Papers by Zuzanna Bułat-Silva
Romanica Cracoviensia
Forms of Address in Portuguese as a Foreign Language Textbooks: Natural Semantic Metalanguage App... more Forms of Address in Portuguese as a Foreign Language Textbooks: Natural Semantic Metalanguage Approach In this paper, starting from the methodological viewpoint of natural semantic metalanguage (NSM, see Wierzbicka 1996, 2013), we aim to describe how forms of address are used in Portuguese as a foreign language textbooks (European variety), investigate whether they comply with the real use of forms of address and with cultural norms of today’s Portuguese society, and propose NSM explications of their pragmatic and lexical meaning that would facilitate their acquisition. Our corpus of data contains examples taken from the PFL textbooks used for teaching students in Poland.
The basic aim of this article is to see how the category of time relates to the domain of emotion... more The basic aim of this article is to see how the category of time relates to the domain of emotions. I believe that the dimension of time is important while defining emotion concepts and that the recognition of this fact can have profound consequences for cross-cultural psychology.1 Drawing on some Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) explications of emotions2 referring to ‘pain caused by distance’ in different languages, I am going to show the differences between various cultural conceptualisations of that ‘intersection’ of emotional spectrum. Comparing the Portuguese word saudade, roughly ‘longing’, with its Polish (tęsknota), Spanish (morriña), and Chinese (chou) counterparts, I am going to look at how the domain of time is captured in their meaning and how time relates to the intensity of emotions described by these terms. To be able to express myself from a culturally neutral perspective, I will rely here on the NSM approach (Wierzbicka 1996; Goddard and Wierzbicka 2002). Thanks ...
The loss of, and search for, comfort is at the heart of the 2010 social realist play Inheritance,... more The loss of, and search for, comfort is at the heart of the 2010 social realist play Inheritance, in which the English dramatist Mike Packer explores the burst of the housing bubble in England by depicting the declining fortunes of a family. The pensioner Harry decides to buy his council house as an inheritance for his sons, but when the economic recession hits, the house is lost. This chapter gauges how the play negotiates meanings and sources of comfort by linking them with the theme of home. Packer’s play is notable for the way it connects the characters’ understanding of comfort with specific forms of subjectivity, highlighting in particular how comfort may be understood as an ethical value and how neoliberal subjects reduce such ‘ethical comfort’ to a ‘sensuous appeasement […] achieved through […] appropriate technological devices’ (Boni in Antropologia 3:133–151, 2016: 138). In order to tease out different dimensions and meanings of comfort in the play, we adopt an interdiscip...
Comfort in Contemporary Culture
Pragmática Sociocultural / Sociocultural Pragmatics
Resumen En el presente artículo adoptamos el punto de vista de la Etnopragmática como marco metod... more Resumen En el presente artículo adoptamos el punto de vista de la Etnopragmática como marco metodológico que nos permite interpretar estrategias lingüísticas a través de su relación con ciertos aspectos culturales que motivan el uso de tales estrategias. En concreto, nos proponemos abordar la relación que existe entre los guiones culturales españoles y las formas de tratamiento nominales de afecto (vocativos de cariño) usadas en el español peninsular. Los guiones culturales parecen una herramienta muy adecuada para explicitar las premisas socioculturales que subyacen a las interpretaciones que hacemos de las funciones que ejercen los vocativos en la cortesía española. Vamos a centrarnos sobre todo en la relación entre los guiones culturales típicamente españoles tales como “expresividad”, “halagar a otro”, “dirigirse a otros con cariño” y “ser amistoso”, así como en los vocativos de cariño alma, vida, cielo y cariño. Para la explicitación, por un lado, del contenido semántico de los...
Język a Kultura
Sleeping languages, afew remarks on the linguistic situation of Aboriginal people in Australia th... more Sleeping languages, afew remarks on the linguistic situation of Aboriginal people in Australia through the specific case of Gamilaraay, an Aboriginal language of New South WalesThe main aim of this article is to investigate revival linguistics, anew branch of linguistics as yet little known in Poland, through the specific case of the recent revival of Gamilaraay, an Aboriginal language of New South Wales, Australia. After discussing the classification of the world’s languages according to their vitality, the author presents the language situation in Australia and offers adefinition of revival linguistics, justifying its relevance to the revitalization of Aboriginal languages, including some that have been extinct for up to two hundred years.
Studia Linguistica
The concept of HOME in Polish and Portuguese – distant cultures, similar conceptsThe aim of the p... more The concept of HOME in Polish and Portuguese – distant cultures, similar conceptsThe aim of the present paper is to investigate the concept of HOME in Polish and in Portuguese language and culture. The methodology which suits its purpose best and allows to compare words from different languages without an ethnocentric bias is the NSM, Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach cf. Wierzbicka 1996, Goddard/Wierzbicka 2002. On the basis of lexical and textual data the meaning of Polish dom is explicated and compared with its Portuguese equivalent, casa. Despite the differences in treating public and private space in Polish and Portuguese cultures, the notions of HOME in these two languages have many things in common: both dom and casa are multidimensional concepts referring not only to ‘people living together in a place’ but are also related to emotions such as love, tenderness and homesickness, and to feelings of security and warmth.
Pragmática Sociocultural / Sociocultural Pragmatics, Mar 26, 2020
Resumen: En el presente artículo adoptamos el punto de vista de la Etnopragmática como marco meto... more Resumen: En el presente artículo adoptamos el punto de vista de la Etnopragmática como marco metodológico que nos permite interpretar estrategias lingüísticas a través de su relación con ciertos aspectos culturales que motivan el uso de tales estrategias. En concreto, nos proponemos abordar la relación que existe entre los guiones culturales españoles y las formas de tratamiento nominales de afecto (vocativos de cariño) usadas en el español peninsular. Los guiones culturales parecen una herramienta muy adecuada para explicitar las premisas socioculturales que subyacen a las interpretaciones que hacemos de las funciones que ejercen los vocativos en la cortesía española. Vamos a centrarnos sobre todo en la relación entre los guiones culturales típicamente españoles tales como "expresividad", "halagar a otro", "dirigirse a otros con cariño" y "ser amistoso", así como en los vocativos de cariño alma, vida, cielo y cariño. Para la explicitación, por un lado, del contenido semántico de los vocativos, y, por el otro, de los valores culturales que subyacen a su uso, se aplicará el método de análisis semántico-pragmático desde la perspectiva de la Metalengua Semántica Natural (NSM).
Benjamins Current Topics, 2016
Estudios Hispanicos, 2011
Anthropological Journal of European Cultures, 2016
Estudios Hispanicos, 2002
Emotion Review, 2012
I analyze the linguistic picture of the Portuguese emotion saudade, roughly “nostalgia,” in an at... more I analyze the linguistic picture of the Portuguese emotion saudade, roughly “nostalgia,” in an attempt to show its cultural significance and contradict the view that nostalgia is a marginal feeling, deprived of any practical function.
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Papers by Zuzanna Bułat-Silva