My encounter with Natural Semantic Metalanguage

I’m always reading with interest articles in Healthcare Organization and Humanities, including Linguistics. Sometimes I have time to research them in depth, other times I am just too overloaded to take in too much new information. However, three months ago, during one of my better moments I felt the need to go through the current content of Linguistic sciences, to learn more about how to analyse and interpret the narratives that we collect at ISTUD Foundation.

Something drew my attention, a study with an odd title: It’s mine! Re-thinking the conceptual semantics of “possession ” through NSM. Browsing through the study, I discovered two main points. First, that the sense of possession and ownership might be “innate” in all human children, and secondly, that this was discovered through a tool called Natural Semantic Metalanguage. NSM? I had never heard of this and all I know is that I know nothing, as Socrates, my still living guide, keeps saying.

What is Natural Semantic Metalanguage, and how this can be applied to Narrative Medicine? First, I will give you my own impressions of this method, and later I have the honour to host the interview with Anna Wierzbicka, Professor of Linguistics at ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences (Canberra) and at School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University (Brisbane), the researcher most credited with discovering this metalanguage.

It is called a metalanguage since it covers English, Russian, Polish, French, Spanish, Malay, Japanese, Italian, Chinese, Korean, Ewe and East Cree, as well as Swedish, and is evolving to cover other languages. The work is a never ending process including the majority of people who “speak” in the world. Therefore, this language, in my opinion refers to humankind. Metalanguage exists naturally, as opposed to being an artificial language, and is based on “meanings” and not merely on grammar.

I, You, Others, Think, Feel, Good, Bad, Live and Die, Body, Something, When, Before, After, Where, Here, Far, Maybe, Like, Kind, Part… These are some of the approximately 65 semantic primes. I was told later that they are similar to prime numbers, by Prof. Bert Peeters – they cannot be divided by anything for the NSM.

With these semantic primes, in the same way that atoms can form molecules, when we speak or write we compose semantic molecules. And in these semantic molecules, enriched by words not referred by this universal language, through juxtaposition we have a first layer which is universal and a second layer which is local, techincal and peculiar of that place and society in which we live.

We found out that many of these primes are used regularly in narratives we collect from patients: body, a part of the body, feeling bad, feeling good, thinking. Also, the chronological sequence of the events: I, You, the others, maybe, and the I Want, or I don’t want, to live and to die.

This post is just the beginning of an exploration of how this method can help us in reading narratives, not only in a contextual point of view, but also in a universal point of view.

As a last consideration since, in my opinion, I believe that our mind frame depends much on the words we use, I thought that I had discovered something “breathtaking”, something that had to do with universal concepts. I was stunned in this contemplation, like a child standing before the immensity of the sea for the very first time.

Chart of NSM semantic primes

Natural Semantic Metalanguage at Griffith University

The Natural Semantic Metalanguage Approach, by Cliff Goddard

Maria Giulia Marini

Epidemiologist and counselor in transactional analysis, thirty years of professional life in health care. I have a classic humanistic background, including the knowledge of Ancient Greek and Latin, which opened me to study languages and arts, becoming an Art Coach. I followed afterward scientific academic studies, in clinical pharmacology with an academic specialization in Epidemiology (University of Milan and Pavia). Past international experiences at the Harvard Medical School and in a pharma company at Mainz in Germany. Currently Director of Innovation in the Health Care Area of Fondazione ISTUD a center for educational and social and health care research. I'm serving as president of EUNAMES- European Narrative Medicine Society, on the board of Italian Society of Narrative Medicine, a tenured professor of Narrative Medicine at La Sapienza, Roma, and teaching narrative medicine in other universities and institutions at a national and international level. In 2016 I was a referee for the World Health Organization- Europen for “Narrative Method of Research in Public Health.” Writer of the books; “Narrative medicine: Bridging the gap between Evidence-Based care and Medical Humanities,” and "Languages of care in Narrative Medicine" edited with Springer, and since 2021 main editor for Springer of the new series "New Paradigms in Health Care."

This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. John McKeon

    “I thought that I had discovered something “breathtaking”” …
    “… I was stunned in this contemplation, like a child standing before the immensity of the sea for the very first time.”

    Maria, your reaction to the discovery of the idea of semantic elements reminds me of my reaction about a decade ago on reading about it in an introduction to linguistics. Even now – when I contemplate about 5000 years of human history in which written language has left some kind of mark for us – I am still exhilarated by the clean, simple logic of it all and yet the utter profundity that it also represents. If we have academic heroes in the world, Anna Wierzbicka is surely one of them!

    I was drawn to your article here when I saw a tweet from Cliff Goddard. Thank you.

    1. maria giulia

      Thank you so much, for your reply.
      Yes, she deserves credits. And as I had the chance to get in touch with her, Pro. Wierzbicka is a lovely knowledge sharing person.
      She is a real academic, willing to spread her knowledge, but also “with big ears and big eyes” to listen and to see what’s happening in the world.
      And which are your interest?

  2. John McKeon

    Maria, your thank you for my reply? My pleasure!

    I have a general interest in semantics applied to explicating words and grammar and culture, but above all in semantics applied to translation. I’m monolingual (sadly) but the discoveries of professors Anna and Cliff and their colleagues inspires me to explore languages and linguistics. My interest in the Vietnamese language is what I use to try to step outside of my anglo world. 🙂

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