Natural Semantic Metalanguage Versus Polish Ethnolinguistic School

This article shows the convergences and the discrepancies between the two approaches to studying linguistic meaning (both allied to what may be termed cultural linguistics) that originated by Anna Wierzbicka and known as Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach (henceforth NSM) and that of Polish (Cognitive) Ethnolinguistic School of Lublin, led by Jerzy Bartmiński, and known as JOS (from Polish językowy obraz świata, “linguistic worldview”). The two have much in common: they share the conviction that not what science says but what an ordinary man means while saying a word matters. They both rely on simple words in their meaning explications: NSM is based on 65 atoms of meaning, called semantic primes, whereas Polish ethnolinguists use plain Polish in their cognitive definitions. Both theories concentrate on words that matter most for the community in question: NSM scholars often discuss cultural keywords; Bartmiński’s group concentrates on values. As for the differences, first is the size of the definientia vocabulary – 65 semantic primes versus a few thousand words of colloquial Polish. Another important difference is the scope of their research. NSM approach has been used to investigate words and expressions from many diverse languages and from different language families, whereas JOS has concentrated mostly on Polish and other Slavic languages. There are also crucial methodological differences. NSM explications are based on researchers’ intuitions and some corpus and literary examples. JOS data elicitation method is far more rigid. It is based on three types of linguistic evidence: dictionaries, questionnaires, and corpora enhanced with ethnographic data. Despite all the differences, however, Wierzbicka and Bartmiński share an interest in what is important for the humans to live well: they both want their scientific work to have meaning that extends far beyond the scope of descriptive linguistics.