·-

rmJ!HiliJf~J ~ 4 ~ <2002 if.) PP· 33-48@2002 "10 8 :1$:~/l!fl~¥~Natural Semantic Metalanguage Theory and Some Italian Speech
Act Verbs
Brigid Maher
1. Introduction- the study of speech acts and the risk of ethnocentrism
This paper examines some Itali an speech act verbs, looking at how we can best express their
meanings in an accurate way intelligible to people unfamiliar with Italian, but without falling
into the trap of ethnocentrism. Speech acts have for many years now been the focus of research,both in the fields of pragmatics and semantics. They constitute an interest ing area of study
because across languages one can observe many fascinating differences in the kinds of speech
genres most used by (and presumably most salient for) a particular group of people.
Unfortunately, however, insights into the rich inventories of speech acts in the world 's
languages are limited by researchers' heavy reliance on the English language as an interpretive
tool. All too often il is assumed that English speech act categories like "apology", " thanks"," request", or "order" are in some way universal, and that speech acts of other languages can beanalyzed in terms of the way they fit into these categories. These complex categories are far fromuniversal, however- they reflect Anglo culture and values, and are therefore inappropriate tools
to use when examining other languages, since they bri ng an ethnocentric bias into one's analysis.
For example, a researcher might decide to undertake a crosscultural analysis of, say, " apology"
in a particular language. The problem w ith this is that "apology" is a very complex term, and it
is by no means universal. The scholar could well find themse lves studying so-called " apology"
in a language that does not even lexicalizc the concept "apology". "Apology" certainly is asalient concept in the English-speaking world, but it is ethnocentric to assume it holds the same
importance in other cultures and languages. Similarly, eve ry so often, a scholar decides toundertake a crosscultura l analysis of "gratitude" or "gratitude expressions", and the sameproblem arises. Expressing thanks is of such fundamental importance in Anglo culture that it is
all too easy to assume that it must be the same the world over, but in fact this is not the case (cf.

- 33-

Brigjd Maher

e.g., Apte's 1974 study of Hindi and Maratbi culture).
While scholars may take an English concept like "apology" as their starting poin t, there
are of course many who in their findings go on to explain that the language in question actually
does not express apology in the way we would expect, or that it does not have an equivalent for
the English "sorry", or the category of "apologizi ng". They are still using an English concept as
their measuring stick, however, and essentially analyzing the other language in terms of bow it
is different or lacking something fro m the sta ndard (English), and this still amounts toethnocentrism .

2. An example from JapaneseJapanese provides a particularly good example of a language in which Anglo ideas about no tions
like "apology", "thanks" or "gratitude" do not apply. One Japanese expression which is common
in a number of situations that in English would call for " sorry" is sumimasen. English speakers
are told th is word means " it never ends", it is also sometimes glossed as "indeb ted" . But what
strikes English speakers as much more curious is the fact that it also appears in many situations
where i n English we would say " thank you " (Wier£bicka 1991 :157). Armed with thisinformation, the temptation is to say - as quite a few scholars do - that Japanese does notdistinguish thanks and apologies, that there is some kind of blurring between these twocategories. Sometimes Japanese scholars themselves do this, especially if they are explain ing
the Japanese language and culture to English speakers. For example, in their book How to bepolite in Japanese, Mizutani and Mizutani (1989:47) say "apologet ic-sounding expressions areoften used as polite expressions of g ratitude". The flaw in this kind of analysis is that it assumes
that these two English co ncepts - " thanks" and "apology" - are in some way universally
applicable categories, boxes into which we must be able to squeeze the speech acts of otherlanguages. ln practice, however, this is not the case, and trying to analyze other languages andcultu res in terms of English concepts proves to be very limiting.
In the case of Japanese, one is able to make much more sense of the use of sumimasen-34-Natural Semantic Metalanguage Theory and Some Italian Speech Act Verbs

by looking at it from within. th e Japanese language and culture, rather than trying to approach itby means of English. For example, cultural key words (cf. Wierzbicka 1997) can often tell us agreat deal about the meaning and significance of a particular speech style; thus, in the case of

sumimasen, the Japanese key word on is very revealing. On is a highl y culture-specific concept,
a central huma n value for the Japanese, wh ich can only be approximately glossed in English as
so mething like 'i nd eb tedness', ' debt of gratitude', or 'obligation'. A longer, more detailed
explication is required to make its meaning clear, but essentia lly it refers to some bad feelings aperson has when another person does something good for them. One feels bad because of a kindof "debt" or "obligation" o ne now has to that kind person. Of course, sometimes one feels goodthings because of another's kindness, as is the case with " thank you" and gratitude in English,
but this is not the focus of the concept on, which refers to a one-sided relatio nship, involving
almost a kind of burden. In the light of the centrality of on to the Japanese, it is much easier tounderstand the use of sumimasen where English speakers might expect thanks, si nce in Japaneseculture, in certain situ ations it is important to focus on the bad feelings that result when anotherperson goes to some trouble on one 's behalf.
Clearly, then, it is quite pointless to try to apply categories like "apology" and"gratitude" to the Japanese language and world view. It is ethnocentric to assume that there issome natural distinction between these two categories, and to define another culture by their lackof this Anglo distinction. The Japanese might just as easily describe Anglo culture as one lacking
a sense of on. (For a fu ll discussion of the meaning and cultural importance of on and a numberof other key words of Japanese, see Wierzbicka 1997.)

3. The Natural Semantic Metalanguage
Having seen from the case of J apanese the dangers of relying on English-specific concepts in theanalysis of speech acts in other languages, it becomes apparent that if we are to achieve a fruitfulexamination of speech act verbs, a framewo rk for analysis is required, one that helps us to avoid
the trap of ethnocentrism. The framework to be used in this paper is the Natural Semantic-35-

Brigid Maher

Metalanguage theory (or NSM), which has been bu ilt up by Anna Wierzbicka and her colleagues
over the last thirty years. (Cf. e.g., Wierzbicka 1996; Goddard ed. 1997; Goddard an dWierzbicka eds 1994 and 2002.) lt offers a methodology which we can use to analyze cultures ina way that is clear and rigorous , and not ethnocentric. The NSM consis ts of a mini-lexicon of
about 60 undefinable concepts (or primes), each of which is believed to be universal, that is, tobe lexicalized in all langauges. These primes have been proposed after a great deal ofcrosslinguistic investigation of many diverse languages, including both Japanese (Onishi 1994)
and Italian (Maher 2000). Below is the list of primes in English and in Ital ian:

English version
Substantives:
Determiners:
Quantifiers:
Attributes:
Mental predicates:
Speech:Actions, events, movement:
Existence, and possession:
Life and deat h:
Logical concepts:
Time:

Space:

Intensifier, augmentor:
Taxonomy, partonomy:
Similarity:

Italian version
Substantives:
Determiners:
Quantifiers:

I, YOU, SOMEONE(PERSON),SOMETHING(THING), PEOPLE, BODY
THIS, THE SAME, OTHER
ONE, TWO, SOME, MANY/MUCH, ALL
GOOD, BAD, BIG, SMALL
THINK, KNOW, WANT, FEEL, SEE, HEAR
SAY, WORDS, TRUE
DO, HAPPEN, MOVE
THERE IS, HAVE
LIVE, DIE
NOT, MAYBE, CAN, BECAUSE, IF
WHEN(TIME), NOW, AFTER, BEFORE, A
LONG TIME, A SHORT TIME, FOR SOMETIME
WHERE(PLACE), HERE, ABOVE, BELOW,
FAR, NEAR, SIDE, INSIDE, TOUCHING(CONTACT)
VERY, MORE
KIND OF, PART OF
LIKE (HOW, AS)

10, TU, QUALCUNO(PERSONA),QUALCOSA(COSA), GENTE, CORPOQUESTO, LO STESSO, ALTRO
UNO·, DUE, C'E...CHE, MOLTO, TUTTO-36-

Natural Semantic Metalanguage Theory and Some Italian Speech Act Verbs

Attributes:
Mental predicates:
Speech:Actions, events, movement:
Existence, and possession: ·Life and death:
Logical conce pts:
Time:

Space:

Inte nsifier, augmentor:
Taxonomy, partonomy:
Similarity:

BUONO(BENE),
CATTIVO(MALE),
GRANDE, PICCOLOPENSARE, SAPERE, VOLERE, SENTIRE,
VEDERE, SENTIRE
DIRE, PAROLE, VERO
FARE, SUCCEDERE, MUOVERSIC'E, AVERE
VIVERE, MORIRE
NON, FORSE, POTERE, PERCHE, SE
QUANDO(TEMPO), ADESSO, DOPO,PRIMA, MOLTO TEMPO, POCO TEMPO,PER UN PO' DI TEMPO
DOVE(POSTO), QUI, SOPRA, SOTTO,LONTANO,
VICINO, (DA UNA) PARTE, DENTRO,TOCCARE(CONTATTO)
MOLTO, (DI) PH)
TIPO Dl, PARTE DI
COME, COSIThe Natural Semantic Metalanguage also has its own very simp le gramma tical rules
governing the way the primes can be combined. Again , this grammar is based on extensive
crosslingu istic studies. Thus, the Natural Semantic Metalanguage enables us to express
complicated ideas by putting together very simple concepts. Limiting ourselves to using only thesimple universal concepts and structures of NSM helps us to avoid the temptation to base ouranalyses around language- and culture-specific concepts. When we use NSM we are forced touse universals - we can no longer rely on our more convenient, but also more biased,
language-speci fie labels. Furthermore, expl ications formulated in NSM are so precise anddetailed that everything we are asserting about a culture is laid bare, for anyone to test. We can' thide in the fog of vague exp ressions li ke "directness" and "indirectness" because our analyses
are spelled out component by component in simple words that anyo ne can understand and judge

cri ti ca II y.
The Natural Semantic Metalanguage has been used to expl i cate cultural norms and-37-

Brigid Maher

values (cf. e.g., Goddard 2000, 2001; Wierzbicka 1991 ), emotion terms (cf. Wierzbicka 1999),
and the meaning of the Gospel s (Wierzbi cka 2001). As an example of the use of NSM, let us
consider Wierzbicka 's (1997:260) explication of the Japanese concept on (slightly adjusted here
in the light of more recent research into the Metalanguage):

Oil(a) X thinks like this about someone:(b) this person did something very good for me(c)
I can't do something like this for this person(d) I have to think about this always(e)
I have to do good things for this person because of this(f)
if this person wants me to do something I have to do it(g) when X thinks like this, X feels something bad because of thisThis explication, because it is expressed in such simple concepts, makes the meaning of on clear
to anyone, regardless of whether they have a background knowledge of Japanese, or of li nguistic
semantics. It pins down the word's meaning much more effectively than any English glosses.
One area of meaning in which the Natural Semantic Metalanguage is a particularly
useful tool is in the explication of speech act verbs. The NSM method can help us avoid common
pitfalls such as circularity and the defining of words using other equally, or even more, complex
words. Its applications are perhaps even clearer if one wants to compare words across different
languages because we can easily pick out which components of meaning are missing or slightly
different in the explications of words which a bilingual dictionary might tell us are equivalent.
NSM helps us to break t hese often very complex concepts into simpler units of meaning,enabling us to look more accurately and systematically at the semantic co mposition of diCferent
speech acts. This was done in depth by Wierzbicka in her 1987 book English Speech Act Verbs:

A semantic dictionary, which remains a very useful resource, although the Metalanguage has
been refined and improved upon significantly in the intervening years.
A number of Italian speech act verbs do not have exact counterparts in English. The
best way to expla in them, then, is by dividing them in to chunks of meaning using the-38-Natural Semantic Metalanguage Theory and Some Italian Speech Act Verbs

metalexicon of simple, undefinable words. The speech act verbs to be exam ined here are

salutare, raccomandare and raccomandarsi (in the form mi raccomando). These verbs havebeen chosen because they are of interest both semantically and culturally - they do not haveexact equivalents in English, and it seems probable that their importance in Italian is due to someextent to certai n characteristics of the culture. Examples of use of the verbs are mostly drawn
from novels and film, as well as some overheard uses and sentences chec ked with native
speakers. In each case an English gloss has been provided to give some idea of what the sen tencesays, but it must be remembered tha t these are o nly approximations of the meaning of theoriginal Ita lian, because English speech acl verbs rarely coincide exact ly with Itali an ones. To
expl ain mo re f ully and exactly the verbs' meanings is, of course, the purpose of the NSM
explications.

4. salutare 'greet', 'farewell', 'say beUo to', 'say goodbye to'
Salutare is a word whose fuU meaning is particularly di fficult to translate into English because
it is something like a co mbination of the meanings ofm_ore than one English speech act verb . The
following examples and their Englis h glosses show some of the different contexts in whichsa lutare can be used:1)(De Carlo 1997 :Eravamo a Zurigo, abbiamo pensato di passare a salutarla.
209)'We were in Zurich so we thoug ht we'd pass by a nd say hello to her.'2)(De Carlo
Settimio salu tava e scortava al1e poltrone chi unqu e eotrasse.
1997: 155)
'Settimio gree ted everyone who came in and escorted them to the armcha irs.'

3)[Era] miJle volte piu rock ... di quando I' avevo salutata Ia notte della sua festa di
matrimoni o.
(De Carlo 1997:
209)' [She was] a thousand times more "rock" ... than when I' d said goodbye to her
I farewelled her on the night of her wedd ing reception.'

4)

Misia ha telefonato pe r salutare suo figlio.
1997: 296)

-.

-39-

(De

Carlo

Brigid Maher'Misia phoned to say hello to her son.'5)[at the end of a letter] Adesso ti saluto se no perdo J'aereo.
1997: 360)
' I have to sa y goodb ye now, o therwise I'll miss the plane.'

6)

Salutam i Angelo I Ia tua mamma I tutta Ia fa miglia ...
'Say hello from me to Angelo I yo ur mum I the whole fa mil y'(De Carlo

What can be seen by comparing these example sente nces to thei r Eng lish glosses is that salutare
has more than one English translation. In sim ilar situations, an English s peaker would use thespeech act verbs greet or farewell, or, more likel y (and somewhat more colloquially), simply theexpressions say hello and say goodbye. I t would be incorrect, however, to say that salutare waspolysemous between 'greet ' and 'farewell ' , since there is no evidence that thjs is the case. Italian,
it would seem, does not make the distinction that English makes bewteen saying so mething tosomeone at the beginning of an encounter (greeting), and sayi ng something to them at the end(farewell ing). My p roposed explication of salutare, for mul ated using NSM, is as follows:

SALUTARE(a) I want to say something to yo u now(b) I think that it will be good if I say it(c) I know I can' t say things like this to you at all times(d) I can say i t now(e) I say: I'm thinking about you now(f)because of thi s I fee l somet hing goodI think that if you can you will say so mething like this to me at the sa me time
As shown by examples 4, 5 and 6, salutare can be done not only in person, but also by

telephone or by letter, or through a third person, which mea ns that our explication can not requi res peaker and addressee to be in the same place. This is one way in which the I talian verb differsfrom some rela ted English s peech act ve rbs s uch as greet and farewell (cf. the explications fo r
these words in Wierzbicka 19 8 ~ :2 1 7, 222-3). What one has instead is the notion that the s peakeris in some ki nd of unspecified situati on which means that he or she can say something to theother person (d). This is not necessarily because they are together - they cou ld be many miles-40-

Natural Semantic Metalanguage Theory and Some Italian Speech Act Verbs

apart, but they nevertheless have an opportunity to commun icate. Component (c) refers to thenature of salutare as a means of delimiting an encounter between two people. It is done either
after a period of time has passed when two people have not been able to say things to each other('say he llo ' in Engl ish), or it is used when such a period is abou t to begin ('say goodbye').

Salutare, therefore, is a means of taking an opportunity while we have it of saying something toa person, knowing that we cannot do this at all times. It ca n be performed not only by speaking,but also by means of a gesture (such as a wave), so we must re member, when reading thisexplication, that the prime SAY need not necessarily i nvolve spoken words .. It is also notnecessary to know a person to salutare him or her, which is why the explication contains nocomponent like " I know you". One might easily salurare someone on an afternoon walk in the
country, or if one sat next to them on a train, even if one had never met this person.
Naturally, not everyone who performs the speech act of salutare does so genuinely,
because they really do feel something good about the othe r person, as cap tured in component (e).
In example 2, when Settimio "greets" people coming to a fil m festival he has organized, it isabove all because he wants to make the right impression, that is, he wants them to think he fee ls
good th ings when he thinks about them. Nevertheless, such examp les not change the meaning of
the word salutare. Component (e) expresses the message conveyed by salutare, regardless ofwhether this message is exploited by an insincere speaker to give a fa lse impression of "goodfeelings" .
There is considerable cultural significance attached to the speech act salutare. One caneasily think up scenarios of people being offended because the salutare ritual was not carried out
when it should have been.

7)

L' ho vista in citta ie ri e non mi ha neanche salutato.
' I saw her in town yesterday and s he didn't eve n say hello to me . '8)

E a ndato via senza neanc he sa lutarmi .
' He left without even saying goodbye.'

Italian even has an expression andarsene al/'inglese (litera ll y, 'to leave English-style'),

-41-

-

Brigid Maher

meaning to leave senza salutare 'without salutare', someth ing that is considered quite rude.
There is also something reciprocal about salutare. In doing it one assumes the addressee will dothe same in return (f). I have used the words "if you can" in this component, since it would notalways be possible for someone to return a saluto (for example, if it is expressed in a letter).
Normally, though, one is expected to do so, and if one fa iled to, this too would be an affront, as
is expressed by this Venetian proverb:

9)

Saludar xc creanza, risponder xe obligo (Salutare e cducazione, rispondere eobbligo).
(Gianduzzo
1987:172)' Salutare is polite, replying is one's dut y.'Thus, an examination of the s peech act verb salutare not onl y gives us an ins ight into a

new and different semantic structure, it also gives us an idea of certain Italian cultural norms
which go a long with it. ln many cultures, including, for example, Australian Aboriginal culture,
there is no particul ar no rm stipulating that one should greet or fa rewell people, in fact, it is quiterare to do so (Hargraves 1992:29, 35). In contrast to this, sa/utare is a very important culturalritual for Italians.

5. raccomandare
Raccomandare, too, has no exact English translatio n. It has a number of different senses, only
two of which (the second a reflexive form) will be explicated here. The first sense we will
examine is sometimes translated as 'recommend' or 'entrust', but these are rather inadequate
glosses. Raccomandare involves saying to someone that you would like them to help a certain
other person in need of some kind of ass istance or protection. Often this assistance may be in theform of lenience regardi ng a punishment, or favour in a search fo r work, with exams, or withsome complicated bureaucratic process. The following examples of this sense of raccomandare
come from a large Ital ian dictionary, Grande dizionario della lingua ita Liana:

10)

Francesco Crispi [ ... ] vorrebbe, recandos i in Jersey, far Ia vostra conoscenza e
per mezzo vostro quclla di qualch'altro buo no . Io ve lo raccomando-42-Natural Semantic Metalanguage Theory and Some Italian Speech Act Verbs

caldame nte.
' Francesco Crispi [ ... ] would like, in goi ng to Jersey, to make youracqua intance and through you, to meet some other good men. I warmly
recommend/entrust him to you.'11)... dovette ricevere nel suo ufficio una vecchi a donna che gli presentava e
raccomandava una fanciul la, Ia propria figlia.
' ... he had to rece ive in his office an old woman who introduced andrecommended/entrusted to him a g irl, her own daughter.'" Recommend" is clearly an inadequate gloss here - it sounds a little odd in English to
recom mend a person (unless you are explicit ly recommend ing their services, for exampl e, as atradesperson), and it doesn't g ive the full sense of what is meant by the Italian. Replacing" recommend" with "entrus t" does not he lp a great deal either.
One fi nal example uses raccomandazione, the nominal form of the speech act verb. In
his autobiographical film Caro diario [Dear Diary], Moretti (1994) says that he was fina lly able
to gel an appointment with Rome's most highl y regarded and sough t-after dermatologist "grazie

alla raccomandazione di un amico" (' thanks to a friend 's raccomandazione'). In this case, thefr iend used some kind of influence to get Moretti the necessary appo intment as quickly as
poss ible, so that he didn't have to wai t as lo ng as everyone else. In NSM, the mea ning of

raccomandare could be expressed along the following lines:

RACCOMANDARE
ti raccomando Ia persona X -'I recommend/entrust to you

person X'a) I say to you:b)

I know this person (X)c)

I think that X is a good persond)

I t hink that you can do very good things for Xe)

I can' t do good things like this for Xf)

I want you to do good things for Xg) 1 think that you think good things about meh) 1 think that if you know t hat 1 think X is a good person-43-Brigid Maher

you will think that X is a good personi) I think that because of this you will want to do good things for X

As can be seen from this explication, it is usual to raccomandare a friend or acquaintance to athird person who has some kind of superiority and is thus in a position to offer the friend
something which one cannot offer oneself (components d and e). In the example from Carodiario, Moretti's friend is unable to cure his skin condition himself, but he does know a gooddermatologist who can help. One makes a raccomandazione precisely because one canno t help
oneself, at least not directly. Instead one uses one 's good standing with someone who can help.
This involves say ing, or at least leading the addressee to believe, that the friend is a good person(c). Raccomandare is not co ncerned with giving proof that the friend is a good person, theunderstanding is rather that the friend must be good simply because the trusted person making
the raccomandazione says so ( h) . Raccomandare is to do with persuading the addressee to havefait h in one's judgement, on the basis of some kind of prior trust or respect: "I think that you
think good things about me" (g). This is a speech act firmly rooted in a society based aroundnotions of family, friendship, acquaintances (conoscenze) and favours (cf. e.g., Barzini
1964:190; Ginsberg 1990:2 ; Parks 1996:109-110; Richards 1994, Ch.7). These are concepts
which are considerably more salient in Italy than in Anglo society, which is undoub tedly why
there is no English speech act verb corresponding closely to this sense of raccomandare.

6. raccomandarsi (mi raccomando)
The reflexive form, raccomandarsi, also has a number of different senses, one particularlycommon one being the form mi raccomando. This works as a kind of exhortation to do something,because the speaker knows how important this is (someth ing the addressee may not haveconsidered). For example, a f riend's father once gave me the following warning about Bologna
tra in station, a place he considered very dangerous for a naive overseas visi tor:

12)

Stai attenta alia staz ione, mi raccomando.
'Make sure you're very careful at the station. '[Lit. Be careful at the station, mi raccomando.]-44-

Natural Semantic Metalanguage Theory and Some Italian Speech Act Verbs

Another example of the way the phrase is used is in this excerpt fro m a novel, in which the writerdescribes the chaotic making of an amateur fil m in the expensively f urnished lounge room of afriend's unknowing parents.

13)

Ci muovevamo in un'alternanza ass urda di gesti incuranti e gesti ca uti,
schiocchi e schianti e "Piano, piano" e "M.i raccomando, mi raccomando" e"Certo, certo".
(De Carlo
1997:65)'We moved in an absurd alternation of careless gestures and cautio us gestures,of cracks and crashes and "Keep it down" and "Careful, careful" [miraccomando, mi raccomando] and "S ure, sure".'One final example, from a tutorial about interpreting:

14)

Dovete tradurre tutto. Mi raccomando.
'You have to translate everything. It's very important [mi raccomando].'There are no obvious ways of translating mi raccomando into English. It essentia ll y serves toreinforce the speaker 's words and the authorit y they have because of their awareness of the " badthing" that mig ht happen if the addressee doesn't fo llow their advice. In English, of course, th ishas to be done quite differently, so the glosses above really only go a sho rt way to conveyi ng themeaning of the Italian. A clearer idea can be gained from an explication expressed in simple anduniversal concepts:

RACCOMANDARSIml raccomandoa) I know that someth ing bad can happenb) I thin k that you do no t know thisc) I want you to know thisd) I thi nk that if you know this, you wi ll do somethi nge) I think that if you do this, maybe this bad thing will not happenf) because of this I say to you:so mething bad can happen
you have to think about thisyou have to do something because of thisg) I can't not say this-45-

Brigid Maher

The illocutio na ry purpose of the expression mi raccomarrdo is to ma ke the addressee realize thatsomethi ng bad can happen, effecting a change in Lheir behaviou r which will hopefully avert suchan ou tcome (components d and e). There is an expectation that o ne's message wi ll be heard andacted upon (" if you know this, you will [no t just " can"] do something"). The speaker feels sostrongly about the potential danger that s/ he feels almost forced to bring it to the addressee's
attention. This is expressed by the final component of the explication.
The person who says m i ra ccomando is effectively putting their own knowledge,
wisdom and judgement fo rward, quite strongly, in order to convince another person to think hardabout what will be the best thing to do. This is a powerful way of providing advice (cf. Parks
1996:151-152 on the importan ce in Italian culture of giving others advice). It is .no t surprisingthat Englis h has no speech act corresponding to this, since in English, as Wierzbicka (1991 :31)
has noted, advice tends to be given rather tentatively. This is because in Angl o culture it isgenerally unacceptable to " impose" one's ideas on ano ther person (even i f it might be for theirown good). As a result, English speakers go to great pains to avoid "putting pressu re" on others(cf. Wierzbicka Forthcoming), generally trying to acknowledge, when giving advice or makings uggestions, that the addressee does not have to do what they say, for example, by proffering
advice in the form of a question, such as ''Why don't you speak to your boss about it?".

· 7. Conclusion
On e can see, then, that even a relatively brief examination of some llalian speech act verbs canprovide an insigh t into s ome semantic, pragmatic, and cultural aspects of the Italian language.
Even two quite closely related languages, such as English and Ital ian, differ considerably in thekinds of speech acts they require, and it is important that we are abl e to understand the exact
meanings of these speech acts . Looking at the semanti c composition of speech act verbs piece bypiece, avoiding any reli ance on complex culture-specific concepts, we gain not only a clearer
insight into th eir meanings, but also into bow speech acts can ret1ect cultural practices.

-46-

Natural Semantic Metalanguage Theory and Some Italian Speech Act Verbs

REFERENCES
Apte, M. 1974. "Than k you" and South Asian languages: A comparative sociolinguistic study.

International Journal of the Sociology of Languag e 3:67-89.
Barzini, L. 1964. The Italians. London: Harnish Hamilton.
De Carlo, A. 1997/1999. Di noi Ire [About the Three of Us]. Milan: Mondadori.
Gianduzzo, S. 1987. Curiosita divertenti: Espressioni, modi di dire, proverbi e sentenze italiani,

dialettali e Iatini per tutti i gusti [Entertaining Curiosities: Italian, dialect and Latinespressions, figures of speech, proverbs and maxims for all tastes]. Torino: Editrice Elle Di
Ci.

Ginsborg, P. 1990. A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and politics 1943-1988.
Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.
Goddard, C. 2000. "Cultural scripts" and communicative style in Malay (Bahasa Melayu).

Anthropological Linguistics 42( 1):81-106.
Goddard, C. 2001. Sabar, ikhlas, setia- patient, sincere, loyal? Contrastive semantics of some'virtues' in Malay and English. Journal of Pragmatics 33:653-681.
Goddard, C. (ed.). 1997. Studies in the Syntax of Universal Semantic Primitives. Special Issueof Language Sciences 19(3).
Goddard, C. and A. Wierzbicka (eds). 1994. Semantic and Lexical Universals: Theory andempirical findings. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Goddard, C. and A. Wierzbicka (eds). 2002. Meaning and Universal Grammar: Theory andempirical findings. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Grande dizionario della lingua italiana [Large Dictionary of the Italian Language]. A cura di
Salvatore Battaglia et al. 1990. Torino: Unione tipografico-editrice torinese.
Hargraves, S. 1992. Whitefella Culture. Revised edition. Darwin: Summer Institute of
Linguistics.
Maher, B. 2000. Le gabbiette or The Caged Concepts of Human Thought: An Italian version of
the Natural Semantic Meta language. Unpublished Honours Subthesis, Australian National-47-

Brigid Maher

University.
Mizutani, 0. and N. Mizutan i. 1989. Being Polite in Japan ese. Tokyo: Japan Times.
Moretti, N. 1994. Caro diario [Dear Diary] (film). Sacher fil m S.r.l.
Onishi, M. 1994. Semantic primi tives in Japanese. In Goddard and Wierzbicka (eds), 361-385.
Parks, T. 1996. An Italian Education. London: Minerva.
Richards, C. 1994. The New Italians. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.
Wierzbicka, A. 1987. English Speech Act Verbs: A Semantic Dictionary. Sydney: Academic
Press.
Wierzb icka, A. 1991. Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: The Semantics of Human Interaction. Berlin:
Mouton de Gruyter.
Wierzbicka, A. 1996. Semantics: Primes and Universals. Oxford: Oxford Un iversity Press.
Wierzbicka, A. 1997. Understanding Cultures Through their Key Words: English, Russian,Polish, German, and Japanese. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wierzbicka, A. 1999. Emotions across Languages and Cultures: Diversity and universals.
Ca mb ridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wierzbicka, A. 2001. What Did Jesus Mean 7 Explaining the Sermon on the Mount and theparables in simple and universal human concepts. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wierzbicka, A. Forthcoming. The English Language: Meaning, History, and Culture.

-48-