Reviewed by Bert Peeters, Macquarie University

Cliff Goddard is best known for his numerous contributions to Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) theory—a paradigm for semantic explication based on sixty odd empirically defined semantic primes or irreducible conceptual building blocks that are lexicalized in all the languages of the world, and a universal syntax that spells out the combinatorial patterns of primes allowed in the metalanguage. In his introductory chapter (1–30), Goddard defines ethnopragmatics as a new paradigm within NSM theory, but admits in a footnote (19) that ‘a good deal of ethnopragmatics has been conducted under the banner of ‘cross-cultural pragmatics’, including Anna Wierzbicka’s…groundbreaking volume of this name’ (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1991, republished 2003). Goddard provides the following informal definition: ‘the whole idea is to understand speech practices in terms which make sense to the people concerned, i.e., in terms of indigenous values, beliefs and attitudes, social categories, emotions, and so on’. The terms must also make sense to ‘cultural outsiders’: unlike ‘universalist pragmatics’ such as Gricean and neo-Gricean approaches, politeness theory, and contrastive pragmatics, ethnopragmatics relies on truly universal tools and principles rather than on presumed universal principles of communication, presumed universal models of face needs and a presumed universal inventory of speech act types, all of which have proven to be Anglocentric.

Apart from the editor’s introductory chapter, the book includes seven chapters by close allies of the framework. Anna Wierzbicka (31–63) proposes a number of ‘cultural scripts’ against putting pressure on other people and examines how these are implemented in day-to-day discourse. Cliff Goddard (65–97) focuses on Australian English, defining a fairly widespread communicative pattern that he calls ‘deadpan jocular irony’. Jock Wong (100–25) deals with social hierarchy in Singapore’s speech culture. Zhengdao Ye (127–69) examines emotionality and facial expressions in Chinese, commenting on the so-called ‘inscrutable’ Chinese face. Through a series of cultural scripts, Rie Hasada (171–98) provides glimpses into the emotional world of the Japanese. Catherine E. Travis (199–229) explores how the cultural values of confianza and calor humano are realized in the discourse patterns of native speakers of Colombian Spanish. Felix K. Ameka (231–66) provides a fascinating insight into the ethnopragmatics of gratitude in several West African languages.

Ethnopragmatics as defined by Goddard takes ‘indigenous values, beliefs and attitudes…and so on’ (2) as given. Description of relevant speech practices would then, presumably, lead to a better understanding of these values, beliefs, and attitudes. I would like to argue that it is possible to go further than that: ethnopragmatics could also aim at discovering previously unsuspected values, the reality of which would subsequently have to be demonstrated through more detailed analysis of a different nature. NSM practitioners are currently working on an overall framework that includes ethnosemantics, ethnophraseology, ethnosyntax, and ethnoaxiology, within which this volume will no doubt occupy a place of choice.