Going Beyond Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) on Culture Evaluation

Abstract

Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM, henceforth) theory, Wierzbicka (1994, 1997, 1999), has been claimed to be effective in tackling the cultural semantics phenomena. This is easily proved by using universal semantic primes such as, I, you, say, think, feel, good, and bad. Data in this paper was partly taken from long fieldwork conducted in 2001 and updated until recently through recording and ordinary conversation with those who were/are considered significant. The analysis of the data shows that NSM is insensitive to include the notion of cultural pragmatics which purely accommodates the values built-in in the society. Furthermore, NSM also offers a cognitive explanation without looking at how values work in real social, cultural, and religious circumstances. This is certainly interesting for Sasak in particular as it appears to provide robust phenomena on values in which NSM needs to address. Thus, NSM in turn is expected to be enriched with data from various languages and the values underlying their expressions. Indeed, it is arguable how NSM deals with the particular language socio-pragmatic aspects. This paper takes the perspective that these later notions are the core of semantic realization in every society in which the notion of cultural specificity needs to be taken into account.