culture) and
Kumamon: Japan’s Surprisingly Cheeky Yuru Kyara Mascot (Introducing Japanese Popular
Culture, Freedman and Slade, eds., Routledge).
Chapter 26
Are Marriages Made in Heaven?
A Cultural-Linguistic Case Study
on Indian-English Matrimonials
Frank Polzenhagen and Sandra Frey
26.1 Introduction
Our chapter provides a comparative Cultural-Linguistic analysis (in the sense

of Sharifian 2011, 2015) of marriage adverts. Our empirical basis is a corpus
compiled by Frey (2015), consisting of 600 matrimonials taken from four
English-medium Indian newspapers and a British English reference corpus of
150 contact adverts. Matrimonials were chosen for analysis for two main reasons:
(1) MARRIAGE is a prime (and well-studied) example of a concept with significant
cultural variation and hence lends itself for a Cultural-Linguistic investigation;
(2) owing to its minimalist nature, the text type matrimonials promises to exemplify
the relevant underlying cultural conceptualisations in a very condensed and
straightforward way.
We provide both a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the data. The latter
focuses on the features given in the self and partner descriptions in the adverts.
Here, the Indian matrimonials show a profile that differs from the British one in
several ways, in particular with respect to their emphasis on categories like “Family
Background”, “Education”, “Profession” and “Income”. In turn, we also found
significant variation within the Indian corpus; this reflects specifics of the rather
In Indian English, matrimonials is the current term to refer to marriage adverts placed in
newspapers or on so-called “matrimonial websites” (on this usage, also see OED 2013: s.v.
matrimonial).
F. Polzenhagen (&) S. Frey

Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany
e-mail: frank.polzenhagen@as.uni-heidelberg.de

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_26
574 F. Polzenhagen and S. Frey
distinct cultural sub-groups associated with the readerships of the four Indian
newspapers.
In the qualitative analysis, we focus on a set of individual cultural conceptual-
isations. Inter alia, the data attest to different elaborations of the metaphor THE LIFE
OF A COUPLE IS A JOURNEY. Furthermore, the conceptualisation of a COUPLE as a UNITY
OF PARTS shows significant cultural variation; this manifests in the key notion of a
‘suitable match’ in the Indian context. Finally, the Indian data are characterised by a
pronounced APPLICATION rhetoric, which attests to different stances taken towards the
selection process in the two cultural contexts. Our analysis addresses both “what is
said” (i.e. made explicit) and “what is not said” (i.e. implicit, taken-for-granted
knowledge); see also Stolt (1976) on “primary” and “secondary” meanings.
Our main reference points in the literature include Stolt (1976) and Riemann
(1999) for the text type matrimonial, Uberoi (1993, 2006), Seymour (1999), Nanda
(2000), Mody (2002), Pache Huber (2004), Hankeln (2008) and Grover (2011) on
“family” and “marriage” in India, and Goody (e.g. 1983, 1999) on the family in
Europe and Asia. The theoretical background of our analysis is the framework of
Cultural Linguistics documented in Sharifian (2015). We also embrace earlier,
influential, notions from cultural anthropology, e.g. the distinction between
“high-context” and “low-context” cultures (Hall 1976).
At the theoretical and methodological level, the major aim of our chapter lies in
showing potential gains methods and approaches in culturally oriented sociolin-
guistics may offer to studies along the lines of Cultural Linguistics. The
cross-varietal perspective taken to this effect in our chapter is framed against the
background of Wolf and Polzenhagen (2009).
26.2 Data and Methodology
Matrimonial advertisements have a history of more than 300 years (Riemann 1999:
38), the first advertisements having been published in England in 1695 by John
Houghton (Riemann 1999: 39; Kaupp 1968: 9). Nowadays, they are usually pub-
lished within the category of “classified advertisements”, a text type characterised
by Raevskij (1997: 26) as demanding some sort of action and a specific behaviour
from the addressee. In terms of general features, matrimonials are monologic,
written and not spontaneous (Raevskij 1997: 26).
Stolt (1976: 27) defines the function of a matrimonial as a text that is not to
render information in the first place but to establish personal contact. In the same
vein, Gottburgsen (1995: 266) states that the information given, e.g. in the
descriptions of the self and the partner, mainly support the appeal function of
language, and that the actual content plays a secondary role. This is certainly true
for Western contact adverts. However, as our analysis will show, the information
aspect can hardly be called “secondary” in the Indian matrimonials.
According to Stolt (1976: 28), the basic structure of a matrimonial advertisement
is as follows:
26 Are Marriages Made in Heaven? A Cultural-Linguistic Case Study … 575
(1) (a) self-denotation

(b) self-description
(2) view to marriage
(3) (a) partner-denotation
(b) partner-description.
(1) is mentioned in all advertisements, with varying amount of information given
for (1b). (2) is often not mentioned at all, especially in the Indian corpus. This is due
to the fact that all advertisements are published under the heading ‘Matrimonials’,
which makes their purpose explicit. British contact advertisements do not always
include or specify marriage as their goal; the most frequent label used instead is
long-term relationship (LTR). Indian advertisements often omit (3), which we will
relate in our analysis to Hall’s notion of ‘high-context cultures’ and the cultural
conceptualisation of a ‘suitable match’.
The Indian corpus comprises 600 matrimonials drawn from The Times of India,
The Statesman, The Hindu and The Milli Gazette. From each newspaper,
150 matrimonials were selected—75 in which a bride is looked for and 75 aimed at
finding a groom. These four newspapers were chosen in view of representing
different spheres of the English-speaking Indian society, since they differ with
respect to their history and targeted readership. However, owing to the fact that they
are published in English, they share a basis in the middle and upper social strata.
The Times of India grew out of The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce,
which was set up in Mumbai in 1838. It was an English foundation, its readership
were the British residents of western India (EncBrit 2010b s.v. ‘The Times of
India’). In 1946, it passed into Indian hands, a change which affected the editorial
policy and made it openly nationalist (Televisionpoint 2006). With its present
circulation of 3,146,000 copies daily (Auswärtiges Amt 2010) it is the largest
English daily broadsheet worldwide (Televisionpoint 2006). The Times of India is
generally regarded as one of the most influential newspapers in India. It is rated as
conservative and as providing an accurate and quality coverage, even if the focus
has been shifting towards issues of lifestyle and entertainment. The first matrimo-
nials in The Times of India appeared in 1949 (Televisionpoint 2006). The matri-
monials in our corpus stem from the online edition published on 9 May, 2010.
The Statesman is also an English foundation, set up by Sir Robert Knight in
Kolkata in 1875 (Barns 1940: 274) as the direct descendant of an earlier newspaper,
The Friend of India. Following the Independence of India in 1947, ownership
passed to the Indian industrial clan Tata. According to the self portrayal of the
newspaper, the circulation of the present Sunday edition amounts to 180,000 copies
(The Statesman 2010). It also ranks among the most influential newspapers in India
and is associated with a liberal and independent political orientation. The matri-
monials in our corpus were taken from online editions published between May and
August 2010.
The Hindu is an Indian foundation, first published on 20 September 1878 in

Chennai (Barns 1940: 293). It was launched by six young Indian intellectuals, led
by G. Subrahmaniya Iyer, a teacher, journalist and active supporter of the Indian
Independence movement (Bhargava 2005: 14). From the very beginning, The
Hindu spoke out for independence (EncBrit 2010a s.v. ‘The Hindu’). Since its
foundation, the circulation has steadily increased and amounts to 1,466,304 copies
today, according to the self portrayal of the newspaper (The Hindu 2010). As the
name of the paper suggests, it has a primarily Hindu readership. Worldpress (2010)
rates it as “left-leaning” and “independent”, and it belongs to India’s quality press.
The matrimonials in our corpus stem from the online edition published on 26 April,
2010.
The Milli Gazette was founded in 1999, and meanwhile, it is published fort-
nightly (Kashif-ul 2010). In its self portrayal, it declares itself as “Indian Muslims’
leading English newspaper” (The Milli Gazette 2010), with much of its content
being “devoted to news of national importance concerning Muslims” (Kashif-ul
2010). Hence, The Milli Gazette has an overwhelmingly Muslim readership. The
matrimonials taken from this source for our corpus were published between
December 2009 and April 2010.1
The British corpus is composed of 150 advertisements taken from The Times
(London). This newspaper was founded in 1785 by John Walter, and it was named
The Times in 1788 with a simultaneous change of content towards aiming at a larger
audience. It is published daily. In summer 2011, it had an average circulation of
394,002 copies of the main edition (Audit Bureau of Circulation 2011). The adverts
taken from this source come from editions published between March and July 2011.
In our chapter, the data from the British part of the corpus mainly serve as a
comparative reference point and will not be analysed in any detail.
The matrimonials from The Times of India, The Hindu and The Milli Gazette are
almost equal in length (a mean 20 words per advert). On average, the British
advertisements are about ten words longer. The matrimonials in The Statesman
stand out with an average of 40 words. The detailed breakdown is given in
Fig. 26.1.
The average length of the matrimonials certainly reflects specific house styles of
the respective newspapers. However, other factors also come into play. British
advertisers present themselves more individually. Their adverts are usually syn-
tactically more coherent and elaborated, and contain fewer abbreviations, which
yields longer texts. In turn, the fact that the matrimonials in The Statesman are twice
1
The different time spans from which the matrimonials were taken from the newspapers for the
present corpus reflect the fact that the number of adverts per edition differs significantly. The Milli
Gazette, for instance, publishes only about 20 matrimonials per issue, while the matrimonial
section in The Times of India contains about 2000 adverts.
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
The Hindu The Times of The Milli Gazette The Times The Statesman
India (London)
Brides Wanted/Women Sought Grooms Wanted/Men Sought
Fig. 26.1 Corpus data. Average length of the adverts per newspaper
as long as those in the three other Indian newspapers can be related to the
heterogeneous composition of the community in its main regional basis Bengal and
the resulting need to spell out relevant criteria in a more explicit way (see
Sect. 26.5).
A detailed analysis of the corpus is given in Frey (2015). In the present chapter,
we will use some of the data from the self and partner descriptions in the matri-
monials. The respective elements were sorted into several categories. The
Tables 26.1 and 26.2 show how often information pertaining to these categories
were present in the adverts. The differences across the newspapers with respect to
the amount of information per advert are obviously linked to the differences noted
above as regards length, use of abbreviations and syntactic complexity.
We will draw from the data given in these tables (in particular those highlighted
by a shaded background) in later sections. Before turning to this analysis, however,
we will sketch the socio-cultural background required for the interpretation of the
data.
26.3 Family and Marriages Patterns: Background
Discussions of “cross-cultural differences”, particularly in an East–West constel-

lation, are commonly framed in terms of familiar dichotomies like collectivist–
individualist and interdependence–independence. These are useful notions when
Table 26.1 Corpus data. Information given in the self descriptions. According to categories.
Absolute numbers
The The Times The Hindu The Milli The Times

Statesman of India Gazette (London)
Gender self m f m f m f m f m f
AGE/DOB 73 73 75 75 75 74 74 74 62 59
HEIGHT 72 72 72 72 61 63 70 71 34 18
COMMUNITY 73 72 58 57 70 66 72 71 2 −
EDUCATION 72 74 48 63 55 66 50 63 16 10
PROFESSION 69 48 68 59 62 59 62 45 28 14
LOCATION 71 68 53 38 51 51 43 35 12 5
APPEARANCE 59 66 33 61 20 41 27 54 36 63
FAMILY 64 64 16 20 11 15 29 35 − −
BACKGROUND
INCOME 60 25 25 13 22 8 19 6 − −
POSSESSIONS 53 49 1 − 4 − 7 2 2 −
ATTRIBUTES 19 17 9 13 3 2 11 17 61 58
ECONOMIC 37 17 5 − 9 4 10 1 13 2
STATUS
HOROSCOPE 2 − 13 12 10 25 − − − −
MARITAL STATUS 9 4 6 7 10 6 9 8 13 7
SKILLS 6 19 − − − − − 1 2 −
HOBBIES/ 12 8 − − − − − − 40 38
INTERESTS
HABITS − − 1 1 2 − − − 7 2
PHYSICAL 2 − − − 2 − − − 8 2
CONDITION
LANGUAGE 1 − − − − − − − − −
NATIONALITY − − − − − − − − 3 1
Total 754 676 483 491 467 480 483 483 339 279
they are employed in a context-sensitive way, without a value matrix attached to

them and understood as cultural foci rather than absolute categories.2 Every culture
displays collectivist and individualist tendencies. Differences can be detected (and
should be studied) in specific spheres of socio-cultural interaction and turn out to
2
There is an impressive body of literature along these lines, and it is far beyond the scope of our
chapter to give a review thereof. Relevant key references include Hofstede’s (2001 [1980])
influential matrix, Hsu’s (1985) study on the Western and Asian concepts of the self, and the
numerous studies on face systems following Brown and Levinson’s (1987) framework, to name
just a few. For a survey on this type of research see, e.g. Scollon and Scollon (2001). For a critical
discussion of latent or, sometimes, explicit Eurocentric biases in these notions, see, e.g. Goody
(1996, 1998).
Table 26.2 Corpus data. Information given in the partner descriptions. According to categories.
Absolute numbers
The The Times The Hindu The Milli The Times

Statesman of India Gazette (London)
Gender partner m f m f m f m f m f
COMMUNITY 40 48 21 26 25 37 12 29 − −
PROFESSION 49 23 25 32 29 19 19 17 12 4
EDUCATION 49 51 4 13 15 30 9 29 1 6
AGE/DOB 65 64 − − 4 13 5 9 38 31
APPEARANCE 7 42 1 31 2 27 2 44 15 35
LOCATION 48 39 5 6 14 11 11 9 73 74
ATTRIBUTES 6 38 6 19 19 16 10 25 62 52
ECONOMIC STATUS 40 − 8 − 4 − 16 − 18 −
FAMILY 9 22 5 3 5 14 8 15 − −
BACKGROUND
HEIGHT 4 7 1 7 1 6 2 8 14 2
MARITAL STATUS 4 8 − − 1 1 − − − −
INCOME 6 − − − − − − − − −
HOROSCOPE 2 − − − 3 1 − − − −
LANGUAGE − − − 1 1 2 − 1 − −
SKILLS − − − − − 2 − − − −
POSSESSIONS 1 1 − − − − − − − −
HABITS − − 1 − − 1 − − 8 4
HOBBIES/ − − − − − − − − 1 6
INTERESTS
PHYSICAL − − − − − − − − 4 −
CONDITION
NATIONALITY − − − − − − − − − 2
Total 330 343 77 138 123 180 94 186 246 216
be, more often than not, a matter of degree and the product of many factors. The
immediate subject of the present chapter, i.e. marriage patterns and models of the
family, is an excellent case in point to show the complexity of the issue.
26.3.1 Family Structure
What is often presented as being characteristic of (or even unique to) the modern
Western societies is the prevalence of the so-called “nuclear” or elementary family
and free choice based on affection in partner selection, i.e. the
individualist-independence paradigm. India, in turn, is associated with the
collectivist-interdependence paradigm. With respect to family structure, the proto-

type is found to be the “joint-family” system: Men and women marry early and live
in the household of the husband’s parents. The dominant marriage pattern is “ar-
ranged marriages”. We will have a brief look at family structure first; marriage
patterns will be addressed in Sect. 26.3.2.
Censuses provide some indications as to the distribution of the types of family
structure in a given country. One clue is mean household size. According to the
2011 censuses, the average household size in the United Kingdom was 2.3 people
per household (UK-ONS 2011) and 4.8 in India (www.censusindia.gov.in/). Mean
household size, however, is a poor measure since it does not represent the internal
composition of the household. The data on household types collected in censuses
provide more conclusive information as they cover co-residence patterns. The
relevant census results for India and the UK are given in Tables 26.3 and 26.4.
In 2001, 18.6% of the households in India thus comprised more than one married
couple, and, with a small decline, 18.2% in 2011. In the UK, multi-family
households only account for about 1% of the total. To set these figures into yet
another perspective: Of the roughly 220 Mio married couples covered by the 2001
census of India, about 85 Mio (i.e. 38.7%) lived in households with more than one
couple (calculated on the basis of the data in GoI 2002). If co-residence is taken as a
measure, the patterns in India indeed differ significantly from those in the UK.
Within India, rural and urban regions need to be considered separately in many
regards. However, as the following breakdown shows (Table 26.5), there are no
marked differences with respect to co-residence patterns in urban and rural India.
Two trends are noteworthy: Bigger units (four couples and more) are declining
in both contexts compared to the 2001 data. In the urban regions, however, there is
a move towards co-habitation in units of two and three couples, also at the expense
of one-couple units. The carrier group of this trend is the lower and middle classes.
In an article on the news platform ZeeNews, local social scientists are cited on
potential reasons for this trend. According to one of them:
Table 26.3 UK: household types (millions). 2001 and 2011

Year One-person One-family One-family Two or Multi-family All
households households households: more households households
lone parent unrelated
adults
2001 7.0 14.2 2.4 0.7 0.2 24.5
2011 7.7 14.6 2.8 0.9 0.2 26.3
Source UK-ONS (2012)
In the UK data, the category “couple” is not restricted to married couples but includes other types
of partnership
Table 26.4 India: household types. 2001 and 2011

Number of married 2001 2011
couples Households Percentage Households Percentage
share share
Total number of 191,963,935 100.0 246,692,667 100.0
households
No couple 21,250,358 11.1 28,642,875 11.6
1 couple 135,022,749 70.3 172,964,836 70.1
2 couples 25,957,120 13.5 34,876,105 14.1
3 couples 6,904,134 3.6 7,911,927 3.2
4 couples 1,952,551 1.0 1,727,657 0.7
5+ couples 877,023 0.5 569,267 0.2
GoI (2011: 73)
Table 26.5 India: household types. Rural and urban areas. 2011
Number of married Rural Urban
couples Households Percentage Households Percentage
share share
Total number of 167,826,730 100.0 78,865,937 100.0
households
No couple 18,634,246 11.1 10,008,629 12.7
1 couple 116,852,830 69.6 56,112,006 71.1
2 couples 24,939,825 14.9 9,936,280 12.6
3 couples 5,666,191 3.4 2,245,736 2.8
4 couples 1,285,666 0.8 441,991 0.6
5+ couples 447,972 0.3 121,295 0.2
GoI (2011: 74, 75)
[The] joint family system is getting popular amongst working couples in cities because it
helps them avail better socialisation and security for their children when they are out for
work (Ripan Sippy, clinical psychologist; cit. in ZeeNews 2014)
Others link it to changing living conditions in urban India:

Multigenerational families are more likely now due to the increased life expectancy. Since
it may be financially difficult for families to have an independent house or flat in cities,
particularly in the middle and lower middle class, people are forced into living together.
(Pramod Kumar Sharma, sociologist; cited in ZeeNews 2014)
However, due caution is in order when raw data such as those from the censuses
are related to highly complex cultural notions like collectivist/individualist and
dependence/interdependence. In the interpretation of such data, it is, first of all,
important to notice that from an anthropological and sociological perspective

“nuclear family” and “joint family” are not opposites in any reasonable sense of this
term. The elementary family, i.e. the conjugal couple and their children, has been
and is an essential social unit across cultures and time, probably universally (cf.
Goody 1998: 60). Co-residence of several couples in a joint-family structure does
not mean that the elementary families involved do not constitute units of their own.
Instead, joint families are generally nested structures, with several embedded ele-
mentary families.
Furthermore, the mere fact of co-residence reported by census data does not tell
much about the actual social structure and the patterns of interaction in the
household. Relevant questions include (see Goody 1998: Chap. 3 for a detailed
discussion): Is the dwelling unit an economic unit at the same time (e.g. a family
enterprise)? Are the functions and daily routines (and which of them) performed
jointly or separately (e.g. preparation/consumption of food, child-care and
child-rearing, religious/ritual activities)? How is property distributed (e.g. owner-
ship, inheritance patterns)? What is the internal power structure in a unit? It is
specific entrenched patterns of interaction and practices along these lines that
constitute the actual content of complex cultural concepts such as the “joint family”.
Crucially, the relevant practices and interactional patterns are by no means
strongly bound to co-habitation. They can be maintained equally well across sep-
arate households, in particular in adjacent residence. As Seymour (1999: 110),
based on her detailed longitudinal study on family structure in the East Indian town
of Bhubaneswar, observes:
In the mid-1960s, growing up in the New Capital was very different from growing up in the
Old Town. Because families had moved only recently to the New Capital and were not
long-term residents, they were not enmeshed within neighbourhoods of extended kin and
caste ties. Nor did most of these households constitute the ideal joint family: Sets of
brothers had dispersed to pursue different professions, and most parents lived elsewhere –
often in their home town or village. From the perspective of Western modernization and
urbanisation theory, it looked as if the nuclear family were emerging as predicted. On the
surface it appeared that extended families had had to break into smaller units to be more
mobile and to take advantage of new occupational opportunities. In reality, however,
families were in many respects still ideologically as well as structurally joint. The largely
autonomous Western-style nuclear family was not what had emerged […].
Seymour (1999: 299 fn4) thus concludes that

often Indian families that are structurally nuclear should be construed as ‘joint’ because of
their shared economic resources with extended kin and because of their commitment to the
larger unit. Joint family members may not always be able to reside together, but they visit
one another for extended periods of time, send their children to reside with relatives for
educational purposes, and ritually celebrate their ‘jointness’. Regardless of household
structure, children grow up thinking of themselves as part of an extended family.
Several important points can be derived from Seymour’s observations. First of

all, they set into perspective the data from the Indian census mentioned above. In
this country, too, the single-couple household prevails—only about one third of the
married couples actually live in multi-family households (see above). However, the
interactional functional patterns constitutive of the concept of the “joint family” are
also maintained by couples living separately from their kin network.
Second, as stressed by Seymour, societies take distinct paths to modernity. It is a
serious misconception to construe processes of modernisation worldwide as a mere
copy of the Western model (e.g. in this specific context, the Western-style “nuclear
family”). Instead, established societal structures and foci are preserved and adapted
to changing conditions.3
Third, Seymour’s observations also set into perspective the notion of the
Western-style “nuclear family”. Its greater structural autonomy notwithstanding,
there are numerous ties that link it to the wider family, emotionally, functionally
and often also economically, in terms of ties of mutual support. And “celebrating
jointness” is not the monopoly of non-Western cultures either. Notions like col-
lectivist, individualist, dependence and interdependence are cultural vectors rather
than absolute categories; they capture trajectories in socio-cultural patterns and
behaviour in the context of specific domains and specific issues, trajectories that
gear towards what is perceived as ideal models in a given cultural group.
26.3.2 Marriage Patterns
Society in India, in particular the middle class in urban centres, is in a process of

transition, and central socio-cultural issues such as marriage and family are inti-
mately affected by the changes of conditions of modern life. The very existence of
the text type under investigation, i.e. matrimonials in India, the growing popularity
of this medium and the characteristic features of Indian contact adverts readily attest
to ongoing developments at the societal level. It is far beyond the scope of the
present chapter to analyse the broad range of social patterns and dynamics that are
involved, and we refer the reader to the specialised literature for detailed accounts
(e.g. Pache Huber 2004; Seymour 1999; Sharma 2005). However, we need to
sketch at least some of the socio-cultural background that is crucial to a
Cultural-Linguistic interpretation of the empirical data presented here.
Marriages in India are generally concluded according to the customs of the
respective ethnic/religious group (e.g. according to Hindu or Muslim law).
Marriages established this way are recognised for all official purposes without any
further requirements. They can be registered with the state authorities, but regis-
tration is not mandatory, and few couples make use of this option. Inter-group
3
Similar observations and arguments can be made for other regions of the world; see, e.g.
Polzenhagen (2007: 117ff.) on the case of modernisation in West Africa.
marriages that are barred according to customary or religious law can be contracted
as civil marriages under the Special Marriage Act (1954).
Match-seeking and marriage in India are, first and foremost, a family issue. This
is true of the traditional model and more recent patterns alike. In the traditional
model, when the time is considered by the family to have come for a young person
to marry, the extended social network of the family within the (local) community is
informed in order to invite suitable proposals. The incoming proposals are carefully
assessed by the parents, often assisted by experienced family elders, community
elders, e.g. pandits, or a professional match-maker. This network-based
match-seeking ensures that fundamental prerequisites of a “suitable match” are
met, in particular with respect to socio-culturally crucial parameters such as caste,
religion and standing. Furthermore, it allows gathering, through the network, reli-
able information on the details and background of a candidate’s family, which
constitutes a major part in the selection process and is performed with much care.
As an informant in Nanda (2000) puts it:
My parents would never arrange a marriage for me without knowing all about the boy’s
family background. Naturally we will not rely only on what the family tells us. We will
check the particulars out ourselves. No one will want their daughter to marry into a family
that is not good. All these things we will know beforehand. (from: Nanda 2000: 2)
Once the family has come to a decision and when negotiations with the other
family have been successful, the future couple may have its first encounter, with the
families being present (an encounter of the couple prior to marriage, however, is not
an imperative in the traditional model). Subsequently, the marriage ceremonies are
prepared and performed by the families. This model is referred to as “arranged
marriage”. So-called “love marriages”, i.e. marriages that grow from a previous
romantic relationship, are not socially accepted (also see below). This is of course
not to say that in the Indian context, marriage, as an institution, is not an emotional
bond. In any culture, conjugal relations are affective (see Goody 1998 for a detailed
discussion). In the relevant model, however, affection (love) is not regarded as a
prerequisite of and basis solid enough to establish such a socially crucial institution
as marriage. Instead, marriage is seen as gaining its stability from its embedding in
the established networks of social and kinship ties. And in turn, the crucial function
of marriage lies in stabilising and extending these networks, i.e. the function of
marriage is defined from the perspective of the network. Affection, in this model, is
not a precondition of entering a conjugal relationship; the emotional bond will
emerge during the life as a couple. Here is Nanda’s informant again, on this issue:
If he is a good man, why should I not like him? […] With you people, you know the boy so
well before you marry, where will be the fun to get married? There will be no mystery and
no romance. Here we have the whole of our married life to get to know and love our
husband. (from: Nanda 2000: 2)
Significantly, Nanda’s informant stresses the role of parental authority in this

matter:
My marriage is too important to be arranged by such an inexperienced person as myself. In

such matters, it is better to have my parents’ guidance. (from: Nanda 2000: 1)
The statements by Nanda’s informant clearly attest to the idealised nature of the
relevant cultural conceptualisation of marriage. The realities of many young cou-
ples, and women in particular, are more often than not sadly different from this
ideal, both with respect to marriage and the subsequent conjugal life (for vivid
accounts, see, e.g. Seymour 1999 and Grover 2011).
“Arranged marriages” still are the preferred pattern, also in “modern” India.
According to Uberoi (2006: 24), 90% favour this model over “love marriages”.
However, it is important to notice that several sub-models have emerged, practiced
and supported in particular by the urban middle class, which grant substantial par-
ticipation to the future couple in the selection process. “Arranged marriage” has
virtually become a cover term for any marriage that is approved by the parents and
concluded through a public family-based wedding. In an only slight modification of
the traditional model, the parents perform the search for a suitable partner but the
bride and groom can be granted some time to get to know each other and the right to
veto the choice of the parents. Alternatively, the future couple can be directly
involved in the very selection process.4 Still further away from the traditional model
is the scheme where the bride or groom search for potential partners themselves and
propose their preference to their parents for approval.5 Finally, provided the
respective mind-set of the parents, even an existing romantic relationship can be
“legitimised” by parental consent and thus turned into a socially accepted marriage;
as Mody (2002: 249) aptly puts it, through the act of a public family-based marriage,
“the social order that had been disrupted by ‘love’ is seen to be restored”.6 The term
used to refer to marriages obtained in this way is arranged love marriage (cf. Grover
2011: 86 ff., for the specific context of Delhi).7 If (and which of) such modified
forms of an arranged marriage are practiced evidently depends on the mind-set of the
parents8 on the one hand and the determination of the to-be-married on the other.
In the light of these modifications of the traditional model, “love marriage”, in
turn, is virtually a synonym for a marriage that failed to get parental approval.9 For
the couple, it is an option of “last resort” with severe social consequences; cf.:
4
The output is referred to as an “arranged-cum-love marriage”.
5
The output is a “love-cum-arranged marriage”.
6
This course of events with a “happy ending” is the familiar topic of Bollywood movies.
7
For details on these new forms of “arranged marriage”, see in particular Uberoi (2006) and Mody
(2002).
8
Depending on the context, further agents may come into play. In some parts of India, for instance,
caste associations are highly influential also in marriage issues. In cases of inter-caste constella-
tions, they can exert significant pressure on the families (see Grover 2011: 96 on the impact of
these associations).
9
The struggle over approval by the parents can be fought with harsh means, including forced
marriages, the involvement of the police in order to prevent marriage, and, on both sides, the threat
to commit suicide in order to reinforce the respective position; see Grover (2011) for the
description of some actual cases.
If one decides to go his or her way, then invariably the parents and relatives say: ‘go do
what you want, but don’t come back to us when you face problems’. They are CUT OFF.
(interview with Parasurama Ramachandran, former professor at the Tata Institute for Social
Sciences; from: Hankeln 2008: 98)
Being “cut off”, i.e. expelled from the network of the family, results in a social
stigmatisation that is extremely difficult to bear—economically, functionally and
emotionally—in a society thoroughly based on family ties and the related social
networks. In legal terms, such marriages without parental consent can be obtained
through a so-called Hindu marriage in an Arya Samaj temple or concluded under
the Special Marriage Act (1954) mentioned above10; they are then also referred to
as court marriages, as opposed to public family-based marriages. In the light of the
harsh social consequences of a love marriage obtained this way, the couples that
take this option often hope to get parental approval post factum and to be
re-accepted in the family network.
For the parents, in turn, a love marriage of their child is a serious damage to the
reputation of the entire family. Since this reputation is socially crucial, especially
when there are further children to be married, parents may be willing to give in and
accept a love marriage, even reluctantly, in retrospect. However, since the actual
nature of the marriage can hardly be concealed from the local community, expul-
sion may be perceived by the parents as the better choice also in view of future
marriages to be negotiated for another offspring.
In sum, the following excerpt from an interview conducted by Hankeln (2008)
with a family counsellor in Chennai presents a fairly realistic picture of the stance
taken by the present-day younger generation in India towards the marriage issue:
A lot more youngsters, I think, are looking at love marriages as more viable, more exiting,
and a better option. But I am not sure when they actually come to the crux of marriage,
whether they would really go in for a love marriage because by then they have outgrown
the teenage opinions and they also see the stability of arranged marriages and most of their
parents have also gone into arranged marriages. So, I think they are exposed to something
at their teenage and younger adult life but when it actually comes to a decision maybe they
would still opt for an arranged match. I think one of the reasons here is that the bond
between parents and children is very strong and children find it very difficult to disappoint
parents or to go against. We never really become independent of our families. So, anything
that would upset the bond, I think, people think a lot about it. (Arundhati Swamy, family
counsellor; from: Hankeln 2008: 105)
The Indian system of traditional arranged marriage sketched above, and, to

varying extents, the newly emerging forms it takes, sharply contrasts with the
so-called “free-choice marriage” in Western culture. In the Western pattern, the
criteria of mate selection are not those of the kin network but those of the individual
10
See Mody (2002) on love marriages from an historical and legal perspective and on the current
and “best” procedure to take in such cases: The couple elopes and gets married in a temple of the
permissive Arya Samaj, a reformist Hindu group that openly supports love and inter-group
marriages. Evidence of this “first marriage” facilitates a subsequent registration of the marriage
with the state authorities.
partners (although the latter may, of course, coincide with the former), i.e. the
trajectories of this pattern are individualism and independence. The major—or, in
the idealised version of the model, the only—criterion of partner selection in a
free-choice marriage is affection (love). Full implementation of free-choice marriage
across the various strata of Western society is, however, a relatively recent
development. It has long been common practice among the poor classes, where
considerations in terms of property and status were almost absent since property
and status were almost absent. Here, one major difference between the
nuclear-family and the joint-family structures sketched above also comes into play:
In a joint-family system, where the woman becomes a member of the household of
the husband’s parents, the latter have a vested interest in her “compatibility” with
the household and the extended family. In a system where the couple typically
leaves the parents’ households upon marriage (which is the prototype in Western
societies), such considerations lose much of their relevance. In the middle and
upper strata of Western society, however, where property and status are at stake,
parental authority on marriage issues continued to be decisive well into the twen-
tieth century, a familiar topic of nineteenth century European literature.
There are numerous (and partly conflicting) accounts, in the disciplines con-
cerned, of how the two major features of free-choice marriage, i.e. the priority of
individual choice over parental authority and the emphasis on “affection”, have
emerged and are related to socio-cultural and economic key developments in
Western societies (e.g. industrialisation, urbanisation, secularisation, social mobil-
ity). A critical review of some of them is given in Goody (1998: 96–123), with a
focus on the notion of “romantic love”, also from a cross-cultural perspective.
Goody’s (e.g. 1983) own account convincingly emphasises the role of the Christian
Church as one of the shapers of Western society and world-view at large, and runs,
in a nutshell, as follows: According to the mediaeval Catholic doctrine, marriage
was, in principle, a union established by the two individuals before God alone,
based on their mutual consent. As Goody (1983: 152) observes, however, this
ecclesiastical “notion of mutual consent, in contrast to that of parental authority,
[…] ran directly up against the secular model” at that period of time; mediaeval lay
society regarded parental consent as essential and emphasised parental control of
marriage (Goody 1983: 151, 193). Certainly, disobedience to and disrespect of
parental authority constituted a sin also from the perspective of the Church; how-
ever, marriage in the above understanding was given the status of being one of the
sacraments, i.e. it ranks, in principle, above the realm of parental authority. The
changes brought about for the Christian world-view by Protestantism had at least
two crucial effects. First of all, they secularised the notion of marriage: For
Protestants, marriage is, as Martin Luther famously emphasised in his treatise Von
Ehesachen (1530), a “worldly thing” and belongs to the earthly kingdom (“die Ehe
ist ein äußerlich, weltlich Ding”), i.e. it is not sacramental.11 To Luther, in principle
11
In turn, Protestantism strongly re-emphasised parental authority, with lasting effects in com-
munities with this denomination.
at least, husband and wife “were spiritual, intellectual, and emotional ‘partners’”, as
Witte (2015: 307) puts it. Secondly, marital love is elevated by Luther as “a
foretaste of the love of heaven” (cit. in Witte 2015: 307).12 The Protestant under-
standing was hence instrumental both to the notion of “civil marriage” and the
emphasis on and idealisation of marital love.13
26.4 Transformations of Marriage Patterns in India:

Evidence from the Data
It is important to notice that the more recent patterns observable among the urban
middle class in India addressed in the present section share the basis of the tradi-
tional model sketched in Sect. 26.3.1 with respect to the role of the family:
Marriage continues to be a family issue. However, they constitute significant
adaptations of traditional practices to the conditions of modern urban life. In the
following, we will discuss four of these transformations in the light of data from our
corpus of marriage adverts.
26.4.1 Age of Marriage
Across cultures, the practice of arranged marriage correlates with early marriage.
This is not surprising since parental control is maximal and generally undisputed at
an early age and since, in turn, a more advanced age generally correlates with a
higher degree of independence and the desire and capability to participate in
decision-making processes that concern one’s own life.
In India, early marriage very often means child marriage, also below the age of
puberty, both historically and present. Women/girls are obviously affected to a
much stronger extent than men/boys. Despite legal measures,14 child marriage still
is a large-scale societal issue and a reality for the majority of women in India:
According to UNICEF (2014) reports, 58% of the women aged 20–49 were married
at an age below 18 years, close to 30% at an age below 15. India thus ranks sixth
among the countries with the highest prevalence of child marriage worldwide.
12
For details and for a discussion of the views proclaimed by other strands of Protestantism, see
Witte (2012).
13
See Kövecses (e.g. 1991) on the Western conceptualisations of IDEAL LOVE and TYPICAL LOVE.
14
Still in colonial times, the Child Marriage Restraint Act (1929, into force in 1930) was passed
that defined a male person below the age of 21 and a female person below 18 as a “child” and
determined a catalogue of punishments on child marriage. However, it did not invalidate such
marriages and prosecution was only possible within one year after the marriage (GoI 2015). For
several decades that followed, the impact of this act was, however, relatively small. In 2006, the
provisions were tightened with the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act (into force in 2007).
Table 26.6 India: average Year Women Men

age of marriage
1971 17.7 22.7
1981 18.7 23.4
1991 19.3 24.0
2001 20.2 24.8
2011 22.2 26.0
MedIndia (2016)
Table 26.7 Average age of Newspaper Brides Grooms

brides and grooms in the
Indian corpus The Hindu 27.5 32.1
The Milli Gazette 27.7 28.9
The Times of India 28.6 29.5
The Statesman 30.3 31.0
Total 28.5 30.4
However, according to the Indian census data, the figures on newly conducted child
marriages have been constantly declining over the past decades.
This development has also contributed to the general rise of the mean age of
marriage in India over the last decades. Table 26.6 gives the census data for the
period since 1971.
593 advertisements in our Indian corpus (98.9%) contain information on age.
Both for brides and grooms, the average age is considerably above the current mean
age of marriage in India indicated by the census data. Our results are given in
Table 26.7, with a detailed breakdown in Fig. 26.2.
The data clearly attest to the observation made across many studies (e.g.
Seymour 1999) that the urban middle-class takes the lead with respect to a later age
of marriage. The most important reasons for a “delayed” marriage certainly include
the completion of higher education and the achievement of an established profes-
sional standing, both considered to be crucial parameters on the modern marriage
market among the middle and upper stratum of society (also see Sect. 26.4.4).
26.4.2 Medium of the Search for a Bride/Groom
As noted in Sect. 26.3.2, potential marriage partners are traditionally recruited by

the parents through their extended local network. Urban middle-class families,
however, often have a history of geographical mobility that has removed them from
the place of origin of the extended family. They are generally keen on keeping alive
their ties with their families elsewhere, but for the search of a suitable marriage
partner with an “appropriate” educational and socio-economic background, this
network has certainly lost much of its functionality.
(a)
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
21 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 49 51 53
specifications 1 1 2 9 17 29 40 39 33 21 22 15 12 16 2 7 8 4 3 2 2 1 1 2 4 1 1 1
(b)
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 45
specifications 1 1 6 6 18 30 44 35 32 28 23 16 18 7 12 7 5 4 1 1 1 1 1 1
Fig. 26.2 a Age distribution: men seeking bride in the Indian corpus. b Age distribution: women
seeking husband in the Indian corpus
Over the last decades, this has led to a thriving market of marriage bureaus,15
marriage fairs and matrimonials in newspapers or, more recently, on the Internet,
designed in particular for the needs of the urban middle class. Owing to the long
tradition of brokering in marriage issues in India, these channels of searching for
potential brides and grooms were readily acceptable to Indian marriage culture and
thus integrated easily. According to Hankeln (2008: 51), they have become a
popular path to take and do not carry the stigma of being a “last resort”, i.e. an
15
According to Majumdar (2004: 921)‚ marriage bureaus were firmly established by the 1920s.
Hankeln (2008: 51) observes an increase of their popularity from the 1980s onwards. Her study
contains an informative interview with the owner of a marriage bureau in the town of Pune, about
100 km East of Mumbai.
option only taken when any other attempts at arranging a marriage have failed. Via
marriage bureaus and marriage adverts, the pool of potential and suitable candidates
can be enlarged considerably and in a time-saving way. Furthermore, relevant
criteria can be succinctly formulated and conveniently checked. On the other hand,
it is often very difficult to gather further information on the background and rep-
utation of the family of a potential candidate found via these ways. In this crucial
respect, the new means are more anonymous and far less reliable than traditional
match-seeking through the local social network.
Even when the procedure follows the model of a more traditional arranged
marriage, searching for potential candidates via media such as the internet also
opens and facilitates paths for a stronger participation of the future couple in the
process of selection and decision-making. The internet, in particular, obviously
allows for and favours contacts and exchange between the groom and the bride
before marriage and as a part of the selection process without overtly coming into
conflict with traditional norms that restrict pre-marital encounters.
26.4.3 Role of the Future Couple in the Selection Process
In earlier sections, we pointed to recent patterns of a stronger involvement of brides

and grooms in partner selection among the urban Indian middle class. In our data,
these patterns manifest, in the most straightforward way, in the category of
authorship of marriage adverts. For reasons that will become more apparent below,
we will use the term “authorship” in the sense of “who is presented as seeking
contact”. In the British data, the one who seeks a partner is generally the author of
the contact advert in this sense. The situation is far more complex in the Indian
corpus. As the brief discussion given in Sect. 26.3 should have shown, it is a
culturally very sensitive issue who initiates the search for a “match” and takes
decisions in the selection process. In the Indian corpus, there are three options that
can be taken in individual adverts.16 The first one is to present explicitly the
groom/bride as seeking contact; e.g.17
(1) TRICHUR NAIR girl divorced (within a week) 29/165 Chothi PG
(Microbiology/PMIR) employed in Chennai seeks well qua[l]ified/employed
boy.18 (from: The Hindu)
16
In The Statesman, only two of them are used; see below.
17
The matrimonials used as examples are reproduced in their original form and spelling. Bold face
is added by us in order to highlight the relevant parts.
18
PG = postgraduate; PMIR = Personnel Management and Industrial Relations.
The second option presents the parents or the family as initiating the search, as
in:
(2) R.C. A.D Parents Seek Alliance for their daughter B.E Civil Engg
27/154 cm Working in Professional Consultancies Chennai.19 (from: The
Hindu)
(3) WELL Educated SM Businessman family seeks alliance for their Doctor
girl-MBBS. MD 28/5′ 4″.20 (from: The Milli Gazette)
The third option is to avoid the explicit mentioning of the party that initiated the
search (this option is termed “neutral” hereafter). Matrimonials that follow this
option typically use the expression “suitable match” (SM), as in:
(4) SM for Goyal 26/5′ 4″ wheatish boy own business own house preference
educated homely girl. (from: Times of India)
Beyond prototypical cases such as those cited above, the framing is often vague
and evasive. Counting unclear instances with the category “neutral”, the following
breakdown (Fig. 26.3) should provide a fairly representative picture.
The very presence of these three options reflects the different marriage patterns
sketched in Sect. 26.3 that are available to the middle class in contemporary India.
The explicit specification “parent/family” can be taken as indicating a more tradi-
tional approach in which the family initiates and performs the search. The option
“self”, in turn, signals a greater involvement of the bride/groom in the selection
process. Following this logic, the option “neutral” then suggests the liberal stance
that it is of minor or no importance which party initiated the search. In this context,
it is noteworthy that The Statesman stands out by not using the option
“parent/family” at all. In the vast majority of the matrimonials in this newspaper,
authorship is not made explicit. Against the background of our interpretation, The
Statesman hence illustrates the most liberal approach on the issue in the Indian
corpus, a reading of the data that is supported by the general profile of this
newspaper.
The figures above also clearly attest to a gender component with respect to
explicit authorship. Across the board, the option “self” is more prevalent when a
partner is sought by a man. This gender difference is especially pronounced in the
case of the Muslim-based The Milli Gazette.
The issue is made even more complex as the same options are available and used
in order to frame the addressee. Virtually all of the potential constellations can be
found in the Indian corpus. In the following example, the bride (“self”) is explicitly
marked as seeking contact with the “family” of a potential groom:
19
R.C. = Roman Catholic; A.D. = Adhiyan; BE = Bachelor of Engineering.
20
SM = (in this context) Sunni Muslim; MBBS = Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery;
MD = Medical Doctor.
(a)
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
4.8% 36% 59.2%
parents/family self neutral
(b)
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
S– S– TOI – TOI – MG – MG – H– H–
'Grooms 'Brides 'Grooms 'Brides 'Grooms 'Brides 'Grooms 'Brides
Wanted' Wanted' Wanted' Wanted' Wanted' Wanted' Wanted' Wanted'
parents/family self neutral
Fig. 26.3 a Authorship in the Indian corpus. Global results (n = 600). b Authorship in the Indian
corpus. Per newspaper and gender (S = The Statesman, TOI = The Times of India, MG = The
Milli Gazette, H = The Hindu, p/f = parents/families, n = neutral, s = self)
(5) BEAUTIFUL MENON girl MBA 27/168 Makam working as Business

Manager in an IT firm in Bangalore seeks alliance from parents of suitable
Nair boys.21 (from: The Hindu)
The inverse constellation, i.e. “parents/family” directly addressing potential
brides/grooms, is illustrated by the following matrimonial:
21
Menon = an upper caste within the Nair community; MBA = Master of Business
Administration.
(6) LUCKNOW Based Syed family seeks Prof. Qlfd. girl for B. Tech/MBA Son
26/5′ 8″ Wkg. Delhi MNC. Send CV/Photo.22 (from: The Milli Gazette)
The constellation where “parents/family” address “parents/family” is exempli-
fied by:
(7) PARENTS OF Nair girl, slim and beautiful […] seek alliance from parents
of Nair boys, smart professionals […]. (from: The Hindu)
In turn, many Indian matrimonials avoid the issue and do not mention any
addressee, as in:
(8) CHRISTIAN BOY, 28/178 cms, BE {CS}, MBA {IIM}, Project Manager,
“TCS”.23 (from: The Hindu)
Finally, two notes are in order on our use of the term “authorship” in the sense of
“who is presented as seeking contact”. First of all, the Indian matrimonials are not
necessarily written by those who are presented as the authors. In particular, many of
the matrimonials pass through marriage bureaus and are devised by them for the
client. This certainly highly frequent case is illustrated by the following extract from
an interview with the owner of a marriage bureau:
[…] in normal cases we frame the advertisement. We frame it and whatever the expecta-
tions are, we write it in (interview with Shyam Sahni, marriage bureau; from: Hankeln
2008: 101)
The second note relates to the impact of the house styles of the newspapers. The
respective conventions and the grid these house styles impose on the matrimonials
heavily determine the structure and linguistic shape of the adverts. However, we do
not think that this condition invalidates the findings and interpretations given here.
Instead, it can be taken to support our argument in that the conventions of the
newspapers are in themselves indicative of the cultural norms and cultural con-
ceptualisations linked to the issue of marriage.
26.4.4 Shifting Selection Criteria
Numerous studies report shifts in the selection criteria among the Indian urban
middle class (e.g. Grover 2011; Hankeln 2008; Seymour 1999; Uberoi 1993, 2006).
The formula that is often used in this context is “from caste to class”. However, this
formula needs to be read against the background of the specific Indian setting: Caste
is, of course, an important indicator of social class, and hence both notions are and
22
B.Tech = Bachelor of Technology; MBA = Master of Business Administration;
MNC = Multinational Company.
23
CS = computer science; IIM = Indian Institute of Management; TCS = Tata Consultancy
Services.
continue to be strongly intertwined. What this formula is meant to capture is the

pronounced tendency that a similar social background and standing in the middle
class overrides the originally rigid caste barriers.
A strong indicator of this trend is the explicit expressions “caste no bar” and
“religion no bar” in our Indian corpus. They occur in 100 of the 600 matrimonials
(55 times in adverts seeking a bride, 45 times in those seeking a groom).
Representative examples include:
(9) 31, 5′-4″, South Indian boy, medium-complexion, MBA, working in Leather
Industry, wants Graduate, homely, beautiful, working bride from reputed
family. Caste no bar. (from: The Statesman)
In many matrimonials without this explicit marker, a liberal stance towards the
issue of caste is implicit, through the absence of any indication to the contrary
and/or the use of broad labels such as bride/girl or groom/boy, e.g.
(10) E.B. SADGOPE, B.Sc., A.D.C.A. in Computer, MNC (Orissa), Rs. 20,000,
37 years/5′-4″, own house, father present, handsome, established. Within
32 years, homely/service holder, educated brides wanted.24 (from: The
Statesman)
However, indications on caste are the rule in the corpus: 539 of the 600 adverts
state the community the self belongs to and 238 contain such specification in the
partner description, either in terms of preferences or imperatives (cf. the
Tables 26.1 and 26.2). The latter, i.e. an imperative on intra-marriage in the strict
sense (caste endogamy) is common in the data especially for brides/grooms from
upper castes (e.g. Brahmin) as in:
(11) E.B., BRAHMIN, 29/5′-9″, B.Com., MBA, FCA (Computer), own business,
Director, Rs. 1(L) p.m., fair, handsome, father businessman, 3 sisters mar-
ried, 1 brother, own house, well to do, Kashyap (within 25 years), good
looking, fair, homely, minimum Graduate, 5′-3″, East Bengal, Brahmin
bride wanted.25 (from: The Statesman)
(12) VOKKALIGA GOWDA Arudra 31 years/170 cm B.Tech MBA Fabric
Manager 30,000 pm seeks suitable bride same caste. (from: The
Statesman)
Other matrimonials define a range of “acceptable” castes as in:
(13) E.B. KAYASTHA, 30+/5′-6″, Kashyap, Diploma in Mechanical
Engineering, ERP professional, working in Merino Service Ltd., Rs. 4 lakh (P.
24
E.B. = East Bengal; B.Sc. = Bachelor of Science; A.D.C.A. = Advanced Diploma in Certified
Accountancy.
25
B.Com. = Bachelor of Commerce; FCA = fellow chartered accountant; Rs. = rupees; L = Lakh
(100,000); p.m. = per month.
A.), mother present, handsome. Fair, beautiful, Brahmin/Baidya/Kayastha

within 26 years brides required.26 (from: The Statesman)
or explicitly indicate “non-acceptable” castes (in particular SC/ST = Scheduled
Castes/Tribes) as in:
(14) MAHISHYA, 27/5′-4″, B.Tech. (Electronic Instrumentation on Central
System), own business, fair, pretty, Modhgulya, father businessman, two
sisters, one married, one brother Doctor; grooms required BE/MBA/M.
Tech./B.Tech./Bank Officer, well settled Rs. 5 (L) or above within 30–32
years Ph.: 2481-9501. Except SC/ST. (from: The Statesman)
Occasionally, in one and the same matrimonial even stances can be taken that
appear incompatible from an outside perspective; e.g. the liberal caste no bar can
co-occur with the exclusive except SC/ST, as in
(15) W.B., TILI, 28/5′-7″, M.Sc. in Physics, MBA in marketing ‘A’ topper
throughout the academic career, working in UBI as Asst. Manager, Rs.
25,000, Shandilyo, father working, parents present, own house well to do.
Min. honours graduate, dev/devarigon (except SC/ST) bride wanted. Caste
no bar.27 (from: The Statesman)
Across the corpus, the shift of criteria noted in the literature is fully attested. In
addition to or even replacing caste, new crucial criteria are made very explicit:
Education, professional standing and common middle-class background. There are
examples in the corpus in which middle-class background unambiguously overrides
caste, as in:
(16) SUNNI_SYED 32/5′ 9″ Fair, H’some, Graduate, Well Settled Business in
south Delhi. Seeks Fair, Slim, Edu. and Homely Girl from Middle Class
Family. (from: The Milli Gazette)
For others, “business” is the explicit measure:
(17) 35, 5′-7½″, BRAHMIN Bharadwaj, O+, Government service, seeks bride
from reputed business family, only child, willing to stay at brides home.
Caste no bar. (from: The Statesman)
Numerous matrimonials (see Table 26.2) detail the expected profession of the
partner; PQM (professionally qualified match) and its relatives are highly frequent
abbreviations in the Indian corpus. 6 adverts (all of them in The Statesman) even
state explicit demands with respect to income, e.g.:
(18) E.B. KAYASTHA, B.Com. with Accounts Hons., knows Computer, Tally
and Stitching, does tuition, 31+/5′-0″, parents present, own house, beautiful
educated. Grooms required within 38 years, W.B. or outside, Govt.
26
P.A. = per annum; ERP = engineering resource planning.
27
UBI = Union Bank of India.
Service/Private/Bank/Established businessman, income not less than Rs.

3 (L) PA. (from: The Statesman)
In turn, in a considerable number of matrimonials (see Table 26.1),
monthly/annual income is also stated in the self descriptions; see, e.g. example (15).
Closely related, education is a paramount criterion in both self and partner
descriptions (see the Tables 26.1 and 26.2). Many adverts contain extensive lists of
degrees; see, e.g. example (14).
Education and professional standing do not only serve as a justification of a
comparatively late age of seeking marriage (see Sect. 26.3) but have become highly
current “capital” in the marriage “market” (both in the sense of Bourdieu’s notions
and in very material terms). As the owner of a marriage bureau cited earlier in our
chapter puts it, summing up changes over the last 20 years in this business:
The most drastic change in a marriage, in an arranged marriage also, is this way: people are
marrying the professions. They are not marrying the individuals. Previously, it was over all,
it was the family. Today, ‘okay, I am a software, I want a software’, ‘I am a doctor, I want a
doctor’. They are not marrying individuals. They are marrying the professions. I always say
some marry professions, some marry money. Some marry degrees, some marry beauty.
(interview with Shyam Sahni, marriage bureau; from: Hankeln 2008: 103 f.)
26.5 Elements of a Cultural-Linguistic Analysis
Important case studies on cultural conceptualisations of MARRIAGE against an

explicit theoretical background that is shared by Cultural Linguistics include Quinn
(1987) for the US American and Dunn (2004) for the Asian, more specifically,
Japanese context. A further essential reference point is the work done by Kövecses
(e.g. 1991, 2005) on the conceptualisation of LOVE. We will use the encompassing
term “cultural conceptualisations” in the sense proposed by Sharifian (2011), also
for the sake of internal coherence of the present volume. We will focus on three
cultural conceptualisations and highlight their specific elaborations in the settings
chosen for analysis.
26.5.1 Different Elaborations of the JOURNEY Metaphor
A wealth of studies along the lines of conceptual-metaphor theory attests to the

broad presence of the conceptualisation of HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS in terms of
JOURNEYS. Quinn (1987) finds ample evidence of this conceptualisation for the case
of MARRIAGE in American English. Dunn (2004) presents similar findings for the
Asian context: MARRIAGE IS A JOURNEY was among the three most frequent metaphors
in her corpus of Japanese wedding speeches.
Despite the minimalist nature of the text type ‘contact adverts’, there are several
expressions that are related to the JOURNEY metaphor in our British sub-corpus; e.g.
to embark on; leading to LTR; companion; to tread life’s path; to join my charmed
path in life; sharing life’s journey.28 By contrast, we failed to detect any parallel
expressions in the Indian corpus. This is certainly due to the conventions of the text
type ‘matrimonial’ in the Indian setting (e.g. with respect to style and syntax), and
in the case of matrimonials in newspapers in particular. However, at the deeper
conceptual level, it is also (and foremost) indicative of an elaboration of the JOURNEY
metaphor with regard to MARRIAGE that differs crucially from the one in the Western
context. In the latter, marriage is a rather late phase on the metaphorical journey of a
couple/partnership; it is a commitment to continue a path taken together. In the
Indian context, in the socially accepted view, it is the STARTING POINT of the journey.
The British adverts express expectations and wishes as regards the future life of a
couple, i.e. about a long-term relationship as an institution, with the formal act of
marrying being at best a future option. Indian matrimonials are about establishing
the status of being married, i.e. about marriage as a formal act and fact, and about
determining the conditions of this act. This difference as regards the application of
the JOURNEY metaphor also shows in the variety-specific meaning of the very term
marriage. In Indian English, it is primarily used in the sense of BrE wedding, i.e.
with reference to the formal act of marrying (cf. Nihalani et al. 1979: 119; s.v.
marriage).29
26.5.2 Different Elaborations of the UNITY Metaphor
The situation is similar with respect to elaborations of the UNITY metaphor. The
MARITAL RELATIONSHIP is conceptualised as a UNITY OF PARTS in both settings. However,
in the Western context, only the two partners constitute the conceptual PARTS.
According to this elaboration of the UNITY metaphor, one partner is, as Kövecses
(1991: 82) puts it, “only a ‘half’ that must be complemented by its matching ‘other
half’ to achieve the status of a functioning unit; one half alone is dysfunctional.” The
bond between the two partners is love (see Sect. 26.3.2). A central ingredient of the
Western conceptualisation of IDEAL LOVE, is, furthermore, the belief that there is only
one real love, i.e. “every ‘half’ can only be complemented by a single ‘other half’”
that is hence “irreplaceable” (Kövecses 1991: 82). The following advert from our
British corpus is a perfect illustration of this cultural conceptualisation:
28
THE LIFE OF A COUPLE IS A JOURNEY is obviously intertwined with the general LIFE IS A JOURNEY
metaphor in that it is a JOINT JOURNEY through life.
29
Variety-specific meaning of English lexis is also relevant to the interpretation of the forms used
to refer to grooms and brides in the Indian matrimonials. Among the most common terms are boy
and girl, which, in Indian English, mean ‘unmarried’ in this context (see Carls (fc.): s.v. girl; boy).
(19) Looking out for love as the song goes! Reliable, 51, hoping that I’ll finally
find my Lancelot after years of searching, I’m sure he’s out there, we just
must keep missing each other. Could it be you? (from: The Times, London)
There is a clear manifestation of this one-and-only-love belief at the linguistic
level: The British adverts are always directed at a single addressee (singular form).
In the Indian corpus, the case is markedly different: In 58 of the 300 matrimonials
addressing women plural forms are used (e.g. brides, girls, graduates) as well as in
71 of the 300 adverts directed at men (e.g. grooms, boys, bachelors, professionals).
Furthermore, and in sharp contrast to the British adverts, words like love are absent
from the lexicon of Indian matrimonials. Although the discussion given in
Sect. 26.3 made clear that affection has become an important criterion for partner
selection among the urban Indian middle class, items from the lexical field of love
are sedulously avoided in the matrimonials, certainly in order to preclude any overt
association with the socially inacceptable concept of a ‘love marriage’.
The UNITY metaphor is also of paramount importance to the Indian model. In this
setting, however, it is not only the two individuals in the couple that form the UNITY.
The UNITY crucially includes the families of the couple as well as, potentially, other
groups, e.g. caste. This cultural conceptualisation manifests in the key notion of a
‘suitable match’ (see the discussion in earlier sections). For an adequate interpretation
of this notion it is vital to extend the analysis beyond that “what is said” (i.e. made
explicit) at the linguistic surface to that “what is not said” (i.e. implicit,
taken-for-granted knowledge). The notion of ‘match’ relies heavily on contextual
cultural knowledge and related expectations. Here, a familiar and very useful concept
from cultural anthropology that lends itself for application is Hall’s (1976) distinction
between “low-context” and “high-context” cultures. In a high-context culture such as
India (or, more appropriately, India’s sub-communities), and in a text type such as
‘matrimonial’ that is explicitly directed to in-groups in particular, a very complex
message can be communicated with a few words. Many of the criteria that constitute
the concept of a ‘suitable match’ do not have to be spelled out, as they are common
ground. For instance, “age” is specified in 593 (98.8%) and height in 553 (92.2%) of
the self descriptions in the Indian adverts. However, only few specifications on these
criteria are given in the partner descriptions; there is an implicit consent that the bride
should be smaller and about, say, 4–6 years younger than the groom. In a
high-context culture, elements that are actually mentioned receive a greater weight.
In low-context cultural settings, common ground is thinner and expectations
need to be spelled out explicitly. The British contact adverts perfectly illustrate this
point. However, this argument can also be extended to account for a marked
distinction within the Indian corpus. In several respects, the matrimonials in The
Statesman differ from the rest of the Indian data. For instance, they do not follow
the Indian pattern mentioned above with respect to age, which is also specified in
129 of the 150 partner descriptions from The Statesman. Furthermore, they are far
more explicit on criteria such as profession, family background, education, income,
possessions and community of the partner than the other Indian adverts (see the
Tables 26.1 and 26.2). Arguably, this can be merely due to the length of the
matrimonials; as mentioned in Sect. 26.2, the adverts in The Statesman are twice as
long as those in the other Indian papers. It is, however, also tempting to relate this
greater explicitness to the socio-cultural profile of the readership of this newspaper.
The Hindu and The Milli Gazette have a fairly consistent Hindu and Muslim
readership, respectively. Hence, the adverts can rely on a shared cultural context
and horizon of interpretation. The readership of The Statesman is far more
heterogeneous, which results in a “lower” context and hence the need to spell out
much of the context required for targeted matrimonials. Generally, the body of
taken-for-granted cultural norms, expectations and values is certainly less stable
among the new urban Indian middle class at large. The greater explicitness in The
Statesman can be taken to reflect this development. Furthermore, the matrimonials
in The Statesman also pattern mid-way between the other Indian adverts and the
adverts in the British corpus with respect to the importance granted to the category
“hobbies/interests”, which is indicative of a stronger individualist orientation.
26.5.3 The Conceptualisation of Partner Selection: FINDING

A SPOUSE IS AN APPLICATION PROCEDURE
The search for a partner in general and via a contact advert in particular is inherently
a selection process. In Western adverts, however, this aspect is fully hidden; it is
incompatible with the one-and-only-love ideal. By contrast, in the Indian matri-
monials, the selection aspect is plainly foregrounded and framed by the cultural
conceptualisation FINDING A SPOUSE IS AN APPLICATION PROCEDURE. It manifests, at the
linguistic level, in the frequent use of plural forms for the addressee (grooms, boys,
girls, brides, etc.; cf. Sect. 26.5.2), the presence of lexical material from the
respective field (e.g. apply, required, preferred, write with biodata and photo, send
CV), the use of imperative forms and the emphasis on “hard facts” (income, eco-
nomic status, possessions, etc.). Representative examples include:
(20) SINGAPORE TAMIL Muslim, Handsome/Tall/28/B.Com, Own Business
seeks bride Graduate/Tall/Fair/Beautiful girl age 22–25 from very decent
Tamil Muslim family preferably Chennai/Overseas resident. Apply with
Photo preferred. (from: The Hindu)
(21) SM4 Sunni Syed Girl 30/5′-2″ Wkg in K. V. 22,000 P.M. Only Govt.
Servant need apply.30 (from: The Milli Gazette)
(23) LUCKNOW Based Syed family seeks Prof. Qlfd. girl for B.Tech/MBA Son
26/5′ 8″ Wkg. Delhi MNC. Send CV/Photo. (from: The Milli Gazette)
What is meant by cv, biodata or details is a comprehensive list of family
members (parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles), their marital status, education,
profession and major possessions (land, houses, enterprises, etc.); see Pache Huber
30
SM4 (in this context) = suitable match for; K. V. = Kendriya Vidyalaya.
(2004: 109) for a representative example. Some of these details are also often
included in the matrimonials, especially in The Statesman. This is fully in line with
the Indian proposition schema that MARRIAGE ADVERTS ARE ABOUT COMMUNICATING
AND DETERMINING THE CONDITIONS OF A WEDDING AND INITIATING ITS NEGOTIATION.
26.6 Conclusion
With respect to some familiar notions in cultural anthropology and intercultural

studies (independence—interdependence, individualist—collectivist), the picture
that emerges for our object of inquiry is a fairly conservative one. The traditional,
socio-culturally accepted model of marriage continues to be the dominant reference
point in India. Its criteria are appropriated to the special conditions and needs of the
urban middle class, e.g. with respect to the age of marriage. The bases of other
criteria are redefined, e.g. status in terms of common middle-class background
rather than the traditional caste system, which has lost its categorical rigidity in the
relevant section of Indian society. The prototype of an arranged marriage is shifting
towards a practice with a stronger participation of the future couple. By and large,
however, the overall framework and spirit of the model is preserved: Status,
although partly redefined, is as crucial as ever. Parental consent continues to be of
paramount importance to a socially accepted marriage. Considerations in terms of
stabilising and extending networks have not lost their impact on decisions made in
issues of marriage. And the claim of the couple on a greater participation in the
marriage issue is in itself fully in line with the logics of social hierarchy in the
relevant context; it is a legitimate claim precisely because of the socio-economic
status they have acquired in their family network through education and profes-
sional standing. Hence, the transformations that can be observed in marriage
practices among the Indian urban middle class are not a copy of or convergence
with the Western model as simplistic views of globalisation suggest. Even if the
ongoing trend towards freer choice in mate selection indicates a stronger individ-
ualist stance, for most of the dimensions, the collectivist vector is followed. Here,
we also pointed to the need to extend the analysis beyond that “what is said” at the
linguistic surface to that “what is not said”, i.e. to culturally shared
taken-for-granted knowledge; it is certainly one of the strengths of Cultural
Linguistics that it explicitly addresses this dimension.
This interpretation converges with our findings on salient cultural conceptuali-
sations with respect to MARRIAGE. Conceptual material such as the UNITY and JOURNEY
metaphors for human relationships exists and is organised in culture-specific forms
as a part of a system of conceptualisations that is characteristic of the respective
cultural group, and it needs to be interpreted against this background.
In our chapter, we also highlighted the benefits variationist sociolinguistics, in
particular a cross-varietal perspective along these lines, has to offer for a
Cultural-Linguistic analysis. Varieties of one and the same language firmly rooted
in different cultural settings are an excellent object of studying cultural
conceptualisations since these conceptualisations are expressed with the same lin-
guistic material and can be directly compared (cf. Wolf and Polzenhagen 2009).
A crucial and fruitful notion coming from variationist sociolinguistics in this respect
is ‘contextualisation’. In our analysis, we pointed to some instances of contextu-
alisation in the realm of variety-specific lexis (e.g. the meaning of the item marriage
in Indian and British English respectively); in fact, however, this notion can be
readily extended to include the cultural appropriation of entire text types such as
matrimonial adverts. Cultural Linguistics is equipped with the analytical tools that
give substance to the notion of contextualisation at the various levels.
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Author Biographies
Frank Polzenhagen (Ph.D. 2005, Habilitation 2014) taught English linguistics at

Humboldt-University Berlin and The University of Hong Kong and is currently assistant
professor at Heidelberg University. His work within the frameworks of cultural linguistics and
(cognitive) sociolinguistics focuses on the study of second-language varieties of English. His
publications in this field include Cultural Conceptualisations in West African English (2007) and
World Englishes: A Cognitive Sociolinguistic Approach (2009, with Hans-Georg Wolf). Closely
related, he is working on the lexicographic description of these varieties; he co-edited a dictionary
of Indian English (2017, compiled by U. Carls) and is compiling a dictionary of (West) African
English with colleagues from Berlin and Potsdam.
Sandra Frey completed her M.A. degree in English Philology, Modern South Asian Studies and
Political Science of South Asia at Heidelberg University in 2011 before obtaining her Ph.D. in
linguistics with a thesis on English in India in 2014. She currently works as an editor for a German
publishing house.
Chapter 27
Cultural Linguistics and Ageing: What
Naming Practices in Australian English
Can Reveal About Underlying Cultural
Conceptualisations
Réka Benczes, Kate Burridge, Farzad Sharifian and Keith Allan
27.1 How We Talk About Ageing
People age from the moment they are born; this is a completely natural process. In
Anglo (and many other) communities, despite its naturalness, ageing and the final
period of ageing (old age) have been surrounded by taboo due to the negative
associations that we have about growing old. After all, the end of the ageing process
is death, and even if we live long enough to be old, we have to face some
unpleasant potential consequences of old age, such as loneliness and decrepitude.
These days ageing is disparaged also from the point of view of the burden that old
people place on society at large—a longer life means more exposure to disease and
ill-health and this results in greater encumbrances on relatives and on already
stretched financial and social resources. The question necessarily arises, therefore,
how do we talk about ageing if it is considered to be a sensitive subject? The
common strategy is to use euphemisms.
We wish to thank an anonymous reviewer for the very helpful feedback.
R. Benczes
Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary
e-mail: reka.benczes@uni-corvinus.hu
K. Burridge F. Sharifian (&) K. Allan
e-mail: Farzad.Sharifian@monash.edu
K. Burridge
e-mail: kate.burridge@monash.edu
K. Allan
e-mail: keith.allan@monash.edu

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_27
608 R. Benczes et al.
Very broadly, euphemisms are sweet-sounding, inoffensive alternatives for

expressions that speakers or writers prefer not to use in executing a particular
communicative intention on a given occasion (Allan and Burridge 1991, 2006). In
their primary function, they are characterised by avoidance language and evasive
expression. We create them when we face the problem of how to talk about things
that for one reason or another we would prefer not to speak of unrestrainedly in the
prevailing context. However, there are internal forces at work in language change
that ensure that the majority of euphemisms are doomed to be short-lived. One such
force is semantic pejoration. Over time, words are much more likely to take on
negative overtones than favourable ones (Traugott 1985: 159). Economics has
Gresham’s Law, ‘bad money drives out good’; linguistics has the Allan–Burridge
Law of Semantic Change: ‘bad connotations drive out good ones’ (cf. Allan and
Burridge 2006: 243). Consequently, euphemistic expressions tend to be sullied by
the disagreeable concepts they designate. As the negative associations reassert
themselves and undermine the euphemistic quality of the word, the next generation
of speakers grows up learning the word as the direct term (orthophemism).
Jespersen once described this as ‘the usual destiny of euphemisms’—the ‘innocent
word’ becomes ‘just as objectionable as the word it has ousted and now is rejected
in its turn’ (1905/1962: 230). Hence, taboo areas of the lexicon perpetually generate
narrowing and deterioration of meaning such that there is an ever- rolling lexical
mill (Steven Pinker’s ‘euphemistic treadmill’). As Pinker (2002: 213) remarks,
when a concept that has a negative connotation is given a new name, the concept
tarnishes the name over time; therefore, the effect of the new name wears off rather
quickly, which means that new euphemisms need to be constantly generated. In
other words, the referent essentially remains the same; it is the word form that
changes.
In the case of ‘old age’, the pejoration can be rapid (cf. Burridge 2012). As
society’s prejudiced perceptions foment, the euphemistic value is diluted and the
negative connotations quickly reattach themselves, requiring the formation of a new
euphemism. For instance, senile, ‘belonging to old age’, dates from the 1600s;
Samuel Johnson’s dictionary has entries such as ‘a senile maturity of judgment’.
Nevertheless, the word soon started to deteriorate and now has negative connota-
tions. A further example is geriatrics (‘the branch of medicine/social science
dealing with the health of old people’). The adjective geriatric started life in the
1920s also as an orthophemistic description; though both the adjective and noun
retain a neutral sense within medical jargon, in everyday usage they were already
contemptuous terms by the 1960s.
The word age and its derived forms ageing and aged offer a slightly different
prospect for the duration of a euphemism. Age refers literally to ‘length of life,
27 Cultural Linguistics and Ageing: What Naming Practices … 609
period of existence’.1 When it entered English from French some time during the
14th century, it had already acquired the meaning ‘period of human life’, but had
soon narrowed to ‘the end part of life’. From the beginning of the 18th century, the
term age could refer quite generally to ‘old age’ and ‘senility’ (as a quotation from
the Oxford English Dictionary illustrates: ‘the moroseness and peevishness of age’).
Since the 1400s, aged has referred to the latter part of life, and since the 1800s so
has ageing. The meanings of age, ageing and aged have narrowed but have so far
resisted contamination; in most contexts they are now orthophemistic. In other
words, the direct terms are neither sweet-sounding, evasive, overly polite (euphe-
mistic), nor harsh, blunt, offensive (dysphemistic).2 Like elderly (which has been in
the language since the early 1600s), what they have in common is that they allude
to taboo topics in a very remote way; their association lacks any sort of precision,
and it is perhaps this that allows them to remain unobtrusive and escape the cor-
rosion of expressions such as senile and geriatric. These more durable euphemisms
can remain polite over long periods precisely because they come to offer routine
and unexciting ways of indirectly mentioning taboo topics.3
27.2 The ‘Longevity Revolution’
In the past two decades or so, we have been witnessing a ‘longevity revolution’
(Alexander Kalache’s term, a former Director of the WHO’s Health of the Elderly
programme). According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics,4
• The median age (the age at which half the population is older and half is
younger) of the Australian population has increased by 4.0 years over the past
two decades, from 33.4 years at 30 June 1994 to 37.3 years at 30 June 2014.
1
Adjectives tall and old are neutral in How tall/old are you? However, she’s tall/old refer to the
high end of the scale.
2
Note the neutral-sounding ageing Australians, used in contemporary Australian English to refer
to older adults, which builds on the orthophemistic use of ageing.
3
In other domains, there are also some remarkably successful euphemisms: to sleep with ‘have
sexual intercourse’ has been in use since the tenth century; to lose ‘be deprived (of someone) by
death’ since the twelfth century; pass away/pass since the 14th century, deceased, departed and no
longer with us ‘dead’ since the fifteenth century. McGlone et al. (2006) write about ‘pragmatic
stealth and mindlessness-inducing qualities’ (p. 279), claiming that familiar euphemisms remain
polite over long periods precisely because they come to offer routine and unexciting ways of
indirectly mentioning taboo topics. Yet familiarity effects cannot provide the whole story here,
since expressions have to survive in the first place in order to become routine. And in the case of
euphemism, familiarity normally breeds contempt.
4
Source: http://www.abs.gov.au; accessed 30 June 2015.
• Between 1994 and 2014, the proportion of Australia’s population aged 15–
64 years remained fairly stable, decreasing from 66.6 to 66.5% of the total
population. During the same period, the proportion of people aged 65 years and
over increased from 11.8 to 14.7% and the proportion of people aged 85 years
and over almost doubled from 1.0% of the total population in 1994 to 1.9% in
2014.
• It is projected that over the next 40 years, the proportion of the population over
65 years will almost double to around 25% (Fig. 27.1).
Why are these changes occurring in the population? Researchers often mention
low fertility rates and medical breakthroughs as significant factors. However, a big
part of the ageing picture is the baby boom generation—the statistical ‘pig in the
python’ as it is now described.5 The boomers are now reaching retirement age and
would like to remain active and productive for many more decades. By doing so,
they are reshaping how we think about ageing and old age considerably. In
Kalache’s (2012) words, ‘[n]ever before have we seen a cohort hitting the age of 65
who are so well informed, so wealthy and in such good health … [we] are …
redefining what it means to age. We are witnessing the emergence of a “geronto-
lescence”, a new period of transition’ (emphasis added).
Is there, however, a reconceptualisation taking place in Australia? Davison
(1993) was one of the first researchers to draw attention to the significance of how
ageing and old people were approached within Australian society. Although the
word ageism—‘prejudice or discrimination on the grounds of a person’s age’
(OED)—made its first appearance in 1969 in the Washington Post and thus can be
considered as an Americanism, Davison argued that the concept itself has had its
roots in Australia, too, stretching all the way back to the colonial period. Pointing to
the inevitable ageing of the Australian population, and the inherent ageism of
Australian society, Davison emphasised that ‘[w]hether Australia will grow
gracefully and kindly depends, not only on the brute facts of demography and
economics, but upon how we think about older people, and how we conceptualise
the process of getting older’ (p. 1; our emphasis). In tracing back the roots of
Australian ageism to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he attributed
ageism to the country’s preoccupation with youth and youthfulness, which was
influenced by three main factors: (1) Australia’s association as a ‘youthful’ society;
(2) the introduction of the old age pension (now renamed the ‘age pension’—the
dropping of old from the expression in itself is telling, highlighting the taboo nature
of old age); and (3) changes in religious views.
5
See, for example, the OED’s definition of pig in the python: ‘pig in the python n. (and variants)
fig. (orig. and chiefly U.S.). those people born (esp. in the United States) during the “baby boom”
of the years immediately following the Second World War (1939–1945), considered as a demo-
graphic bulge; (hence) any short-term increase or notably large group, viewed statistically’.
Fig. 27.1 Percentages of age groups in the total Australian population (Source http://archive.
treasury.gov.au; accessed 30 June 2015)
27.2.1 Australia as a ‘Youthful’ Society
Australia—especially colonial Australia—was used to thinking of itself (and being

thought of) as a ‘young society’ (see Fig. 27.2). The use of young was doubly
justified: it contrasted with old in ‘the Old Country’ (as Britain was commonly
referred to),6 and it also foregrounded the high percentage of young people in
society: in the 1850s, at the height of immigration, the proportion of people aged 65
or more was around 1%.7 The immigrants were typically the most mobile of their
generation, and by moving to the new country they had to cut their ties to older
generations (especially grandparents) and the extended family of aunts, uncles,
cousins, etc. Thus, early colonial Australian society was based on nuclear families
consisting of parents and their children, where the latter often grew up not knowing
their grandparents. (And which fact has lead some researchers to think that this lack
of role-models might have been at the root of the Australian negligence towards the
old; Davison 1993: 5).
The conceptualisation of Australia as a youthful person, as depicted in Fig. 27.2,
can thus be attributed to both a conceptual metaphor and a metonymy. Regarding
the former, Australia as a more recently established (‘young’) nation draws on the
personification of states/countries as people, and—accordingly—countries that
6
Cartoons of the era, depicting Britain and the colonies, often showed Britain as an old lioness,
while the colonies—including Australia—were her cubs. Australia was also often depicted as a
child or a young man or woman (Davison 1993: 6).
7
This figure varied greatly from territory to territory: In Victoria, where immigration was the
highest, the percentage of older people was around 0.5, while in more remote areas this figure was
even as low as 0.01 (Davison 1993: 4).
Fig. 27.2 Cartoon depicting

the visit of Prince Albert, the
second oldest son of Queen
Victoria (on the right) to
Australia shown as ‘Miss
Australia’ on the right Punch,
25 January 1868 (Source
http://www.gettyimages.com.
au/detail/news-photo/our-
australian-cousin-1868-this-
cartoon-refers-to-the-visit-
news-photo/463928883;
accessed 25 February 2016)
have had a shorter history are conceptualised as ‘young’, as opposed to countries

that have been established many centuries ago. With regards to the conceptual
metonymy involved in the youthful conceptualisation of Australia, it can be argued
that the contents (in this case, the very high proportion of younger generations)
stands for the container (the country).
It can be thus claimed that the association of Australia with youth was indeed a
powerful one, resting on both conceptual metaphor and metonymy. This under-
standing, however, had a very significant implication: via the PROPERTY FOR
CATEGORY conceptual metonymy, the characteristics associated with youth—in-
cluding both positive ones such as energy, vigour, optimism, etc., as well as neg-
ative properties, such as immaturity, unruliness and disrespect for the elders
(Davison 1993: 6)—became accepted as national traits, and might have served as the
very roots of Australian ageism. These traits eventually solidified, and by the end of
the nineteenth century, the journalist John Stanley James remarked the following on
the ageist tendencies of Australian contemporary society: ‘Neither privately nor
publicly have the Old Folks that consideration shown to them here [in Australia]
which is evidenced in Europe and Great Britain’ (cited in Davison 1993: 6).
27.2.2 The Age Pension System
The proportion of older people in society grew very rapidly, and by the end of the
nineteenth century this figure was around 4% (Davison 1993: 9). At this point,
however, it needs to be clarified who was considered as old in colonial society. As
Davison (1993: 9–10) explains, in the 1840s people above thirty were referred to as
‘old so-and-so’; three decades later entry into old age was around 50–60.8 In the
1890s, the sudden growth in the number of people above the age of 50 was coupled
with a major economic depression, which caused a very serious crisis in aged care.
Many people had tried to save money for their old age by investing in property or
stocks, which became worthless in the wake of the crisis. At the same time, as it
became increasingly difficult to find a job, older workers were the first to be laid off.
When the recession gradually ended in the late 1890s, older people were unable to
regain their (financial and social) independence, which shocked Australian society:
‘The escalating numbers of dependant old people were a scandal and an affront to a
society that had hitherto believed that an independent old age was a goal within the
reach of any moderately industrious and frugal citizen’ (Davison 1993: 13).
Faced with a significant number of dependent, older age people, Australia was
the second in the world—after New Zealand—to introduce an age pension in 1909.9
Thus, the driving force behind the establishment of the age pension system was
neither ‘sentimental [n]or humane’ (Davison 1993: 15), but pragmatic. The pension
was criticised on a number of platforms; from an economic point of view it was said
to place a too large burden on the national budget, while from a
social-psychological perspective it was claimed to undermine filial responsibility
(Davison 1993: 15–20). However varied the objections were, the underlying phi-
losophy behind the pension system was, however, accepted by everyone, and it was
this philosophy that perpetrated ageism in Australia. As Davison explains, ‘[a]t the
heart of the case for the Old Age pensions was the idea that old people deserved
recognition, not on account of their dignity or wisdom or rights as old people, but
as a delayed reward for what they had contributed to their country in their youth. It
thus simultaneously confirmed the moral claim of the old for state support while
reinforcing the belief that it was the young who had most to contribute to the
progress of the nation’ (p. 20–1; emphasis as in original).
8
In a medical manual published in 1909, Philip Muskett considered the start of old age to be 55 for
women and 60–65 for men (Davison 1993: 10).
9
Legislation regulating the introduction of a national age pension was passed in 1908; pensions
were effectively paid a year later (to men over the age of 65; women received pension from age 60
only from 1910). Note that some of the states, such as New South Wales and Victoria, introduced
age pensions much earlier, in 1900, but these schemes were superseded by the national pension
(Australian Bureau of Statistics, http://www.abs.gov.au/; accessed 01 March 2016).
27.2.3 Changing Views of Religion
The third contributing factor to Australian ageism were the changing views people
had about religion, especially in the wake of Darwinism. Prior to the Theory of
Evolution, Australians generally viewed old age as a reward for a virtuous life (as
determined by Christian faith). Darwinism, however, challenged this traditional
view of old age by conceptualising life as a struggle, and old people were the least
well equipped for this struggle. To this we might also add the waning power of the
Church generally and growing secularisation of English-speaking societies like
Australia. Religion provided a reason for living and also for dying; there were the
(incompatible) beliefs that death leads to salvation and future bliss, or alternatively,
that it results from sins committed. Without such religious conviction, however,
death no longer has any metaphysical meaning; and within an increasingly secular
society, this meaninglessness has become a source of anxiety. The fear of a
meaningless death has intensified the taboos surrounding the subject of death, and
to the process leading up to it—that of growing old. Besides, life is very much
better nowadays than it used to be,10 and for most people death no longer comes as
a welcome release. It is hard to view human existence solely as preparation for
death, and to be consoled by the thought of a better future life.
In sum, what can be seen as a general tendency in the factors contributing to
ageism in Australia is a preoccupation with youth and youthfulness. As Davison
(1993: 31) remarks, ‘attitudes to the old are strongly linked to our ideas about the
young, and hence to the nation itself as “young” or “old”’. However, Davison also
claims that the Australia of today is less centred on the ‘virtues of youth’ (ibid.) than
it was more than a century ago. If old in Australia is indeed tied to the conceptu-
alisation of young—(and not the other way round), then a de-emphasis of the latter
might bring about an emphasis of the former.
27.3 The Reconceptualisation of Ageing
In line with Davison’s (1993) proposal that Australia is losing its preoccupation
with youth and youthfulness, our hypothesis is that ageing is undergoing a major
reconceptualisation by speakers of Australian English, and that this process can be
best analysed within a Cultural Linguistics framework of the euphemistic
10
According to the OECD Better Life Index, Australia ranks better than the OECD average in most
of the measures of well-being (such as housing, income, employment, etc.). Source: http://www.
oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/australia/ (accessed 31 March 2016).
(figurative) language used in connection to ageing. Cultural Linguistics has been

especially successful in the description and analysis of cultural conceptualisations
(Sharifian 2011, 2017), and cognitive linguistics has been useful in analysing fig-
urative language use (Benczes 2006a), including euphemisms (e.g. Benczes 2006b;
Gradečak-Erdeljić 2005; Portero 2011). We claim that the reconceptualisation of
ageing manifests itself in Australian English through (1) the emergence of novel
cultural categories; (2) category extension; and (3) the emergence of novel meta-
phors and cultural schemas. The following sections will elaborate on all three of
these phenomena in detail.
27.3.1 Successful Ageing and Healthy Ageing: Novel

Cultural Categories
The year 1987 represents something of a milestone in gerontological literature, as

this was the year when the term successful ageing (Rowe and Kahn 1987) entered
gerontological terminology and entrenched the idea that an ever-increasing number
of older people were leading an active and healthy lifestyle and were still con-
tributing to society.11 However, there has been much disagreement in geronto-
logical literature on what successful ageing implies (see Baltes and Carstensen
1996; Depp et al. 2010; Peel et al. 2005), depending on what aspects (physical,
psychological, social, spiritual, etc.) are being focused on.
In their classic article, Rowe and Kahn (1987) defined successful ageing in
adults primarily as the absence of physical and cognitive disabilities, and the ability
to engage with society and to be productive in their own eyes and the eyes of others.
Yet more recent data, drawing especially on studies based on the incorporation of
older adults, imply that those affected consider subjective qualities, such as emo-
tional well-being and social and community involvement more important than
objective ones, such as physical and mental health (Depp and Jeste 2009; Lamond
et al. 2008). Our preliminary results12 indicate that both objective and subjective
qualities are deemed significant: our respondents mentioned healthy, positive,
happy and involved among the qualities associated with successful ageing.
Successful ageing is, therefore, at odds with the negative judgment on old age,
characterised by dependence on others as a result of the loss of cognitive and
physical abilities.
11
Other expressions, besides successful ageing, have also appeared in English, all of which are in
opposition to the previous focus on ageing-as-decline (e.g. wholesome ageing, active ageing,
graceful ageing, positive ageing, etc.). However, the chapter focuses primarily on successful
ageing, as this is the accepted term in gerontological literature.
12
As part of the research project, we are conducting a survey to find out what concepts Australians
associate with terms such as ageing and successful ageing among others.
Thus, successful ageing has become a novel cultural category, a

subordinate-level category of ageing. There are major implications of this subcat-
egorisation. First, ageing is no longer a general process that affects everybody
similarly. Rather, there are various ways to age, such as successful ageing or
positive ageing (the latter denoting the maintenance of a positive attitude to ageing),
and it is an individual’s choice to decide what ‘type’ of ageing s/he will pursue.
Second, the category of successful ageing evokes a competition frame, where
overcoming the negative effects of ageing is the goal. People who manage to do so
are successful agers. The problem with this conceptualisation is that it also suggests
that those who are not successful in overcoming the negative effects of ageing are
‘losers’ who ‘didn’t try hard enough’ (Horin 2012).13
To what degree, however, is successful ageing lexicalised in Australian English?
Our data suggest that it is not a well-entrenched cultural category. Using a
web-based database of Australian newspapers (http://www.factiva.com), we sear-
ched for the term successful ageing from 1987 to 2014.14 Interestingly, successful
ageing first appeared in our database only in 1992, but remained at a relatively low
frequency, occurring on average twice per year in the investigated period.
This does not mean that Australian English does not have subordinate categories
of ageing. According to our results, Australian English prefers healthy ageing over
successful ageing.15 Although the expression first appeared only in 1994, it had a
yearly average frequency of 8.8 in the period of 1987–2014, which is four times
higher than that of successful ageing. What might be the reason for this preference
of healthy ageing over successful ageing? We believe that the underlying motives
are most probably linked to different cultural schemas. The concept of ‘success’ has
a long tradition in American cultural history (see e.g. Banta 2015); according to the
American myth of success (Weiss 1969), every American has the right to ‘mold his
own life’ (p. 1). The key to reaching one’s goals and being successful is through
13
Note that according to the longest ongoing study of adult development, the Grant Study (or
Harvard Study of Adult Development), which has followed the lives of 724 white American males
for more than seventy years, midlife lifestyle choices are key to ageing happily (that is, suc-
cessfully). Factors such as regular exercise, moderate consumption of alcohol, non-smoking, level
of education and the quality of the marital relationship significantly influence how we age (source:
http://www.hms.harvard.edu/psych/redbook/redbook-family-adult-01.htm; accessed 13 July
2015).
14
Our reason for selecting 1987 as the start date of the corpus search was because this was the year
when Rowe and Kahn (1987) introduced the term successful ageing to denote a particular
(sub)category of older adults. We do not wish to claim here that successful ageing might not have
appeared earlier in the Australian media than 1987.
15
Needless to say, other categories of ageing do exist in Australian English, such as active ageing,
positive ageing or productive ageing. However, healthy ageing had the highest number of
occurrences in our database by far.
self-improvement—the origins of which McGee (2005) traces to the Puritan notion

of ‘calling’ (and the conflation of spiritual and material values that came when the
‘divinely ordained vocation or calling’ shifted to ‘the secular sphere of everyday
work’; p. 26). Success, however, is a less central schema in Australian culture than
it is in the United States, which means that ageing will be less likely conceptualised
within the COMPETITION frame of winners and losers. Although healthy ageing also
emphasises a proactive attitude to ageing via a CAUSE-FOR-EFFECT metonymy such
that by eating healthily, staying fit, etc. we will age healthily, there is nevertheless a
less direct individual responsibility involved as compared to successful ageing.
Responsibility in the case of healthy ageing is distributed more evenly throughout
the whole of society—a notion most probably rooted in the long-standing tradition
of the Australian welfare state.
Supporting this is the enthusiastic take up of the expression third age during the
1980s and 1990s, and the subsequent flourishing of Universities of the Third Age
around Australia. The label emerged from Peter Laslett’s influential book, A Fresh
Map of Life: The Emergence of the Third Age, which addressed the challenges of an
ageing population in the world’s developed countries. Laslett’s point was that
medical, social and economic changes had created a new ‘third age’ (first
age = immaturity and dependence; second age = maturity and independence; third
age = personal fulfilment; fourth age = final dependence and death). The expres-
sion still connotes activity, vigour, freedom, control and achievement. Given that
most people are unfamiliar with Laslett’s work and the four ages, the ‘third age’ has
come to stand for ‘old age’, with ‘youth’ and ‘middle age’ being the two other ages.
(It is of course no longer clear where middle age falls. Is it 35, 40, 50, or older?
Age-related terms shift around, much like the labels for those body parts speakers
prefer not label—the taboos surrounding old age create the same instability.)
27.3.2 Older Australians: An Example of Category

Extension
An example of category extension is the euphemistic expression older Australians,

which was coined most likely to replace the worn-down seniors. The label seniors
is still used in Australian official contexts for the 50+; for example, the Australian
government’s official website for Australians over 50 is http://www.seniors.gov.au;
but there is hardly any use of the word seniors on the website of Australia’s
foremost governmental agency dedicated to the 50+. The Council on the Ageing’s
(COTA) website (http://www.cota.org.au) prefers to use either older Australians
and people over 50 instead. In the media, there is also an increasing preference for
older Australians.16 Even though the token frequency of seniors is distinctively

higher in the period of 1987–2014 as opposed to older Australians (see Figs. 27.3
and 27.4), with nearly twice as much tokens, the average annual growth rate of
seniors is only 17%, as compared to that of older Australians, which is 41%.
Both seniors and older Australians describe a subcategory of people, yet why is
the latter nowadays more favoured than the former? We believe that this preference
for older Australians can be attributed to a number of semantic properties. First,
seniors and older Australians differ in the number of features they contain: while
older Australian focuses on a single feature (ageing), seniors includes a number of
features associated with old age (including physical, mental and social aspects),
which are not necessarily positive. In other words, older Australians singles out
Australians only along the dimension of age, while seniors represents an entrenched
category characterised by additional features.
Second, older Australians (as a comparative construction with a missing con-
clusion) blurs the entry age of ‘senior citizenship’ by overgeneralisation, which is
achieved via a WHOLE-FOR-PART metonymy. Ageing can be considered as a scale,
which corresponds to the whole. In this respect, everybody is an older Australian
on the ageing scale, yet we use this generic concept to refer to the end part of the
scale, ‘old Australians’.17 By doing so, the category of ‘old Australians’ becomes
included in the far more general and larger category of ‘older Australians’, which
can be used to refer to anybody who is past the period of full employment and the
responsibilities of parenting. What is happening here, therefore, is that the
boundaries of the original category of ‘old people’ have become substantially
extended.
This boundary extension can also be accounted for by a blend-based analysis
(see Radden and Dirven 2007: 147–148 for a blend-based analysis of scalar and
complementary adjectives). As explained by Langacker (1987), premodification is a
valence relation of correspondence, i.e. a composite structure where the component
structures share certain features. Scalar adjectives such as old require the existence
of an implied norm to which the figure is matched against—somebody who is old
falls beyond this implied norm (see Allan 1986, 2001: 262f). However, the com-
parative suffix in older Australians implies that there is no fixed norm to which the
figure is matched against. Consider the following sentence: ‘Jack is older than Jill’.
Here, the blend can be analysed as a mirror network (Fauconnier and Turner 2002),
16
Note that old Australians is typically used to refer to English-speaking people who were born in
Australia (and usually have an Anglo-Saxon background). It is very rarely used in the sense of
‘elderly Australians’: in the Factiva database we found only 5 such instances (and two of these
appeared in headlines, which could have been a rational decision to economise on the longer older
Australians).
17
Note that at face value there is nothing strange about older used this way. This is, after all,
possible with many comparatives: E.g. Taller men are in general more successful than shorter
men; Poorer people are more likely to be undernourished than richer/more affluent people, etc.
However, older Australians is euphemistic, while taller, shorter, poorer, richer, etc., are not: an
older Australian is not as old as an old Australian.
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013
Fig. 27.3 Number of tokens of seniors in major Australian newspapers, per year, 1987–2014
(Source own compilation. The figures come from an online database of searchable, indexed
newspapers, http://www.factiva.com; accessed 03 July 2015)
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013
Fig. 27.4 Number of tokens of older Australians in major Australian newspapers, per year, 1987–
2014 (Source own compilation. The figures come from an online database of searchable, indexed
newspapers, http://www.factiva.com; accessed 03 July 2015)
where one mental space includes a scale on which Jack’s age is located somewhere.
In the other mental space, we have the same scale, with Jill’s age located some-
where lower than Jack’s age in the previous mental space. In the blend the two
scales are projected onto one another and Jack’s age falls higher than Jill’s; hence
we can say that ‘Jack is older than Jill’.
However, in the case of older Australians, the situation is different. We have a
simplex network (Fauconnier and Turner 2002), where one mental space contains a
general scale of human lifespan. In the other mental space we have a group of
individuals—Jack, Jill, etc. In the blend, the elements (Jack, Jill) correspond to
various ages on the human lifescale. Accordingly, Jack corresponds to the
90-year-old mark on the scale, Jill to the 80-year-old mark, etc. In the blend we
have a group of people whose age is understood in relation to one another’s—thus,
Jack will be an ‘older Australian’ as compared to an 80-year-old Jill, who will also
be an older Australian as compared to a 70- or 60-year-old. Importantly, the scale is

open on both ends: a 100-year-old can just as well be an ‘older Australian’ as a
60-year-old who has just retired from full employment.
This open-endedness on the lower end of the scale has a very significant
implication: there are no strict boundaries any longer between middle agers and
older Australians—the latter are therefore becoming increasingly similar to the
former. Coinages such as grey nomads (‘someone who is 55 or older and is taking a
long term camping trip around Australia’),18 which is based on a defining property
for category metonymy, whereby the distinguishing grey colour that is typical of an
older adult’s hair stands for the whole category of older adults, or silver surfers
(‘term widely used in the UK, Australia and some other English-speaking countries
to describe people who are aged over 50 and who use the internet on a frequent
basis’),19 also based on a defining property for category metonymy as grey nomads
(silver hair for person), as well as perhaps a vacation metaphor (surfing being
associated with a leisure- or vacation-time activity), testify to the fact that a growing
number of older Australians are remaining active members of society.
27.3.3 Novel Metaphors and Cultural Schemas
We investigated the naming practices of aged care facilities in Melbourne, by

comparing the naming strategies of 2013 with those of 1987 (Benczes and Burridge
2015). The justification for the selection of 1987 as the base is twofold: (1) this was
the year when (1987) introduced the concept of ‘successful ageing’ in geronto-
logical literature; (2) a 25-year span is adequately long to investigate subtle changes
in naming customs within such a euphemistic area as ageing. The 1987 data come
from the Melbourne Yellow Pages of that year, from the sections listed under
‘Nursing Homes’ and ‘Retirement Communities and Homes’. There was no sepa-
rate ‘Aged Care’ section in the volume. It was hypothesised that the 2013 sample
would show a much greater degree of euphemistic usage as compared to the 1987
data by using a wider array and a larger proportion of appealing names.
The data did indeed justify the hypothesis. Regarding the 2013 sample, there
was a wide selection of names that typically centred on either the FAMILY metaphor,
which conceptualised the facility as an upper class family home, as in the case of
manor, hall, or gardens (e.g. Trinity Manor, Broughton Hall, Kew Gardens), or the
VACATION metaphor, which viewed the facility as a holiday resort, as in the case of
lodge, view, or villa (e.g. Edwards Lodge, Princeton View, Villa Franca)—or even
used Mediterranean-sounding names for achieving the same effect (e.g. Casa
Serena, Embracia). Such names evoke a luxurious, holiday lifestyle, that
18
Source: http://www.greynomadsaustralia.com; accessed 16 July 2015.
19
Source: Wikipedia (accessed 16 July 2015). Note that silver surfers is not an Australian coinage,
but is widely used in Australia.
evoke—due to their phonological similarity to English words—positive concepts such

as ‘serenity’ (in the case of Casa Serena) and ‘embrace’ (as in the case of Embracia).
These two conceptualisations cater to essentially two different needs or
requirements when it comes to an aged care facility. The FAMILY metaphor
emphasises community and permanence, while the VACATION metaphor stresses
individuality and transience. Importantly, these metaphors were mostly missing in
the 1987 data, where the vast majority of the facilities (82%) were nursing homes
(e.g. Woodleigh Nursing Home). At this time home would have been euphemistic
(bringing to mind the comfort of a permanent place shared by family), but these
days what comes to mind are ill or incapacitated people in a hospitalised setting,
thus evoking the HOSPITAL frame. Within this frame, the aged are conceptualised as
invalids, who need constant care.20 Thus, contemporary naming strategies of aged
care facilities in Australian English reflect evolving cultural schemas surrounding
ageing. Ageing is no longer conceptualised as dependence and decline; rather, what
the FAMILY and VACATION metaphors underline is that ageing—and old age in par-
ticular—is increasingly viewed as a period of independence, self-fulfilment and
social engagement.
27.4 Conclusions
It has been our underlying hypothesis that ageing is currently undergoing a major
reconceptualisation in Australian English, and that Cultural Linguistics provides a
promising and useful framework for the analysis of this process. Through the
investigation of the euphemistic (figurative) language used in connection to ageing,
we have found that this reconceptualisation manifests itself in three major forms:
(1) the emergence of novel cultural categories; (2) category extension; and (3) the
emergence of novel metaphors and cultural schemas.
Regarding novel cultural categories, we looked at the entrenchment of successful
ageing as compared to healthy ageing in Australian English, and according to the
data the latter is significantly more entrenched than the former. This difference
might be explained by differences in cultural schemas: Australian English attaches
less importance to success and competition than American English does.
Furthermore, healthy ageing implies that the responsibility for one’s health (and
thus indirectly the way one ages) is not carried entirely by the individual but also by
others in the community—so the preference might be rooted in Australia’s
long-standing tradition of welfare policies.
As for category extension, we analysed the expression older Australians, which
is manifesting very dynamic growth rates in the media as compared to the longer
20
The prevalence for nursing home in the 1987 data can be explained by the fact that prior to the
1997 Aged Care Act, nursing home was the generally used term for a live-in facility. It is rather its
disappearance from use in the 2013 data that is noteworthy—signalling that in the past three
decades nursing home has become a tarnished name.
established seniors. The analysis of the expression has demonstrated that older
Australians leaves the lower end of the human lifescale open, thus blurring the
entry point of ‘old age’.
Novel metaphors can be observed in the naming practices of aged care facilities
of the Melbourne region. In the 2013 sample, we found an abundance of names
evoking either the FAMILY metaphor or the VACATION metaphor. These two con-
ceptualisations push the negative associations of old age (such as decrepitude,
dependence and loneliness) into the background by focusing on the traits that are
associated with healthy and successful ageing—such as emotional well-being,
active lifestyle, and social and community involvement.
There is undoubtedly a change taking place in how people speak and think about
ageing in Australian English. Negative associations are being replaced by more
positive concepts such as independence and personal fulfilment. Accordingly, it is
possible that the current expressions and euphemisms that we use to talk about
ageing (including healthy ageing and older Australians among others) are not just
by-products of the euphemistic mill and will eventually be tarnished by the concept
(and thus need replacement), but do in fact change for the better how we think about
ageing. Therefore, euphemistic usage might eventually become orthophemistic
eradicating in the process many of the taboo associations of old age and ageing.
Acknowledgements The project reported in this chapter was supported under Australian
Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme (project number DP140102058).
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Author Biographies
Réka Benczes is Associate Professor at the Institute of Behavioural Sciences and Communication
Theory, Corvinus University of Budapest, and is also an Affiliate at the School of Languages,
Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University, Melbourne. She is the author of Creative
Compounding in English (2006; John Benjamins) and dozens of articles on lexical creativity and
cognitive word-formation. She also edited Defining Metonymy in Cognitive Linguistics (2011;
John Benjamins) with Antonio Barcelona and Francesco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez and
Wrestling with Words and Meanings: Essays in Honour of Keith Allan (2014; Monash University
Publishing) with Kate Burridge.
Kate Burridge is Professor of Linguistics in the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics
(Monash University) and a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Kate has
authored/edited more than 20 books on different aspects of language, focusing on grammatical
change in Germanic languages, the Pennsylvania German spoken by Anabaptist communities in

North America, the notion of linguistic taboo and the structure and history of English. She is a
regular presenter of language segments on radio, has been a panellist on ABC TV’s Can We Help,
and has given a TED Talk “Telling it like it isn’t”.
Language (John Benjamins, 2011), Cultural Linguistics (John Benjamins, 2017), the founding
Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Language and Culture (IJoLC) [John Benjamins]
and the founding Editor of Cultural Linguistics book series [Springer].
Keith Allan MLitt, PhD (Edinburgh), FAHA, is Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at Monash
University and Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Queensland. His research
interests focus mainly on aspects of meaning in language, with a secondary interest in the history
and philosophy of linguistics. He has published 12 books and made scores of contributions to
scholarly books and journals; for details see http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/keith-allan.
Chapter 28
Terms of Adoption: Cultural Conceptual
Factors Underlying the Adoption
of English for Aboriginal Communication
Ian G. Malcolm
28.1 Introduction
It is not possible to give an adequate account of Aboriginal English by describing it

as a phenomenon which is merely linguistic. It is the product of a speech com-
munity and that speech community exists as part of a culture. The language serves
its speakers as a means of representing and handling reality, and the view of reality
that informs the culture informs, and continually re-forms, its linguistic represen-
tation. The emergence of the field of Cultural Linguistics (Sharifian 2011) provides
a theoretical framework which makes it possible to analyse language and culture as
jointly providing evidence of common cultural conceptualisations.
The application of cultural and cognitive linguistics to the study of Aboriginal
English since the late 1990s (e.g. Malcolm et al. 1999a; Malcolm 2002a, b, 2007;
Malcolm and Sharifian 2002; Sharifian 2002, 2007, 2011) has been particularly
fruitful, enabling the dialect to be seen in a wider cultural perspective and making
clearer the cognitive dimensions of the nativisation that has taken place as its
speech community has made the English language its own.
In this chapter some of the conceptual categories of cultural linguistics are
introduced and illustrated with respect to Aboriginal English and a number of key
cultural conceptualisations which have significantly affected the development of
Aboriginal English are put forward.
This chapter is a modified version of Chap. 6 of the author’s monograph Australian Aboriginal
English: Change and Continuity in an Adopted Language, currently under publication in the
Dialects of English series by Mouton de Gruyter. The publishers’ willingness to enable its
publication in the present volume is greatly appreciated.
I.G. Malcolm (&)

Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia
e-mail: I.Malcolm@ecu.edu.au

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_28
626 I.G. Malcolm
28.2 Approaching Cultural Conceptualisations
Sharifian (2011) has developed and applied (e.g., Sharifian and Palmer 2007) a
theoretical and an analytical framework for Cultural Linguistics. He stresses that the
focus needs to be not on culture as such but on conceptualisation, which can be
approached by looking at the ways in which speakers categorise the entities they
talk about, and the ways in which they use schemas, or “mental pictures or tem-
plates … to organise or package [their] view of the world” (Sharifian, in
Königsberg and Collard 2002: 35). A third element of analysis is metaphor or
metonymy, whereby speakers draw on elements of one domain to help in the
conceptualisation of another.
28.2.1 Categories
In order to talk about the reality they experience, speakers are dependent on ways of
reducing it to identifiable and recoverable units. That is, we learn, through lan-
guage, to categorise everything so that it may be communicable. The categories we
use, as Palmer (1996: 78) put it, often divide things into groups which have “family
resemblances among members rather than discrete boundaries with precisely
defined membership”, so that, for example we might sometimes not be sure as to
whether to call what we are looking at a ‘tree’ or a ‘bush’. Hatch and Brown (1995:
52) report on experiments in which Americans were given a limited time to give the
best example of a given category. In the case of ‘bird’ there was strong agreement
that it was a ‘robin’, whereas ‘penguin’ had borderline status. In this case, it could
be said that, for the people tested, the robin was the prototypic bird. Prototypes may
vary from place to place and from culture to culture.
Investigation of prototypes among Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal informants in
the south-west of Australia (reported in Malcolm et al. 1999a) showed, in some
items, cross-group contrasts. A notable case was the prototypic bird, which, for
Aboriginal (but not non-Aboriginal) informants was almost unanimously the crow.
Following up this finding it was found that, for a number of Aboriginal informants
the crow had totemic associations.
Other contrasting prototypes across the two groups included the following
(Malcolm et al. 1999a: 45):
28 Terms of Adoption: Cultural Conceptual Factors … 627
Item Aboriginal prototype Non-aboriginal prototype

A Outdoor event involving the Indoor sit-down meal with potatoes, gravy
roast cooking of meat (preferably and peas
kangaroo) in a fire
A A tale based on experience, passed A tale based on imagination and found in a
story on as an interactional event book
Supper The evening meal at home, also A snack before bed time
known as a feed
Picnic A large gathering involving the Family/friends in the open eating food
outdoor cooking of food prepared beforehand (cooking not
necessarily involved)
Categories may also be explored by means of associative networks, where

speakers from different groups are invited, in a limited time, to list the words which
come to mind in response to a verbal stimulus. It was found in the south-west of
Australia (Malcolm et al. 1999a: 45) that the word kangaroo was strongly asso-
ciated by the Aboriginal informants with cooking, eating and hunting, whereas for
non-Aboriginal informants none of these associations applied, but it was thought of
in terms of its emblematic significance and its physical characteristics.
Sharifian (2002) employed an association-interpretation technique to investigate
the associations carried by 32 lexical items among groups of Aboriginal and
non-Aboriginal students in Perth schools. His findings (reported in brief in Sharifian
2011, Chap. 5) showed significantly different associations across the two groups
with respect to such items as shame, which, to Aboriginal informants, evoked the
sense of being singled out from the group, while to non-Aboriginal informants, it
evoked guilt or disappointment, home, which to Aboriginal informants evoked
family members and family obligations, whereas to non-Aboriginal informants it
evoked a place of residence, and family, which to Aboriginal informants evoked the
extended family, whereas to non-Aboriginal informants it evoked the nuclear
family. It seems clear that Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people even living in a
common location and participating in the same macro-culture, may maintain dis-
tinctive ways of looking at the world which are embedded in the ways in which they
categorise the elements of everyday life.
Underlying language and language use are folk ontologies that “define the
essential nature of things for each culture” (Palmer 1996: 8). Thus, for example,
where standard English speakers are generally comfortable in using such nouns as
smoke, track, glasses, cow and cold, Aboriginal English speakers tend to relate
them to higher categories, as in fire smoke, foot track, eye glass, cattle cow
(Malcolm 2011: 268) and coldsick (Crugnale 1995: 8). In some cases different
categorisations are obvious, as when Aboriginal speakers in Groote Eylandt are able
to say Good fish, that wallaby, where fish conveys what meat would in Australian
628 I.G. Malcolm
English, or Is the watermelon cooked? where cooked and ripe are seen as equivalent
terms (Harris 1978). Further, it is possible in Groote Eylandt to say of a man He’s a
big man—very long, eh? showing that length, which in standard English relates to
the horizontal dimension, can be used to depict the vertical, and it is possible to use
hope with the same sense as SAE expect in such a statement as When the storm
came I hoped to die (Harris 1978).
28.2.2 Schemas
Schemas are “mental pictures or templates that we use in order to organise or

package our view of the world” (Sharifian, in Königsberg and Collard 2002: 35).
Chafe (1994: 9) has argued: “…there is at bottom only one way to understand
something, whether it is some everyday experience or the nature of the universe.
Understanding is the ability to relate a particular spatiotemporally limited obser-
vation to a more encompassing and more stable imagined schema, within which the
observation has a natural place”. More specifically, schemas are entailed in the
conceptualisation of events, roles, behaviour and objects, and in formulating
expectations and telling and interpreting stories.
As Palmer (1996: 66) has pointed out, “[a] word must be defined relative to its
schema. For example, while ground and land may be used to describe a piece of dry
earth, ground belongs to a vertical schema that divides sky from ground, whereas
land belongs to a horizontal schema that divides land from sea.” There are dif-
ferences in ‘orientational image-schemas’ (Palmer 1996: 292) which show in the
differences between standard English on the ground and Aboriginal English on top
of the ground, with the latter, but not the former, entailing inclusion of a subter-
ranean dimension, and in the way in which Aboriginal English speakers will climb
up to a hill where standard English speakers will climb [up] a hill. Another
Aboriginal English schema implies a sense of territoriality around a location, so that
the land immediately around a site is seen as relevant to that site. This leads to such
an expression as the following:
we always…from school…there we play marbles most times,
where from implies not at the school but in its vicinity. This is referred to in
Malcolm et al. (1999a: 47) as a proximity schema.
The schema for the human body underlying some varieties of Aboriginal English
does not entail a difference between head and neck or between hand and arm,
leading to the possibility in Aboriginal English, but not standard English, of
referring to a broken hand.
The schema associated with human activity often has an added dimension
entailing the use of serial verbs, the first being go, as in such expressions as:
They was goin singing (Malcolm 2013: 274)

Me and Jody been go and getting grapes
I wanna go see em (Koch 2000: 50).
This, as a feature of morphosyntax, has been referred to with Koch’s term
associated motion. Koch sees in this a continuity with Central Australian languages,
in which the associated motion may be prior to, concurrent with or immediately
subsequent to the main activity expressed by the verb. Koch (2000: 52) has shown
that the accompanying verb in Central Australian Aboriginal English (usually go,
but sometimes come or go back) may perform a function carried by the verb
morphology in Kaytetye. From a cultural linguistic perspective we could see this as
an example of the restructuring of English to enable it to carry a cultural concep-
tualisation which had been given different expression by means of the mor-
phosyntactic system of another language.
Cultural conceptualisations, as Sharifian (2007: 182) has noted, are largely
derived from the cultural experience of the users of the language. It follows that the
past and present communal experience of members of cultural group will be
reflected in the schemas they use.
In the case of past experience, the semantic extension whereby the terms take
away, as in We all got taken away [i.e. removed from parents by government] in
1961, nine of us (Königsberg and Collard 2002: 53) and take over, as in when they
took me over [i.e. when relatives moved me to a less accessible location] out in the
bush (Königsberg and Collard 2002: 83) derive their meaning from a schema in the
collective memory of the group with recollection of the ‘stolen generation’ expe-
rience. The retention of such terms as boss, for positive endorsement, flog, for
‘beat’, make im jump, for ‘frighten him into doing something’ and gammon, for
falsehood or nonsense, may also relate to schemas from the colonial experience.
In the cases of semantic shift such as the use of business to refer to ceremonial
obligations, language to mean Aboriginal language, man to mean an initiated male,
fire to mean ‘match’ clever to mean ‘spiritually powerful’ and sing in the sense of
ritual incantation, the conceptualisations relate to schemas relevant to the con-
temporary life of the Aboriginal speech community.
Schemas, or ‘discourse scenarios’ (Palmer 1996: 170) are also relevant to the
ways in which speech events are conducted and interpreted. An Aboriginal member
of the academic staff of an Australian university, discussing conversation within her
community, commented:
…interacting in my family often involves a lot of talking at once. In standard English that’s
actually seen as being really quite rude and we tend not to talk over people. And you
certainly don’t get five people…all talking at once, often having two or three different
conversations going, and as a participant you’re involved in all of those conversations
happening at one time. I mean everyone’s talking at once. (Collard et al. 2000: 92).
630 I.G. Malcolm
The speech event is schematised differently in the two contexts being referred to
here. In one, it is, as it were, multi-track and in the other, single-track. The
assumption that it is legitimate to ‘talk over’ people can, of course, lead to mis-
communication in cross-cultural contexts.
The schema associated with co-participation in an event is different across
cultures. It is normal in non-Aboriginal society, for a person to wait to be invited to
co-participate when informed by someone of what they are doing. By contrast, in
Aboriginal society, the fact of being informed implies the invitation to
co-participate. Thus, an Aboriginal person could feel rebuffed by a non-Aboriginal
friend who consistently fails to turn up when the Aboriginal person informs them of
where they are going. Such a situation is acted out by Aboriginal actors in the DVD
accompanying Königsberg and Collard (2002: 32).
It is clear that Aboriginal people often tend to ‘read’ the event schema as a whole
rather than depending on explicit linguistic cues. This is made apparent in the
following extract from a conversation between two Aboriginal Education Workers:
Tanya: When a person, like Aboriginal person, says something, they just say it, like ‘I’m
going to the shop.’ And a white person says, ‘Well, why’re you goin’ to the shop?, Oh,
well, what are you gonna buy?’ Like, if I said, ‘yeah, I’m goina go shop,’ then you don’t
have to ask me what I’m goina do – you – ‘oh I just goin to shop,’ but if someone else, like
they wanna.. get into more detail, that sort of example… or, ‘we goin’ t’ Perth,’ like How
you gointa Perth’ or, you know – wanna know everything! (from Hill 2002: 100).
Below is a reproduction of the words of a member of an Aboriginal speech

community in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, Victor Hunter, recreating
what he saw as a typical speech event in his community, where an Aboriginal,
returning from a hunt, with a large goanna (barney) tied up on the back of his truck,
pulls up outside the house of some friends:
“Hello what you bloke comin for?
When you see bloke pull up with motorcar
you bloke rush out now.”
“But well you pull up in front of our house, eh,”
they tell-im.
“What you got now?
Where you been?
You been out bush again?”
E tell-im:
“Ah yeah, I just bin get-im one barney from out dere.
I bin catch-im and in that part near Millers’ Pool there.”
E said “I chase it up the tree and
I bin- we bin throw-im rocks and everything
till I wop-im on the head
and he fall down
and I bin just pick-im up

and tie-im up with rope
and bring-im back here for you people.
I can feel-im ‘is tail part
‘e little-bit fat one.
But if you bloke reckon it’s all right,
well you can have it,
but if you don’t want it
I’ll take it to them nother fellas at the nother camp.”
“Course we want-im barney,”
they telling-im.
“Because we never had barney for long time now.
Only people only been eating only kangaroo, skinny one.”
Embedded in the schema here are a number of assumptions:

• the interaction begins when the visitor’s presence is acknowledged by those at
whose territory he has stopped
• the initial greeting relates to where the visitor has come from
• an information-seeking question is accompanied by a suggested answer (You
been out bush again?)
• the visitor interacts with the group, rather than individuals
• the report on the hunt includes detail on the place and manner of capture
• the hunt is related as a corporate event
• the results of the hunt are offered to the group, or to the next group.
In this case, the event schema has to some extent incorporated a story schema, or
scenario, in that the event entails a report on the hunt, bringing out the key elements
of observation, pursuit and repeated attempts at making a kill.
In oral narrative, the genre used by the narrator depicts experience in a recog-
nisable way. From the perspective of Cultural Linguistics, each genre is associated
with a story schema or scenario. Schemas “are related to genres in that a genre is a
discoursal form deriving, at least in part from …a mental or conceptual schema”
(Malcolm and Rochecouste 2000: 265). In investigations carried out in the
south-west of Western Australia (Malcolm 2002; Rochecouste and Malcolm 2003),
208 Aboriginal school students, invited to relate oral narratives, framed what they
had to say in accordance with 24 different schemas, showing that they could draw
on a wide range of narrative schema options in expressing themselves. However, it
was clear that, overall, they showed a clear preference for five schemas, one or other
of which was adopted 68% of the time. These were: TRAVEL, HUNTING, OBSERVING,
‘SCARY THINGS’ and FAMILY. We shall restrict our focus to these after commenting
briefly on some of the discourse features which are common to many schemas.
632 I.G. Malcolm
Indigenous Australians are heirs to significant traditions in oral narrative.

Extending our analysis to that of narratives from across Australia, both in
Aboriginal English and in translation (Malcolm 2009, 2014) it is possible to
characterise some of the main distinctive features of their manner of narration by
means of four terms:
1. Situated
Oral narratives tend to be situated in that they are often introduced with a time
and/or place orientation, as in:
Early this year um we keep finding our door open at night time…
When we was down Geraldton, we went to the beach and fishing…
Last week our family…we go rabbiting…
This story’s about when I was up at Roper River in the Northern Territory…
The situated nature of oral narratives reinforces the perception that they are not
invented but relating to real life.
2. Dramatic
Aboriginal oral narratives tend to downgrade the role of the narrator and let the
characters speak for themselves. In the course of narration, without introduction,
in a practice I have called ‘direct speech switching’, a character will speak, often
followed, again without introduction, by the utterance of another character. Such
a practice has been observed by Palmer (1996: 184) in other cultures. He sees
the use of direct quotation as “a narrative device for activating subjective
schemas in listeners’ imaginations.” Aboriginal oral narrative may be essentially
‘dialogue-driven’ (Malcolm 2014: 575) rather than narrated. Sometimes what is
quoted is not so much what is said as what is thought by the character. Some of
these points are exemplified in the opening lines of the narrative A Day in the
Park (Collard 2011: 3):
Look out you fullahs…the demons [police] cruisin round this way.
Aaay, they mighte lookin for Johnny an em, unna.
Yeah you watch, yep, they gunna pull up right next to us ere.
I’m off you girls…meet yous at the big crates.
3. Inclusive
The perspective in Aboriginal oral narrative is less focused than in typical
standard English narration. It is as if the schema within which the narrator
envisages the action occurring includes other detail which will not be taken up
in the narrative, but which needs to be recorded as well. The following is an
account by a boy of a fishing trip, but there is considerable attention to what
might be seen as ‘irrelevant’ detail about contextual issues:
I went fishing with my dad at … One Arm Point an we went with some of our cousins…
and Joe and Shane and my Uncle Jack and my Aunty Laura.. wid my sisters… my
sisters came too an my two brothers.. an my stepmum… me and my big boy cousins, me
an Brian, we were doing backflip off of the .. sand-dunes but I just did one an den I
asked im to flip me back – when e flipped me.. I landed in the water cause we were
playing next to the water.. and.. when.. when I was.. when we ad to go fishing.. my dad
pulled out the drag net wid my Uncle Jack… and we caught about seven sharks…
(Malcolm et al. 1999a: 47).
It is important, in the Aboriginal perspective, to include detail on the
co-participants in the event and on the nature of the context. This is not just a
story; it is an account of life experience.
4. Interactive
Oral narrative, in keeping with the group-orientation of Aboriginal society, is a
group event. More than one person may participate in the narration, if it relates
to a shared experience. Even if there is only one narrator, there can be frequent
invitation to the audience to confirm what is being said, by the use of tags such
as eh, ini or you know:
I nearly fell over, eh!
…we ‘as cookin’ dis um lizard, you know?
…da’s a orrible picture, ini?
Group alternation may also be shown in the occurrence of affiliative tagging, as
in:
I dived on one, boy.
Interactive discourse markers may be used to direct the hearer’s attention to
points of progression or reflection in the narrative, as in:
Now, at the station…
Dad, well, e seen this dingo…
Since the progression of the narrative may not be linear, the narrator may often
need to inform the listener of background information which is relevant to the
understanding of what happens. For this, cos is used as an explanatory or
misplacement marker:
E tried ta jump this fence,
cos he was runnin from the police.
The schema of narrative in Aboriginal English includes providing indication to
the hearer when the narration has concluded and the turn may be passed on to
another speaker. Thus, narratives often conclude with such discourse markers
as:
That’s all
Finish.
More particularly, specific narrative schemas will incorporate image schemas
and schematic associations the recognition of which is essential to the full
understanding of what is being communicated. We shall illustrate this briefly in
regard to the five narrative schemas we have referred to.
TRAVEL cultural schema
The TRAVEL schema represents experience in terms of ongoing movement
between successive stopping places. As such, it sees contemporary experience as
634 I.G. Malcolm
replicating that of the creative beings of the Dreamtime, who moved from location
to location, leaving behind natural features as evidence of their activity. It also, of
course, reflects the nomadic life of traditional Aboriginal people, of which Edwards
(1988: 93) has noted:
Life in traditional Aboriginal societies was lived in constant touch with the ground. It
revolved around two axes expressed by the Pitjantjatjara words, nyinantja = sitting and
ankuntja = going. One sphere involved sitting or lying on the ground in a camp and
engaging in the activities of camp life such as resting, talking, cooking and eating. The
other sphere involved movement over the ground for purposes such as hunting and gath-
ering, ritual and transit from one camp to another.
The TRAVEL schema, then, provides a default pattern (which I have referred to
elsewhere as ‘tracking’) for the representation not only of life as a whole, but also of
everyday experience. Thus, it may be used in the depiction of travel, but also to put
other experience into a moving and stopping framework. The following account of
a swimming outing, by a twelve year old girl from the Goldfields region of Western
Australia (also recorded in Malcolm 1994a, b: 303), reports the experience in terms
of three moving and three stopping episodes:
At Tarmoola
when we went swimming
well, Leanne was the leader and all us kids was biggest to the littlest.
We was making little tracks,
and we was running round in the bushes
and we was going along
and we made a camp at this windmill place
and then I said to Leanne, ‘You be one leader and I’ll be another.’
We picked teams.
And Leanne went around another way
and I went round… and went around…
Others went around another place.
And we met at the place where we ‘as swimming
and we stayed there.
And we went up to another place.
And we come back again.
And we –some of the kids- jumped in the water and swimming around.
The image schemas of moving and stopping are represented both in the word
choice and in the intonation. Key moving expressions (e.g. going along, went
round, went up to another place) are spoken with vowel lengthening and elevated
pitch, in contrast to the short vowels and falling intonation of key stopping
expressions (e.g. camp, met, come back). Just to hear the appropriate term with the
appropriate intonation would be sufficient to evoke the whole schema in the mind of
a listener from the speech community involved.
In using the movement of the human body to represent life more generally,
Aboriginal English speakers are conforming to a practice which is exhibited in
many languages (Maalej and Yu 2011; Foolen et al. 2012). As Zlatev (2012: 7) has
said, “…we are animate forms who are alive to and in the world, and who, in being
alive to and in the world make sense of it. We do so most fundamentally through
movement.” We will return to this matter when we discuss metaphor and
metonymy.
HUNTING cultural schema
The HUNTING schema evokes the hunting experience, which often will involve
travel, so oral narratives about hunting may often begin with the use of the TRAVEL
schema (as illustrated in Malcolm and Rochecouste 2000). In dealing with the hunt,
there are five elements which may be included: observation, the chase, repeated
attempts, the kill and the feed. In the following hunting narrative, (which originally
appeared in Malcolm 1994a: 171–2) an eleven year old boy from the Goldfields is
recounting a bird hunt involving four boys. It may be seen that observation is pre-
dominant in lines 3–9, the (first and second) kill in lines 10–17, the chase in lines 19–
22, repeated attempts in lines 23–29, the (third) kill in lines 30–31, further obser-
vation in lines 32–46 and the feed in line 47. This illustrates the fact that the schema is
not the same as a genre, in that it does not entail principles of linguistic ordering.
Elements of the schema may enter and re-enter the representation in any order.
1. My name is MB
2. and Kev and Gary and-we went to um bush
3. and and after we sawn an emu,
4. we sawn a nest
5. and after we climb up
6. and we sawn a egg
7. and we put it back
8. and and after we went we went past
9. and we sawn a bird
10. and Gary kill ‘im
11. and after ‘e ‘ad a blood er bloody er mouth
12. and after, and, and I said: “Could I have this bird?”
13. And Gary said: ‘Yes’.
14. And after we went along
15. and Gary kill a nother bird
16. and and and after I said: “Kev, you wan’ have this?”
17. and Kev said: ‘Yeah’.
18. And after we w- we went went back
19. and after we we we sawn a big bird
20. and after I just sneakin’ up
21. and I and I ‘ad a shot
22. and and Kev just ran round the big bird
23. and Kev dropped ‘im right in the head
24. and that bird neber die.
25. And after, Gary run along
636 I.G. Malcolm
26. and he grab ‘im in a- um, he dropped ‘im right in the head
27. and after I dropped ‘im right in the tail
28. and and after we chase ‘im up
29. and I and I and I dropped ‘im everywhere
30. and I killed ‘im.
31. And after, we take it
32. and Ivor look up at that tree
33. and Ivor knock down this
34. and I climb up
35. and I look down.
36. I sawn a big egg wi- one egg.
37. And after I went down and we went
38. we went all the way chasing the bird
39. we chase ‘im up.
40. And then I went to a- home
41. And and I climb up to the pepper tree
42. I climb up to the pepper tree
43. and and I looked around
44. and I cl- and I jumped down
45. and I climb up to the house
46. and after I jumped down
47. and and after we ‘ad a dinner time.
We noted with the TRAVEL schema that it could inform activities other than travel.
The same principle applies to the HUNTING schema. An Aboriginal footballer can
draw on similar skills of observation, persistence and capture that are required in
hunting when playing football, and sometimes in describing sporting exploits
speakers may have the HUNTING schema in mind:
I started off in the back line…standin up you know…
then…footy come towards me, boy.
I just made ‘em jump…
Next minute.. they brang it back down dere again …
So dey got.. knocked the ball down..
tossed it up again you know..
then.. dey.. got down to our .. end..
got the first goal
and then, brother,..snap. Me.
Went straight down the forward line
snapped the first goal
I snapped two dere… (from Rochecouste and Malcolm 2003: 35).
OBSERVING cultural schema

Making careful observations and reporting them accurately to the group is a
highly valued skill in Aboriginal society. Below is an example of an OBSERVING oral
narrative involving two children.
Tom Out Worra station there was big mobs of crows on the tree-
May Yeah, and um-
Tom …and there was big mob of crows on the tree with the cockies.
And a big and a big um eagle came along-
May Yungagee [goanna].
Tom And there was a yungagee.
They’s after the yungagee, the big eagle.
And that’s what um I ‘ad for dinner.
That’s the end.
It may be seen that the place of observation, the species observed, the quantity,
and whether the birds or animals were alive or dead are key components of an
observation report.
It has been reported from widely separated parts of Australia that members of
Aboriginal communities characteristically employ what has variously been called
‘broadcast address’ (Walsh 1991) or ‘witnessing’ (Sansom 1980) or ‘announcing’
(Malcolm 2009, 2014), whereby they tell the community what they have observed.
This does not necessarily constitute an oral narrative, but it carries over a practice of
watchfulness which is relevant in the hunting and gathering context and which may
be applied in other contexts.
A common pattern is that an observation will be announced, followed by an
inference on that observation and an announcement of intended action, as in:
Look out you fullahs… the demons cruisin round this way [Announcing
observation]
Aaay, they mighte lookin for Johnny an em, unna [Announcing
inference]
I’m off you girls [Announcing
intended action]
(Malcolm 2014: 576).
SCARY THINGS cultural schema

The SCARY THINGS schema enables Aboriginal English speakers to allude to the
activity of powers beyond their control which may affect their lives. SCARY THINGS
typically occur to a person at night when they are alone. They involve visitants,
perhaps labelled little fellas or devils or referred to by Aboriginal language terms
such as balyits or wudachis. The SCARY THINGS schema often involves the leaving of
a door or window open, thus allowing access to the spirit being. A visitation may be
announced by a dog barking, or by the appearance of a light, or dark shadows, or
some kind of knocking or creaking sound. When an investigation is made, some-
times when morning comes, to track down the intruder, the result is usually that no
sign has been left of the visitation.
638 I.G. Malcolm
There are many forms in which SCARY THINGS may take place. The idea of
‘watching’ tends to be associated with potential spirit involvement. A cat may be
seen to be conveying a spirit message, and red eyes suggest a threatening presence:
Dey looked dere, an an dey seen e’s eyes glowin (Mullewa, W.A.)
E looked like a devil den e had like these reddish eyes (Kalgoorlie, W.A.).
When driving at night, drivers need to beware of looking in the rear vision
(r’vision) mirror because they may see a minmin (or mimi) light which will distract
them. In the following recount a boy from Geraldton, Western Australia, tells of
how the light prefigured a visitant coming into the car:
… A.. reckon
he help K…
was drivin back from Wiluna or whatever some place
an light behind,
look in r’vision mirror
no he’s gone,
drivin along
saw i’,
look in the ‘vision mirror again,
look in the back seat,
an ole ole blackfella sittin in the back seat, lookin at im.
Sometimes the visitants are the spirits of departed persons, as, perhaps in this
case, and, more clearly in the case of the following report from a teenage girl living
in Perth:
Oh an my uncle he just use to live in Girrawheen there
before he moved into his house
um Mervyn Bond was asleep
an’ he could smell some cooking
an’ e’ um woke up to see if was my uncle
an’ um he actually seen this woman um cooking in the kitchen
‘e goes ‘Oh get out woman’ you know
‘This my house not yours.’
She goes “No you get out
I was here for years before you came along’
and um so that like
couple days later my Nanna an’ my other um elders like Grandpops an’ all that
they came around
and they were praying
an’ one of my Nanna’s she um feel these little fing- like fingers an’ that
and she ‘as to like,
they left the windows open
so the spirit goes out.
She feel this choking
and when she like finished an’ that
she ‘ad to finish the praying an’ that

‘cause it’s choking ‘er ‘an that
an’ they noticed it
‘cause it in ‘er voice
an’ they had kept on praying
an’ got over it
an’ the spirit’s not there anymore.
Sharifian (2011: 85) cites the case of a recount about a woman who has been sick
and wakes up with the taste of medicine in her mouth, and says they come and give
me some medicine last night, suggesting that the spirits of her ancestors had
attended her in the night. Sharifian (2011: 90, 91) has also dealt with the fact that
the anger or sadness of departed spirits may be seen in the falling of rain. Similarly,
in research by Sharifian and associates (Sharifian et al. 2012: 49) a windstorm in a
story was interpreted by Aboriginal readers as the work of spirits, whereas a
bushfire was seen as positive, since fire provides protection against spirits. It is
consistent with this that smoke may be used as a means of driving spirits away. The
research on the interpretation of non-Aboriginal texts by Aboriginal readers has
shown the power of the schematic associations of such elements in the text as
someone, looking, cat, death, wind, fire, singing, nothing was there, and many other
everyday items, of signalling spiritual meanings.
FAMILY cultural schema
The FAMILY schema is ever-present in the consciousness of Aboriginal speakers.
The way of initiating talk between two Aboriginal people who meet is often, as we
have noted, to explore their respective families, looking for possible connections.
An interaction with a non-Aboriginal person may often start with a question like
You know my father? or You know Bill Brumby? followed up with He’s my cousin.
It is more common in speech among Aboriginal than non-Aboriginal people to use
kin terms frequently in the course of conversation and (as we have noted) to list the
kin members with whom one has participated in an event being related. The rele-
vance of family has led to the development of expressions not present in Australian
English, such as We’re all married into one another.
One other kind of schema which needs to be mentioned is the proposition
schema, which is something which is assumed as a given in the speech community.
We have noted that Aboriginal people are embarrassed when singled out from the
group. There is, then, a proposition schema which might be stated YOU DON’T
PUT YOURSELF ABOVE THE GROUP. Others which might be apparent from
some of the patterns of interaction we have observed include: RESPECT IS DUE
TO THE PEOPLE WHOSE LAND YOU OCCUPY (This has both a contemporary
and an ancestral dimension), IT IS NOT APPROPRIATE TO SPEAK
FOR OTHERS WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION (hence the reluctance of
Aboriginal people to respond directly to inquiries about Aboriginal people in
general), IT IS GOOD TO KNOW ONLY WHAT ONE IS SUPPOSED TO
KNOW and PEOPLE WHO ARE RELATED LOOK AFTER ONE ANOTHER.
640 I.G. Malcolm
28.2.3 Metaphor and Metonymy
There is a considerable body of literature supporting the idea that metaphor is an

essential way of structuring thought and language (Foolen et al. 2012; Maalej and
Yu 2011; Pires de Oliveira 2001). In metaphor, such as “You’ll have to sink or
swim”, we use experience in one domain to inform another, and in metonymy, as in
“I’d like a bite to eat” we represent something by isolating a part of it.
We have observed that, in a sense, the story schema of TRAVEL, or ‘tracking’,
represents a metaphorical extension from the life of the figures of the Dreamtime to
contemporary life. Consistently with this, the terms camp, sit down and stop may be
used metaphorically to refer to dwelling in a place, as in:
Matthew was campin at my house (boy from Kalgoorlie)
So we stayed there and had our married life there, sitting down (Lennon 2011: 64)
…she was camping there all the time: she was stopped there (Lennon 2011: 10)
We bin sit down Barrow Creek long time (Daisy Akemarra, in Koch 1993: 76).
Metaphor may be used, as Sharifian (2011: 57) has pointed out, to “map from the
conceptualisations of kinship onto the domain of land”, as in reference to the land
as my mother (c.f. Leitner 2007: 213). A further extension of this is to say This land
is me (Sharifian 2014: 121). Similarly, the earth may be spoken of as human, as the
term in the ashes may carry the meaning ‘in the context of Aboriginal life’
(Malcolm and Grote 2007: 159) and after a fire has been used for cooking, we close
the fire in with all the sand (Königsberg et al. 2012: 2012; Focus Area 11: 27) as it
is necessary to heal the wound of the earth (Malcolm 2007: 57). Metaphor may also
apply to reference to the moon, which is seen to jump up (Königsberg and Collard
2002: 37) and to things growing on the land. Referring to two grass trees, Nyungar
woman Glenys Collard commented: Well, they’re trees but they’re people. This eh
big tall one is a Nyungar man and the smaller the Nyungar woman (Königsberg
and Collard 2002: 37).
Metaphorical extension may apply within the same domain, where, for example
little nanna may be used to refer to ‘little grandchild’ (Malcolm et al. 2002: 40) and
‘baby boy’ may be used to refer to a younger male (Adams 2014: 15). Very often it
crosses the human and non-human domains, as where hungry may denote desire for
anything, not only food, and a proper feed means a ‘desirable girl’. It is also
possible to refer to a human with a container metaphor, as in block im up “fill him
with food,” or with a metaphor drawn from fire: scorch im up “be strict on him”.
The metaphor hole, perhaps drawn from the idea of a hole in the ground which may
belong to a goanna or a rabbit, can be used by a person to refer to him-/herself and
the expression I’ve got my hole suggests a person has no money, i.e. all the person
possesses is him-/herself. (These examples come from Malcolm et al. 2002 and
Königsberg and Collard 2002). Sometimes semantic boundaries may be crossed
deliberately in the interests of talking rough, as when, for example the expression
Yous can’t rip yourselves can be used to mean “You can’t nag me” (Malcolm et al.
2002: 41) and where the word chuck (often pronounced ‘shuck’) is used in
unexpected contexts: Nanna bin cut da kangaroo into pieces an shucked it in da pot
(Department of Education, Western Australia 2016: 21).
Cultural linguist Yu (2011: 141) has observed with respect to Chinese, the use of
what he calls metonymic chains, whereby, for example, the speech organ may be
used to denote language. In standard English this would apply to the use of tongue
to mean ‘language’. He has further noted that it is possible to use a word relating to
speaking to denote ‘speech’. This is a case of what he calls ACTION FOR
RESULT. In Aboriginal English there would appear to be a reverse movement
along the metonymic chain, i.e. RESULT FOR ACTION, where the word denoting
the intended end point is used to denote the way of reaching it, as in:
Learn im to talk Nyungar words‘Teach him to speak Nyungar’ (South-west)
Kill him in the neck ‘Hit it in the neck’ (Central Australia)
I’ll drop you ‘I’ll punch you’ (Palm Island, Qld)
My own mother grew me up ‘My own mother brought me up’
(Kimberley, W.A.)
Don’t you know how to bring a ‘Don’t you know how to bring a lawnmower
back
lawnmower back when I borrow when I lend it to you?’ (Victoria, Enemburu)
it to you
There is a good deal of emergent metaphorical imagery in Aboriginal English, as

its users develop fresh ways of expressing their experiences and observations. Some
examples are:
They’re putting us to the back of the bus ‘They’re neglecting us’ (Perth)
Number one gubba ‘a good non-Aboriginal person’
(Victoria)
Poor man’s meat ‘devon sausage’ (Victoria)
In the foot falcon ‘walking’ (general)
28.3 The Embedding of Conceptualisation

in an Adopted Language
Aboriginal English embodies categories, schemas and metaphors which distinguish

it, conceptually, from other varieties of English. The English inputs received by
Aboriginal speakers (as detailed in Malcolm forthcoming) have been reworked in
four main ways in generating the new dialect.
642 I.G. Malcolm
28.3.1 Retention
Many of the features present in the varieties brought to Australia have been retained
in Aboriginal English, in that they are compatible with Aboriginal patterns of
conceptualisation. Some non-standard features strongly present in Aboriginal
English which have their precedents in dialects brought to Australia include:
• use of personal pronoun yous to distinguish 2nd person plural from singular
(from Irish and Scottish dialects)
• use of invariant auxiliary form was with singular and plural subjects (from
Scottish, Irish and North-eastern English dialects)
• less consistent use of the definite article, as in Big rain came (from Northern
English dialect)
• less consistent use of the indefinite article, as in We went for walk (from
Northern English dialect)
• negation with non-emphatic never, as in She never died (from Scottish,
North-Eastern and South-Eastern English dialects)
• tag question form eh, as in You’ll get shame, eh? (from Scottish and Channel
Island English dialects)
• tag question form init, as in One got sick, init? (from Welsh, South-East and
South-West English dialects)
• lexical items gammon ‘nonsense, falsehood’; jar ‘reprove’; humbug ‘nuisance’
(current in 18th century English)
• discourse displacement marker cos, as in Cos she lives with her nan and pop
(from Scottish English)
In most of these cases the forms retained are consistent with processes of
grammatical simplification; in the case of yous the process is in the reverse,
showing greater concern for reducing ambiguity in reference to the addressee; the
lexical items are all negative and possibly relate to a register which came to be
considered impolite in wider society; the term cos was particularly useful to
Aboriginal speakers for recovering information they could see, or anticipate, had
not been inferred by the listener.
28.3.1.1 Elimination
In other cases, Aboriginal English speakers have not adopted features that are
current in other dialects, including:
• obligatory marking of noun plural, hence, dey got some turtle ‘they[‘ve] got
some turtles’
• obligatory marking of noun possessive, hence that man car ‘that man’s car’
• use of be copula in stative clauses, hence that a pretty snake ‘that’s a pretty
snake’
• use of be copula to link a subject with an adjectival complement, hence they

green, ‘they are green’
• use of auxiliary to form polar questions, hence You whitefella? ‘Are you
non-Aboriginal?’
• use of auxiliary to form WH-questions, hence Where they movin? ‘Where are
they moving to?’
• generalised terms like Aboriginal or Indigenous are avoided in favour of more
localised terms such as Nyungar or Koorie
• some forms of greeting and phatic conversation (e.g. Hello, how are you?) are
avoided in favour of such forms as Where you been?
Aboriginal English, then, is often less explicit than the varieties from which it is
derived, more localised, and less prone to reference life to being (using the verb to
be) rather than action.
28.3.1.2 Modification
Aboriginal English represents, in some cases, a modification of English patterns to

make the language more expressive of its speakers’ cultural conceptualisations.
Some examples are:
• using get rather than be to form the passive, as in E got is and burnt ‘His hand
was burnt’ and to form existential clauses, as in He got white cliff there ‘There is
a white cliff’
• using the verb go rather than the modal auxiliary will/shall to form the future
• reanalysing the modal auxiliary will for use as a marker of habitual action:
Dey’ll make damper an den dey’ll have a big feed ‘They make the damper and
then have a big feed’
• using the reanalysed past participle been/bin as an invariant marker of the past
tense: We bin go langa dat way ‘We went that way’
• using the reanalysed personal pronoun him as a suffix to mark a transitive verb: I
bin eatim up goanna ‘I ate a goanna’
• using the reanalysed adverb about as a suffix to mark progressive aspect on a
verb: All the kid gotta go bogie-bat ‘The kids will be swimming’
• distinguishing adverbs of manner and time, respectively, by suffixing them with
—way or—time: I hid my head, shy-way ‘I shyly hid my head’; cold weather-
time ‘in the cold weather’
• enabling personal pronouns to indicate duality and inclusivity or exclusivity:
you two ‘you [dual]’, yumob ‘you [plural]’ (Kimberley, W.A.).
Many more examples of modification could be cited. In most cases cited here,
speakers of Aboriginal English have changed the language in the direction of
action, rather than existence, and embodiment, rather than abstract marking, of
meaning.
644 I.G. Malcolm
28.3.1.3 Extension
A fourth form of modification of English has been in the direction of introducing

change from non-English sources. Sharifian (2007: 182) has observed that: “[p]
erhaps the entrenchment of cultural conceptualisations in language is most evident
in the area of lexical semantics, where lexical items provide an index to concep-
tualisations that are largely derived from the cultural experience of the users of the
language”. The extension of English to enable it to express Aboriginal conceptu-
alisations has often entailed the transfer into it of lexical items from Indigenous
language sources.
The Dharuk language, which was spoken in the area of earliest concentrated
settlement by English speakers, was clearly a source of many early lexical transfers.
Many of these are no longer current, but some became incorporated into Australian
English, for example, woomera ‘throwing stick’, dingo ‘wild dog’, corroboree
‘Aboriginal dance ceremony’, cooee ‘a call’, while others have been maintained
only in varieties of Aboriginal English. The term bogey ‘swim’ is widely used by
Aboriginal speakers across the north and the term myall, originally meaning
‘stranger’, and used in reference to an Aboriginal from another tribe, now may be
used to refer to a more traditional Aboriginal.
Since Aboriginal speakers have a strong sense of local identity, Aboriginal
English in different areas is usually referred to by the local term for the community,
i.e. Nunga English (in the vicinity of Adelaide), Nyungar English (in the
South-west), Koorie English (in the South-east), Martu English (in Wiluna and
further East), Yamatji English (in the Gascoyne), etc., and the local varieties of
English will incorporate transfers from the languages of the area. In the South-West,
a dog may be referred to by the term dwert, whereas in Bundjalung country in New
South Wales the term transferred with this meaning is dabay. In the Northern
Territory the Djingulu word for ‘old man’ malaga will be used in English to mean
‘boss’. In the South-west, the Nyungar term for water, kepa, will be used to refer to
alcoholic drink.
Aboriginal conceptualisation is, then, embedded in Aboriginal English by the
choices made by its speakers, whether to retain forms received from other
Englishes, to exclude them or to modify them, or to draw on resources from other
languages, sometimes with a view to localising the reference, sometimes with a
view to drawing on particular semantic resources.
28.4 Cultural Conceptual Imperatives

in the Formation of Aboriginal English
The course of the development of Aboriginal English may be seen, from a Cultural
Linguistic perspective, as driven by the need to give better expression to certain
cultural conceptualisations. The nativisation of English by Aboriginal speakers
entailed the foregrounding of certain cultural conceptualisations which were

ever-present in their consciousness and which were comparatively less salient in the
other Englishes to which they were exposed. It is suggested, in using the term
‘imperatives’ (c.f. Malcolm 2002b, 2011, 2016), that many distinctive features of
Aboriginal English were, in large part, driven by the need of the speakers to give
appropriate expression to certain core conceptualisations. Without claiming to be
exhaustive, it is possible to isolate five of the most apparent cultural conceptual
imperatives: group orientation, interconnectedness, orientation to motion, orienta-
tion to observation and awareness of the transcendent.
28.4.1 Group Orientation
As a high-context society (Hall 1976), Aboriginal people are strongly group-aware.

They have made English more expressive of reciprocal and extended kin relations
and have reduced the over-explicitness of expression which fails to recognise
common group knowledge. They have developed a form of English for Aboriginal
contexts, which is reflective of features of the group lifestyle and which implicitly
acknowledges group values.
28.4.1.1 Pervasiveness of Kinship
Many lexico-semantic changes to the language and associated discursive patterns

relate to the extended use of the FAMILY schema in interaction:
A young son may be addressed as little daddy, and a young daughter as little mum
[my] (Konigsberg and Collard 2002:86). E.g. Oh my liddle mummy! [spoken by
mother to baby]
The terms auntie and uncle may be extended to cover niece and nephew, or
“someone the same age or younger” (Adams 2014: 15). Ay auntie girl may be used
widely as a term of respect.
The term granny may be used reciprocally between grandparents and grandchildren
(Malcolm et al. 2002: 56).
The term family may be used with reference to the extended family, as in I got a lot
a family doin modelling (girl from Mullewa, W.A.).
The terms brother/brother boy/budda/bro may be used to address or refer to a male
peer: We cruel hungry… price for a feed budda, unna? ‘We’re really hungry. Can
we have some money to buy a feed, brother?’ (Collard 2011: 17).
The terms sister/sister girl/sis may be used to address or refer to a female peer:
Aaay sister girl ow long we gotta stop ere for? ‘Hey, sister, how long to we have to
stay here?’ (Collard 2011: 27).
The term cousin/cuz may be used to refer to a distant relative or peer (Adams 2014: 16).
646 I.G. Malcolm
The compound noun cousinbrother may be used to address or refer to a

parallel-cousin (Arthur 1996: 74).
28.4.1.2 Group Reference Perspective
The perspective adopted in interaction in Aboriginal English tends to assume the

common schematic and experiential knowledge of the group and continually ref-
erences what is said to the group for endorsement. There are also means of
expression of empathy with group members.
Aboriginal English speakers have modified the personal pronouns of English to
make them more sensitive to certain features of the group spoken to. The intro-
duction of the second person plural form yous reflects a need to make it clear as to
whether the reference is to an individual or to a group. The differentiation in some
areas, of dual from plural shows a similar motivation. The further distinction made
between showing exclusion (as in, e.g. me’n’im/her) and inclusion of the addressee
(as in, e.g. mi’n’you) again shows a raised concern for clarity for the addressee/s.
The use of the demonstrative, where otherwise a definite article might be used, is
a sign of schema-based referencing (Sharifian 2001: 129), i.e. the assumption on the
part of the speaker that the hearer shares the same schema, as in Dat tide bin start
comin in (Malcolm and Sharifian 2007: 379).
Utterances are often elliptical, or ‘minimal’ (Sharifian 2001). The term ting or
sing (from ‘thing’) may be frequently employed “to de-emphasize contextual fea-
tures deemed…common knowledge” (Malcolm et al. 1999a: 56), as in: So we jump
off the ting (9 year old boy from Leonora, in Eagleson et al. 1982: 233). In a similar
manner, indefinite extension markers, such as an that may be used to allude to
detail not mentioned because of it being common knowledge, as in my uncle an dat
(Perth boy, aged 10), she was shakin an all that (Mullewa girl, aged 14).
A range of tags are used to reference what is being spoken to the group. These
include confirmation tags, such as eh, unna, innit, etc., as in You’ll get shame, eh
(Kimberley speaker); Da’s a orrible picture ini (Pilbara speaker), authentication
tags, which may be used by the speaker or hearer, as in His son bin come too…true!
(Western Desert, adult speaker) and Speaker: They drag their feet all the time.
Hearer: True (Perth, adult speaker). Narrators will often switch from narrative to
interactive idea units, using you know to invite a response, as in No, but it was so
scary, you know (Perth speaker). As noted earlier, cos may be used to reference the
listener to information which may not have been made explicit earlier in a narration,
as in We was walking along in the shallow…cos the tide was out (Mullewa boy 11).
Empathetic discourse markers have also been brought into the language by
Aboriginal speakers. Choo, from Nyungar, is used in the South-west both as an
expression of sympathy and of shared embarrassment, e.g. Choo, you better dress
em up! The transferred term Nyorn is also used in the South-west as an empathetic
expression. An Aboriginal Islander Education Worker, talking to Aboriginal
researcher Glenys Collard about her feeling of isolation from her community when
working in Perth, commented: …I guess at times I feel lonely nyorn but when we
get together I feel really good (Malcolm et al. 1999a: 129). As Sharifian (2011: 70)
has noted, Sorry may be used in Aboriginal English more as an expression of
empathy than to acknowledge guilt. The term Shame may be used across the
country to express, or identify with, embarrassment.
In keeping with conventions within the Aboriginal community, the term old
carries no stigma and, indeed carries the denotation “having recognised wisdom and
authority” (Arthur 1996: 50). Likewise, an old fella is a person to be heeded and
respected, as is an ole girl.
Group-consciousness is strongly expressed in Aboriginal discourse in that the
speaker is obliged, when giving second-hand information, to be explicit about from
whom it was obtained, and when recounting action it is expected that the other
participants in the action (as well as the location) be detailed: My great grandfather
he told my mum…and my mum mum told me (Mullewa male narrator).
28.4.1.3 Lifestyle-Specific Categorisations
The group orientation of Aboriginal English is also seen in the way in which the
default meaning of English expressions is seen. Words are referenced to the
Aboriginal context and to the lifestyle associated with that context.
The abbreviation for ‘people’, pepes, or peops, denotes Aboriginal people,
language is understood to mean Aboriginal language and the term camp to refer to
the speaker’s home or an equivalent place. Hence, when one is referring to
‘camping’ in the non-Aboriginal sense, the term to be used is camping out.
Reference to supper, as already noted, implies not the pre-bedtime snack as in
Australian English, but the evening meal. Likewise, feed, within the Aboriginal
context, refers to a meal for the family, not just for babies or animals. The first
association, when kangaroo is mentioned, will be to a food source, and, when roast
is mentioned, will be to cooking outside with a fire.
28.4.1.4 Connotations Deriving from Shared History
Aboriginal English has developed among people with a shared history of being
colonised and made subject to laws imposed by the colonising group.
The term gubba/gubbah/gub, derived from ‘government’ and widely used in
South-eastern Australia to refer to white people, shows the identification of white
people in general with government. Terms gunjabal, from ‘constable’ and bulli-
man, from ‘policeman’ are used mainly in New South Wales and Queensland,
respectively, to refer to police officers. All these terms have retained the pronun-
ciation features which help to make them less comprehensible to those to whom
they refer. In Western Australia the term monaych/monarch, derived from the
Nyungar word for ‘black cockatoo’ (Arthur 1996: 160) is widely used as an
648 I.G. Malcolm
in-group way of referring to a uniformed police officer, while devil is used to refer
to a plain clothes officer.
The shared colonial history has also entailed being talked down to as boy and
threatened with flogging. These terms have been retained, but with different ref-
erence. Boy is an affiliative tag and flog is used where non Aboriginal Australians
would say ‘beat’ or ‘belt’. Adams (2014: 11) suggests that (at least in Victoria), to
say I’m gonna flog you if you don’t… is a use of ‘hyperbolic humour’. The term
boss, has been carried over into the Aboriginal English vernacular as an adjective
implying strong approval.
The shared history has also entailed (as mentioned previously) the experience of
the stolen generations, where children of mixed Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal
parentage could be removed from their parents, a process built into Aboriginal
English with the expression taken away. The Aboriginal preventative response to
this, taking children into the care of relatives in remote places, is remembered as
being taken over.
28.4.2 Interconnectedness
The second major cultural–conceptual imperative which has strongly influenced the
development of Aboriginal English is interconnectedness. Where the dominant
cultures in which the English language has been maintained have tended towards an
approach to reality which is analytical and which understands abstracted elements
apart from the whole, Aboriginal culture is strongly oriented the other way.
Linguist R.M.W. Dixon (1980: 23), citing the words of anthropologist Mervyn
Meggitt, has described the Aboriginal view of the universe as one:
…that regarded man, society and nature as interlocking and interacting elements in a larger,
functionally integrated totality. According to Aboriginal belief, each variable in the system
had an eternal, moral commitment to maintain itself unchanged for the benefit of others and
to contribute to the proper functioning of the system as a whole.
Bob Randall, a senior member of the Yankunytjatjara people of the Northern

Territory, produced a film about Aboriginal culture which premiered at the Sydney
Film Festival in 2006. He named the film Kanyini, which translates as ‘intercon-
nectedness’ and in the course of the film he commented: “The purpose of life is to
be part of all that there is…We are connected to everything else”. Looking around
at the natural environment, he commented: “Everything you can see is my family.”
When we observe the ways in which English has been nativised by its Aboriginal
speakers, we find the conceptual imperative of reinforcing the interconnectedness of
all things ever-present, as we see a constant reduction in the differentiation between,
for example, past and present, time and space, human and animal, human and
non-human and between language and the reality for which it stands.
28.4.2.1 Reduced Time Differentiation
The marking of time difference through verb tense is not obligatory in Aboriginal
English:
These kangaroos with big spears come along (Perth, W.A.)
We went to um Ellery Gorge. We get, um fish and we swim (Alice Springs, Harkins 1994:
204)
He come in the day after (La Perouse, N.S.W.)
Then they get two turtles in the bay (Yarrabah, Qld, Alexander 1965: 57)
There was a man who live in a small suburb near Melbourne (Goulburn Valley, Vic.,
McKenry 1995: 64)
The term the old people can refer to ancestors, not just the present generation.
The expression [a] long time ago is modified by the deletion of the past marker
ago:
Long time we caught two down the river (Carnarvon, W.A.)
Similarly, not long ago will be reduced to not long (Königsberg and Collard
2002: 113).
Experience may be referenced by event rather than time reference:
When we was down Geraldton… (Perth, W.A.).
28.4.2.2 Reduced Differentiation Between Time and Space
The expression [a] long way away is modified by the deletion of the distance
marker away:
long way country (Flint 1971)
It is common in Aboriginal English to refer to a distance in terms of the time

taken to reach it rather than in terms of the space dimension.
28.4.2.3 Reduced Differentiation Between Genders
The third person singular personal pronoun he may be unmarked for gender, as
noted in Sect. 4.3.2, Chap. 4:
e [he] sleep ere (Kununurra, W.A.)
when e little girl (McLaren Creek, N.T.)
e nice country (One Arm Point, W.A.)
650 I.G. Malcolm
28.4.2.4 Reduced Number Differentiation
The marking of plural number on the noun, adverb or verb is reduced:

two window, two big turtle (Pilbara region, W.A.)
dey was out bush (Goldfields region, W.A.)
when he finish he go home (Western Desert, W.A.)
Sometime we go early (Western Desert, W.A.)
28.4.2.5 Reduced Differentiation Between Human and Animal
Metaphorical reference to humans as animals is common, in that, as Sharifian

(2011: 14) has put it, “[t]here are no such categories as animals, human beings and
plants in the Dreamtime”:
He’s a horse ‘He’s expert in his job’ (South-west)
Emu [reference to a person with thin legs and distinct Aboriginal
ankles] (general)
At least in the South-west, the ‘chitty chitty’, a bird Australians call ‘Willy
Wagtail’ evokes the schema of children, and its presence can be considered to carry
a message about children.
It is also common to talk of animals in human terms, as in:
This kangaroo big bloke, big, big boomer (Wiluna, W.A.)
They tell liar, they are still, that they are stick ‘They pretend to be a stick’ (reference to
goannas, Pilbara region, W.A.)
We bin find cheeky animal ‘We found a dangerous animal’
Nyorn, poor thing, poor dog ‘How I sympathise with the poor dog’.
28.4.2.6 Reduced Differentiation Between Human and Non-human
Terms normally reserved for non-human referents may be used with humans, as in:
He’s a big man – very long eh? (Groote Eylandt, N.T.)
They all cruel narrow ‘They [her sisters] are all really thin’ (Perth, W.A.)
Me and Tony had a smash ‘Me and Tony had a fight’ (Geraldton, W.A.)
We’re gonna have a bit of a charge ‘We are going to drink alcohol’ (general)
The reverse also occurs, in that a tree may be described as bony and it can be said
of the moon, or the sun, that it jumps up (Königsberg and Collard 2002: 37).
28.4.2.7 Embodiment
Especially in the morphology of Aboriginal English there are strong tendencies

towards the embodiment of meaning, in that the linguistic form is made more
reflective of the meaning conveyed, as in:
• repetition of the verb to convey extent:
Next day we bin walking, walking, walking (Western Desert)
The two men dug, dug, dug got two goannas (Goldfields, W.A.)
I bin wait, wait, wait: nothing (Alice Springs, Harkins 1994: 151)
He…banged it an banged it an banged it (South-west)
• elongation of the vowel to convey extent:
goanna oh bi-i-ig one (Perth, W.A.)
• nominalising suffix to provide embodiment to adjectives:
That kid clever one ‘That kid is clever’ (Western Desert, W.A.)
[What do they look like?] Sweet one. (Fitzroy Crossing, W.A.)
• nominalising suffix to provide embodiment to pronouns:
wefella ‘we’ (pl.)
youfella ‘you’ (pl.)
mintwofella ‘we’ (dual) (Halls Creek, W.A., and elsewhere)
• nominalising suffix to provide embodiment to numbers:
Twofella bin go ‘n wait for… them bullock (Central Australia, Koch 2000: 50)
• providing greater embodiment to mass nouns by pluralising them like count
nouns:
these big grasses ‘the tall grass’ (Tardun, W.A.)
they break the woods and put it together to make a fire ‘they split wood up and
put it together to light a fire’ (Western Desert, W.A.)
• employing associative plural markers in place of inflections:
shooting alla bird (Strelley, W.A.)
get lotta sheep (Onslow, W.A.)
• employing periphrastic possessive marker in place of inflection:
name belong canoe ‘canoe’s name’ (Palm Island, Qld.)
• employing explicit possessive adjective:
an one gotta long hair ‘and one with long hair’ (Pilbara region, W.A.)
• marking time adverbials explicitly as such:
Come back afternoontime (Western Desert, W.A.)
• marking manner adverbials explicitly as such:
E just got up quick way (Geraldton, W.A.)
We went Ceduna way (Coober Pedy, S.A.)
652 I.G. Malcolm
28.4.3 Orientation to Motion
A third cultural conceptual imperative is an orientation to motion, whereby, in

keeping with the ongoing motion of the Dreamtime figures (and the TRAVEL
Schema), static representations are made more dynamic.
Nouns, adjectives and prepositions are frequently converted to verbs:
Instead of downing them they’d more or less praise them (Collard 1997: 130)
I schooled in Derby
…growl im (Derby, W.A.)
Las week our family…we go rabbitin (10 year old boy, Perth, W.A.)
You’ll have to hot it up (Malcolm et al. 1999b: 46)
shelling means collecting shells (Malcolm et al. 1999b: 45)
They cheek em
She blackeye[d] Amy (Perth)
Where Standard English foregrounds existence, through the use of the verb to be
to link a subject with a complement or to form a compound verb, Aboriginal
English gives priority to what is depicted, by avoiding the verb to be, as in the
following examples from Malcolm (2002b: 31):
E big-one ‘It’s big’
You the teacher? ‘Are you the teacher?’
Easy-one, unna? ‘It’s easy, isn’t it?’
We workin ‘We’re working’
We gonna work ‘We are going to/will work’
E got smash ‘It was smashed’
E got lotta bird over dere ‘There are birds over there’
Standard English has two alternatives in representing the passive voice, i.e. using
the verb be, as in The job was done, or using the verb get, as in The job got done.
Aboriginal English, as we might predict, avoids the first and uses the second, more
active, alternative. It also chooses to use the verb get in an inchoative sense when
depicting human subjects, as in He get wild (Yarrabah, Qld.), and they get shy
(Carnarvon, W.A.).
Aboriginal speakers encountering English verbs would have been faced with two
ways of expressing the future: either by using the modal auxiliary will/shall before
the verb, or by using the verb go. The choice fell on go, which expresses a stronger
sense of motion, and which, unlike the modal auxiliaries, has a greater sense of
embodying the movement to the future: Where you reckon they gonna be? (Perth,
W.A.).
Aboriginal English, as has previously been noted, sometimes expresses asso-
ciated motion through putting a form of the verb go before the main verb, thus
highlighting the conceptualisation of motion involved in what is represented:
Twofella bin go ‘n wait for…them bullock ‘Two waited for the bullocks’ (Central
Australia)
…then we went go lookin for um turkeys ‘…then we went looking for turkeys’
(Perth, W.A.)
A common discourse feature of Aboriginal English is topic chaining through the

use of serial verbs. This strengthens the sense of motion in what is being depicted:
He ad a shot, missed im (Carnarvon, W.A.)
I got that big tree, knock it down with my hand, lift it up (Leonora, W.A.)
He run that way find a man (Pilbara region, W.A.).
The orientation to motion is also apparent in the discourse strategy, already

discussed, of direct speech switching, whereby the action of a narrative is for-
warded by bypassing the narrator and moving directly to what the participants are
saying.
28.4.4 Orientation to Observation
A fourth cultural-conceptual imperative apparent in Aboriginal English is an ori-

entation to observation, which is not hard to account for in view of the longstanding
Aboriginal requirement of a highly observant response to the environment for the
maintenance of a hunting and gathering lifestyle. Aboriginal communication, as we
have noted, is strongly group-oriented and the group life entails reporting to the
group of observations and of their possible implications.
Eades (2013: 70) has drawn attention to the speech act of speculative reporting,
whereby inferences are drawn from observations made. This often involves the use
of the term might be (sometimes reduced to mighte) as in Might be they fell by
accident (Western Desert, W.A.). An alternative form is must be: Must be you
gonna do that again (Halls Creek, W.A.).
The observational orientation involves a heightened use of deixis, or “features of
language which orientate our utterances in time, space, and speaker’s standpoint”
(Finch 2000: 214). We have already observed a strong trend in Aboriginal English
to heighten the deictic effect by replacing the definite article with the demonstrative,
as in:
She nearly killed dat snake (Perth, W.A.)
They had big mob tucker at that barbecue (Brown 1989, Vic.)
Is that them caves? (Millie Boyd, N.S.W.)
Them electric one all right eh? (Yarrabah, Qld.)
The indefinite article may also be replaced by a demonstrative, as in:

We pulled up at this crossroads (Darwin, N.T.)
We went to dis windmill (Wiluna, W.A.).
654 I.G. Malcolm
There, at the end of a phrase or clause, will often perform the function of distal
deictic extension (Malcolm and Sharifian 2007: 391), and may be accompanied by a
gesture:
I … found couple near de big tower dere in Mullewa dere (Geraldton, W.A.)
Up in the hills there’s a cave there (Yamatji country, adult).
Real big mob over there (Goulburn Valley, Vic.)
The preposition here functions in a similar way with a proximal sense:

So we always talk our own language in class here (Perth, W.A.).
Time can be referenced in a similar way, with now and then:

Well dat fella bin take me now, walkin long footpath now (Derby, W.A.)
He left school now (Perth, W.A.)
They little bit big now (Western Desert, W.A.)
an that’s when we all went inside then (Perth, W.A.)
We didn’t have bag then (Western Desert, W.A.)
Then next day we ad a feed den (Carnarvon, W.A.).
The desire to be specific in the reporting of observations leads often to the

syntactic feature of right dislocation, where the basic information is given first and
then further descriptive information is appended, as in:
Little birds. Grey one. (Western Desert, W.A.)

We seen a clapper’s egg. Green one. (Leonora, W.A.)
E got new muticar, red one (N.T.)
Another strategy which appears to be motivated by the desire to be attentive to

observation is the discourse feature I have called ‘surveying’ (Malcolm 1999a: 50)
whereby the person reporting on a scene observed will, as it were, zoom out to
include everything, not only the items which are relevant to the main event being
reported on. This has been discussed above as an example of the inclusiveness of
Aboriginal discourse.
28.4.5 Awareness of the Transcendent
A fifth cultural–conceptual imperative which has affected the nativisation of

English is the need to include reference to transcendent powers which are
impinging on the human experience. We have already looked at the pervasiveness
of the ‘SCARY THINGS’ schema which often informs oral narratives by Aboriginal
English speakers in Western Australia. Research in bicultural Aboriginal and
non-Aboriginal teams reported in Malcolm et al. (1999a, b) helped to show the
salience of the transcendent dimension to Aboriginal students and the apparent
inaccessibility of the relevant schemas to their non-Aboriginal teachers. The fol-
lowing extract from an interaction between an Aboriginal student and an Aboriginal
Islander Education Worker (AIEW) in Roebourne, W.A., cited from Malcolm et al.
(1999b: 40), shows the student’s awareness of the teacher’s misunderstanding when
a classmate was talking about the wirlo bird, and need for the AIEW to help the
teacher understand what the student had been talking about:
Student Samantha was tellin us for news, teacher didn’t even know what she was
talkin
‘bout an if they go whistling too an in Nyungar thas means like someone
dyin or
something like
AIEW Death bird thas
Student Yeap
AIEW She was tellin us the same thing, an I had to help her because I knew a lot
about
The wirlo bird, it’s a death bird or wha- someone very sick or they’re lost
In subsequent research, Sharifian and associates (Sharifian et al. 2004, 2012)

systematically attempted to explore the ways in which Aboriginal and
non-Aboriginal listeners comprehended one another. It was shown that teachers
were often unsure about how to interpret extended utterances in Aboriginal English
and that, lacking access to the schemas underlying the Aboriginal students’ utter-
ances, they depended on non-Aboriginal schemas to help them make sense of them.
Aboriginal students, asked to repeat what they had had read to them from school
literacy materials, often looked for linguistic cues which might be relevant to their
existing schemas to help them towards understanding. The process of applying a
schema from one culture to the interpretation of texts from another was called
reschematisation, and it was found that it often led to misinterpretation. In particular,
it was found that, where there was no transcendent meaning intended in the
non-Aboriginal text, Aboriginal students would find one triggered by particular cues.
One of the stories to which the Aboriginal students were asked to respond could
be briefly summarised as follows:
Rose’s husband has died and she sits by the fire with her dog, John Brown. One day a cat
appears in the garden and John Brown – but not Rose - wants to send it away. Then Rose
falls ill and John Brown, in distress, has to allow the cat into the house to help Rose
recover.
The words which appear in bold all acted for the Aboriginal students as triggers
of a transcendent meaning. The operation of evil spirits, perhaps balyits, was seen
in the fact that Rose’s husband had died and that Rose fell ill. The fire, and the dog,
were seen as positive forces for Rose’s protection, but the cat’s appearance could
have been an omen. Both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students were invited to
retell the story, but only the Aboriginal students saw in it a transcendent meaning.
Some, indeed, reschematised the story further, by suggesting, for example, that
Rose sat near the fire because she was sick, that the cat warned them that a ghost
was coming and that they might die and that the cat died at the end.
656 I.G. Malcolm
This research highlighted the fact that Aboriginal English carries for its speakers
transcendent meanings which are not readily accessed by non-Aboriginal speakers.
Some of these meanings relate to the SCARY THINGS schema, which is concerned with
the involvement of spiritual powers in ordinary people’s lives. Others relate to the
also transcendent area of traditional sacred knowledge. Hence, Aboriginal speakers
will see transcendent meanings such as the following:
clever ‘spiritually powerful’
dangerous ‘hazardous because of the possible effect of spiritual
powers’ (Arthur 1996: 24)
law ‘religious and cultural knowledge’
ceremony ‘a cultural ritual’
man ‘initiated man’
cut ‘circumcise’
smoking the house ‘using smoke to expel unwelcome spirits’
28.5 Conclusion
There is strong evidence to support the view that Aboriginal English cannot be
accounted for unless the cultural-conceptual dimension is taken into account. The
variation which separates Aboriginal English from Australian English is not arbi-
trary, but is the result of the adoption of English by Aboriginal speakers to serve
their distinctive communicative needs, including the need to express cultural con-
ceptualisations which the language, as they found it, was not able adequately to
carry. English, therefore, had to be made capable of supporting new categorisations,
schematisations and forms of metaphor. The driving force behind the changes in
English came from cultural-conceptual imperatives, of which it is suggested the
most powerful were those towards group orientation, interconnectedness, orienta-
tion to motion, orientation to observation and awareness of the transcendent.
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Malcolm, I. G. (2007). Cultural linguistics and bidialectal education. In F. Sharifian & G.
B. Palmer (Eds.), Applied cultural linguistics: Implications for second language learning and
intercultural communication (pp. 53–63). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Malcolm I. G. (2009). The representation of interaction in Aboriginal oral narratives. Paper
presented at the 11th International Pragmatics Conference, University of Melbourne, 12th–17th
July. Published (in Russian) in the journal Личнocть Кyльтypa Oбщecтвo [Personality,
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Malcolm, I. G. (2011). Learning through standard English: Cognitive implications for
post-pidgin/-creole speakers. Linguistics and Education, 22, 261–272.
Malcolm, I. G. (2013). Aboriginal English: Some grammatical features and their implications.
Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 36(3), 267–294.
Malcolm, I. G. (2014). A day in the park’: Emerging genre for readers of Aboriginal English.
Australian Journal of Linguistics, 34(4), 557–571.
Malcolm, I. G. (2016). Embedding cultural conceptualization within an adopted language: The
English of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Paper presented at the First
International Conference of Cultural Linguistics, Prato, Italy, July 20–22.
Malcolm, I. G. (Forthcoming). The representation of Aboriginal cultural conceptions in an adopted
English. To appear in The International Journal of Language and Culture.
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maintenance. In G. Leitner & I. G. Malcolm (Eds.), The habitat of Australia’s Aboriginal
languages: Past, present and future (pp. 155–179). Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
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Two-way English: Towards more user-friendly education for speakers of Aboriginal English.
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Sahanna, E. (2002). Umob deadly: Recognized and unrecognized literacy skills of Aboriginal
youth. Mount Lawley, Western Australia: Centre for Applied Language and Literacy Research
and Institute for the Service Professions, Edith Cowan University.
Malcolm, I. G., & Rochecouste, J. (2000). Event and story schemas in Australian Aboriginal
English discourse. English World-Wide, 21(2), 261–289.
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application of cultural schema theory. Discourse Studies, 4(2), 169–181.
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cognitive approaches (pp. 23–47). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
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Western Australia 2nd edition. Mount Lawley: Centre for Applied Language and Literacy
Research, Edith Cowan University.
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Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.
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Western Australia: Edith Cowan University PhD thesis.
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Understanding of Aboriginal Literacy: Factors in Text Comprehension. East Perth: Department
of Education and Training.
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(pp. 181–195). Berlin, New York: Mouton.
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and intercultural communication (pp. 119–129). London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
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Sharifian, F., Truscott, A., Königsberg, P., Malcolm, I. G. and Collard, G. (2012). “Understanding
Stories My Way”: Aboriginal–English Speaking Students’ (mis)Understanding of School
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Author Biography
Ian G. Malcolm is Emeritus Professor in the School of Arts and Humanities at Edith Cowan
University, Perth, Western Australia, where, over several decades, he led bidialectal research teams
in linguistic research into the English spoken by Aboriginal Australians. This work has helped to
support the recognition of Aboriginal English as a distinctive dialect and has generated extensive
training resources in the field of Two-Way Bidialectal Education.
Chapter 29
Cultural Conceptualisations in Stories
of Māori-English Bilinguals: The Cultural
Schema of MARAE
Marta Degani
29.1 Introduction
This chapter is an attempt to move beyond the formal features approach that has
been largely employed in the paradigm of World Englishes. The intent is that of
showing how, in addition to phonological, morphological, syntactic and gram-
matical features characterising varieties of English, semantic considerations could
also help shed light on the specificities of individual varieties as well as on dif-
ferences and similarities among them. The type of cognitive semantic approach that
is proposed in this chapter is couched in a newly emerging field of linguistic
investigation, that of Cultural Linguistics (cf. Sharifian 2015b, 2017), and it relies
on the very useful notion of cultural conceptualisations for the analysis of linguistic
data. Section 29.2 of the chapter introduces this theoretical framework and provides
an overview of its first applications in the specific context of World Englishes.
From a linguistic anthropological perspective, the theory of cultural cognition
can be revealing in showing how tongues different from English encode their
conceptualisations in the language system (e.g. the language of emotion in Chinese,
cf. Yu 2009). From the perspective of World Englishes, the theory of cultural
cognition appears particularly promising for exploring the varieties that bear clear
traces of contact between English and an indigenous tongue. Aboriginal English is a
case in point and studies have already shown how the semantic level of this variety
is enriched by Aboriginal culture (cf., e.g. Malcolm and Rochecouste 2000;
Malcolm and Sharifian 2005; Sharifian et al. 2004).
M. Degani (&)
University of Verona, Verona, Italy
e-mail: marta.degani@univr.it

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_29
662 M. Degani
This chapter takes New Zealand as a testing ground for investigating cultural
conceptualisations. In light of the long history of linguistic and cultural contact
between Māori and English in New Zealand, it is particularly interesting to consider
how Māori conceptualisations can surface in the English language. Section 29.3 of
the chapter will focus on the major contact scenarios between Māori and English,
preparing the ground for the data analysis of cultural conceptualisations.
In view of its significance in the context of New Zealand, the investigation
proposed here focuses on the term marae as it is a key concept in Māori culture and
is also used as a borrowing in general New Zealand English. The term marae occurs
in a number of stories told by Māori-English bilinguals that are analysed in the
present study. Section 29.4 of the chapter provides methodological information
about the participants taking part in the study, the administered task that was
devised and the linguistic data that are used here. The analytical part of the chapter
(Sect. 29.5), introduces marae as a complex and very rich cultural concept that is
connected to multiple aspects of the Māori worldview. The analysis of narrative
passages that will follow indicates how central elements of the cultural conceptu-
alisation of MARAE can surface in language and it provides meaningful details about
the cultural schema of MARAE that emerges from the stories. In terms of larger
implications of the study, the chapter also suggests how semantic analyses, and in
particular the ones focused on cultural conceptualisations, could contribute to
expand our understanding of varieties of English.
29.2 Cultural Linguistics, Cultural Conceptualisations

and the Study of World Englishes
As pointed out by Sharifian (2015b), Cultural Linguistics was born as a new and
promising field of academic enquiry thanks to the work of Palmer (1996), a lin-
guistic anthropologist who foresaw the advantages of a multi- and interdisciplinary
approach to research.
More recently, further cross-disciplinary links have been established between
Cultural Linguistics and cognitive anthropology and emphasis has been given to the
usefulness of Cultural Linguistics for studying World Englishes (cf. Sharifian
2015a, b). The relevance of the cognitive component in the analysis of language
and culture within the framework of Cultural Linguistics is signalled, in particular,
by the centrality that has been attributed to conceptualisations. Palmer’s original
notion of ‘imagery’ (1996) as a sort of conceptual unit that is culturally constructed
has been elaborated and reinterpreted by Sharifian (2011) into that of ‘cultural
conceptualisations’. As Sharifian programmatically explains, ‘Cultural linguistics
29 Cultural Conceptualisations in Stories of Māori-English … 663
explores, in explicit terms, conceptualisations that have a cultural basis and are
encoded in and communicated through features of human languages’ (2015b: 473,
emphasis in the original). More accurately, he advocates for the theoretical
framework of cultural cognition (a collective term for cultural conceptualisations) in
Cultural Linguistics.
Broadly, cultural conceptualisations are described as ‘the ways in which people
across different cultural groups construe various aspects of the world and their
experiences. These include people’s view of the world, thoughts and feelings’
(Sharifian 2011: 38). More technically, they are defined by Sharifian (2003, 2008,
2011, 2015a, b) as consisting of cultural schemas, categories and metaphors that are
shared largely by members of a specific cultural group. Cultural conceptualisations,
however, are also heterogeneously present in the minds of people of the same
cultural group. In several publications (see above), Sharifian refers to these aspects
with the notion of ‘distributed representation’, which captures the idea of a
macro-level where a number of cultural elements are shared by people belonging to
a cultural group and that of a micro-level accounting for individual idiosyncrasies.
Cultural conceptualisations are also ‘emergent’ in that they emerge from interac-
tions between people and across time. In this respect, they appear as dynamic
structures that can be (re)negotiated through time and generations. Sharifian also
stresses the role of language as both repository of cultural cognition and vehicle for
its transmission. Of course, cultural conceptualisations can surface in different
forms that include, in addition to language, visual art, music, sculpture, gesture and
silence. Thus, for instance, Aboriginal dot painting can be considered as a reflection
of a worldview that is based on a circular image schema representative of
Dreamtime (Sharifian 2003, 2011). In this chapter, the focus remains on language.
To return to the three classes of cultural schemas, cultural categories and cultural
metaphors, Sharifian (2003, 2008, 2011, 2015b) provides some explanations of
how to distinguish between them. His notion of cultural schema is shaped by
research in cognitive anthropology and is chiefly informed by Quinn’s approach
(1997). Cultural schemas are understood in terms of the ‘encyclopaedic knowledge
that is culturally constructed for many lexical items’, they ‘capture pools of
knowledge that provide a basis for a significant portion of semantic and pragmatic
meanings in human languages’ (Sharifian 2015b: 480). The cultural schema of
FUNERAL is a clear case in point. As Sharifian observes, ‘the word for “funeral”
evokes a schema in many Aboriginal Australians that is remarkably different from
funeral schemas of people from many other cultures’ (2003: 194). To celebrate a
funeral, Aborigines can travel very long distances and the mourned person can well
be someone who would be considered a distant relative according to Western
criteria. Furthermore, the whole, complex ceremony can last over a period (up to a
few months) that Westerns would be likely to judge as particularly long.
Interestingly enough, a similar cultural schema of FUNERAL can also be observed
664 M. Degani
among the Māori people in New Zealand, but more on this will be elaborated later
on in the chapter. To proceed with the other classes of cultural conceptualisations,
Sharifian’s understanding of cultural categories is based on Rosch (1973, 1978).
Categories are explained through examples that show how they can be linguistically
encoded in lexicon (e.g. the cultural category of ‘wedding’ as referring to an event
that is different from ‘engagement’ or ‘dining out’) and grammar (e.g. the system of
pronouns in many Aboriginal languages that reflect cultural categories by indicating
moiety, generation level and relationship). Lastly, cultural metaphors appear as
types of Lakovian conceptual metaphors that are culturally constructed.
Furthermore, cultural schemas are seen as potential sources of cultural metaphors.
Linguistic expressions referring to feelings and emotions are taken as a prime
example of culturally constructed conceptual metaphors that metaphorise emotion
in terms of human body parts (cf., e.g., Yu’s (2009) explanations of the long and
rich cultural history that has contributed to form the Chinese concept of HEART as it
is expressed in the Chinese word xin).
Cultural cognition is of high relevance for the study of World Englishes as first
publications in this field show.1 The majority of these studies applying cultural
conceptualisations have been concerned with exploring facets of Aboriginal
English (cf. Malcolm and Rochecouste 2000; Malcolm and Sharifian 2002, 2005;
Sharifian 2001, 2005, 2006; Sharifian et al. 2004). In one of the very first inves-
tigations in this area, Malcolm and Rochecouste (2000) retrace four culturally
relevant event and story schemas (‘travel’, ‘hunting’, ‘observing’ and ‘encountering
the unknown’) in their analysis of 33 English oral narratives produced by
Aboriginal students. Malcolm and Sharifian (2002) adopt cultural schema theory to
investigate typical and recurrent semantic and pragmatic features of Aboriginal oral
texts. Another study (Malcolm and Sharifian 2005) focuses on competing, clashing
and blended cultural schemas in Aboriginal children who live in a bicultural and
bidialectal context where ‘standard’ Australian English and Aboriginal English
coexist in the classroom. The emergence of a distinctively Aboriginal conceptual
system in speakers of Aboriginal English is further elaborated in Sharifian (2005).
Here, the author explores the types of conceptualisations evoked by 32 common
English words in two groups of primary school children in Perth (Western
Australia): Aboriginal and Anglo-Australian students. Notwithstanding the apparent
similarity in the use of English by the two groups of speakers, data suggest the
presence of two distinct conceptual systems. For instance, associations to the
English word ‘family’ indicate an Aboriginal conceptualisation of it as extended
family in opposition to its typical non-Aboriginal understanding as nuclear family.
Illuminating cultural discrepancies were also found for the word ‘home’. In this
case, the Anglo-Australian conceptualisation is chiefly connected to a physical
place, while the Aboriginal subjects also expressed associations to the ideas of a
1
Of course, this only refers to studies that have explicitly taken the specific perspective of cultural
conceptualisations since linguistic research on cultural aspects of world Englishes is large.
shared space and of shared responsibilities. This study is particularly relevant for
the present investigation since it indicates how the existence of the same word in
two dialects of English does not necessarily involve a common conceptualisation of
it. The same implications are also to be found in Malcolm and Rochecouste, who
point out that ‘even where Aboriginal English seems to employ the same vocab-
ulary as Australian English, it is informed by a semantics deeply rooted in
Aboriginal culture’ (2000: 264), and they are reiterated in Malcolm and Sharifian
(2002: 172).
Some African varieties of English have also been analysed through the lens of
cultural conceptualisation (cf. Polzenhagen 2007; Polzenhagen and Wolf 2007;
Wolf 1999; Wolf and Simo Bobda 2001; Wolf and Polzenhagen 2007). As an
illustrative example, Polzenhagen (2007) worked on corpora of Western African
English from a cognitive linguistic and sociocultural perspective and investigated
the African cultural model2 of community with a focus on kinship terminology and
eating metaphors in the domains of leadership, wealth and witchcraft. For the scope
of the present study, a relevant example that the scholar provides is the African loan
kola (lit. ‘cola nut’), which is used metaphorically in the hybrid phrase ‘to give
kola’ meaning ‘to bribe’. As the author makes clear, this meaning resides in the
widespread African cultural practice of welcoming guests, and especially those with
authority, by offering a kola (see also Polzenhagen and Wolf 2007).
In a more explorative manner, the theory of cultural conceptualisations has also
been applied to the study of English as an International Language (Sharifian 2011,
Chap. 7), the emerging variety of Persian English (cf. Sharifian 2011, Chap. 10) and
that of Hong Kong English (cf. Polzenhagen and Wolf 2010; Wolf and
Polzenhagen 2006; Wolf 2008).
29.3 The Interface Between Theories of Language Contact

and the Theory of Cultural Conceptualisations:
An Application in the Context of New Zealand
In the context of Aotearoa New Zealand, language contact between the indigenous
Māori language and English is the product of a long colonial history (cf. Belich
1998; King 2003). Following Van Coetsem’s terminology (2000), it is possible to
distinguish two major scenarios, one of contact as imposition (‘source language
agentivity’) and another one of contact as addition (‘receptor language agentivity’).
The first scenario describes a situation in which Māori (‘the recipient language’) is
influenced by English (‘the donor language’) at different levels. The strong influ-
ence of English on Māori is a direct result of the colonial history of New Zealand,
forcing all speakers of Māori to become bilingual. As noted in the literature, the
2
As a note on terminology, Polzenhagen relies on the notion of cultural model as encompassing
metaphorical, metonymic and other non-figurative conceptualsations in a sociocultural group.
666 M. Degani
effects of English dominance on Māori are visible, even though only little sys-
tematic research has been carried out so far (cf. Harlow 2001 for the effects of
English on Māori word order and syntax; research by the MAONZE team for
English influences on Māori phonology, e.g. Degani 2012; Duval 1995; Harlow
et al. 2009; Keegan et al. 2014; King and Syddall 2011 for the impact of English on
Māori lexis).
In contrast to this, the second scenario, that of contact as addition, defines the
influence of a minority language, Māori, on a majority language, English. In this
case, the impact on English as the recipient language is rather limited, being
restricted to some lexical borrowing. This influence has been noted in a number of
studies investigating the presence and use of Māori lexical borrowings in New
Zealand English (NZE) (cf., among others, Daly 2007; Davies and Maclagan 2006;
De Bres 2006; Degani 2010; Deverson 1991; Kennedy 2001; Kennedy and
Yamazaki 2000; Macalister 2000, 2004, 2006; Onysko and Calude 2013). Findings
from these studies have also established a general tendency for Māori borrowings to
relate to the semantic fields of native flora and fauna, proper names and places
names, and cultural key concepts. Notwithstanding the limited influence of Māori
on English, the presence of Māori lexical borrowings in NZE is considered as one
of the most distinctive traits of this variety and a sign of its uniqueness (cf., e.g.
Deverson 1985).
Another significant expression of contact between the two languages is the rise
of a variety called Māori-English. According to Maclagan et al. (2008: 1), today
Māori English represents ‘the fastest growing of the main varieties of New Zealand
English’. However, Māori English is not a variety that has developed only recently.
In fact, its origin goes back to the early phases of contact between people of
European descent and the indigenous population of New Zealand. According to
Benton (1966), Māori-English in the twentieth century emerged in a context of
second language acquisition as the language spoken by ethnically Māori people (cf.
Onysko 2015 for a recent discussion of the variety).
In line with a consistent body of research in World Englishes, Māori-English has
been described according to sets of linguistic features. Among the studies that have
been conducted in this tradition, some are worth mentioning here since they discuss
what can be taken as possible forms of language contact. Features observed in the
area of phonology include the occurrence of initial unaspirated /t/ (e.g. Bell 2000), a
less centralised KIT vowel (e.g. Warren and Bauer 2004) and a more syllable-timed
rhythm (e.g. Szakay 2008). These features can be traces of language contact since
the plosive /t/ is always unaspirated in Māori, the realisation of /i/ is higher in Māori
than in English, and Māori, differently from English, is a mora-timed language (cf.
Harlow 2001). Among pragmatic aspects of the variety, the presence of minimal
feedback appears as another contact feature (cf. Stubbe 1998). Indeed, minimal
feedback could be related to a Māori interactional style since tolerance for silence is
much higher in Māori than in English. Another important characteristic attributed to
Māori-English is the higher incidence of Māori terms than present in general NZE
(cf. King 1995). This is probably also a result of the fact that Māori people tend to
speak more often about their own concerns relating to Māori culture, which is
expressed in Māori concepts and terms. However, no further research has been
carried out on the relation between Māori terms and their cultural meanings. This
chapter intends to explore this unchartered territory through an investigation of
cultural conceptualisations.
In addition to the linguistic and cultural dimension of Māori vocabulary, another
aspect that is worth taking into account for future research on Māori-English is the
presence in New Zealand of a young generation of bicultural people who are
bilingual in English and Māori. This generation emerges from efforts in revitalising
the Māori language from the late 1970s onwards. These included the establishment
of Māori immersion schools, Māori institutions of higher education and Māori
study programmes at New Zealand universities, legal provision (the passing of the
Māori Language Act in 1987 that has made Māori the official language of New
Zealand and the foundation of the Māori Language Commission) and promotion of
the language through the media (the launching of Māori TV channels and radio
stations). The bilingual and bicultural experience of this young generation might be
a source of new contact features resulting in a dynamic construction of
Māori-English and potentially inspiring change in the variety. In particular, if one
considers the fact that Māori worldview and traditional Māori values are remark-
ably different from Pākehā culture, the potential contribution of people who have
grown up bilingual and bicultural to the development of a distinctive way of using
English should not be underestimated. These types of considerations have guided
the selection of participants for this study (cf. Sect. 29.4).
After having discussed the different scenarios of language contact that charac-
terise the linguistic environment of New Zealand, it is now important to consider
how this can be relevant for the theory of cultural conceptualisations and its
application to World Englishes. A tacit assumption in the theory of cultural con-
ceptualisations is that the linguistic material, which is the object of analysis, can be
explained as mirroring forms of cultural and/or linguistic contact. Apart from a few
examples, the literature briefly reviewed in Sect. 29.2 indicates that not so much of
overt language contact has been the object of research so far. In fact, many studies
have illustrated different shades of meaning of non-contact vocabulary such as
kinship terminology and basic vocabulary. This study takes a different path and
focuses on an explicit phenomenon of language contact, the presence of Māori
words in English oral texts, with the aim of disclosing how these terms can be the
carriers of specific cultural conceptualisations.
In view of its centrality as a cultural concept in New Zealand, one specific word
has been selected for the analysis: marae. From a purely quantitative perspective,
corpus data indicate the significance of marae. The word is included among the 100
most frequent Māori word types in both the Wellington Corpus of Written New
Zealand English (WWC, Bauer 1993) and the Wellington Corpus of Spoken New
Zealand English (WSC, Holmes et al. 1998). Marae also stands out as one of the
most productive Māori loans in the formation of hybrid compounds in NZE (cf.
Degani and Onysko 2010). In dictionaries of NZE (Orsman 1997; Macalister 2005),
the meaning of the word marae as the ‘courtyard of a Māori meeting house’ and,
more generally, ‘the complex of buildings and grounds that surround it’ appears to
668 M. Degani
have been taken over from Māori sources (cf. Williams 1957). However, apart from
the dictionary meaning, it is the encyclopaedic meaning of the word marae that
allows for a richer and varied understanding of this cultural concept as explored in
the data analysis of this chapter.
29.4 Methodology
This study is a qualitative and explorative investigation based on a pool of con-

versational data consisting of 140 narratives by students of the University of
Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand (cf. Onysko and Degani 2012). For the pur-
poses of the present chapter, the analysis concentrates on a portion of that data, i.e.
ten stories told by Māori-English bilinguals who are female, ethnically Māori and
between 19 and 30 years old.
The conversational data is based on a storytelling activity. People were asked to
recount personal stories in the form of memories, anecdotes or retold experiences.
In view of the general aim of exploring cultural conceptualisations and figurativity,
it was also important to allow participants sufficient space for individual expression.
This explains the nature of the collected oral narratives as hybrid texts in which
monologue sequences alternate with a more dialogic style of interaction so that, in
the end, the story is partly co-constructed. Far from disruptive, this strategy coheres
with the notion of ‘small stories’ in narrative research, which can help to create a
fairly natural discourse situation in a research environment (cf. Georgakopoulou
2007). In order to guarantee the validity and comparability of data, the same type of
visual and linguistic stimuli were used with every participant. People were shown
the same type of visual prompt (three pictures of New Zealand landscapes) and
were invited to choose one of the pictures to start off the narration.
A cursory look at the data has revealed that the word marae occurs frequently in
the stories of Māori-English bilinguals. This fact indicates that the cultural concept
is easily activated in the minds of the speakers when they are engaged in a creative
task. More generally, it shows the centrality of the concept MARAE for this group of
participants. The analysis in the following section is based on the close reading of
ten narratives and the selection of passages that highlight different facets of the
cultural conceptualisation of MARAE.
29.5 Analysis
As it happens with many cultural conceptualisations, also MARAE does not represent
an easy terrain for a semantic examination, especially for a Westerner who remains
an outsider to Māori culture. Shared experiences and discussions with knowl-
edgeable, helpful and generous people during the author’s stay in Aotearoa, have
contributed to giving shape to a culturally more informed understanding of this
cultural concept.3 The author is also well aware of the complexity and semantic
multi-layering of the conceptualisation of MARAE and does not intend to provide any
exhaustive descriptions of its cultural meanings. As a way to shed some light on
crucial elements of the encyclopaedic meaning of marae, the analysis starts with a
brief introduction to the cultural concept. Then, it proceeds with an exploratory
investigation of some of the central aspects of the cultural conceptualisation that
underlies different uses of the word marae as they emerged from a textual inter-
pretation of a small number of narratives.
29.5.1 An Introduction to the Cultural Conceptualisation

of MARAE
As Mead observes (2003), the term marae is widespread over Polynesia and there
are slight differences in its interpretation across different Polynesian cultures. The
denotation of this term in Aotearoa has also slightly changed over time. In its
current usage, the term marae refers to a fenced-in complex consisting of a few
buildings.4 The main building is a carved meetinghouse painted in red (wharenui or
whare tipuna) and with a courtyard in front of it (marae ātea). A dining hall and
cooking area (wharekai), as well as toilet and shower facilities (whare paku) and a
shelter for visitors are also normally part of it. Of course, some differences become
evident when comparing different marae since the marae is no longer an exclusive
rural phenomenon. Today many of them can be found in towns and cities, at
primary and secondary schools, on the premises of universities and polytechnic
institutes, and close to churches. Thus, for instance, in modern marae the number of
buildings can be smaller and only traditional and rural marae stretch over tribal
grounds and include a cemetery (urupā).
In addition to the interpretation of marae as a specific type of place, Mead
(2003) clearly indicates the cultural significance of this concept by referring to it as
a ‘cultural institution’ and the ‘centre of Māori identity’. Also Barlow (1991: 73)
regards the marae as ‘a symbol of tribal identity and solidarity’. As a way to
illustrate this cultural richness, a general tripartite subdivision is presented below
between major semantic components that indicate cultural conceptualisations of
MARAE.
3
The author would like to express her heartfelt gratitude to Tom Roa, Haupai Puke and Sophie
Nock for having introduced her to the cultural concept of marae from an indigenous perspective.
She would also like to extend her thankfulness to all the people at Te Pua Wānanga Ki Te Ao for
having invited her to take part in activities, ceremonies and events on the marae.
4
Mead (2003: 95) points out that this is the current meaning of marae and before the 1960s the
term only referred to the open space in front of the meeting house (what today is called marae
ātea), while the site of the marae was referred to as pā.
670 M. Degani
29.5.1.1 Marae as an Expression of Tribal Identity: The Connection

to the Land
The marae belongs to a particular tribe (iwi), sub-tribe (hapū) or extended family
(whānau), who regard it as their tūrangawaewae (‘the place where one belongs by
genealogical descent’, lit. ‘the place for the feet to stand’). The concept of
tūrangawaewae is defined by Mead as one of the ‘attributes which identify the
person and anchor the individual within a social unit that is identified with a known
locality’ (2003: 41). More in detail,
It is a place where one belongs by right of birth. Tūrangawaewae represents one spot, one
locality on planet earth where an individual can say, ‘I belong here. I can stand here without
challenge. My ancestors stood here before me. My children will stand tall here’. The place
includes interests in the land, with the territory of the hapū and of the iwi. It is a place
associated with the ancestors and it is full of history. (Mead 2003: 43)
The marae is the main meeting place of the tangata whenua (‘the people who
belong/affiliate to it’, lit. ‘the people of the land’) and their manuwhiri (‘guests’).

to Rituals, Customs and Values
Tūrangawaewae comes with certain rights and obligations. People have the right to
participate in and use the marae for different ceremonies (e.g. funerals, weddings)
and for social purposes (e.g. celebrating birthdays, organising tribal events, semi-
nars and workshops). People also have an obligation to assist in the work of the
marae. It is the local people’s responsibility to establish and construct the marae
complex as well as to maintain and improve it. Furthermore, the marae is the place
for carrying out tikanga Māori, in other words, for doing things according to Māori
principles, beliefs and values. Accordingly, there are tikanga accompanying the
putting up of the different buildings, tikanga guiding the artists in their creative
work, tikanga for the opening of the whole complex and tikanga for any of the
activities that take place on the marae grounds. Among the ceremonials held on the
marae, the tangihanga (‘funeral’) involves a lot of participation and active
engagement. Mourning the person who passed away is an occasion for expressing
manaakitanga (‘care for others and hospitality’), and it reinforces social bonds by
affirming reciprocity between the local people and their guests. While the tangata
whenua prepare the marae to welcome, feed and host all their guests appropriately,
the manuwhiri bring some koha (‘donation’) to assist with the expenses for the
ceremony.

to the Ancestors and Māori Cosmogony
As the heart of the marae, the wharenui (lit. ‘big house’) or whare tipuna (lit.
‘ancestral house’) can metonymically stand for marae so that references to it are
very often references to its central building. The whare tipuna carries the name of a
well-known ancestor that allows people to retrace their genealogical line and to
jointly connect to their ancestor, their house and their land. The marae also bears a
name that has significance for the local people.
The whare tipuna can be seen as a microcosm that encapsulates the Māori
worldview. It is both a physical and metaphysical space since the building
embodies Māori cosmogony. The wharenui is indeed a revealing example of a
cultural metaphor (cf. Ka’ai et al. 2004). It is built to honour the ancestor of a
particular tribal group and its structure metaphorically ‘embodies’ the ancestor.
Different elements of the architectural structure stand for different parts of the
ancestor’s body. A carving depicting the face of the ancestor is located at the apex
of the building and it is typically surmounted by a small representation of his whole
body. The bargeboard at the front of the building stands for the ancestor’s wel-
coming arms and it ends with fingers. The entrance and the window represent his
mouth and his eyes. The ridgepole that runs the length of the inside of the meet-
inghouse is regarded as the spine of the ancestor, with the ribs in the form of rafters
descending from the top of the roof to the sides of the building. The interior of the
wharenui is a space of unity and multiplicity: on the one hand, it stands for the belly
or bosom of the ancestor; on the other, the tukutuku (‘woven panelling’) and other
decorations on the walls describe different lines of descent, functioning as
genealogies that connect the tangata whenua to their physical and metaphysical
predecessors. In addition to metaphor, symbolism can be retraced in the use of
colours in the paintings that enrich the walls. Here, red, black and white respec-
tively stand for the blood of the ancestors, Te Po (‘Darkness and the World of the
dead’) and Te Ao Marama (‘Light and the World of the living’). The interior is also
a space where the individual coincides with the universal since the three internal
poles (front, central and back) that metaphorically sustain the body of the ancestor
also connect Papa (‘Earth Mother’) and Rangi (‘Sky Father’), the progenitors of all
Māori people. Thus, the poles (re)tell the story of their separation through which the
entire world was created (cf. Schrempp 1992, Chap. 3).
29.5.1.4 The Cultural Schema of MARAE in the Narratives
The following analysis is based on a selection of representative passages from the

stories that contain the word marae. In line with Quinn’s (1997), Palmer’s (1996)
and Sharifian’s (2011) approaches, the lexical usage of the term was taken as the
starting point for analysing the underlying cultural schema.
672 M. Degani
(1) Ahm, that one, this one ya, ah this one here, that the gravel roads and stuff reminds me
of back in Hastings, that’s one of the places I come from, ahm, and the drive out to
my marae out there – I have more than one marae in this area but this reminds me
particularly about one.5
As the excerpt above suggests, the visual stimulus (in this case, the photograph
depicting a gravel road) was an incentive for the speaker to talk about her roots.
First, she refers, more generically, to the place where she comes from, the area
around Hastings (a city on the East Coast of the North Island in New Zealand).
Then, she makes the connection to this place stronger by indicating that the picture
reminds her particularly of one marae among others that she has in this territory
(note that there is no marae as such on the picture, but just a landscape of a gravel
road). The reference she makes to a plurality of marae is an expression of tribal
identity. A Māori person can indeed affiliate with more marae because of her/his
parents belonging to different iwi (‘tribe’) or hapū (‘sub-tribe’). This aspect is
alluded to in the story narrated by another participant who, talking about her family,
says the following:
(2) Yeah, yeah, yeah, my dad’s marae is just out of [non audible] which is just out of
Rotorua, my mum’s marae is in, ahm, Hoteru, which is just out of Kawhia.
As example (2) suggests, parents can provide their children with a right to feel
‘at home’ in more than one marae and the actual location of the respective marae
depends on the specific tribal affiliations. In this case, the speaker relates to Te
Arawa (a tribal confederation based around the geothermal zone of Rotorua and
nearby Bay of Plenty) through her dad and to Tainui (a tribal confederation based in
the Waikato region) through her mum.
The connection and identification with a number of marae is also expressed in
another narration:
(3) […] we used to come down as much as we could, ahm, mainly ‘cause – well it was
about getting back to our roots, so dad was really – mum and dad were really strong
about that really, ahm, bringing us back and getting – making sure that we knew our
families, ahm, and ‘cause they are really active in, ahm, their the Māori communities
and the iwi communities and hapū communities, so we would always come back for
the events, and it was everywhere – there’s the marae on Maungatautari, then there’s
the maraes in Morrinsville, ahm, the ones in Otorohanga, that’s past, ah, just before
Waitomo caves, so the maraes around there, ahm, yeah no those are the three main
ones, and when we’d come back we would always either stay with my aunties here in
Hamilton or the ones down in Otorohanga, mmh […] Yeah, yeah, through mum and
dad and then my grandparents, but, ahm, Maungatautari, ah the Cambridge one, the
Morrinsville one and the Otorohanga ones are the ones we’ve always went back to, so
yeah, those are the ones that I have stronger connections with, mmh […]
The story of this speaker starts with recollections of her memories as a child
living in the city of Auckland and travelling to the central part of the island to stay
5
In each of the quoted passages, transcription mark-up has been removed and emphasis is by the
author.
at marae and visit family. As she recounts, events were constantly organised in one
of the marae, but the actual reasons motivating the frequent travels appear as more
profound. For her, visiting a marae was a way to get back to her roots and know her
families. It was a way to reestablish a connection to her land and to strengthen the
social bond to her whanau, hapū and iwi. These are the actual ‘families’ she has in
mind, the tribal ‘families’ with whom she identifies and with whom she shares
tūrangawaewae. Thus, the concept of family that is evoked neither coincides with
the Western notion of a nuclear family nor with that of an extended family that may
comprise second and third generations. In fact, it extends to the tribe. Even the
‘aunties’ who are mentioned in the story are not the biological aunties. This use of
the term family appears to be similar to Aboriginal English (cf. Sharifian 2011).
While a few participants expressed their strong connections to multiple marae
because of their tribal affiliations through their parents and sometimes through their
grandparents as well, in one story a speaker emphasised the ‘distance’ between
what she calls her marae and other marae.
(4) Yeah, ah, like, I’ll go back to my marae like more often than I would go to other
marae, but say if there is like an event there well, like, ahm, a funeral or something
that’s – or a wedding – you know, when there is an event happening at other marae
then I will go to another marae, but, ahm, yeah not very often I go to other people’s
marae. […] Ahm, oh, every like iwi or hapū has their own like kawa, protocol, and
then, yeah, it just changes wherever you go […] they’ll – they normally tell you if you
are doing something wrong, it’s not so easy to miss out at that.
The marae with whom the narrator identifies is the one that she visits regularly.
As she mentions at another point in the story, she goes back quite frequently to this
place. On the contrary, she might spend time on other marae as she takes part as a
guest in weddings or funerals that are held there. The fact that different marae can
stick to different protocols is another important aspect of the tribal identity that
shows in this excerpt. Different tribes might not share their cultural practices and the
identification with a particular marae comes with a bundle of specific knowledge
concerning how to do things correctly. As the narrator says, every iwi or hapū
follow their own kawa (‘protocol’) and people need to get informed about how to
behave appropriately when they happen to be on a marae that is not their own.
Respecting the rules and following the right procedure (tikanga) is of utmost
importance when someone participates in a tangihanga (‘funeral’) on the marae
grounds.
(5) it’s probably my main marae there and that’s where all the tangihanga, oh you know
like when we go back home if it’s immediate family, so I’ve lost quite a few people –
you know immediate, first cousins and aunties and uncles and stuff, quite a few and so
that’s our main our main marae that we go to, and yeah, that really just brings it all
back and, ahm, reminds me of tikanga. basically it just, yeah, reminds me of being
being on the marae, ah the protocols that happen on the marae, ahm, right from the
sound of the karanga of the kuia, ahm, from when, ah, she is welcoming a group
onto the marae, ahm, all those protocols, yeah, so it starts from there. […]
674 M. Degani
I’m I’m usually one of the ones ‘cause when when you are on the marae there’s the ones
that are out the front doing the pōwhiri, doing the protocols that take place, there’s the
ones that are with the body, the whānau pani, so they – their part is to stay by the body
and, and, ahm, be the face in a way for those that come through and then there’s the ones
that ah work behind the scenes and take care of the kitchen and all that kind of stuff. So
when I go back to this marae I’m usually sitting out by the body, yeah, it’s, it’s like that
mainly because I don’t live in Hastings anymore, I’ve been out of there for – oh I never
lived in Hastings but as a child growing up we would always go back, you know, we would
always go back for the tangihanga […]
there’s one aunty I have who who always does the karanga. She is always up there, she
always does the songs after the kaikorero, ahm, that she is starting to age on now and so,
ahm, I just – it’s in my head it’s in the back of my head but, you know, someone’s gonna
have to step up into her shoes, you know, and and, you know, ahm, this time I think there
isn’t a better time than to start learning now about all that stuff and why why it is that you
say these words in the karanga and stuff, like I kind of understand it, but I know there’s
much more to it than just what you are taught, you know, there’s meaning behind why, you
know, why they do each karanga, because they do the first karanga and then the the
group coming on the manuwhiri will reply, and then they do another one, and and
that’s to the people who have passed on, and then they do another one to ahm just ahm
you know to let the the group coming on that the – it’s all in peace and you know make
them feel safe and stuff like that. So yeah that’s definitely something in my head because
I’m – I’ve always been one of the ones to get up and sing a song and ahm especially
‘cause it’s close family to me, will do up – get up and do a haka with my brothers, you
know, see all these member- for me it’s just a stronger me saying ‘I’m there too’, wherever
I’m standing at the back or wherever but it’s strong within me so I can honestly say that I’m
proud to be Māori […]
I do have other marae I go to, ahm, you know, if if there’s someone, usually a tangata
rongonui someone famous or someone who’s made an impact in te ao Māori, ahm I’ll
try my best to get to those tangihanga as well, but usually it’s like, ah, we find out not
long after, you know, it’s happened as a Māori people and and it gets around pretty fast so
when that happens that’s that’s the time to kind of, ahm, you know, like choose or, you
know, choose an appropriate time for all of us to go as a ope as a group, as opposed to
going as individual, that’s another thing that’s pretty strong […]
as a contingent we can actually let the tangata whenua of the marae know that we are
planning to arrive at this time so then – so they can be prepared, and so they know what’s
happening, that’s another thing that I think is is a – that’s awesome about yeah about Māori
people is that it’s it’s all about manaaki and you know caring, ah, caring for one one
another […] and it’s filtered on through from our tipuna ‘cause they they used to do the
same thing, ahm but they they used to go for much longer their tangihanga because the
travel time you know, they they used to walk, yeah they used to walk so the tangihanga
would go on for months and months not just three days […]
with Māori people we we’re quite we’re quite emotional and so when – on the marae,
tangihanga it’s just lots of weeping and stuff but ahm, ‘cause I haven’t really been to many
Pākehā tangihanga oh, you know, haven’t really been to many Pākehā funerals, ahm, I
know it’s it’s different there and it feels different because they contain themselves.
For this speaker, thinking and talking about her main marae was a way to reflect
on her coming back to it to participate in numerous tangihanga that were celebrated
there for her family. As already observed, the concept of ‘family’ that is associated
to the marae, and in this case to the tangihanga on the marae, markedly differs
from the prototypical Western understanding of it. Here the cultural distance from
the Western concept is clearly communicated by the speaker’s use of the expression
‘immediate family’ to indicate a large network of relations that include, among
many others, cousins, aunties and uncles. In the story, the narrator also refers to
them with the phrase ‘close family’. Pondering on tangihanga, the speaker’s
memories immediately go back to the culturally significant rituals (tikanga) that
combine in the elaborate mourning ceremony. As she narrates, the funeral starts
with the formal call (karanga) from the kuia (‘old and knowledgeable woman’)
who welcomes the guests on the marae. Indeed, as she mentions, the first karanga
initiates a chanting exchange between the kuia and the people who respond to it.
Each of the calls from the kuia addresses a specific concern. There are chants for the
people who have passed away and there are welcoming chants for the people
approaching the meetinghouse. Another tikanga the narrator refers to is the pōwhiri
(‘welcome ceremony’), which comprises procedures that guide how to meet guests
and visitors from outside of the tribe on the marae. Since social relations are given
particular cultural significance, it is important that they are managed following a set
of rules. The pōwhiri is just one way for the local people to show their hospitality in
a culturally appropriate manner. Recalling her participation in a number of tangi-
hanga brings back reminiscences related to the involvement of different groups of
people and their responsibilities in carrying out specific duties. Thus, in addition to
the people doing the pōwhiri, there are people who stay with the body and there are
people who act behind the scenes and work in the kitchen for preparing the food
that will be eaten jointly at a later stage in the ceremony. From the narrative, one
can also infer that the speaker takes pride in explaining how she usually gets
involved in the tangihanga. She is not just one of those who stays by the body.
Instead, on these occasions, she actively engages by singing a song and performing
a haka (‘ceremonial dance’) with her brothers. The speaker also alludes to her
future commitments as she indicates that her aunt, who regularly does the karanga
after the kaikorero (‘formal speaker’), is getting old and someone will have to step
into her shoes. Her words show that she is deeply aware of the responsibilities that
will come with that role and they communicate how serious she is about this task,
which involves a lot of cultural learning. As she says, there is much more that she
needs to understand about the cultural significance of the words that are used during
the karanga. This can be interpreted as an allusion to the cultural richness encap-
sulated in Māori vocabulary when the Māori language is used in certain formal
contexts to communicate a culturally specific worldview.
In addition to her own, the narrator says she may also visit other marae for
tangihanga, but this only happens when a famous Māori person passes away. As
she explains, when this happens, the news circulates quickly among Māori people
who then organise to go to the tangihanga as a group. At these crucial times,
behaving as an ope (‘group’) as opposed to behaving as individuals is an important
cultural value. Manaaki (‘care’) is another cultural value that deeply informs the
tangihanga. In the narrative, manaaki appears as a form of reciprocal care between
the local people and their guests. Manaaki strengthens the social bond between
people who meet on the common ground of the marae and it reinvigorates the
676 M. Degani
relation with the physical and metaphysical space of the marae since the whole
experience, as the speaker says, is filtered through the eyes of the ancestors (tipuna).
These give cultural grounding and stimulate a sense of cultural continuity to the
spiritual experience. Thus, even though changes from the traditional ceremonials
have been introduced (e.g. the duration of a tangihanga has been restricted from a
few months to a few days), the essence of the cultural event has remained intact.
Another aspect that emerges from the stories is the partial identification of marae
with a specific type of educational setting that is intended to foster cultural
knowledge.
(6) I, ahm, done a leadership program for Te Arawa last year called Rangatakapu and
we stayed in Ohinemutu not at Tamatikapua – Tunuhapu which is, ahm, it’s like, three
marae and it’s the one in the middle, yeah. […] Ahm, oh, we just had three wānanga
there, I think – two or three I can’t remember and we stayed overnight oh, we went,
yeah, it was like a leadership forum just to, ahm, help with, ahm, all like up and
coming Te Arawa leaders.
The marae can be the place where cultural knowledge is explicitly promoted
through educational seminars (wānanga) and training programmes. In (6), the
emphasis is on aspects that are relevant for tribal identity and organisation. For a
tribal group like Te Arawa it is important to form a new generation of culturally
competent leaders. The narrator proudly describes her taking part in one of these
leadership programmes that was held for up and coming Te Arawa leaders at
Tamatikapua marae. The fact that this type of activities can be organised at the
marae is also an indication of the cultural specificity of this concept in Aotearoa
with respect to other Polynesian cultures. As Mead observes,
The idea and concept of the marae is not confined to Aotearoa alone. It is a Polynesian idea
that takes different forms and functions in various places. In eastern Polynesia, for example,
the religious aspect of the marae takes precedence over its social purpose. On the other hand
in Western Polynesia it is a place for social events where people can meet. In the Cook
Islands and Aotearoa New Zealand there is a compromise between the deeply religious
aspect and the social. (2003: 109)
The analysed stories also suggest that the associations to the cultural concept of
marae can be even more personal than the ones outlined so far. The following
passage illustrates this aspect.
(7) people in Taranaki wear a white feather and it’s it’s a symbol of their ff- oh their belief
in peace and prosperity and in their faith, ahm, and when the second Māori king
Tawhiao – he travelled down to Taranaki he travelled from here, from Ngaruawahia
to Taranaki to, ahm, was it to like retrieve their faith that they had ‘cause that the-
their faith was all about peace, ahm, and so he went down there and talked with them
and he brought that faith back here to Waikato, and with him he brought the flag
and on that flag was called te raukura o the rangimarie and there was a waka and there
were three feathers sticking out from it, and then we’re told he gave that flag to my
ancestor who flew it at our marae, so that was the flag of our marae, so we were – it
was a symbol that we were staunch believers in the Kingitanga and, ahm, believers
in peace and so we, you know, didn’t want to actively get involved in war unless we
absolutely have to, so yeah and so I was named after that flag […]
In this story, the narrator recounts how she got her name from the name of the
flag that was brought to her marae as a symbol of peace. This flag was brought
there by her ancestor, who in turn got it from the second Māori king Tawhiao after
his return from a travel to Taranaki where he got it. People in Taranaki were well
known for their belief in peace, which still nowadays is symbolised by the white
feathers that they sometimes wear. The main reason for Tawhiao’s travel from
Waikato to Taranaki was indeed retrieving the faith in peace and prosperity of the
people living there, and the flag that he brought back with him was a strong symbol
of that. Peace was symbolised in the name of the flag (te raukura o the rangimarie,
‘the feather of peace’) as well as in the presence of three feathers sticking out of it.
There is a lot of historical and cultural knowledge that this flag represents, including
the Māori King movement (kīingitanga), which started in 1858 with the aim of
establishing a Māori sovereignty in Aotearoa and uniting the different tribes under
this sovereignty. Among other things, this excerpt reveals how the marae can be a
site for symbolic associations that are rooted in historical events of profound cul-
tural significance.
The analysed parts of the stories have offered highly valuable material for
investigating the cultural conceptualisation of marae. The narratives indicate that
the Māori participants who took part in this study connect to the concept of marae
in multiple ways. The general picture that comes out from their stories emphasises
the conceptualisation of marae as the place of one’s origin and belonging. The
marae appears as a place not just to visit, but also to come back to because it is
there that a person can find one’s roots and really feel ‘at home’. More than a
physical location, the marae emerges as a social space where to spend time together
with ‘family’, in the Māori sense of the word, and reinforce social bonds. The
marae also surfaces as a spiritual place for the celebration of tangihanga that
reinforce important cultural values (e.g. manaaki), and it also serves as a learning
context for the perpetuation of Māori cultural knowledge. Furthermore, the marae
can function as a trigger of historical events that provide additional conceptual
layers of historical rootedness and cultural continuity.
As the analysed passages have shown, the Māori-English bilingual participants
often rely on Māori terminology to convey their ideas. The stories are indeed
interspersed with Māori words that closely connect to the conceptualisation of
MARAE and contribute to give shape to the underlying cultural schema. This emerges
as the result of a complex system of semantic interconnections among other Māori
concepts that include iwi, hapū, tikanga, kawa, tangihanga, karanga, kuia, pōwhiri,
tangata whenua, whānau pani, kaikorero, manuwhiri, tipuna, ope, manaaki,
wānanga, kīngitanga. More precisely, the analysed narratives suggest how the
cultural schema of MARAE partly consists of semantic relations to:
(a) cultural categories that express the connection to the land (iwi, ‘tribe’; hapū,
‘sub-tribe’);
(b) cultural categories that express the connection to rituals, values and cultural
practices (kawa, ‘protocol’; tikanga, ‘correct procedure, custom, habit’);
678 M. Degani
(c) cultural schemas that express the connection to rituals, values and cultural
practices (tangihanga, ‘funeral’);
(d) cultural categories that express the connection to cultural learning and educa-
tion (wānanga, ‘educational seminar, conference’);
(e) cultural categories that express the connection to historical events (kīngitanga,
‘Māori king movement’).
The schema of tangihanga is in turn informed by cultural content provided by
categories that refer to:
(a) groups of people who have specific roles during the tangihanga (tangata
whenua, ‘the hosts’; manuwhiri, ‘the guests’);
(b) individuals who are assigned important tasks during the tangihanga (kuia, ‘the
woman who does the chanted calls’; kaikorero, ‘the person who gives the initial
formal speech’);
(c) other participants, both material and spiritual (whanau pani, ‘the bereaved
relatives’; tipuna, ‘the ancestors’);
(d) performative components of the tangihanga (karanga, ‘the initial chanted call’;
pōwhiri, ‘the welcome ceremony’; haka, ‘the ceremonial dance’);
(e) cultural values that inform the tangihanga (manaaki, ‘care for others’; ope, ‘to
indicate the idea of acting as a group’).
29.6 Conclusion
The analysis has provided insights on the cultural conceptualisation of marae as it

emerged from the investigation of a number of stories told by a group of
Māori-English bilingual speakers. The cultural schema of MARAE that has been
deduced from the semantic analyses of linguistic data highlights the relation of
MARAE to a number of other Māori conceptualisations. Indeed, the Māori words that
intersperse the stories and connect to marae work together as linguistic vehicles of a
culturally specific conceptual content. In this respect, the stories appear as marked
not just by the occurrence of Māori lexical items but also, and most significantly, by
the conveyance of a Māori conceptual cultural content. This is partly encapsulated
in the Māori words that are used in the stories as the close reading of the narratives
shows.
The findings demonstrate that the English language can serve as a vehicle for
expressing Māori cultural conceptualisations when it is used by Māori people who
have knowledge of Māori language and culture. This insight has implications for
the internal variation of Englishes in the larger context of New Zealand as it
contributes to an understanding of the Māori element in ‘Aotearoa English’, a term
that could be used to identify an English dialect characterised by the presence of
Māori linguistic, cultural and conceptual content. In this respect, the study also
indicates the usefulness of cultural conceptualisations as a new framework for
analysing and classifying English varieties based on cognitive semantic principles

and emphasising the role of culture in conceptualisation.
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682 M. Degani
Author Biography
Marta Degani is Associate Professor of English language and linguistics at the University of
Verona. She holds a Ph.D. in English Studies from the University of Venice and an M.A. in
Applied Linguistics from Macquarie University (Australia). She has researched extensively on the
variety of New Zealand English, focusing on phenomena of linguistic and cultural contact between
English and Māori. She currently has two research foci: the study of bilingualism and biculturalism
in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand and the analysis of political discourse in the frameworks
of cognitive semantics and discourse analysis.
Chapter 30
De-escalation—A Cultural-Linguistic
View on Military English and Military
Conflicts
Hans-Georg Wolf
30.1 Introduction
It seems that, in the popular mind (at least of Westerners), the world is more
conflict-laden and war-ridden than ever. And indeed, the number of armed con-
flicts1 has gone up in the period between 2012 to 2015, the number of conflicts with
more than 10,000 fatalities has increased from two to four, those with fatalities
between 1000 and 9999 from six to ten (Wikipedia 2016a). Currently, the United
Nations leads 16 international peacekeeping missions (United Nations
Peacekeeping, n.d.). As Crossey already stated in 2005, there is “an ever-increasing
number of peace-support operations” (Crossey 2005: n.p.). Besides, numerous
international military operations that are or were not under the auspices of the
United Nations took place in the last decades or are currently taking place (cf.
Norheim-Martinsen and Nyhamar 2015).
The term ‘de-escalation’ is used here in the general sense of lessening the intensity of military
conflicts or interrupting their further development.
This chapter is partly based on the plenary lecture “Military English – a World Englishes
perspective”, held at the English for Uniformed Forces conference, Indonesian National Defense
Forces Peacekeeping Center, Bogor, Indonesia, June 26–28, 2013 and the keynote lecture
“English as a lingua franca – a critical appraisal and a quest for a wider framework”, held at the
Challenges 6 conference, Jan Evangelista Purkyně University, Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic,
March 12–13, 2015.
1
Armed conflicts are often considered in the wider context of (organised) violence, which involves
various parameters (see, e.g. Cooper et al. 2011, and also Pinker and Mack 2014). Depending on
the quantitative measures one applies (e.g. types of fatalities, types of violence; see Cooper et al.
2011), the recorded number of conflicts may differ.
H.-G. Wolf (&)

Potsdam University, Potsdam, Germany
e-mail: hgwolf@uni-potsdam.de

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_30
684 H.-G. Wolf
Although information on the language(s) used in these operations is hard to

come by, for sure, the working language of operations involving NATO members is
English and, arguably to a lesser extent, French (the other working language of
NATO). The study of Military English (ME) is still very much restricted to English
for Special Purposes (ESP), receiving little attention from scholars outside this field.
However, given the global importance of joint military alliances and peacekeeping
as well as peace-enforcing operations, ME deserves and requires a wider attention.
Moreover, ME touches upon a number of theoretical issues that are currently
debated in such fields as World Englishes, English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), and,
specifically relevant to this chapter, Cultural Linguistics (CL). In turn, while CL is a
well-established paradigm by now—which is not only attested by the contributions
to this volume (also see Sharifian 2015a and Sharifian 2017 for a systematic
overview)—and its methodological approaches have been applied to various sub-
jects (e.g. World Englishes, intercultural communication, political discourse anal-
ysis, second language learning and pedagogy in general; see, e.g. Sharifian 2015a,
b; Sharifian and Palmer 2007) its potential for reducing military conflicts and
misunderstandings—within military alliances as well as across conflicting and
affected parties—has not been explored. It is the primary aim of this chapter to
initiate such an exploration. Its secondary aim is to widen the theoretical scope of
ME, specifically with respect to culture.
Thus, this introduction will be followed by a delineation of ME first. Briefly, I
will discuss how ME is and is not a kind of “technical English”, how ELF in the
context of ME is narrowly tied to native-speaker norms, and how culture has been
considered in this paradigm so far. Picking up on “culture”, the focus of this chapter
will be shifted specifically to the application of CL to the military domain. Three
cases from military contexts will be presented that are analysed by means of CL. It
is argued that these cases can serve as examples of how an analysis of the cultural
conceptualisations at work in intercultural communication can lead to a better
intercultural2 understanding and hence to conflict reduction.
30.2 Military English
In certain ways, ME is similar to other technical Englishes, such as Aviation

English.3 A defining characteristic of a technical language is that it has a technical
register, i.e. a specific terminology that is used in specific professional contexts and
2
On the use of the terms intercultural and cross-cultural (communication), see Wolf (2015: 445).
3
For Aviation English, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a United Nations
agency, has set standards of proficiency and administers respective training and tests (see ICAO, n.
d.). For a recent discussion of Aviation English, see Hansen-Schirra and Maksymski (2013).
30 De-escalation—A Cultural-Linguistic View … 685
that users need to have the necessary skills to apply this terminology in order to
communicate meaningfully in such contexts. For ME in the NATO context, the
agency in charge of standardising terminology is the NATO Standardization Office
(NSO), which has published numerous documents and glossaries on NATO ter-
minology (see NSO, n.d.). In a wider scope than immediate NATO terminology,
ME as a technical English consists of acronyms, phrases, slang and specific dis-
course patterns. Respective sources include, for example, the Glossary of military
terms and abbreviations for the Canadian Cadet Movement (2006), numerous
Wikipedia (e.g. 2015) and Wiktionary pages (e.g. 2014), Bowyer’s (2004)
Dictionary of military terms and Szczepaniak-Kozak’s (2004) Introduction to
military discourse. Military English terms are indeed so specific that many of them
are not even to be found in major corpora of English.4
Yet unlike Aviation English, ME is not restricted to well-delineated professional
activities. Due to the nature of the contexts in which it is used, it is far more than a
technical English. In international operations, ME is the language of multinational,
multicultural and multilingual communities of practice over a sustained period of
time. Importantly, English is also likely to be used in interactions with local,
non-military communities. Febbraro et al. (2008a: 1–3, partly drawing from
Winslow et al.) summarise the complexities and challenges as follows:
As threats to international peace increase, military forces may find themselves challenged
by more diverse, complex environments than ever before, environments which include
many other actors such as representatives of the United Nations (UN), the media, and
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Often they must face these challenges in a foreign
cultural environment. Such conditions demand a high degree of intercultural competence in
dealing with the ethnic-cultural and linguistic diversity of the local population, the cultures
of other militaries, and the cultures of other international organizations …. In addition to
military operations, multinational forces are often used during operations other than war, a
class of mission that has grown over the post-Cold War era. Such operations include goals
as diverse as deterring hostile actions, combating terrorism, and providing relief from
natural disasters. These missions, like other military operations, are undertaken by coali-
tions from diverse national cultures but also involve NGOs and private voluntary
organizations.
In many respects, ME could be considered as World Englishes en miniature, with a

similar set of theoretical issues and challenges, such as the norm(s) of the English
(es) used and taught, the concepts of the ‘native speaker’ and mutual intelligibility
(with the so-called Standardization Agreement 6001, STANAG 6001, as a refer-
ence guide; NATO Standardization Agency 2010) as well as the use of English as a
lingua franca. These points will be considered in short in the next two sections.
4
A cursory search for various randomly selected items listed in Bowyer (2004), such as adamsite,
‘a vomiting agent’, yielded zero occurrences in the Corpus of Contemporary American English
(Davis 2015) and the British National Corpus (BNC 2015).
686 H.-G. Wolf
30.2.1 Norms
As of now, British English and/or American English serve as norms for Military
English (with other L1-varieties, such as Australian English, as more localised
norms) and hence as reference varieties in teaching ME. Yet, it is not a new insight
that English is a pluricentric language and has a wide range of functions in
post-colonial contexts (to give just one example relevant to ME, it is the language
of the Pakistani military). As in teaching English in general in non-native countries
where an established variety of English exists, such as India, Nigeria, or Malaysia,
to name but three, the question is whether an endonormative or exonormative norm
in teaching ME should be followed. That is, should teaching be based on locally
accepted features or be oriented towards, say, American English or British English,
with the Received Pronunciation as the model for pronunciation? Up to this point,
hardly any systematic knowledge about the use of English in the military domain in
former British or American colonies is available. A stock-taking survey of the use
of English in the national militaries of post-colonial countries is a desideratum: in
which countries is English used in the military and for what purposes, what kind of
ELF is spoken (given the multi-ethnic and multilingual composition of many of the
armed forces in post-colonial countries, such as Nigeria), and which linguistic norm
is followed in the military classroom? Likewise, contrastive glossaries of military
terms for the various national militaries that use English are absent, to the best of
my knowledge.
Potentially, the notion of ‘norms’ pertains to all levels of language (vocabulary,
orthography, syntax, phonetics/phonology, semantics/pragmatics). For ELF inter-
actions, however, vocabulary, phonetics/phonology and semantics/pragmatics are
the most crucial ones. Standardised norms are of course necessary for “effective
functioning”, not only in military contexts, yet a purely functional perspective falls
short in capturing the cultural complexities involved (see Wolf 2015). Vocabulary
and semantics/pragmatics are the dimensions vital for intercultural understanding
and the ones relevant to a cultural-linguistic perspective on ME, to be discussed
later in this chapter.
The problem of norms is a central topic in the linguistic study of ELF. According
to Seidlhofer (2011: 18), in ELF interactions, norms are created ad hoc, adequate to
the task at hand and commensurate to linguistic resources available. The important
question is whether some kind of conventionalisation of ELF features (which then
could be used in teaching) is taking place. Some grammatical tendencies identified
by Seidlhofer (2004: 220) include the following: dropping the third person present
tense -s; confusing the relative pronouns who and which; omitting definite and
indefinite articles where they are obligatory in ENL, and inserting them where they
do not occur in ENL; failing to use “correct” forms in tag questions (e.g. isn’t it? or
no? instead of shouldn’t they?); inserting redundant prepositions, as in We have to
study about…); overusing certain verbs of high semantic generality, such as do,
have, make, put, take; overdoing explicitness (e.g. black color rather than just
black). For the phonological level, Jenkins (2000: Chap. 6) suggests an “ELF core”
to be taught, that would include, inter alia, the omission of /ð/, /h/, the omission of
dark /l/, rhoticity, (vocalic) addition in preference to deletion in consonant clusters,
the reduction of diphthongs. What has not been satisfactorily answered so far by the
proponents of such an ELF core, however, are the following questions: How do “ad
hoc” norms relate to conventionalising/conventionalised features—so they exist—
in ELF? What is the relation of ELF norms to norms existing in first or second
language varieties? Should conventionalised ELF features be taught as an “add on”
norm and to whom? These questions are relevant to any kind of English language
teaching, but especially for teaching English geared towards ELF contexts, such as
ME. It seems that Seidlhofer (2011: 197) goes as far as to argue for an abandonment
of norms when she writes that “to accept the reality that what is learnt of English
does not, and cannot, correspond with the language that is currently taught and that
the specification of NS [native speaker] competence … has to be abandoned.
Instead, the purpose of teaching becomes the development of a capability for
effective use … no matter how formally defective”. To my mind, this suggestion of
an “anything goes as long as English is used “effectively” (whatever that is sup-
posed to mean) is neither realistic nor feasible. Explicit and implicit language norms
are a reality, and L2-varieties of English, such as Nigerian English, Singapore
English, Indian English or Philippine English, are still struggling for legitimising
their own local norms vis-à-vis native-speaker norms. The decades-long efforts by
linguists to “liberate” these varieties from colonial models and establish them as
varieties in their own right would have been wasted. Besides, for better or worse,
English proficiency tests, such as TOEFL, the Cambridge Certificate, or, in the ME
context, tests based on STANAG 6001 (see below) still function as “gate keepers”
(cf., e.g. Lowenberg 2012).5 A more fruitful approach than the one suggested by
Seidlhofer is to expose students of English to as many different varieties as possible,
at the linguistic as well as the cultural conceptual levels. In the words of
Canagarajah (2006: 233), “to be really proficient in English today, one has to be
multidialectal”, which would include “a passive competence to understand new
varieties”, not “production skills in all varieties of English”. Following one norm,
yet not necessarily an L1-norm, still provides a clearer frame of reference for
students than an imaginary ELF norm or no norm at all.6 Norms are intimately tied
to the concepts of the ‘native speaker’ and ‘mutual intelligibility’, which will be
dealt with in the next section.
5
Also see Firth (2009) for a critique of the (implicit) assumption of ELF as an identifiable variety
of English and building a pedagogy on this assumption.
6
For a broader view on the topic of teaching EIL or ELF, the reader may refer to three recent
collective volumes (Bayyurt and Akcan 2015; Marlina and Giri 2014; Matsuda 2012).
688 H.-G. Wolf
30.2.2 The Concepts of ‘Native Speaker’

and ‘Mutual Intelligibility’
STANAG 6001 (NATO Standardization Agency 2010) sets the guidelines and
standards of language proficiency, “for the purpose of”, inter alia, “communicating
language requirements for international staff appointments”, and is binding for all
participating nations. In defining the language proficiency levels, it strongly posits
the “(educated) native speaker” as reference. However, “native speaker” in
STANAG 6001 is an abstraction; no reference is made to any one specific native
variety, but to “regionalisms and dialects” the non-native speaker has to be able to
understand (STANAG, 6001: A-2). In turn, the non-native speech (at “survival”
and “functional” levels for speaking) is characterised as having “errors in pro-
nunciation, vocabulary, and grammar” that “distort” or “sometimes distort mean-
ing” (STANAG, 6001: A-3). As to culture expressed in speaking, STANAG (6001:
A-4) posits that the professional non-native speaker “may not fully understand
some cultural references, proverbs, and allusions, as well as implications of nuances
and idioms”.
Several points worthy of criticism are evident: Clearly, the onus of mutual
intelligibility is solely placed on non-native speakers. First, it is assumed that all
(educated) native speakers need to be understood, regardless of their dialect.
Second, it is taken for granted that interactions between native speakers are
unproblematic. Third, STANAG 6001 implies that native speakers themselves fully
understand all cultural references. With its insistence on an elusive native-speaker
norm, the issuing Standardization Agency betrays ignorance of the debates and
advances in the field of World Englishes in the past three or four decades and
neglects the cultural diversity of the Englishes spoken around the world. Not even
for French, connected to a long-standing record of upholding Parisian Standard
French as the sole model, the insistence on the native speaker seems adequate,
given the numerous L2-varieties of French outside of France and Canada. The
concept of the ‘native speaker’ is questionable, in that it does not capture the
complexities of multilingual, and, I may add, multicultural, realities (see Schneider
2010: 382). ‘Native speaker’ typically applies to English speakers from Great
Britain or the US as norm setters, yet the difference between L1- and L2-varieties
becomes increasingly blurred. Even within NATO publications, it is realised that
“native speaker” is not an unproblematic concept. For example, Poteet et al. (2008)
draw attention to miscommunication between US and UK military personnel at
various levels of language. In a similar vein, (Crossey 2005: n.p.) notes that “strong
regional accents of many of the native speakers” pose problems for non-native
speakers of English on peacekeeping missions.7 Indeed, studies confirm that it is

often the native speaker that inhibits mutual intelligibility with non-native speakers
and not vice versa (see Atechi 2006; Kirkpatrick et al. 2008; Smith and Rafiqzad
1979). Hence, language training often is irrelevant to the realities in military
operations. As Crossey (2005: n.p.) observes, “while many military English courses
emphasise a particular form of English, whether ‘Standard American English’ or
‘Standard British English’, the reality on many postings is that most business is
connected with other non-native speakers of the language”, and this holds true not
only for military contexts, but for most ELF interactions. This topic will be further
pursued in the next section, though, given the scope of this chapter, with a focus on
culture.
30.3 English as a Lingua Franca Versus English

as an International Language: A Focus on Culture
in Military English and Beyond
To recapitulate, for the topic at hand, the use of English as a lingua franca is
relevant at three levels: for the communication within multinational military
operations, for the communication of personnel of multinational military missions
with the population of the territory they are operating in, and, in a wider per-
spective, the political level as well.
For ELF interactions, challenges lie not only at the linguistic-structural level, as
mentioned in the previous two sections, but also at the level of cultural concep-
tualisations.8 However, a significant shortcoming in the works of ELF proponents
has been, for the most part, the noticeable absence of a cultural perspective (for a
short review of ELF and intercultural communication, see Cogo and Dewey 2012:
25–7). As Kramsch (2016) observes, “ELF and intercultural communication … up
to now have shown little interest in one another”, a point already noted in Wolf
(2015). Only recently have intercultural communication and ELF been considered
7
As Jenkins (2000: 1) claims, pronunciation is the “linguistic area that most threatens intelligi-
bility”; this claim is debatable, if ‘intelligibility’ includes conceptual understanding. Arguably,
misunderstandings due to different cultural models and cultural conceptualisations are more fun-
damental and far-reaching than immediate phonetic unintelligibility (cf. Wolf and Polzenhagen
2006).
8
As to the pragmatic level, if pragmatics is understood as the study of language in context, then
pragmatic realisations rest on cultural conceptualisations to the same extent as context is a cultural
variable. The study of pragmatics from a CL perspective is still in its infancy; for a first overview
see Sharifian (2015b).
690 H.-G. Wolf
together (see Holmes and Dervin 2016), though not on cultural-linguistic grounds.9
At best, most ELF scholars locate culture at the “observable” side of pragmatic
interactions. The reasons for this shortcoming have been discussed in Wolf (2015)
and do not need to be repeated here.
Sharifian’s (2009) elaboration of “English as an international language”
(EIL) can serve as an alternative to the restrictions of ELF as it is currently theorised
by the vast majority of researchers, and his perspective is the one this chapter
subscribes to. He makes sense “of English as an International language in terms of a
language which can be used to communicate various systems of cultural concep-
tualisations” (Sharifian 2009: 244) and, as an important goal for English language
teaching, proposes the concept of “metacultural competence”, which would include
a “conceptual explication strategy, …a conscious effort made on the part of
interlocutors to clarify relevant conceptualisations with which they think other
interlocutors may not be familiar” (Sharifian 2013: 9). This understanding of EIL
implies the acceptance of the plurality and diversity of the varieties of English
around the world—which, beyond the conceptual level, may encompass diversity at
all levels of language (see above)—but, in an important distinction from the ELF
camp, highlights the study and communication of underlying cultures by means of
CL as a major goal.
Leaving STANAG (6001) aside, the importance of culture for ME is increasingly
being realised in military circles. Essens and van Loon (2008), somewhat anecdotally,
point to diverging cultural perspectives that came to play in the ISAF mission in
Afghanistan, with the American objective on “the war on terror”, opposed to the
European perspective on “building governance on existing power structures”. They
further refer to Lammers’ idea of “occupational styles”, with the Dutch culture sup-
posedly being dialogic (Essens and von Loon 2008: KN 1–3) and to six cultural
dimensions, as laid out in the GlobeSmart® Commander training, developed by a
private consultancy firm for the US military (see Aperian Global 2015): the
direct/indirect dimension, the risk/restraint dimension, the task/relationship dimen-
sion, the short-term/long-term dimension, the independence/interdependence
dimension and the egalitarianism/status dimension. Yet only for the last dimension
9
Nevertheless, one needs to mention House (2010: 367–8), who tentatively refers to an “inter-
culture” setup in ELF interactions. Drawing on Homi Bhabha and Mikhail Bakhtin, she (2010:
382–3) makes the point for an “intercultural” or “hybrid” style of ELF user, “where different
mental lexica, or in a Whorfian way, different underlying Weltanschauungen may be operative in
ELF-speakers’ minds” (House 2010: 383). The idea of Weltanschauungen (‘worldviews’), of
course, closely corresponds to the notions of ‘cultural model’ or ‘cultural conceptualisation’, in
CL. To what extent the conceptualisations are hybrid or formed on the spot is a matter of empirical
investigation (see Wolf 2015; Finzel and Wolf, in preparation).
is a concrete example given.10 The same dimensions form the basis for Mangos and
Johnston’s (2008) and Johnston and Mangos’ (2008) methodological consideration
on how to test and operationalise these dimensions.
Probably, the most comprehensive work on culture in military contexts so far is
the collective volume by Febbraro et al. (2008a). Authors therein take a wide
approach to military culture, including “organisational culture” (which is not rel-
evant to the topic at hand). As to “national culture”, Hofstede’s work on cultural
dimensions serves as the major theoretical framework adopted in this volume,
which include power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity–femininity,
individualism–collectivism and long-term versus short-term orientation.11 In their
introduction, drawing on previous studies, McKee et al. (2008: 1–8) assume a
supranational military culture distinct from the civilian sector, which is “more
collectivistic, more hierarchical and less salary-driven than the average civilian
working culture”. While this assumption could lead one to believe that operating in
multinational military teams is unproblematic, McKee et al. (2008: 1–9) are fast to
point out that “national cultural differences”, among other things, have “led to
marked differences in national military organisations”. Hofstede’s dimensions, in
some cases coupled with other cultural categories (e.g. monochronic vs. poly-
chronic time and high-context vs. low-context cultures, see Riedel 2008) and cul-
tural personality predispositions (e.g. “confidence”, “socialness”, “aggressiveness”;
see Dzvonik 2008) are then applied to specific issues in subsequent chapters:
Febbraro (2008) deals with “leadership and command”, Dzvonik (2008) with
“cultural predispositions and psychological aspects” and Riedel (2008) with
“communication” in multinational military teams.
While these studies do raise awareness of cross-cultural differences and inter-
cultural problems in multinational teams, the methodological concepts applied are
rather general and abstract. For more fine-grained and differentiated cultural anal-
yses, Hofstede’s dimensions are simply too broad. Hence, it is questionable if this
framework really fulfils the need “to better understand different world cultures and
societies”, as identified by McGinn et al. (2008: 1, 2) with reference to the military
domain.12 Besides, the cultural categories in the articles in Febbraro et al. (2008a)
10
Essens and van Loon (2008: Kn 1–7) claim that “during the Kosovo mission, the distance
between junior soldiers from Germany and certainly from Turkey and their leadership was clearly
much greater than in the Dutch unit”.
11
Hofstede’s sixth cultural dimension, indulgence, was added later (see Hofstede, n.d.).
12
This is not to say that Hofstede’s framework cannot be consoled with a CL perspective. It would
seem that the dimensions he has identified are closely tied to underlying cultural models; for
example, the individualism–collectivism dimension could be related to the African COMMUNITY
model (see Wolf and Polzenhagen 2009) or to the SOCIAL/OCCUPATIONAL UNITS ARE FAMILIES con-
ceptualisations for the Chinese culture (see Polzenhagen and Wolf 2010). It would be theoretically
worthwhile to pursue the connection between Hofstede’s dimensions and cultural models/cultural
conceptualisations further.
692 H.-G. Wolf
are applied with the explicit purpose of identifying factors that “can have an impact
on the overall operational effectiveness of the multinational force” (Febbraro et al.
2008b: ES 1). In other words, the focus is not on intercultural understanding, but
rather on “effective functioning”.13
A different theoretical view on international peacekeeping missions, one that is
akin to the CL approach taken in this chapter, is proposed by Rubinstein (2005),
Rubinstein et al. (2008) and elaborated upon in Rubinstein (2016 [2008]).
Rubinstein (2005) calls for “an anthropological approach to peace operations” (so
the subtitle of his article) that goes beyond “travellers’ advice” (Rubinstein 2005:
532) and for seeking out meaning and legitimacy of peacekeeping mission at the
symbolic level. Leaning on Gupta, Pepper, and Lakoff and Johnson, Rubinstein
(2005: 534) specifically refers to metaphors as centrally related to this symbolic
level and to cultural practices and materials. Furthermore, Rubinstein et al. (2008:
540) integrate the level of the members of a mission and that of a mission’s work
with the local population—what they somewhat technically call “horizontal inter-
operability” and “vertical interoperability”, respectively, in their consideration.
How this symbolic level can be analysed in a cultural-linguistic framework and
how such an analysis can potentially contribute to better cross-cultural under-
standing and hence de-escalation in military conflicts and in peacekeeping missions
will be demonstrated by means of three examples in the next section.
30.4 A Cultural-Linguistic Analysis of Conflicts

in the Military Domain
In the following, three examples will serve to show the theoretical strength of a
cultural-linguistic approach to intercultural understanding in military contexts. The
first example, as explicated in Slingerland et al. (2007), picks up on a military
incident that triggered (not only) a diplomatic conflict between China and the US.
The second and third example concern the relation between military forces and their
interaction—if that is not a euphemism if violence is involved—with the local
population. From the rich methodological apparatus of CL, the methodological
concept utilised in analysing the examples below is that of “cultural conceptuali-
sation”, which, according to Sharifian (2015a: 477–482), comprises “cultural
schema”, “cultural category” and “cultural metaphor”. Cultural conceptualisations,
in turn, can be seen as belonging to wider conceptual networks or cultural models
(see Wolf and Polzenhagen 2009: Chap. 2.1). While the analysis below follows the
conventions of cultural metaphor analysis (as part of conceptual metaphor analysis
13
The lemma “effective” is a keyword in Febbraro et al. volume, with dozens of occurrences in
each article. On the ideological background and the semantics of “effective” in pragmatics and
communication studies, see Wolf (2015: 447–8).
of the Lakoff and Johnson type), the more neutral term “cultural conceptualisation”
is preferred, for reasons explained in Wolf and Polzenhagen 2009: 59–60).
30.4.1 Cultural Conceptualisations in Reference to “EP3”

or the “Hainan Island” Incident
The example discussed in this section is taken from Slingerland et al. (2007). The
aim of these authors is to investigate shared and divergent conceptual metaphors
regarding the collision of an American EP-3E surveillance plane with a Chinese F-8
fighter in 2001. In short, the collision resulted in the death of the Chinese pilot, the
unauthorised emergency landing of the American plane on China’s Hainan Island,
the detention of the American crew, a bilateral dispute over China’s demand for a
formal apology, and eventually the US government’s issuing a letter in which they
stated their regret (see, e.g. Kan et al. 2001; Slingerland et al. 2007).
In a corpus of media reports on the incident, Slingerland et al. (2007) identified
sets of related conceptualisations expressed in the media accounts. The ramifica-
tions of these conceptualisations, as elaborated upon by Slingerland et al. (2007),
are too detailed to be presented here in full. The Chinese and the American sides
shared the use of conceptual metaphors pertaining to WAR (e.g. INCIDENT IS WAR,
expressed, for example by battles, saber rattling, victory in the American corpus,
and defeat, vanquish in the Chinese one), ECONOMY (e.g. RELATIONSHIP IS ECONOMIC
BARGAINING, instantiated, e.g. by bargaining chip, haggling in the American corpus
and cost, price in the Chinese one), and JOURNEY (RELATIONSHIP IS JOURNEY, realised,
e.g. by path, progress, way forward and progress, carry on, respectively)
(Slingerland et al. 2007: 65–66). Slingerland et al. (2007: 64) take shared metaphors
such as these as possibilities for policy makers and diplomats to build common
ground without suggesting victimisation of either side.
However, in their corpora, Slingerland et al. (2007: 67–8) also identified con-
ceptualisations that were not shared. GAME (e.g. INCIDENT IS GAME, instantiated, e.g.
by game plan, players, pawns, win) and TECHNICAL FIX (e.g. INCIDENT IS ARTEFACT,
expressed, e.g. by hammered out, crafted, handle) metaphors were exclusively used
by the Americans. Slingerland et al. (2007: 68) highlight their emotive dimension
and note that GAME and TECHNICAL FIX conceptualisations “are value-neutral,
unemotional, impersonal, and frame a situation in which blame and apology are
equally inappropriate”, serving the purpose of averting China’s insistence on a
formal apology (Slingerland et al. 2007: 68). In turn, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AS
CIVIL RELATIONS (expressed by humaneness/human-heartedness, impolite, rude, ar-
rogant) (Slingerland et al. 2007: 73) and VICTIM (e.g. NATION IS HOME, realised by
defend China’s doorstep, home invader) are the most frequently instantiated con-
ceptualisations by Chinese (Slingerland et al. 2007: 69). Unlike the “neutral” GAME
and TECHNICAL FIX conceptualisations drawn from by the Americans, the dominant
694 H.-G. Wolf
and specific ones utilised by the Chinese personalise this incident and are hence
“emotion-laden” (Slingerland et al. 2007: 68). As these authors explain,
Someone breaking into your home and killing your son (the violation of home and family
metaphor used by the Chinese) is most definitely not a game. The Chinese emphasis on
violation and victimization clashes with the American emphasis on reaction to the incident
as a game or puzzle in which one outmaneuvers the opponent.14 (Slingerland et al. 2007: 69)
These conceptualisations logically entail the Chinese demand for retribution and
punishment, which does not follow from the specific conceptualisations on the
American side—an incongruence that impeded an expeditious peaceful resolution
of this crisis.
As Slingerland et al. (2007: 72) rightly contend with respect to metaphors (which
also holds true for conceptualisations), “once we become conscious of them, we
seem to have a great deal of latitude in choosing among them, discarding them,
recruiting new source domains to create novel metaphors, or blending metaphors in
previously unforeseen ways”. Such flexibility should prove to be fruitful in
resolving not only international conflicts, given the right analytic training to identify
the underlying conceptualisations, i.e. the metacultural competence, in Sharifian’s
terms, and, of course, good will. This line of argument will be further exemplified in
the two subsequent cases.
30.4.2 Food Distribution During Operation Restore

Hope/UNOSOM, Somalia
Drawing from Stanton’s (1994) description of this incident, Rubinstein et al. (2008)
discuss a case of food distribution that turned into a riot during the Operation
Restore Hope/UNOSOM in Somalia in 1992. The episode recounted in Rubinstein
et al. (2008: 548, also see Rubinstein 2016: 35 for a verbatim but extended version
of the same passage) lends itself for an analysis in cultural-linguistic terms. In order
to understand its background, this episode is quoted here in full:
In 1992, a recently deployed detachment from Operation Restore Hope arrived in
Wanwaylen, Somalia, to secure a Red Cross food warehouse that was being looted .…
Initially, the force dispersed a large crowd around the warehouse with only minor injuries to
the troops and the Somalis. After gaining control of the warehouse, the detachment faced a
large, apparently unorganized crowd. Some people in the crowd explained that, rather than
distributing the food fairly, the Somali Red Cross official in charge of the supplies had been
giving food to his own people …. The crowd increased in size …, but showed no sign of
belligerence. Soon, however, the officer in charge realized that his detachment was too
small to hold off the crowd should disturbances erupt. The officer decided that the way to
disperse the crowd was to distribute the food in an orderly and even-handed manner.
14
Slingerland et al.’s (2007) findings are congruent with Wolf and Polzenhagen’s claims regarding
the importance of family and FAMILY conceptualisations in Chinese culture (see Wolf and
Polzenhagen 2006; Polzenhagen and Wolf 2010).
The officer acted without knowing the local tribal patterns of competition and reciprocity
that shape the distribution and sharing of resources in the area …. As a result, the
well-intentioned food distribution provoked rather than calmed the crowd, and rather than
communicating respect, the actions were interpreted in just the opposite manner – as
disregard for indigenous social relations.
Eventually, the food supplies were stacked outside the warehouse, where they were
“freely plundered by the now much larger, somewhat violent, and uncontrollable
crowd” (Rubinstein 2016: 35). Rubinstein et al. (2008: 550) attribute this disaster to
a neglect of the local clan structure. Indeed, the underlying Somali conceptualisa-
tions relevant to this incident are part of the African cultural model of community,
as analysed, e.g. in Wolf and Polzenhagen (2009). Pertinent conceptualisations are
THE TRIBE/CLAN IS A FAMILY, COMMUNITY ELDERS/LEADERS ARE FATHERS and LEADERSHIP
IS EATING AND FEEDING. Thus, according to the logics of this model, the distribution
of food by the Somali Red Cross official to his own people was not only seen as
something perfectly normal, but was expected of him, at least by members of his
own clan. The local official in charge acted as a kind of leader, and as such, he
needed to provide for his own people. There was no over-arching sense of com-
munity beyond the clans, and hence notions of fairness and equality in the distri-
bution, spanning across clan structures, were not applicable; on the contrary, the
attempt to achieve parity was interpreted as upsetting the existing social order.
30.4.3 The Iraqi/Arabic Concept of Shame—An Example

from Fallujah
The last example presented here relates to one of the most tarnished and, in its
global political consequences, catastrophic wars in recent decades, the Iraq War by
the United States and some of its allies. During this war, in 2004, two military
campaigns were conducted against insurgents in the city of Fallujah, the second of
which is considered “the bloodiest of the entire Iraq War” (Wikipedia 2016b). The
perception of the local population of the measures taken by US and British soldiers’
search for insurgents is captured in the following quote by a young Iraqi (cited in
Danner 2004: n.p.; italics in original):
For Fallujans it is a shame to have foreigners break down their doors. It is a shame for them
to have foreigners stop and search their women. It is a shame for the foreigners to put a bag
over their heads, to make a man lie on the ground with your shoes on his neck. This is great
shame, you understand? This is great shame for the whole tribe.
It is the duty of that man, and of that tribe, to get revenge on this soldier—to kill that man.
Their duty is to attack them, to wash the shame. The shame is a stain, a dirty thing; they
have to wash it. No sleep—we cannot sleep until we have revenge. They have to kill
soldiers. …
The Americans … provoke the people. They don’t respect the people.
696 H.-G. Wolf
What is expressed by the Iraqi man is the complex cultural schema of SHAME
(Al-Aar, ‫ )ﺍﻟﻌﺎﺭ‬in Arabic/Islamic culture. From his quote, the following
conceptualisations pertaining to this cultural schema can be extracted.
• ACTIONS INFLICTED BY FORCE ARE SHAME (instantiated by “it is a shame to have
foreigners break down their doors. It is a shame for them to have foreigners stop
and search their women. It is a shame for the foreigners to put a bag over their
heads, to make a man lie on the ground with your shoes on his neck”.)
• ACTIONS INFLICTED UPON AN INDIVIDUAL ARE ACTIONS INFLICTED UPON THE GROUP HE/
SHE BELONGS TO (instantiated by “this is great shame for the whole tribe. It is the
duty of that man, and of that tribe, to get revenge on this soldier. Their duty is to
attack them”.)
• SHAME IS A DIRTY THING (instantiated by “to wash the shame. The shame is a stain,
a dirty thing”.)
• THE REMOVAL OF SHAME/REVENGE IS AN OBLIGATION (instantiated by “it is the duty of
that man, and of that tribe, to get revenge on this soldier – to kill that man; their
duty is … to wash the shame, they have to wash it; we cannot sleep until we
have revenge; they have to kill soldiers”), with the entailment THE BLOOD OF THE
INFLICTOR IS CLEANSING WATER.
Furthermore, the frequency and salience in this discourse passage suggests shame
to be a cultural keyword (though larger text corpora would have to be analysed to
confirm this assumption). The Iraqi also expresses the perhaps universal concep-
tualization THE VIOLATION OF A CULTURAL NORM IS A PROVOCATION (“the Americans …
provoke the people [by the actions he describes in the first paragraph]”).
30.5 Conclusion
The three examples considered in the previous section demonstrate how a cultural
linguistic take on military conflicts and peacekeeping missions in international
contexts could contribute to better intercultural understanding and hence, possibly,
de-escalation. Due to the lack of substantial data, this chapter did not exemplify an
application of the CL approach to the level of “horizontal interoperability”, i.e. the
intercultural interactions of members of multinational military and peacekeeping
missions (see above). One could imagine developing further what was hinted at by
Essens and van Loon (2008, see above) regarding mission objectives (“war on
terror” on the US side vs. the European conception of “building governance on
existing power structures”) and cultural models of communications (see above “the
Dutch culture as dialogic”), given a sufficient corpus of texts. Critics opposed to
military intervention or the military per se may voice the fundamental concern that
any attempt at harmonising the workings of military personnel—which explicating
the underlying cultural conceptualisations of members of multinational military
teams would constitute—is serving a militaristic cause and hence contributes to a
more belligerent world. Yet leaving an ideal world without wars and soldiers to lead
them aside, better understanding where team members from other nations and
cultures “are coming from” may result in the smoother running of military (in-
cluding peacekeeping) missions and eventually save lives.
Numerous courses and programmes on Military English exist worldwide.
A cursory look reveals their limitations as regards the issues noted as crucial in this
chapter. More often than not, STANAG (6001) is the frame of reference, and viable
EIL and intercultural perspectives are painfully absent.15 The incorporation of such
perspectives, with exposure to as many different varieties of English as possible—
and ideally targeting specific regional varieties with their underlying cultural con-
ceptualisations that are relevant for certain assignments in English language training
—are still desiderata. The same kind of training, to be sure, would be beneficial for
NGOs involved in international aid work.
In a wider theoretical framework, the CL approach to ME and the military
domain could be seen as an important addition to the multidisciplinary and
emerging field of conflict transformation (see Austin et al. 2004/2011). In this
context, one may challenge the universality of key concepts on which military
engagements for the sake of peacekeeping and peace enforcement might be based.
Krijtenburg and de Volder (2015) demonstrate that the cultural script underlying
PEACE, as understood by the UN, differs significantly from the semantics of this
concept as understood by the Giryama, an ethnic group in Kenya.16 The insights by
Krijtenburg and de Volder (2015) are an invitation to reflect upon supposedly given
concepts upon which peacekeeping missions or, in Rubinstein et al. (2008) ter-
minology, “vertical interoperability” is based.
The theoretical gaps and pedagogical challenges for Military English are still
immense, as there seems to be little permeability between this field of ESP and
other areas of applied linguistics. This chapter tried to identify some of these gaps
and challenges and took a first step to make this boundary more permeable. In
particular, a cultural-linguistically informed EIL-perspective was proposed that
could serve as viable model for intercultural understanding (not only) in military
contexts and a pedagogical approach to conflict reduction. In turn, this chapter
attempted to widen the range of applicability of CL in yet another area of human
interaction, literally a vital one.
15
See, e.g. the module “Military English” of the Language Center of the Helmut Schmidt
University, University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg (2015); the English Language
Programs Department of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies (2016), and
“English for peacekeeping forces” by the British Council (n.d.).
16
Within the constraints of this chapter, the respective cultural scripts chiselled out by Krijtenburg
and de Volder cannot be quoted here. Krijtenburg and de Volder’s (2015: 197) approach is an
ethnolexicological one that “takes salient (i.e., socially meaningful) lexical terms as its starting
point for an enquiry into the cultural values that might underpin them”. This approach applies
Wierzbicka’s notion of ‘natural semantic metalanguage’ and has been most prominently developed
by Wierzbicka and Goddard (see, e.g. Peeters 2015 for an introduction). See Wolf and
Polzenhagen (2009: 35–39) for a theoretical positioning of this approach to Cultural Linguistics
and cognate fields.
698 H.-G. Wolf
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702 H.-G. Wolf
Author Biography
Hans-Georg Wolf is Chair Professor of Development and Variation of the English Language at
Potsdam University. His research interests include Cultural Linguistics, Sociolinguistics,
Cognitive Linguistics, Corpus Linguistics and Intercultural Pragmatics. Currently, his main focus
lies in the application of Cultural Linguistics to the study of varieties of English.
Chapter 31
Developing Meta-cultural Competence
in Teaching English as an International
Language
Zhichang Xu
31.1 Introduction
English language teaching worldwide has been undertaking a paradigm shift over
the past decades due to advances in research and practice in relevant disciplines,
including World Englishes, English as an International Language (EIL) and
Cultural Linguistics. Such a ‘shift’ embodies the following aspects: (1) English has
become a pluricentric language, namely from English to ‘Englishes’, with legiti-
mate variations in lexis, syntax, discourse, pragmatics and cultural conceptualiza-
tions among different varieties of English; (2) the distinction between English as a
foreign language (EFL), English as a second language (ESL) and English as a
native language (ENL) has become blurred, and such entities are commonly
replaced by notions such as English as an International Language (EIL) and English
as a Lingua Franca (ELF); (3) the ownership of English has been challenged due to
the diversification of the English language. The ownership discussion has shifted
from who ‘owns’ English to users of English becoming ‘guardians’ of the language,
and who has the best access to English as a multilingual tool for international
communication; (4) in the context of ELT, there has been a shift of focus from
decontextualised ‘correctness’ to ‘appropriateness’ in context; and (5) there has also
been a shift in people’s perceptions of the role of their first language and culture
(i.e. L1 and C1), from a ‘problem’ resulting from ‘interference’ to a ‘resource’ that
can be naturally ‘transferred’ into their English language learning and use. In other
words, the status of L1 and C1 has shifted from a ‘baggage’ of burden and nega-
Z. Xu (&)
e-mail: zhichang.xu@monash.edu

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_31
704 Z. Xu
tivity to a ‘badge’ of linguistic and cultural heritage and identity. In addition, one of
the fundamental shifts underpinning the goals of ELT is from manufacturing ‘native
or near-native’ speakers of English to developing and mentoring effective and
strategic translanguaging users of English in multilingual communication contexts.
This paradigm shift has therefore set new demands and challenges for
researchers and teaching practitioners (Xu 2002). It is therefore important to
become aware that new literacy, proficiency and competence in relation to EIL
emerge and they need to be addressed and incorporated into classroom practice. In
this chapter, I adopt a Cultural Linguistics approach to teaching EIL. I focus on
developing meta-cultural competence among students in the EIL classroom.
‘Meta-cultural competence’ (Sharifian 2013a: 8) is ‘a competence that enables
interlocutors to communicate and negotiate their cultural conceptualisations during
the process of intercultural communication’, and it comprises three major compo-
nents including ‘variation awareness’, ‘explication strategy’ and ‘negotiation
strategy’. In this chapter, I propose a number of EIL tenets and principles for
developing meta-cultural competence with specific EIL programme units as
examples, and analyse how principles can be applied to the EIL classroom. I also
explore pedagogical implications of developing meta-cultural competence for
teaching EIL.
31.2 Cultural Linguistics and EIL
In order to adopt a Cultural Linguistics approach to teaching EIL, this section

unpacks relevant theories and concepts regarding Cultural Linguistics and EIL.
31.2.1 Cultural Linguistics and Applied Cultural Linguistics
Cultural Linguistics is a multidisciplinary area of research that explores the rela-

tionship between language and cultural conceptualisations, and it attempts to ‘un-
derstand language as a subsystem of culture and examine how various language
features reflect and embody culture’.
Applied Cultural Linguistics is concerned with how Cultural Linguistics
research can be applied to various other domains and disciplines. Applied Cultural
Linguistics can be defined as a holistic approach that examines the cultural con-
ceptualizations (e.g. schemas, metaphors and categories) in order to understand
cultural meaning, raise awareness of cultural variation and enhance intercultural
31 Developing Meta-cultural Competence in Teaching English … 705
communication in the areas where language and cultural conceptualizations play a

salient role such as language education, World Englishes, English as a Lingual
Franca, international business and relations, health care, media, interpreting and
translation, forensic linguistics, and many other ‘applied’ studies.
31.2.2 Cultural Conceptualization and Cultural

Conceptualizations
Based on earlier research in cognitive linguistics and a number of other relevant

disciplines, Sharifian (2011, 2013a) has developed an analytical framework of
‘cultural conceptualization’, which views language as firmly grounded in a
group-level cognition that emerges from the interactions between the members of a
cultural group. Cultural conceptualization is not only a framework, but also a
dynamic, ongoing and interactive process of cultural cognition, (re)schematisation,
and (re)negotiation among members of cultural communities. ‘Cultural Linguistics
places a great emphasis on culture as a source of conceptualising experience
through cognitive structures such as schemas, categories, metaphors and scripts’
(Palmer and Sharifian 2003: 11). Such cultural conceptual schemas, categories,
metaphors, models and scripts are commonly referred to as units of conceptual
knowledge, or specifically, ‘cultural conceptualizations’. They can be applied to the
analysis of cultural phenomena, language teaching and learning, and intercultural
communication. In this section, cultural conceptual schema, category and metaphor
will be elaborated with specific examples.
A schema is a network of knowledge, beliefs and expectations about particular
aspects of the world. Cultural schemas have many subcategories, for example,
context schema, procedure schema, strategy schema, event schema, role schema,
image schema, proposition schema and emotion schema. Cultural schemas are
constantly negotiated and renegotiated. One of the examples of ‘image schema’ and
‘proposition schema’ is the imagery and association of ‘dragon’ in relation to
Chinese culture, as depicted in one of the popular songs throughout the 1980s and
1990s in Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The song is entitled
‘Descendants of the Dragon’: In the ancient East flies a dragon/Zhongguo (China)
is its name/In the ancient East resides a group of people/they are all descendants of
the dragon/I grew up beneath the feet of the great dragon/I’m a descendant of the
dragon/With black eyes, black hair and yellow skin/I’m forever a descendant of the
dragon (Lyrics of ‘Descendants of the Dragon’). Images such as this imaginary
dragon in association with concrete objects including the Great Wall, the Yangtze
River and the Yellow River are perceived by the overwhelming majority of Chinese
706 Z. Xu
as representing China. A dragon is apparently a fabrication, or an image in the

minds of the Chinese. However, when the Chinese talk about it, they do not feel
that it is a fabrication, and they take it as a real entity. This Chinese image schema
of a ‘dragon’ comes from the beliefs and expectations of Chinese over centuries or
even thousands of years. The Chinese value their 龙 (or long, a Chinese character of
‘dragon’) for its power, magic and beauty with great respect, and they regard
themselves as the ‘descendants of the Dragon’. Such image and proposition
schemas of a Chinese ‘dragon’ are different from those of a ‘dragon’ conceptualised
in the Western world, where a dragon is a fierce-looking monster, with large wings
and sharp claws, breathing out fire and killing people. In contrast with the con-
ceptualizations of a Chinese ‘dragon’, a Western ‘dragon’ is commonly concep-
tualised as something unwanted or something that a hero tries to get rid of.
In terms of a ‘cultural category’, people from different cultures may or may not
share the same conceptualizations. For example, Chinese may label many occasions
as festivals, including the Spring Festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Lantern
Festival, the Dragon-Boat Festival, the Qingming Festival (which is actually a day
to honour the deceased), and even the National Day, Labour Day, Women’s Day,
Children’s Day, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Teacher’s Day are all literally
called ‘festivals’. The following dialogue shows the negotiation and renegotiation
of the cultural categories of festival and day between speakers of a Chinese and an
Indonesian:
Indonesian: You call it a festival, but we just call it a day. We don’t call it a festival. For
example, the Mother’s Day is a day, not a ‘festival’.
Chinese: We call it a festival. It’s a festival to us.
Indonesian: Yeah. But it’s not a festival to us (Xu and Dinh 2013: 374).
Cultural metaphors are cognitive structures that map onto two or more domains
and enable people to understand certain culturally determined experiences. For
example, the following is an excerpt from a short story written by a Chinese
migrant writer in English:
Unfortunately his wife had died two years ago; people used to call them ‘a pair of
mandarin ducks,’ meaning an affectionate couple. True, the two of them had spent some
peaceful, loving years together and had never fought or quarrelled. …
The ‘mandarin ducks’ metaphor is widely used as a Chinese cultural concep-

tualization, because the Chinese believe that mandarin ducks are lifelong couples,
and they symbolise fidelity and affection.
As elaborated above, various cultural conceptualizations help enrich English

language in the sense that there is a co-presence or co-construction and (re)nego-
tiation of existing and emergent schemas, categories and metaphors among speakers
of varieties of English.
31.2.3 English as an International Language
In the ‘supplement to NATURE of September 1, 1962’, there was a section on

‘ENGLISH AS AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE’:
The novelty of the situation in the world at the present time is the density and range of
communication. Since the whole world is involved, there seems to be a need for a world
language (“Supplement to NATURE”, 1962).
The understanding of ‘English as an International Language’ in the 1960s was a

‘world language’ that could be used to cope with the increasing ‘density and range
of communication’. In the 1970s, Smith (1976: 38) proposed the notion of ‘English
as an International Auxiliary Language’ (EIAL), and he defined the term ‘inter-
national language’ as one ‘which is used by people of different nations to com-
municate with one another’. Smith (1976: 41) also pointed out the ‘affective,
structural, and rhetorical consequences’ of EIAL, namely the changes in our atti-
tudes towards English, the structural variation of different varieties of English, and
the cognitive and cultural differences among speakers of English. In addition, Smith
(1976: 38–42) made a number of assumptions regarding the relationship of an
‘international language’ and culture. These include
(a) Its learners do not need to internalise the cultural norms of native speakers of
that language;
(b) The ownership of an international language becomes ‘de-nationalised’; and
(c) The educational goal of learning it is to enable learners to communicate their
ideas and culture to others.
In the 1990s, Pennycook (1994) explored the social, cultural and political
contexts of English in his book on the Cultural Politics of English as an
International Language. He put forward the notion of the ‘worldliness of English’
in relation to the sociopolitical discourse of the spread of English, and the critical
pedagogy for teaching English as a worldly language.
At the beginning of the twenty first century, McKay (2002) revisited the notion
of EIL, and put forward the following assumptions of EIL:
(a) As an international language, English is used both in a global sense for inter-
national communication between countries and in a local sense as a language of
wider communication within multilingual societies;
708 Z. Xu
(b) As it is an international language, the use of English is no longer connected to

the culture of Inner Circle countries;
(c) As an international language in a local sense, English becomes embedded in the
culture of the country in which it is used;
(d) As English is an international language in a global sense, one of its primary
functions is to enable speakers to share with others their ideas and culture.
EIL has become an area of study in the field of Applied Linguistics. In recent
years, there have been a number of edited volumes on teaching EIL, including
English as an International Language: Perspectives and Pedagogical Issues
(Sharifian 2009b), Principles and Practices of Teaching English as an International
Language (Matsuda 2012), Principles and Practices for Teaching English as an
International Language (Alsagoff et al. 2012) and The Pedagogy of English as an
International Language: Perspectives from Scholars, Teachers, and Students
(Marlina and Giri 2014).
EIL has been variously defined over the years. Smith (1976: 38) has put forward
an operational definition of an ‘international language’ as one ‘which is used by
people of different nations to communicate with one another’ and he points out that
‘English is the most frequently used international language’. Pennycook (1994)
views EIL as a ‘worldly language’, and he argues that EIL has gone beyond the
English language itself, and it embodies the ‘worldliness’ of English. McKay
(2002) reiterates the global and local sense of EIL. Matsuda (2012) regards EIL as a
‘function’ that English performs in international and multilingual context. Alsagoff
(2012) argues that EIL represents new ways of thinking, doing and being, and
Sharifian (2009a, b) proposes that English has become a new ‘paradigm’ for
thinking, research and practice (Sharifian 2009a, b). Marlina (2014: 4–5) unpacks
the notion of EIL further by clarifying that EIL, as a paradigm, ‘recognizes the
international functions of English and its use in a variety of cultural and economic
arenas by speakers of English from diverse lingua-cultural backgrounds who do not
speak each other’s mother tongues’, and that ‘the EIL paradigm recognizes and
embraces all varieties of English at national, regional, social, and idiolectal levels in
all circles as equal’.
Based on the current literature, I propose three tenets of EIL. These include
(a) EIL, as a paradigm, has been developed alongside the glocalisation, i.e. glob-
alisation and localisation, of English;
(b) EIL is a multicultural lingua franca of various cultural conceptualizations for
international and intercultural communication;
(c) EIL recognises English variation and varieties, including different dialects of
English and world Englishes.
What lies at the heart of the EIL paradigm is communication across cultures in
world Englishes, and EIL communication requires new literacy, proficiency and
competence.
31.2.4 EIL Literacy, Proficiency and Competence
The current default context for intercultural communication is an EIL context in

which English is chosen and used as a lingua franca among speakers of different
linguistic and cultural backgrounds, or speakers of world Englishes. As such,
intercultural communication in English not only involves literacy in English as a
language, but also a new literacy in EIL. This implies a fundamental awareness and
understanding that English is no longer a language that belongs exclusively to its
‘native’ L1 speakers, and that English has become an international language that
can be used by all bilingual and multilingual speakers of English to communicate
across different cultures. EIL is a multilingual lingua franca of various cultural
conceptualizations and it has been developed and adopted in such a way that it
enables and empowers its users to explicate and negotiate their cultural conceptu-
alizations. In this connection, there has been new vocabulary regarding EIL, e.g.
EIL awareness, EIL mentality (as opposed to ethnocentric us and them mentality),
EIL mindset, EIL-lise English curriculum, EIL-minded people and EIL proficiency
and competence.
Canagarajah (2006: 233) points out that ‘in a context where we have to con-
stantly shuttle between different varieties [of English] and communities, proficiency
becomes complex’ and that ‘one needs the capacity to negotiate diverse varieties to
facilitate communication’. The notion of ‘proficiency’ in EIL appears to require
more than just the mastery of grammar and lexicon in EIL contexts. The EIL
proficiency involves exploring various systems of cultural conceptualizations and
practice in adopting effective communicative strategies when communicating in
EIL contexts. According to Sharifian (2009a: 249), ‘more proficient speakers are
those who have been exposed to, and show familiarity with, various systems of
cultural conceptualizations, participating with flexibility in EIL communication and
effectively articulating their cultural conceptualizations when their interlocutors
need this to be done’.
Such EIL proficiency, therefore, presumes not only ‘linguistic competence’ (cf.
Noam Chomsky), and ‘communicative competence’ (cf. Dell Hymes), but also
‘intercultural competence’, ‘EIL competence’ and ‘meta-cultural competence’
(Sharifian 2009a: 4, 14–15).
“It is becoming increasingly recognized that ‘intercultural competence’ needs to
be viewed as a core element of ‘proficiency’ in English when it is used for inter-
national communication” (Sharifian 2013b: 8). ‘EIL competence implies an ability
(not just a readiness) to interact in unpredictable multicultural contexts and the
710 Z. Xu
ability to adapt to a variety of communities and types of community’ (Nunn 2007:

39). ‘EIL competence, then, cannot be reduced to a single, limited, monolingual or
non-cultural concept. It is composed of a set of interlocking and interdependent
competences that sometimes compensate for each other, sometimes counteract each
other and sometimes reinforce each other’ (Nunn 2005: 65).
31.2.5 Meta-cultural Competence for Intercultural

Communication
One of the interlocking competences, as far as intercultural communication in EIL

is concerned, is meta-cultural competence. Meta-cultural competence refers to ‘a
competence that enables interlocutors to communicate and negotiate their cultural
conceptualizations during the process of intercultural communication’. It involves
three components, including variation awareness, explication strategy and negoti-
ation strategy (Sharifian 2013b: 9).
Variation awareness refers to the awareness that one and the same language
could be used by different speech communities to encode and express their
respective cultural conceptualizations. Explication strategy refers to a conscious
effort made on the part of interlocutors to clarify relevant conceptualizations with
which they think other interlocutors may not be familiar, and negotiation strategy
enables interlocutors to negotiate intercultural meanings in seeking conceptual
clarification when they feel that there may be more behind the use of a certain
expression than is immediately apparent (Sharifian 2013b; Xu 2013). In the fol-
lowing section, I propose a number of principles for developing meta-cultural
competence and elaborate on the relevant practices in teaching EIL.
31.3 Principles and Practices for Developing

Meta-cultural Competence in Teaching EIL
New developments in English language studies have given rise to new principles
and practices in teaching EIL. One of the practices is to develop meta-cultural
competence among learners of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds for
intercultural communication. Over the past decade, I have been involved in pro-
grammes of teaching EIL at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
Experiencing the paradigm shift from English to Englishes, and being informed of
the latest developments in Cultural Linguistics and World Englishes, I propose a
number of principles for developing meta-cultural competence in the practice of
teaching EIL.
31.3.1 Principles of Developing Meta-cultural Competence
(a) Acknowledge the paradigm shift in relation to the current use and users of
English. English has become pluricentric, and it is increasingly used as a lingua
franca. The majority of English users are multilingual speakers of English, and
the default context for intercultural communication involves speakers of dif-
ferent world Englishes.
(b) Anticipate different cultural conceptualizations that are embedded in English
when using English as an international language for intercultural communica-
tion. It is the different cultural conceptualizations, namely cultural schemas,
categories and metaphors, that have enriched the English language, making it
truly an international language.
(c) Acquire and accomplish new literacy, proficiency and competence to engage
in intercultural communication in English as an international language. This
entails sufficient exposure to world Englishes, increasing familiarity with dif-
ferent cultural conceptualizations, and effective use of strategies to (co-)con-
struct, explain and (re-)negotiate meaning across cultures.
31.3.2 Practices of Developing Meta-cultural

Competence in Teaching EIL
This section focuses on practices of developing meta-cultural competence in

teaching EIL units. These units include ‘Exploring English as an International
Language’, ‘Language and Globalization’, ‘Writing Across Cultures’ and
‘Language and Intercultural Communication’. They are offered to students at
Monash university for the programmes of BA major in EIL and the EIL stream of
the MA in Applied Linguistics. They involve lectures, tutorials and online dis-
cussion forums. Data and examples are selected from these units, and they
demonstrate how the ‘principles’ proposed in Sect. 31.3.1 are applied to the
practices of developing meta-cultural competence, namely, developing cultural
conceptual variation awareness, cultural explication strategies and intercultural
negotiation strategies.
31.3.2.1 Developing Cultural Conceptual Variation Awareness
Cultural conceptual variation awareness is ‘the awareness that one and the same
language could be used by different speech communities to encode and express
their respective cultural conceptualizations’ (Sharifian 2013b: 8–9). In the practice
of teaching EIL, topics and activities that contribute to the awareness of cultural
conceptual variation should be included and prioritised.
712 Z. Xu
Example 1 Variation in ‘time’ metaphors across languages and cultures.

In the unit ‘Exploring English as an International Language’, one of the topics is
for the students to explore different cultural conceptualizations. One example is
about variation in ‘time’ metaphors across languages and cultures. A class survey
among 56 students, who come from 17 different countries and regions, and speak
14 different first languages, shows that there are over 50 different ‘time’-related
expressions and metaphors across cultures, e.g. time is money; time is a fixed
income; time is a gift; time is just like the water in a sponge; time is gold, and time
and tide wait for no man. A close examination of all the ‘time’ expressions and
metaphors reveals different conceptualizations of ‘time’ among the students,
namely TIME AS TEMPORAL MEASUREMENT (e.g. time is a down-counting clock; time is
running out; time spares no one;), TIME AS COMMODITY (e.g. time cannot be pur-
chased; time is gold; time is money; time is a fixed income; time is treasure; time is
a coin; time is a gift; time is a file that wears and makes no noise; time is stolen;
lost time can never be found again; time is expensive; time is a knife; time is a
sword;), TIME AS DYNAMIC ENTITY (e.g. time flies; time flows; time runs; time goes;
time is a Circus, always packing up and moving away; time is a grenade, and it will
explode before you realise it; time is like the appearance of a broad-leaved epi-
phyllum; time is a shooting star; time travels as fast as you blink your eyes; time is
fleeting; time is dragging on; time is ticking; time runs like a white horse; time slips
through your fingers like sand; time stays not the fool’s leisure), TIME AS FUNCTION
(e.g. time heals; time is a charger; time is a prison; time is a thief; time is a teacher;
time tames the strongest grief), TIME AS EVIDENCE (e.g. time is age; time tries friends
as fire tries gold), and TIME AS PACE, RHYTHM, SPEED AND LIFESPAN (e.g. time is life;
there is a time or season for everything). In addition to the different emergent
group-level ‘time’ conceptualizations among the students, there are also explicit
culture-specific conceptualizations, for example, students are aware that certain
‘time’ expressions and metaphors are related to specific cultures, as shown in the
following responses:
‘Time flies’ and ‘time runs’ are both used in Sri Lankan culture.
In Italian, time and weather are expressed with the same word ‘tempo’ and this affects our
ways of thinking when talking in English.
In Aboriginal culture, I think they believe that time isn’t linear but it’s continuously going
back and forth.
Russian sayings: ‘There is its own time for everything’ (Vsemy svoe vremya); ‘Every/Any
vegetable has its own time’ or ‘There is time for every/any vegetable’ (Vsyakomy ovoshy’
suoe vremya); ‘In time comes knowledge’ (Vremya vsemy naychit).
Chinese sayings: An inch of time is worth an inch of gold, but an inch of gold cannot afford
an inch of time; Distance tests a horse’s stamina, and time reveals a man’s heart.
Such surveys in the EIL classroom help students acknowledge that apart from
the traditional ‘English’ expressions based on British and American varieties of
English, there are also emerging expressions from other languages and cultures,
which contribute to the worldliness of English. This is the first tangible step that the
students take to realise the paradigm shift from English to Englishes. In addition,
through such EIL class activities, students anticipate different cultural conceptual-
izations associated with common words and notions such as ‘time’.
Example 2 Variation of ‘I love you’ across languages and cultures
In the unit ‘Language and Intercultural Communication’, students participate in
online discussions, and the following is an excerpt, which shows the students’
awareness of cultural conceptual variation in expressing ‘I love you’ under par-
ticular circumstances.
J (Japanese): When a Korean ferry had rollover accident in April, many students sent
massages to their parents from the ferry and they wrote “I love you”. My question is: in
your culture, do you say “I love you” to your parents?
C (Chinese): In a situation like that, I would say, Mum and Dad, I miss you! (‘Love’ can be
a very strong word in Chinese culture, so we tend to say, I love our country, or I love
Beijing etc., for loving people, we have an alternative word, xihuan, similar to ‘like’ or
‘having an affectionate feeling towards’).
J: In my culture, ‘love’ is also a really strong word and we do not really use it (now, I
started to wonder when Japanese use ‘love’?). But yes, younger generation use it but when
they write or say it, they use it in English which is ‘love’ but not in Japanese. Also, if I were
in that situation, I would say “Mum, Dad, thank you.”
Example 31.2 shows that the Japanese participant is aware of possible inter-
cultural variations in responding to a given circumstance. In this example, given
that the ‘accident’ took place in South Korea, and the two online discussion par-
ticipants are also from East Asia, it is clear that cultural conceptual variations exist,
e.g. people in crisis may say ‘I love you’ to their parents, or ‘Mum, Dad, thank
you’, or ‘Mum and Dad, I miss you’. In addition, the awareness of such intercul-
tural variations also motivates and triggers the participants to initiate new topics for
their communication.
31.3.2.2 Developing Cultural Explication Strategies
Cultural explication strategies comprise a conscious effort to ‘clarify relevant

conceptualizations’ that people from different cultures may not be familiar with
(Sharifian 2013b: 9). The following examples show how students develop their
explication strategies in intercultural communication.
Example 3 Explaining naming conventions and practices across cultures
S (Saudi Arabian): I think our naming conventions do not differ much from other cultures.
That being said, we do have some conventions, which I think might be interesting. For
example: married males and females who have been blessed with children may be called by
their first born in this form: ‘father of’ or ‘mother of’ (eldest son or daughter). In my case,
my father would be called ‘father of Abdulrahman’ because I am the eldest son.
714 Z. Xu
A (Australian): Traditionally in Australian-Anglo culture the first name (or Christian name)
is the name of an older relative, i.e. Grandfather, Aunt etc. However more recently it is
increasingly common for children to be given a unique name, or possibly a name spelled in
an unconventional way, e.g. Alysyn instead of Alison. This seems to be a trend taken from
Hollywood celebrities.
T (Thai): In English, the word “aunt” normally refers to the sister of your father or mother.
However, in Thai, there are separate words for the big sister of your father or mother which
is “Pa” [pǎː] and the little sister of your father or mother which is “Na” [náː]. The term “Pa”
and “Na” can be used with not blood related members as well. For instance, when I talk to
my mother’s colleague, I will use “Pa” if her colleague is older than my mother or around
the same age as my mother. I will use “Na” if her colleague is not much younger than my
mother.
Example 31.3 demonstrates that the participants are not only aware of cultural
conceptual variations in naming conventions, but they also adopt explication
strategies to make other participants understand what they deem to be their own
culture-specific conventions. In the example, all the participants take advantage of
the written medium, e.g. they spell out specific names such as ‘Abdulrahman’ and
‘Alysyn’. The Thai participant has even adopted the phonetic alphabet to explain
address terms used in Thai culture. This shows that intercultural explication
strategies are an important element for developing meta-cultural competence.
Example 4 Explaining different ‘cultural practices’ in English
In the unit ‘Writing across Cultures’, one of the writing tasks is for the students
to write a short passage to explain a ‘cultural practice’. It can be expected that
students choose many different ‘cultural practices’ and develop their cultural
explication strategies while explaining those cultural practices of their own choice.
These include, for example, the Filipino gesture of ‘Mano Po’; the Jewish festival
of Purim; the Aussie tradition of ‘Bring a Plate’; the British ‘Guy Fawkes Night’ (or
Bonfire Night, or Firework Night); the Arabic Ramadan; the Japanese tea cere-
mony; the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival (or the Moon-Cake Festival); the Korean
‘wooden ducks’ as wedding presents; and the Singaporean Chinese New Year,
Diwali (or Deepavali, the ‘festival of lights’), Hari Raya Puasa, and Christmas. The
following example shows how an Australian student of Filipino parents explains
‘Mano Po’:
In Filipino culture, it is common for people to greet their elders with a gesture known as
‘Mano’ or ‘Mano Po’. This entails taking the hand of the aforementioned elder and pressing
it on your forehead. While the practice is not as common with Filipinos as in multicultural
societies such as Australia, it is extremely common in the Philippines. It is derived from the
strong Spanish Christian/Catholic influence in Filipino culture and is used as a sign of
respect to elders and the exchanging of blessings. As a Filipino Australian, it is not a regular
practice that I part-take in with all my elders. As I have a rather large family that I see rather
often, I keep the practice of ‘Mano’ reserved for my God-parents whom I see on much rarer
occasions. However, when I am in the Philippines, I endeavour to do so with all my elders
as it is much more expected in Filipino culture.
Example 31.4 shows that the student is not only aware of intercultural variations
in ‘greeting’ practices, he is also competent in explaining a particular practice from
a specific cultural perspective, tracing the practice back to where it is derived, and
negotiating the extent in which it can or should be practiced from his personal
intercultural understanding and experience.
31.3.2.3 Developing Intercultural Negotiation Strategies
Intercultural negotiation strategies are strategies that participants adopt to ‘negotiate

intercultural meanings’, or to seek conceptual clarifications when participants feel
that ‘there might be more behind the use of a certain expression than is immediately
apparent’ (Sharifian 2013b: 9). Examples 31.5 and 31.6 show how students
negotiate among themselves regarding whether English is a killer language or a tool
for wider communication, and whether native speakers hold more advantages over
non-native speakers of English.
Example 5 Negotiations on whether English is a killer language or a tool for wider
communication
A (Australian): I think that it would be naive to say that English has not ‘killed’
other languages in the past. Look at our local context! Australia used to be home to
over 750 local indigenous dialects and now has under 150. However, I do believe
that this was particularly characteristic of colonisation, which is not happening in
the same way today as it was 200 years ago. I think that English is becoming a tool,
but wasn’t always one.
B (Australian): In my opinion coming from an English as a first language
speaker, English is a tool for wider communication because in my experience, in
travelling and speaking to L2 speakers, it allows me to communicate with people
from other non-English-speaking countries, and therefore promotes world com-
munication and makes travel and commerce much easier, when there is a common
language between speakers.
C (Singaporean): The English language is definitely a tool for wider commu-
nication. Take for instance Singapore—a multicultural nation, the progress of the
nation strongly depended on everyone speaking a common language. When the
government chose English as the lingua franca and main language of communi-
cation since its independence, Singapore not only prospered to greater heights but it
also builds a stronger bond between its people and made the nation more united as
everyone is using a common language to communicate with each other. It also
allows the nation to engage with other countries outside of its Southeast Asia region
e.g. America/UK.
D (Hong Kong): English is both a ‘killer’ language and also a tool for wider
communication. It’s a killer because while paying so much attention to learning
English, people may lose their own languages and its cultures/traditions and its
values/beliefs. But it’s also a very good tool for communication as it works as a
lingua Franca for people to communicate. Instead of learning all these languages,
English is good enough to interact with everyone from all around the world.
716 Z. Xu
E (Australian with a Chinese background): It is in fact like a Swiss Army Knife

—there are many components and tools. And the tool to choose depends on the
function that is to be performed. Is English a killer language? I think, for the most
part, not. Is English an essential language in the current global civilisation?
Definitely.
F (Australian with a Japanese background): I recently experienced an interesting
situation where English (or the spread and dominance of English) could revitalise
other language. I spent most of my life outside my home country due to my parents’
jobs. And having lived overseas for some time, I was able to see how wide-spread
English is and its influence or dominance as you might call it. I have been fre-
quently exposed to an environment where I had to use English whether it be part of
education or daily life. But because of the overt influence and spread of English,
strangely I came to a point where I feel very blessed to be able to speak multiple
languages other than English and that I want to refine my ‘mother tongue’, which I
have not learned or used at all in my life. Because of this experience, I have decided
to study in my home country on exchange next year, so I’d argue that English does
not always kill but could give life to languages.
G (Chinese): So far we seem to have reached more or less a consensus that
English is both a tool for wider communication and a killer language in relation to
other languages and cultures. If we push the discussion a bit further, we may
consider that implications of this for our use of English and perhaps other languages
… to me, one of the implications is that we should promote an English+ world of
multilingual society, rather than an English only community of speakers. While
recognizing that English is a great tool for intercultural communication, and
enjoying the benefits of learning and using English, we should also develop
awareness of maintaining languages and cultures other than English, and promote
a sustainable linguistic ecology where all languages and all users of different
varieties play an integral part in the intercultural, as well as intra-cultural
communication.
Example 31.5 shows that class participants use different strategies for negotia-
tion. Student A uses facts to illustrate that English in Australia kills indigenous
dialects; B uses her experiences as an English L1 speaker to show that English is a
tool for wider communication, particularly with many L2 speakers of English; C
takes Singapore as a case to show that English is a tool for wider communication
and for the prosperity of the country; D takes a middle position in arguing that
English is both a killer language and a tool for international communication; E
makes good use of his metaphorical competence in putting forward a metaphor that
English is a Swiss Army Knife in the sense that it serves different explicit functions,
while in the meantime, as a knife itself, one of its implicit functions can be for
killing; F puts forward a slightly different argument in saying that English actually
revitalises other languages, based on his personal multicultural and multilingual
experiences. As part of the ‘negotiation’ process, the lecturer G summarises the
arguments and takes the ‘negotiation’ a step further in promoting ‘English plus’, or
English-knowing multilingualism and a sustainable linguistic ecology. Such
negotiations entail variation awareness, explication and negotiation strategies, and

they also represent new EIL literacy, proficiency and competence.
Example 6 Negotiations on whether native speakers of English hold more
advantages over non-native speakers of English
T (Thai): I think native speakers hold more advantages over non-native speakers, partic-
ularly during intercultural communication in a language which is not the first language (L1)
of some speakers.
A (Australian): I think it’s broadly correct that in a debate, discussion or negotiation

conducted solely in English, the English L1 speaker is likely to have certain advantages.
However I’m not convinced that this necessarily equates to greater power and/or influence
in an economic or political sense. I often feel disadvantaged when dealing with people
around the world by the fact that I have only one method of effective communication (i.e.
English), whereas they may have 2 or 3 languages where they can communicate effectively.
I (Indonesian): Native speakers of English seem to have more benefits than non-native
speakers. Even though Kirkpatrick (2007) has clearly argued that native speakers of English
are not always better than non-native speakers of English at teaching English, many people,
perhaps including myself, are still likely to believe that the native speakers of English are
more qualified in teaching English than the non-native speakers of English.
C (Chinese): Yes, Kirkpatrick’s argument is highly relevant. He seems to be keen on

multilingual education. His latest argument is that ELT is not about teaching ‘English’ to
non-native speakers of English, but about teaching different L1 speakers to become mul-
tilingual speakers of their L1 plus English.
I: Oh I see. Wow it’s quite surprising though. Then, it’s not implausible that the variety
among many Englishes will lead to mutual unintelligibility just like Latin language :)
C: Yes. Referring back to Kirkpatrick (2007), he also raised the issue of the ‘tension’
between identity and intelligibility. When people intend to show their ‘identity’, they tend
to speak varieties of English, but when they want to communicate, they would choose to
speak a more ‘intelligible’ variety of English. We cannot underestimate people’s ability to
switch between different dialects or different varieties of English. For example, a lot of
Singaporeans could speak basilect, mesolect, and acrolect of Singaporean English(es). :).
I: Yes, I strongly agree with you. It also possibly prevails towards Broad, General and
Cultivated accents in Australian English.
Example 31.6 is an extended discussion on the issue of whether ‘native

speakers’ of English hold more advantages over ‘non-native speakers’. The Thai
and the Indonesian seem to think that ‘native speakers’ of English have more
advantages than ‘non-native speakers’; however, the Australian and the Chinese
have managed to negotiate their counter arguments by either referring to their own
experiences and viewpoints or referencing other researchers’ views. Such negoti-
ation strategies go beyond the awareness of cultural variations and the explication
strategies, and they help the participants to co-construct meanings across cultures
over specific arguments and conceptualizations.
718 Z. Xu
31.4 Pedagogical Implications of Developing

Meta-cultural Competence
Developing meta-cultural competence for intercultural communication has impli-

cations for teaching EIL.
First of all, to develop meta-cultural competence, students and lecturers in the
EIL classroom should consider the ‘triple A’ principles of ‘acknowledging’ the
current paradigm shift from English to Englishes, ‘anticipating’ different concep-
tualizations in intercultural communication using EIL, and ‘acquiring’ EIL literacy,
proficiency and competence for intercultural communication.
Second, it should be made aware that EIL is not simply a variety of English, but
a multilingual language with different cultural conceptualizations. It is also ‘a
paradigm for thinking, research and practice’, and ‘it marks a paradigm shift in
TESOL, SLA and the applied linguistics of English, partly in response to the
complexities that are associated with the tremendously rapid spread of English
around the globe in recent decades’ (Sharifian 2009a: 2). This awareness and
understanding of EIL coincide with the results of one of the EIL class surveys on
what EIL implies. The survey results show that EIL is (1) a ‘common’ language;
(2) a tool for effective intercultural communication; (3) a conglomeration of
Englishes; (4) a process of glocalisation of English; and (5) a paradigm and an area
of study of changing English.
Third, meta-cultural competence should be developed alongside the students’
linguistic and communicative competence. The goal of developing meta-cultural
competence is to equip students with literacy and proficiency in EIL and sufficient
multicultural knowledge to engage in intercultural communication competently.
Rather than simply conforming to the cultures of certain English-speaking coun-
tries, students should become aware of, exposed to and familiar with intercultural
variations, and maintain their own cultural traditions and identities while acquiring
EIL for intercultural communication.
In addition, meta-cultural competence does not only involve students’ multi-
cultural knowledge, but also their intercultural presence and academic stance
through intercultural explanation and negotiation. Students should develop
meta-cultural competence by enhancing awareness of intercultural differences and
improving their abilities to explain and negotiate across cultures. One of the
effective ways is to engage themselves proactively in intercultural communication
to boost their intercultural presence and put forward their academic stance through
active intercultural explanation and negotiation. As students from diverse cultural
backgrounds come to interact with one another in English, new systems of cultural
conceptualizations emerge and develop at the individual and the intercultural group
levels.
Last but not least, developing meta-cultural competence also has pedagogical
implications for lecturers of teaching EIL in multilingual and multicultural soci-
eties. They may design their curricula that are relevant to their students’ respective
cultures in addition to the cultures associated traditionally with English-speaking
countries. They may engage their students in exploring controversial issues, e.g.
whether English is a killer language or a tool for wider communication, to instil
students’ critical thinking and intercultural negotiation strategies. They may also
encourage their students to use local varieties of English, e.g. Australian English,
Indonesian English and Chinese English (Xu 2010), which embody different cul-
tural conceptualizations, to (re)negotiate and (co)construct their position, relation-
ship and identity in intercultural communication.
31.5 Conclusion
In this chapter, I have explored a Cultural Linguistics approach to teaching English

as an International Language. In particular, I have reviewed relevant literature on
Cultural Linguistics, Applied Cultural Linguistics and English as an International
Language. I have proposed three tenets of English as an International Language,
and ‘triple A’ principles for developing meta-cultural competence, namely, ‘ac-
knowledging’ the current paradigm shift from English to Englishes, ‘anticipating’
different conceptualizations in intercultural communication using EIL, and ‘ac-
quiring’ EIL literacy, proficiency and competence for intercultural communication.
The focus of this chapter is on developing meta-cultural competence among stu-
dents in EIL classrooms. I have also explored pedagogical implications of devel-
oping meta-cultural competence for teaching English as an International Language.
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Chapter 32
Cultural Linguistics and ELT Curriculum:
The Case of English Textbooks in Vietnam
Thuy Ngoc Dinh
32.1 Introduction
The status of English as an international language has placed considerable emphasis

on intercultural communication as a primary goal in ELT. As a result, the notion of
culture has been revisited and cultural representations in ELT curriculum have
fuelled innumerable discussions across the world. Studies in curriculum analysis
fall into primary streams of content and pedagogy (Forman 2014) or content,
consumption and production of curriculum (Harwood 2013) covering major themes
of culture analysis, teachers’ teaching approaches, and curriculum developers’
choices and decisions.
Literature in cultural content analysis in ELT curriculum has revealed certain
gaps when intercultural communication is set as a target goal for language learners.
First, there is a dramatic need for an analytical framework that allows an in-depth
investigation into culture not just treating it in a reductionist manner of 4Fs: food,
festivals, facts and folklore (Kramsch 1993, 2015). Second, multimodal analysis
requires better concerns given that most textbooks use multimodal texts (Weninger
and Kiss 2015). Third, many former studies have treated culture in a national/ethnic
sense and adopted a simplistic approach of documenting nation-specific cultural
referents such as proper names, and cultural products for culture identification (Kiss
and Weninger 2013; Weninger and Kiss 2015). In general, what has been sorely
missing in ELT curriculum analysis is a profound analysis of the extent to which
textbooks reflect certain cultures or are culturally constructed across texts, visuals
and tasks.
T.N. Dinh (&)

e-mail: Thuy.N.Dinh@monash.edu

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4056-6_32
722 T.N. Dinh
To address the gap, this chapter employs the analytical tools of cultural con-
ceptualisations in Cultural Linguistics (Sharifian 2011, 2015) to examine cultural
categories, cultural schemas and cultural conceptual metaphors embedded in the
reading texts and illustrated visuals. It also uses meta-cultural competence for tasks
analysis to scrutinise the extent to which questions and activities in the textbooks
raise awareness of and invite learners to explore cultural conceptualisations. In
other words, this model of competence will function as a guideline to evaluate
whether tasks help stimulate the awareness of different cultural conceptualisations,
both of the learners’ and others’ represented in the books, and whether they engage
learners into practising the clarification, asking for clarification and negotiation
strategies.
32.2 Cultural Linguistics as a Novel Approach to ELT

Curriculum Analysis
Cultural Linguistics is a a field of research that explores the relationship between

language and cultural conceptualisation (Sharifian 2011). Cultural Linguistics has
recently been developed by Sharifian (2011), especially with the development of
the notion of cultural cognition. Cultural cognition is a “group level collective
cognition […] that emerges from the interactions between the members of a cultural
group across time and space” (Sharifian 2011, p. 35). In this discipline, language
and cultural conceptualisation are considered to be dynamic since these elements
are constantly negotiated and renegotiated across generations, across time and space
and through interaction and contact between members of one group with those of
others (Sharifian 2015). Above all, an effective analytical tool of cultural concep-
tualisation can be drawn from Cultural Linguistics that allows for the analysis of
cultural schemas, categories and metaphors that are constructed in texts and visuals.
Cultural Conceptualisation
In Cultural Linguistics, language functions as a “collective memory bank”
(Sharifian 2011, p. 5) for cultural conceptualisations that have prevailed at different
stages in the history of speech community. The process of conceptualising consists
of schematising and categorising. Hence, cultural conceptualisation is a collective
term comprising key components of “cultural schema”, “cultural category” and
“cultural metaphor”. A cultural conceptualisation is heterogeneously distributed
across a cultural group since it is subject to changes in time, space and social
interactions of a member with others from various groups.
32 Cultural Linguistics and ELT Curriculum … 723
Cultural schemas, according to Sharifian (2011), “are conceptual structures (or

pools of knowledge heterogeneously shared by members of a cultural group”
(p. 24) and are constructed, perceived and interpreted differently depending on our
own experience with a particular object, concept, and phenomenon. Hence, there is
no uniform interpretation or construction of these cultural artefacts or experiences
as they vary across individuals and groups during interaction with other members
and other groups.
Cultural categories are “cognitive categories that have a cultural basis” (Sharifian
2011, p. 24). The process by which humans categorise things, experiences and
events is a cognitive process and is influenced by culture.
Cultural conceptual metaphors are “conceptual metaphors that have a root in
cultural systems such as ethnomedical traditions, religion and the like” (Sharifian
2011, p. 25). The way one domain is compared to another and how this comparison
or association is understood and interpreted is culturally constructed.
Cultural conceptualisation, as stated by Sharifian (2011), is apparent in dis-
course, rituals, narratives and paintings. In ELT materials, it is embedded in texts
and discourse as well as in visuals/images which help illustrate or provide more
information for texts. Several types of cultural schemas are proposed such as event
schemas, role schemas, image schemas, proposition schemas, and emotion sche-
mas. Event schemas are abstracted from our experience of certain events (Mandler
1984; Schank and Abelson 1977, as cited in Sharifian 2011). People’s experiences
including those of the objects, participants and procedure(s) attached to a certain
event may vary between cultural groups and within a cultural group, between
individuals, which makes the construction and interpretation of event schema dif-
ferent from one person/group to another. Role schema, as defined by Nishida
(1999) as cited in Sharifian (2011), is “knowledge about social roles which denotes
sets of behaviours that are expected of people in particular social positions” (p. 9).
A particular role in the society may imply a range of characteristics including
gender, costume, relations with others and so on. Knowledge of these is generated
by a person’s experience and is influenced by his/her own culture. Image schema is
schema “of intermediate abstractions [between mental images and abstract propo-
sitions] that are readily imagined, perhaps as iconic images, and clearly related to
physical (embodied) or social experiences” (Palmer 1996, p. 66). That means
images embedded in a discourse display the ideologies and thinking of a
person/group. Proposition-schema is defined as “abstraction which acts as models
of thought and behaviour” (Quinn 1987, as cited in Sharifian 2011, p. 10). These
sentence-like units convey experiences, function as teachings and reflect world-
views of cultural groups. Emotion schemas associate a particular feeling or emo-
tional state with certain activities, people involved and other related factors.
724 T.N. Dinh
In brief, Cultural Linguistics provides effective analytical tools for analysing

cultural schemas, categories and metaphors in discourse and also in visuals. The
discipline offers a new direction in analysis that facilitates the investigation of culture
at in-depth levels. In addition, it emphasises the dynamic nature of culture which
forms cultural conceptualisations varying across individuals and groups. Instead of
looking at culture as a uniform factual representation, Cultural Linguistics and cul-
tural conceptualisations emphasise “distributed representation” (Sharifian 2011, p. 4).
This can minimise stereotypes and raise English language learners’ awareness of
cultural conceptualisations rather than cultural facts. It enhances their critical
exploration of cultural conceptualisations through texts and visuals, encourages them
to make comparisons between cultural conceptualisations to become aware of and
appreciate differences. It also emphasises individual reflection based on their own
conceptualisation. These are the areas of focus for this chapter which examines how
cultural conceptualisations are constructed in ELT curricular materials in Vietnam,
and how they are realised differently in two categories of ELT materials.
32.3 The Study
32.3.1 Data
The data for this research are the representatives of two sets of English textbooks:
the locally developed English 10 used for high school students at grade 10 and the
internationally marketed New Headway—intermediate currently used in many
Vietnamese universities. English 10 is within the locally developed set English 10,
11 and 12 which was under production from 2002 to 2007 and began being used in
schools in 2008. English 10 was chosen for: (1) it lent itself to potential analysis of
culture, (2) their level of English is identified as pre-intermediate and intermediate,
the same level as that in the selected Headway series, and (3) the researcher had
experience with working with the textbooks as an English teacher.
English 10 for high school students has 16 units focusing on 16 topics. The
structure of each unit is a reading text with visual illustration and comprehension
questions followed by other sections on speaking, listening, writing and grammar
practice. Reading plays the kernel part for it provides the context for each unit’s
topic, the linguistic input and thematic material for the unit. As the semiotic analysis
was used, the texts, tasks and any images in this part were all examined.
As for the internationally marketed set, New Headway (3rd edition) intermediate
was investigated. Elementary and pre-intermediate books are not used as frequently
in many Vietnamese universities as textbooks that are intermediate and above
because whether or not the students are majoring in English, they are expected to
have reached an intermediate level by the end of high school. The book contains
twelve units, each of which focuses on a topic and includes activities addressing all
four macro-skills and grammar/vocabulary. These reading texts are analysed for
their cultural content.
In the chapter, two reading texts from the two chosen books that capture the
same cultural conceptualisations were selected for the purpose of comparison. Unit
1 (English 10) and Unit 6 (New Headway) capture the cultural event schema of TEA
DRINKING as revealed in repeated details, which offer sufficient information for
in-depth analysis. Then all reading questions in the two textbooks were analysed
against the framework of meta-cultural competence by Sharifian (2013).
32.3.2 Data Analysis Procedure
The analysis comprises two procedures of analysing cultural conceptualisations of

TEA DRINKING in the two sample texts and analysing tasks in light of meta-cultural
competence. Below are the snapshots of the two procedures (Table 32.1).
32.4 Cultural Conceptualisations in the Locally Developed

English Textbook
32.4.1 The Ethnographic Survey into the Vietnamese

Cultural Conceptualisations of TỤC UỐNG TRÀ
(CHÈ)/TEA DRINKING
Tea drinking in the Vietnamese community, originated in the rural areas among
peasants long before the Chinese colonisation and influence (Do 1999a, b, 2003,
2006; Hoang 2009; Ngoc 2010; Wenner 2011). According to Hoang (2009), at that
early time Vietnamese peasants picked fresh tea leaves from the forests or their
personal gardens, soaked them, then boiled and drank the resulting brew. Tea
drinking became “chè tươi” or the fresh tea drinking custom, which according to
Phan (2006, 2012), is unique to Vietnam and associated with the lifestyle of the
peasantry.
With the Chinese occupation, the Chinese tea drinking practice influenced the
development of the so-called Tra Dao or the religion of tea (Do 2003, 2006) that is
associated with noble individuals who drink tea in a formal setting. In contrast with
the original “fresh tea” practice, the religion of tea involves formality and metic-
ulousness in the making, offering and enjoying of the tea (Do 2003; Wenner 2011).
Tea leaves were processed more carefully through both the drying and flavouring
726 T.N. Dinh
Table 32.1 Procedure of analysis

Cultural Linguistics semiotic approach to ELT materials
Stage 1 Cultural conceptualisations
in ELT texts and visuals
•Identify cultural conceptualisations in texts
(identify target cultural conceptualisations revealed
Stage 1 in the title, dominant topic or key/ repeated concepts)
•Conduct ethnographic survey

(conduct available literature in anthropology,
sociology, cultural studies, researcher's intuition as
cultural insider and other possible individuals of the
Stage 2 identified target cultural conceptualisations)
•Conduct conceptual analysis based on

ethnographic survey
(rely on and relate the ethnographic survey to tease
Stage 3 out and discuss the cultural conceptualisations)
•Conduct text and visual analysis

(conduct semiotic analysis of texts and visuals to
examine how they reflect the discussed cultural
Stage 4 conceptualisations)
Stage 2 Meta-cultural competence Conceptual variation awareness

in tasks Conceptual explication strategies
Conceptual negotiation strategies
(Sharifian, 2013)
stages, and the tea was served in sophisticated tea sets in a peaceful, clear space for
the educated and those with high social status. Tea is consumed today by many
Vietnamese families regardless of their social status and the practices around it
merge both the fresh tea and religion of tea drinking practices (Ly 2014).
Based on the studies by Do (1999a, b, 2003, 2006), Ly (2014), Phan (2006,
2012), Tong and Pham (2012), Tran (2000, 2001, 2013, 2005) and Wenner (2011),
the researcher formulated the Vietnamese cultural conceptualisation of the TEA
DRINKING event. It is noted here that the researcher focused on features believed to
be specific to the tea drinking practice, especially fresh tea drinking since the text
captures this practice among peasants in the field rather than tea drinking as a
formal event. The table summarises several primary cultural schemas of TEA
DRINKING as follows:
TEA DRINKING AS NEIGHBOURHOOD AND FRIENDSHIP REINFORCEMENT PRACTICE

TEA DRINKING AS EXPRESSION OF RESPECT AND HOSPITALITY
TEA DRINKING AS AN EXPRESSION OF SIMPLICITY
TEA DRINKING AS ENJOYMENT OF NATURE AND PEACE
TEA DRINKING AS CONTEMPLATION AND REFLECTION
TEA DRINKING AS NEIGHBOURHOOD AND FRIENDSHIP REINFORCEMENT (RELATIONSHIP

REINFORCEMENT) PRACTICE
This Vietnamese conceptualisation of TEA DRINKING as mentioned above pri-
marily arises from the fresh tea drinking tradition that developed among the
peasants. The event schema of TEA DRINKING involves the participation of ordinary
people who made use of the natural products they had at hand to create a type of
drink that could quench their thirst and would taste delicious. The activity of boiling
water and gathering together to enjoy tea during a break or after work was wide-
spread and important to community members.
According to Ly (2014), this drinking event is associated with constructing
social relationships. Hoang (2009), and Tran (2013) explain that in the past each
family in a neighbourhood took turns to boil the water, prepare fresh tea leaves and
invite their neighbours to come round for tea. This custom, as Ly (2014) observes,
is still maintained today in some rural areas. Tea drinking as such is associated with
a gathering of neighbours and bond reinforcement.
Tran (2005) states “uống chè tươi cũng thể hiện tính cộng đồng của văn hóa làng
xã Việt Nam, nền văn hóa lúa nước, khác hẳn cách uống trà tàu độc ẩm, song ẩm
hay quần ẩm của người Hán” (p. 34) (roughly translated as “fresh tea drinking
expresses the cohesive community life of Vietnamese village culture, wet rice
culture, different from the formal tea drinking influenced by the Chinese culture).
He describes the practice as being closely associated with tea served in a bowl (bát,
chén) rather than in a tea cup (tách), and it is often consumed with a boiled sweet
potato, tobacco, and stories about the local village and rice paddy fields as in “Ăn
một củ khoai luộc, uống một bát nước chè xanh, hút một hơi thuốc lào, lim dim nhả
khói, rồi rôm rả chuyện làng, chuyện xóm, chuyện đồng áng thì thật không gì thú vị
bằng” (Tran, 2005, p. 36) (briefly translated as “eating a sweet potato, drinking a
bowl of fresh green tea, smoking tobacco, and chattering about the village,
neighbourhood, paddy fields is incomparably interesting). The TEA DRINKING event
schema provokes the image of a gathering of people where they communicate with
each other, forming and maintaining bonds around a tea table. The image below is
an example of villagers gathering together around a tea table (Fig. 32.1).
TEA DRINKING AS AN EXPRESSION OF SIMPLICITY
The fresh tea drinking event is connected to simplicity. The schema has
developed as a result of the simple approach to tea preparation as well as the tea set,
the drinking ritual, and participants. Tran (2005) explains that “chè xanh” (fresh
green tea) ceremony includes freshly picked tea leaves which are washed and then
boiled until the water becomes thicker. The tea set is simply composed of a metal
kettle and medium-sized bowls (bát). The tea context is also very dynamic provided
that it is comfortable (Tran 2005). Simple as it is, the fresh tea drinking ceremony is
depicted as “mộc mạc, chân tình, bình dị. Mặc dù mộc mạc, bình dị nhưng cũng
vẫn có những quy tắc nhất định, chẳng hạn: chủ nhà thường tiếp nước cho khách,
người nhiều tuổi được mời uống trước…” (Tran 2005, p. 3) (roughly translated as
“simple, down to earth but the ritual also follows certain rules such as the host offers
728 T.N. Dinh
Fig. 32.1 Gathered tea drinking event in the Vietnamese countryside. Source http://www.
tinkinhte.com/du-lich/kham-pha-viet-nam/van-hoa-tra.nd5-dt.34292.032266.html
tea to guests, younger tea drinkers offer tea to older ones which is a sign of
hospitality and respect”). Below is an image of the fresh tea drinking in the field
with a simple tea set (Fig. 32.2).
TEA DRINKING AS AN EXPRESSION OF HOSPITALITY AND RESPECT
As in many other cultures including Chinese and Indian cultures, tea drinking in
Vietnam is a vehicle for hospitality and conveys respect to guests (Dang 2009).
Dang (2009), Ly (2014) and Phan (2006, 2012) explain that the host normally
prepares the tea set with clean cups, freshly boiled water, and fresh, fragrant tea
leaves. To show respect and appreciation to the host, guests must accept the offer of
the tea, compliment the host on the tea and receive it with both hands (Phan 2006,
2012).
Ly (2014) notes that a soiled cup or the refusal of an offer of tea during the
Vietnamese tea ceremony can be taken as an affront. Generous hospitality and
mutual respect are expected. These assumptions help construct the event schema of
TEA DRINKINg AS AN EXPRESSION OF HOSPITALITY AND RESPECT.
TEA DRINKING AS THE ENJOYMENT OF NATURE AND PEACE
Such a cultural conceptualisation is drawn from the fact that tea is a natural
product and savouring it is understood as a means of putting oneself in a harmo-
nious relationship with plants and the surroundings. Do (2003, 2006) and Ly (2014)
describe the tea drinking experience as being immersed in nature, enjoying a natural
product and savouring its taste.
Fig. 32.2 Fresh tea drinking event with boiling water, medium-sized bowl (bát), fresh tea leaves
in an open rice paddy in Vietnam. Source http://www.tinkinhte.com/du-lich/kham-pha-viet-nam/
van-hoa-tra
Do (2003, 2006) and Tran (2005) emphasise that the space required for a
Vietnamese tea event does not need to be complicated or sophisticated; rather,
peacefulness and comfort are the rule. The setting should be open, tranquil and
simple so that people can perceive the beauty of nature and become immersed in a
calm atmosphere (Phan 2006, 2012).
TEA DRINKING AS CONTEMPLATION AND REFLECTION
In Vietnam, as in Japan and China, tea drinking is not to be conducted in haste
but used to encourage a calm and meaningful experience (Phan 2006). Whether
people drink tea on their own, which is called “nhất ẩm”—literally, single tea
drinking—or with companions, called “song ẩm”—literally paired tea drinking or
“quần ẩm”—gathered tea drinking (Niculin 2008)—tea drinkers are supposed to
become engaged in an internal dialogue or converse with their companions. In
“nhất ẩm,” people savour the tea, relish the natural scenery, sometimes contemplate
and reflect on their life and the surroundings (Niculin 2008; Phan 2006). In “song
ẩm” or “quần ẩm” though there is communication among the group, people also
have time to think and perceive themselves (ibid). Thus, tea drinking is a relaxing
event giving participants a chance to become calm, contemplate and reflect.
According to Ly (2014), tea drinking is conducted differently from family to
family, region to region and, especially in the globalised era with the influx of new
tea products, the event and its underlying meanings have become more varied.
However, the major focus here is not on the different ways people conduct tea
drinking but on the cultural conceptualisations drawn from the event. It is also
730 T.N. Dinh
noted here that these conceptualisations are heteregenously distributed across

Vietnamese individuals. Some are also shared with people from other cultures such
as China, India, Japan, and Britain. For example, tea drinking as a means of
conveying hospitality/respect is found in British, Chinese and Indian cultures
(Traber 2013).
32.4.2 The Vietnamese Cultural Conceptualisations of TỤC

UỐNG TRÀ/CHÈ—TEA DRINKING in Unit 1 (English 10)
The text in Unit 1 in Tieng Anh 10—English 10 (p. 12) depicts the following
cultural conceptualisations of TEA DRINKING: TEA DRINKING AS NEIGHBOURLINESS AND
FRIENDSHIP TIE REINFORCEMENT event schema (Fig. 32.3).
The visual displays the image of a peasant couple in the rice paddy field,
indicating the tea drinking in the text is the “fresh tea” drinking placing emphasis on
simplicity, open space and informality.
From the text, the two Vietnamese cultural conceptualisations of TEA DRINKING
are instantiated in the details of when, where and with whom the main characters
drink tea.
They are captured in the following sentences
During my break I often drink tea with my fellow peasants and smoke local tobacco and
Sometimes we go and see our neighbours for a cup of tea. We chat about our work, our
children and our plans for the next crop (Hoang 2006, p. 12)
These sentences explain Mr. Vy’s drinking tea practice: he drinks tea during a
break and after work with the people who cultivate in the same area that he does
who happen to be his neighbours. The FRESH TEA DRINKING schema, as aforemen-
tioned, involves drinking tea, smoking local tobacco, savouring local products such
as sweet potato and talking to each other about crops, village, stories about the
neighbourhood. The sentence “During my break I often drink tea with my fellow
peasants and smoke local tobacco” reflects the association of tea drinking with
smoking tobacco and socialising with co-peasants. This practice is described as
commonly found among Vietnamese peasants in the countryside as it brings people
joy and helps reinforce bonds.
The event schema embedded in the text is “quần ẩm”—or literally a tea drinking
gathering—as it is carried out among those who work in the same field and
neighbours who live in the same area, not by the drinker on his/her own. Mr. Vy
and Mrs. Tuyet drink tea with fellow peasants during work and after work. They
visit each other for “a cup of tea” which actually refers to a socialising event among
people living in the same neighbourhood.
According to Do (2003, 2006) and Ly (2014), drinking tea with others
strengthens their bonds of friendship since people confide information about their
life, village, harvest or personal interests as they drink. The below sentence
“sometimes we go and see our neighbours for a cup of tea. We chat about our
Fig. 32.3 Text and visual of Unit 1—English 10. Hoang (2006)
work, our children and our plans for the next crop” (Hoang 2006, p. 12) captures
such a schema of a social tea drinking event when villagers visit each other and talk
about “chuyện làng, chuyện xóm, chuyện đồng áng” (stories of the village, their
732 T.N. Dinh
neighbourhood, crops) (Tran 2005) and their future concerns. During a tea ritual,
people centre on talk; hence, the event helps bind people together.
The analysis reveals the cultural conceptual metaphor of the event, which is
correspondent with what have been found in the ethnographic survey.
32.5 Cultural Conceptualisations The Anglo-British

Cultural Conceptualisations of TEA DRINKING
in the Internationally Marketed English Textbooks
32.5.1 The Ethnographic Survey into the Cultural

Conceptualisations of ANGLO-ENGLISH TEA DRINKING
In this review, the researcher will use the term Anglo-English cultural conceptu-
alisations by Bramah (1972), and Day (1878), who have documented tea drinking.
Based on the comprehensive studies by Forrest (1973), Fromer (2008a, b), Griffiths
(2011) and other relevant materials, the researcher isolated the following cultural
schemas:
TEA DRINKING AS A MEANS OF SEEKING REFRESHMENT

TEA DRINKING AS A MEANS OF SEEKING COMFORT AND COMPOSURE
TEA DRINKING AS A DOMESTIC PRACTICE
TEA DRINKING AS A MEANS OF SEEKING DOMESTIC WARMTH
TEA DRINKING AS REPRESENTING ENGLISHNESS
TEA DRINKING AS A MEANS OF BOND REINFORCEMENT
TEA DRINKING AS A MEANS OF SEEKING REFRESHMENT

Dickens (1887) explained that “tea maketh the body active and lusty; it helpth
the headache, and heaviness therefore; it removed the obstructions of the spleen; It
is very good against the stone and gravel” (p. 416). Fromer (2008b) emphasised that
“tea offers mental and physical refreshment to people” (p. 71). The event schema of
TEA DRINKING AS A MEANS OF SEEKING REFRESHMENT is observable in everyday com-
munication and practice such as tea breaks at work or whenever people feel tired as
in, “I am tired, I need a cup of tea” (Phan 2012) or when they are in need of a break
to think over a solution to a problem (Griffiths 2011). The reason is, as revealed by
Fromer (2008a, b), Griffiths (2011) and Sumner (1863), that tea is believed to
refresh the drinkers, bringing about a clear mind and improving problem-solving.
As a result, around a tea table, people talk not just to socialise but to find calmness,
soberness and refreshment and find solutions to life issues.
TEA DRINKING AS A MEANS OF SEEKING COMFORT AND COMPOSURE

In addition to bringing refreshment to tea drinkers, the practice is invariably
perceived as providing comfort. Sigmond (1839) stressed that tea represents a
dependable, secure basis, adding that “tea is agreeable, pleasant and comforting; it
both nourishes the body and provides solace for the soul” (p. 34). Tea evokes both
labour and leisure (p. 1). Dickens (1887) compared tea to “the stimulant of fancy
and the promoter of pleasant gossip” (p. 415), thus, tea drinking provides people
with joy and comfort and simultaneously builds up relationships as it is shared.
Griffiths (2011) noticed the Briton’s “nice cup of tea” is offered for comfort,
condolence and commiseration (p. 271). Fromer (2008b) observed that in several
poems and novels, tea is characterised as “perfect domestic comfort” (p. 3).
TEA DRINKING AS DAILY DOMESTIC PRACTICE
The schema is drawn from descriptions by Berry (1994), Fromer (2008b) and
Weisburger and Comer (2000). Berry (1994) observed that tea has become a
necessity and its presence in England indicates the indispensability and familiarity
of the drinking practice in most families.
TEA DRINKING schema is comprised of the sub event schemas of morning tea,
afternoon tea and high tea. Reade (1884) reported that tea was domesticated within
the English culture to the extent that tea represented safety, security, domestic
harmony and morality. Weisburger and Comer (2000) observed that the practice of
the tea break has been widespread in the British society since the twentieth century.
Therefore, a TEA DRINKING EVENT is conceptualised as a DAILY RITUAL. This schema
reinforces the changes in the status of tea, from a luxury to a necessity in Britian.
Fromer (2008b) noted that the rituals of drinking tea “help to crystallise the shared
values of the domestic space as a place where a single nuclear family sits down to
drink tea, eat bread and butter and rehearse the bonds that connect them” (p. 116).
The event schema evokes the image schema of a family gathering, domestic
space, and privacy.
TEA DRINKING AS A MEANS OF SEEKING DOMESTIC WARMTH
As tea drinking is described as a domestic practice, the question of where in the
house the event takes place has attracted the interest of many scholars, such as
Farrell (2002), Fromer (2008a, b) and Pettigrew (1997).
In the early years of tea’s domestication as a beverage, in the 17th and early 18th
centuries, the image of tea was associated with the kitchen fireplace, kettle and it
was in the kitchen that the cups were set out. Fromer (2008b) stated that much of
the household’s cooking took place at the central fireplace, within sight of the entire
family and water for tea was boiled in a large kettle hanging over the fire (p. 91).
By the late eighteenth century, with the growth of the middle class, the archi-
tecture of many new middle class homes had begun to reflect the increasing spe-
cialisation of rooms within the home, and the tasks of cooking and boiling kettles
were restricted to the below-stairs kitchen (Fromer 2008b, p. 91). It can be inferred
that the first domestic space hosting tea drinking was the kitchen as the fireplace on
which the kettle is boiled was there. As such, ANGLO-ENGLISH DOMESTIC TEA DRINKING
schema is related to the kitchen space schema, evoking domestic warmth.
734 T.N. Dinh
TEA DRINKING AS ENGLISHNESS REPRESENTING

Fromer (2008a, b) stressed that tea drinking is associated with the English
identity or Englishness. It is attached to the royal image of the King, Queen and
aristocracy and also a common daily practice among colleagues at work and family
at home, enabling ordinary people to relax, refresh, find calmness and reinforce
connections.
The TEA DRINKING schema is connected to the Englishness schema. The English
event evokes the image schemas of sugar, milk, biscuits and spoons, featuring tea
schema as a kind of “tea complex” which contrasts with schemas of tea without
additions or TEA AS PURITY. Many scholars including Griffiths (2011) and Pettigrew
(1997, 2001) emphasised that it is sugar that makes English tea drinking different
from that in its country of origin, China. He explained that sugar was added to tea in
Britain from the beginning and that both milk and sugar were stirred in with
teaspoons that then rested in a spoon boat (Griffiths 2011). Tea drinking is not
simply a time to drink but can be considered a meal time as well. This is especially
true of afternoon tea which aims to shorten the gap between lunch and dinner.
The importance of the association of tea drinking and English identity is
reflected in visuals, slangs and idioms. Some examples include
tea time: slang used for a time to get high or smoke up (http://
onlineslangdictionary.com).
Below are some examples of idioms related to tea:
One’s cup of tea: be one’s taste
Tempest in a teacup/storm in a teacup: a great disturbance or uproar over a
matter of little or no importance
Tea and sympathy: kindness and sympathy that you show to someone who is
upset
Tea party: a wild drinking party/something easy; a pleasant and unstressful event
(Cambridge dictionary of idioms 2003)
In brief, it is noticeable that the English tea drinking event encompasses English
daily practice, people’s taste and interests and contributes to the association
between the event itself and the nature of Englishness.
TEA DRINKING AS A MEANS OF BOND REINFORCEMENT
Similar to other cultural conceptualisations of tea drinking such as Chinese,
Japanese, Vietnamese conceptualisations, ANGLO-ENGLISH TEA DRINKING is concep-
tualised as BOND REINFORCEMENT. The bond can be a family bond or a friendship. As
presented earlier, tea drinking in England is a domestic practice, bringing family
members together. The schema of THE EVENT AS FAMILY COHESION REINFORCEMENT has
been well documented by several scholars including Dickens (1887), Fromer
(2008b), Gaskell (1987) and Griffiths (2011). As early as 1887, Dickens considered
tea to be a “social beverage” and described that “to the English the tea-table is
typical of home; the mere mention of tea conjures up the pictures of snug interiors,
cosy firesides, familiar faces and cheery chat” (p. 415). This description suggests
the association of the event and domestic warmth. Gaskell (1987) observed that tea
drinking within a nuclear family suggests an idealised image of teatime as a time for
sharing affection and intimacy among family members (p. 130). Fromer (2008b)
stated that teatime is the time when the family gathers together to discuss daily
occurrences within their home and to reinforce the familial bonds (p. 131). As a
result, TEA DRINKING EVENT is conceptualised AS FAMILIAL BOND CONSTRUCTION.
Furthermore, the event is conducted among colleagues and friends who get
together, drink tea and talk to each other, maintaining and reinforcing their rela-
tionships around cups of tea. Tea drinking helps create what Turner (1969) termed
“communitas” (p. 71) for people.
It should be noted here that not all English scholars are of the same viewpoints.
For instance, some scholars such as Cobbatt (1877), who opposed the notion of
English tea drinking as refreshment, clear mind seeking and bond reinforcing with
the argument that “tea is a debaucher of youth and a maker of misery” (as cited in
Dickens 1887). However, it can be seen from Cobbatt (1877) that the event even
though may not be a chance for tea participants to find solutions, it does provide
them with opportunities to gather together and talk about their own problems and
discuss them.
32.5.2 Cultural Conceptualisation of ANGLO-ENGLISH TEA

DRINKING in Unit 6 (NH-Intermediate)
The analysis of the text and visual in Unit 6 of the textbook demonstrates several
English cultural conceptualisations of TEA DRINKING, specifically TEA DRINKING AS
A DAILY DOMESTIC PRACTICE, AN OPPORTUNITY FOR CALM TO SEEK FOR SOLUTIONS, and TEA
DRINKING AS A MEANS OF BOND REINFORCEMENT (Fig. 32.4).
Because the original text is in the form of a close text which needs suggested
phrases to be filled in, the researcher has typed the completed text for the ease of
text analysis as follows:
The room in our house I like best is our kitchen. Perhaps the kitchen is the
most important room in many houses, but it is particularly so in our house
because it’s not only where we cook and eat but it’s also the place where
family and friends come together.
I have so many happy memories of times spent there: ordinary daily events
such as making breakfast on dark, cold winter mornings for children who are
cross and sleepy, before sending them off to school; or special occasions such
as homecomings or cooking Christmas dinner. Whenever we have a party,
people gravitate with their drinks to the kitchen. It always ends up the fullest
and noisiest room in the house.
So what does this special room look like? It’s quite big, but not huge. It’s big
enough to have a good-sized rectangular table in the centre, which is the focal
point of the room. There is a large window above the sink, looking out onto
736 T.N. Dinh
Fig. 32.4 Text and visual in Unit 6—New Headway intermediate (3rd edition). Soars and Soars
(2010)
two apples trees in the garden. There’s a big, old cooking stove at one end
and at the other end a wall with a huge notice board which tells the story of
our lives, past, present and future: a school photo of the kids; a postcard from
Auntie Nancy, whose family have all emigrated to Australia; the menu from a
takeaway Chinese restaurant; an invitation to a wedding that we’re going to
next Saturday; a letter from a friend we haven’t seen for years/all our world is
there for everyone to read!
The front door is seldom used in our house, only by strangers. All our friends
use the back door which means they come straight into the kitchen and join in
whatever is happening there. The kettle goes on immediately and then we all
sit around the table, drinking tea and putting the world to rights! Without
doubt some of the happiest times of my life have been spent in our kitchen
First of all, the schema of TEA DRINKING AS A DAILY DOMESTIC PRACTICE can be
observed in the image of a tea set on the kitchen table and the availability of kettle
and tea on any occasion including friends is explained in the text.
As can be seen from the image, a tea kettle, some cups, a jug of milk and a box
of biscuits are on the kitchen table, reflecting the event schema of TEA DRINKING
involving other items such as milk, sugar and biscuits and making the English tea
schema a “tea complex”, as is widely documented in previous studies. The presence
of the tea set in the kitchen where most of the family activities such as having
breakfast or welcoming friends take place demonstrates that tea drinking is a daily
domestic practice. Furthermore, the TEA DRINKING event schema and the KITCHEN
space schema are interrelated, further reinforcing the schema of TEA DRINKING AS
A DOMESTIC PRACTICE and AS A DAILY RITUAL encouraging people in the family to go to
the kitchen and enjoy tea at any time. The kettle on the stove appears in the visual
and is referred to in the text by “the kettle goes on immediately”, indicating the
ready availability and familiarity of the practice.
The kitchen is conceptualised as a space of privacy and intimacy. The tea
offering is regarded as an expression of hospitality and invitation to guests into
share the domesticity of the family, enter its comfortable, private and intimate zone.
All these details help construct the TEA DRINKING AS A DAILY DOMESTIC PRACTICE.
Second, the TEA DRINKING schema is described as an event aiming at calmness,
the solution of any problems and relationship reinforcement. This event is
expressed in the following sentences
All our friends use the back door which means they come straight into the kitchen and join
in whatever happening there. The kettle goes on immediately and then we all sit around the
table, drinking tea and putting the world to rights (p. 111).
The sentences describe the get-together among friends, especially close friends
since they enter through the back door to the kitchen—a private space of intimacy
for the family. The tea drinking occasion when intimate friends gather in the home
kitchen further illustrates the conceptualisations of TEA DRINKING AS SOCIALISING,
INTIMACY ENHANCING AND RELATIONSHIP REINFORCING.
The function of tea drinking is also reflected in the idiom “put the world to
rights” in the text. The idiom “put the world to rights” or “set the world to rights” is
defined by the Oxford Dictionary (2014) as “to talk about how the world could be
changed to be a better place”. In general, the idiom suggests that around a tea table
people talk, exchange ideas and discuss political and social problems. Furthermore,
the detail “the kettle goes on immediately” which is similar to the idiom “put the
kettle on” signals the boiling of water in preparation for a tea event and an in-depth
talk. The sentences demonstrate the cultural conceptualisations of TEA DRINKING AS
AN EVENT OF SOCIALISING, BOND REINFORCING, COMFORT, CALMNESS AND REFRESHMENT
SEEKING.
What is illustrated in the visual and text reflects the Anglo-English cultural
conceptualisations of TEA DRINKING described in the multiple studies discussed
above. First, the tea image schema evokes a “tea complex” with tea, milk, and
sugared pastries. Second, the event schema is related to the kitchen space schema.
Third, it is associated with daily family activities—the tea set is there on the table
ready for any occasion during the day. In general, both text and visual capture the
cultural conceptualisations of TEA DRINKING AS A DAILY DOMESTIC PRACTICE, AS A
MEANS OF SEEKING COMFORT AND COMPOSURE and AS A MEANS OF BOND REINFORCEMENT.
738 T.N. Dinh
32.6 Meta-Cultural Competence in ELT Tasks

in the Locally Developed and Internationally
Marketed Textbooks
Meta-cultural competence, as defined by Sharifian (2013), refers to “a type of

competence that enables interlocutors to communicate and negotiate their cultural
conceptualisations during the process of intercultural communication” (p. 8). To be
more specific, the competence comprises three main components: conceptual
variation awareness, conceptual explication strategies and conceptual negotiation
strategies (Sharifian 2013). While awareness allows speakers or learners to be
cognizant of various cultural conceptualisations across speech communities, dif-
ferent strategies including explication and negotiation of cultural conceptualisations
enable interlocutors to clarify the conceptualisations, and their meanings behind to
achieve mutual understanding in intercultural contacts.
As seen in the analysis above, ELT texts and visuals encode certain cultural
conceptualisations, which might or might not be shared with students’. Henceforth,
it is essential to raise students’ awareness of these conceptualisations and facilitate
the interaction between those in the textbooks and students’ in tasks. Reading
questions, as summarised by Freeman (2014), can be divided into different types:
content questions, language questions, and affect questions. Language questions
focus the reorganisation of sentences/data, lexes, and form. Content questions
centre on information comprehension and inferential skills while affect questions
highlight the personal response to the text content i.e. how students “transfer the
situation in the text to their own content and comment” and emphasise the
evaluation/views by students (Freeman 2014, p. 84). These types of questions focus
on lexical aspects, content and personal engagement with the texts, but not yet
culture or cultural conceptualisations. The questions, therefore, should be revised
and extended to address the cultural conceptualisations embedded in the materials.
Besides the three primary question types listed above, the researcher added “ap-
plication questions” which reinforce the comprehension of the reading and beyond
with meaningful integrated activities to exercise meta-cultural competence. To be
specific, the researcher incorporated a set of sub-questions within the main question
types regarding cultural conceptualisations and employment of meta-cultural
competence as follows.
As noticed in the table, meta-cultural competence has been incorporated in the
three main reading questions across three stages of pre, during and post reading
phases. Traditionally the majority of reading questions centre on language and
information from the text that emphasise the dictionary meaning rather than sec-
ondary meaning for comprehension. The above criteria suggest that questions
should also provoke the understanding of schemas deducted from the text and
visual and students’ own schemas regarding the prominent concepts in the mate-
rials. Reading tasks, as suggested above, also need to foster the personal engage-
ment and interaction between schemas captured in the materials and students’
schemas through questions about their reaction to and personal opinion about the
depicted schemas. Furthermore, application questions will set out scenarios when
students will get engaged in tasks to practice clarification, asking for clarification
and negotiation strategies over certain cultural schemas. This last stage set out
questions or scenarios when different cultures contact and the need for mutual
understanding and intercultural communication is emphasised. As illustrated in the
example in Table 32.2, a scenario involving tea drinking will provide opportunities
for students to act in the roles of asking for clarification and clarifying the cultural
schemas of tea drinking across cultures. These strategies, according to Sharifian
(2013), are essential for as an international language, English encodes multiple
Table 32.2 Meta-cultural competence in ELT tasks

Types of Criteria Purpose in light of meta-cultural
questions competence
Language 1. Do they raise students’ awareness of Raise students’ awareness of cultural
questions the denotative and connotative conceptualisations in the textbook
meanings words/expressions/terms that Stimulate reflection on students’
embed specific cultural cultural conceptualisations
conceptualisations?
2. Do they provoke students’
self-reflection on their schemas
regarding those
words/expressions/terms?
Example:
What does “tea” mean?
What does “tea” mean in your culture?
Or what images come to your mind
when it comes to tea drinking?
Is it the same or different from what is
depicted in the text and visual?
Content 1. Do they check students’ Raise students’ awareness of cultural
questions comprehension of certain cultural conceptualisations in the textbook
schemas revealed in the title, dominant Facilitate the comprehension and
content and repeated details? discussion of cultural
2. Do they check students’ inference of conceptualisations in the textbook
those cultural schemas?
Example:
How is tea drinking described in the
text?
How is tea drinking conceptualised in
the text and visual? What details in the
text and visual support your answer? Or
From the details, what can you infer
about the functions of the practice? (For
friendship, for thirst quenching, etc.?)
Why do you think so?
(continued)
740 T.N. Dinh

Types of Criteria Purpose in light of meta-cultural
questions competence
Affect 1. Do they activate students’ personal Facilitate the interaction between
questions reaction to the cultural schemas cultural conceptualisations in the
depicted in the text? (Do they find it materials and those of students’
surprising/interesting? Why or why
not?)
2. Do they facilitate students’
transference of situations depicted in the
texts into their own context?
3. Do they facilitate students’ own
personal viewpoint about the schema
depicted in the text?
Example:
How do you find the tea drinking
practice depicted in the text and visual?
Is it interesting, different, etc.?
If you were involved in the tea drinking
setting as in the text and visual, how
would you get engaged in the setting?
How would you explain your tea
drinking to people of a different
culture?
Application 1. Do the post reading questions/tasks Practice clarification, asking for
questions encourage the employment of different clarification and negotiation strategies
strategies (clarification, asking for
clarification, and negotiation strategies)
to understand and negotiate different
schemas?
Example:
Imagine you invite an Australian friend
to have some tea at your house, make a
conversation between you and your
friend in a Vietnamese tea setting
practice and explain to him/her about
the Vietnamese tea drinking
Australian friend: ask for clarification
Vietnamese friend: clarify
cultural conceptualisations and such strategies can help negotiate differences and
acquire better mutual understanding in intercultural communication.
In this research, 1462 questions from the whole series of English 10, 11 and 12
and New Headway—intermediate, upper and advanced were scanned against 8
criteria questions as in Table 32.2. However, what has been found is none of the
questions satisfied the criteria as they primarily centre on linguistic meaning and
information comprehension. There are some questions provoking students’
self-reflection and viewpoint; nonetheless, they predominantly elicit background
general knowledge. It is obvious that the questions fail to accentuate on prominent
schemas revealed in the title, main content and repeated details of the texts and
visuals. For example, in unit 12, New Headway—intermediate, whose text is about
an Anglo-English funeral, there are no questions which trigger the awareness of the
cultural conceptualisations of the event based on the information in the main text
and visual. Similarly, in unit 8, English 11 whose text is about the Vietnamese
cultural event schema of Tet, there are no questions that succeed in activating
students’ own schemas and interaction with texts or creating a task which requires
students to employ different meta-cultural competence strategies to exchange
information about the event.
According to Kilickaya (2004), the overly focused language based tasks draw
students’ attention to grammatical structures are uninteresting and do not motivate
them to develop a genuine interest in the language learning process. The dominance
of linguistic and information-based tasks should be revised as recent approaches
stress that educators need to facilitate the “cultivation of a critically reflective mind
that can tell the difference between real and unreal, between information and dis-
information and between idea and ideology” (Kumaravadivelu 2012, p. 33). Sharing
the same view, Weninger and Kiss (2013) stated that language education must have
“a transformative goal that can be achieved through cultural reflection and under-
standing within a critically oriented pedagogy” (p. 22). Such pedagogy needs to be
facilitated by materials that place emphasis on reflexive open-minded and globally
aware language learners. Today teaching culture and language should prepare
learners to become critically reflective (Kumaravadivelu 2008), politically conscious
and engaged citizens (Byram 2011) and centres on cosmopolitanism (Hansen 2011;
Rizvi 2005), cultural diversity (Marlina 2014; McKay 2002, 2012a, b) and the
awareness of and ability to negotiate cultural conceptualisations (Sharifian 2015).
As “teachers are curriculum” (Tomlinson 2012), it is suggested that they expand
the tasks to provide students with further practice on meta-cultural competence. In
doing so, they need to recognise which cultural schemas in culture-specific units are
sufficiently informed throughout the texts and visuals and design several questions
or tasks as proposed in the framework above to facilitate meta-cultural competence.
32.7 Conclusions and Implications
This chapter demonstrates that cultural conceptualisations are largely instantiated in

texts and visuals in ELT materials. Cultural Linguistics has offered effective ana-
lytical tools of cultural schemas, cultural categories and conceptual metaphors to
investigate the cultural representation in materials at a profound level rather than
coping with an elusive concept of culture in general. Through an example analysis
of tea drinking event, the findings show that ELT materials reflect local and
Anglo-British cultural conceptualisations across the two sets of textbooks. These
conceptualisations are heteregenously distributed among Vietnamese and British
people as they are heterogeneously distributed within a cultural group. However, to
742 T.N. Dinh
a large extent they reflect the core values and beliefs related to the tea drinking
practice in the two cultures. What is important is tasks should bring these cultural
conceptualisations embedded in the materials to students’ attention and encourage
their discussion and relation to their own schemas. The findings, nonetheless, have
indicated that none of the questions succeed in doing so as they are language and
information oriented.
If language encodes cultural conceptualisations, the teaching, learning and
researching of language need to pay attention to how words, expressions, and the
whole text content offer a lens to understand cultural conceptualisations of different
cultural groups. The chapter provides numerous insightful implications for teachers,
researchers and curriculum developers. Regarding the analytical approach, the
chapter suggests that Cultural Linguistics be implemented to examine the repre-
sentations of cultural conceptualisations in ELT materials. Furthermore, it reiterates
the need to address meta-cultural competence in tasks which aims to raise students’
awareness of cultural conceptualisations, both from theirs and others represented in
textbooks and employ different strategies to negotiate the cultural conceptualisa-
tions as in real intercultural settings.
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Author Biography
Thuy Ngoc Dinh (Ph.D., Monash University) is currently an Adjunct Lecturer and Research
Fellow at the School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University,
Australia. She has lectured and tutored in the English as an International Language program at
Monash University since 2013 and has been a lecturer of English in Vietnam since 2007. Her
research interests include EIL, Cultural Linguistics, Vietnamese English, curriculum development
and intercultural communication. She has published articles in international journals such as
International Journal of Language and Culture, English as a lingua franca, and Asian Englishes.

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Cultural Linguistics

Farzad Sharifian Editor

• Cultural conceptualisations and the structure of language

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14294

ISSN 2520-145X ISSN 2520-1468 (electronic)

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017

Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature

1 Cultural Linguistics: The State of the Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

10 Cultural Conceptualisations of MOUTH, LIPS, TONGUE

24 Expanding the Scope of Cultural Linguistics: Taking Parrots

About the Editor

Thuy Ngoc Dinh Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

1.2 The Theoretical Framework of Cultural Linguistics

At the heart of the theoretical framework of Cultural Linguistics is the concept of

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017 1

concept offers a multidisciplinary understanding of cognition that moves beyond

Fig. 1.1 The theoretical framework of Cultural Linguistics

Apart from language, cultural conceptualisations may also be instantiated in

1.3 The Analytical Framework of Cultural Linguistics

Fig. 1.2 The relevance of cultural conceptualisations to various disciplines/domains

(cross- or intra-domain conceptualisation). Many features of human languages are

Fig. 1.3 Analytical framework of Cultural Linguistics

Christmas has been reconceptualised ﬁrst from a pagan celebration, then to a

1.4 This Volume

The contributions to this volume collectively represent contemporary cutting-edge

# Author Methodology/data Area/s of the study

Against this background, and by way of presenting an overview of the volume, I

is pure and spotless. Similarly, the conceptualisations reflected in the Christian

schemas, discussed in this chapter. The signiﬁcance of Kuuk Thaayorre cultural

ﬁnding of this study is that conceptualisations embodied in folksongs appear to

notes that in response to an inflammatory speech by an ex-president, a number of

mother of-so-and-so). Geononymy is the practice of utilising a place name as a

evoke either a FAMILY metaphor or a VACATION metaphor. These cultural metaphors

“demonstrate how a Cultural Linguistic take on military conflicts and peacekeeping

available ethnographic literature on tea drinking in the Vietnamese and

1.5 Concluding Remarks

Diana Prodanović Stankić

D. Prodanović Stankić (&)

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017 29

explain some more salient cognitive processes, such as cognitive metaphors

2.2 Theoretical Framework

2.2.1 Humour Research Within Linguistics

a violation of Grice’s maxims of the principle of cooperation” (Attardo 2003

various speciﬁc humorous forms that can be found in a conversation, such as

2.2.2 Cultural Conceptualisations and Verbal Humour

Shariﬁan (2015, p. 475) deﬁnes cultural conceptualisations as conceptual

2.3.1 The Data

• Sedam i po [Seven and a Half] (2006), written and directed by Miroslav

2.3.2 Method of Analysis

2.4 Findings and Discussion

2.4.1 An Overview of Quantitative Data

(01) Rodney: How do you know what I think?

When it comes to the combination of linguistic and extralinguistic aspects that is

In % British (UK) American Serbian

Fig. 2.1 Linguistic and extralinguistic elements of humour in the data

combination usually serves either as a source of humour in dialogues or to enhance

2.4.2 Cultural Conceptualisations in English

The analysis of cultural conceptualisations in humorous telecinematic discourse in

humour. Also, what is interesting, as opposed to the conceptualisations in the

This example is a case in point in terms of indicating how both encyclopaedic

In the above-mentioned example, it can be argued to what extent this cultural

conceptualisations based on referential metonymy, (e.g. Joe Camel, Arthur