Are the Louw and Nida discussions available?

Stephen Hughes
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Are the Louw and Nida discussions available?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Besides the glosses on Laparola, are the discussions from Louw and Nida available?

From what I can see, they are out of print and in copyright.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Are the Louw and Nida discussions available?

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Louw-Nida is still in print, if I trust Amazon correctly.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Are the Louw and Nida discussions available?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Amazon in China only offers this similar volume:
  • Lexical Semantics of the Greek New Testament: A Supplement to the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains.
Has any found that work to be of value?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stirling Bartholomew
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Re: Are the Louw and Nida discussions available?

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

Stephen Hughes wrote:Amazon in China only offers this similar volume:
  • Lexical Semantics of the Greek New Testament: A Supplement to the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains.
Has any found that work to be of value?
The book is 20 some years old. It presents a synopsis of the mid-20th century framework (lexical semantic) of Louw & Nida. The lexicon is available as a module with several bible study software packages. It is in fact the default lexicon in beginners packages for several products.

A little over a decade ago there was some articles and a dissertation written by a UBS consultant Reinier de Blois which moved the discussion from mid-20th century two roughly late 80s early 90s. Find out about it here.

http://www.sdbh.org/home-en.html

You might be better off reading what ever you can find on the web about Louw & Nida's framework before diving into the critique which assumes familiarity with Louw & Nida.

postscript:

I have on several occasions looked into the SIL bibliography for recent work on lexical semantic theory in relation to biblical languages and translation. Haven't had much success in finding anything later than Reinier de Blois. Specifically interested in biblical languages and translation not general theory.
C. Stirling Bartholomew
MAubrey
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Re: Are the Louw and Nida discussions available?

Post by MAubrey »

Stephen Hughes wrote:Has any found that work to be of value?
Skip it. They're working on assumptions that were discredited before the book was even published. Things like:

-- Meaning is naming.
-- Meaning only exists within a system of signs; no system, no meaning.

For the latter they provide the following nonsensical explanation:
Nida and Louw, Lexical Semantics, 25 wrote:In order to better understand the significance of this relationship between a verbal sign, its reference, and the system of verbal signs, it may be useful to compare the structure of a very simple code such as traffic signals. In order to signal the meanings of ‘go,’ ‘stop,’ and ‘prepare to stop,’ there are three different colors: green, red, and yellow. But red does not mean anything in and of itself. Its meaning of ‘stop’ depends upon the code in which the contrasting color green means ‘go’ and the color yellow meanings ‘prepare to stop.’ Not only do the colors occur in a particular sequence, but each color serves a distinctive function in regulating traffic.
There are a number of accurate points here. Each color does, indeed, serve a distinctive function and has a specific meaning and an individual color has no meaning in and of itself. But we must question whether the meaning the colors receive is gained from the system of three colors or whether the meaning is gained by human experience and social interaction. The system is not an autonomous entity that imbues meaning to its constituent parts. Rather the system is itself motivated by human experience. People had a specific need for traffic regulation and it is that specific need that motivates the system and by extension the meaning of its parts. Systems do not create meaning; humans do.
Stirling Bartholomew wrote:I have on several occasions looked into the SIL bibliography for recent work on lexical semantic theory in relation to biblical languages and translation. Haven't had much success in finding anything later than Reinier de Blois. Specifically interested in biblical languages and translation not general theory.
You might want to take a look at this one: Reframing Biblical Studies: When Language and Text Meet Culture, Cognition, and Context

She has some odd interpretations, but the ideas behind those odd interpretations are very good and very much in line with the work of de Blois.
Mike Aubrey, Linguist
SIL International
Koine-Greek.com
Stephen Hughes
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Effective vocabulary learning strategies

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Stirling Bartholomew wrote: You might be better off reading what ever you can find on the web about Louw & Nida's framework before diving into the critique which assumes familiarity with Louw & Nida.
At present I'm interested in various strategies for learning effective vocabulary. Semantic groupings is one of a few things mentioned in the literature. My interest is in structuring for understanding and for learning.
MAubrey wrote:Skip it.
I'll take that advice on face value for now.

Also on the topic of your advice...
MAubrey in [url=http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=2121&p=12479#p12478]Re: E.A. Sophocles[/url] wrote:the research questions that were viewed as important 100 years ago aren't the ones that you're interested in.
I wasn't actually aware that I had an area of interest when you wrote that. I've been thinking about it, and since many of my posts are dealing with vocabulary and especially teaching and learning vocab, perhaps it could be that I have an interest in that field.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
RandallButh
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Re: Are the Louw and Nida discussions available?

Post by RandallButh »

MAubrey wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:Has any found that work to be of value?
Skip it. They're working on assumptions that were discredited before the book was even published. Things like:

-- Meaning is naming.
-- Meaning only exists within a system of signs; no system, no meaning.

For the latter they provide the following nonsensical explanation:
Nida and Louw, Lexical Semantics, 25 wrote:In order to better understand the significance of this relationship between a verbal sign, its reference, and the system of verbal signs, it may be useful to compare the structure of a very simple code such as traffic signals. In order to signal the meanings of ‘go,’ ‘stop,’ and ‘prepare to stop,’ there are three different colors: green, red, and yellow. But red does not mean anything in and of itself. Its meaning of ‘stop’ depends upon the code in which the contrasting color green means ‘go’ and the color yellow meanings ‘prepare to stop.’ Not only do the colors occur in a particular sequence, but each color serves a distinctive function in regulating traffic.
There are a number of accurate points here. Each color does, indeed, serve a distinctive function and has a specific meaning and an individual color has no meaning in and of itself. But we must question whether the meaning the colors receive is gained from the system of three colors or whether the meaning is gained by human experience and social interaction. The system is not an autonomous entity that imbues meaning to its constituent parts. Rather the system is itself motivated by human experience. People had a specific need for traffic regulation and it is that specific need that motivates the system and by extension the meaning of its parts. Systems do not create meaning; humans do.
Stirling Bartholomew wrote:I have on several occasions looked into the SIL bibliography for recent work on lexical semantic theory in relation to biblical languages and translation. Haven't had much success in finding anything later than Reinier de Blois. Specifically interested in biblical languages and translation not general theory.
You might want to take a look at this one: Reframing Biblical Studies: When Language and Text Meet Culture, Cognition, and Context

She has some odd interpretations, but the ideas behind those odd interpretations are very good and very much in line with the work of de Blois.
Michael's critique should be taken as a hyperbole. Louw-Nida is a useful collection of vocabulary.
Two simple critiques should be remembered when using L-N.
1. Louw-Nida is based on a semantic-componential-analysis approach to lexicography while 21st century linguistics is moving in the direction of prototypicality and cognitive approaches, something intuitively much closer to the reality of the system.
2. Louw-Nida is lmited to NT vocabulary and forms and that artificially skews the language away from its common core. For example a word for "ball" σφαῖρα is not included, nor the common word for "yellow" ξανθός. In other words, Louw-Nida do not provide the core vocabulary available to the audience for evaluating any communication.
Stephen Hughes
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Grammatical vocabulary, core vocabulary, specialist vocabula

Post by Stephen Hughes »

RandallButh wrote:2. Louw-Nida is lmited to NT vocabulary and forms and that artificially skews the language away from its common core. For example a word for "ball" σφαῖρα is not included, nor the common word for "yellow" ξανθός. In other words, Louw-Nida do not provide the core vocabulary available to the audience for evaluating any communication
Isn't that the case generally? I think that I have gotten enough of a return just in this area alone to compensate for the years spent learning Modern Greek.

Even if there was a dictionary of the Koine it would be difficult for a learner to identify either a core vocabulary items of the language (as opposed to the most frequent words in literature) or the simple relationships between the core items.

What proportion of a hypothetical Greek speaker's vocabulary does the NT represent?
I guess it would be 100% + 60% + 20% that is:
  • 100% of the grammatical words (well represented)+
  • 60% of the core vocabulary common to average people living average lives (skewed representation)+
  • 20% of the technical / specialised vocabulary that covers the areas not common to all people.(missing but not missed till we try to read other tyes of texts)
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
RandallButh
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Re: Are the Louw and Nida discussions available?

Post by RandallButh »

Yes, the percentages may help open some eyes. They are even on the optimisitc side. 98% might be better on grammatical vocab. And the 60% would depend on what is considered 'core'. If thinking of the most common 500 or 1000 core words, then the NT is probably over 60%, but if thinking of the most basic 5000 words, then the NT is probably under 60%. We might assume 15000-20000 words for most people.
Stirling Bartholomew
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Re: Are the Louw and Nida discussions available?

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

RandallButh wrote: Michael's critique should be taken as a hyperbole. Louw-Nida is a useful collection of vocabulary.
Right. I was somewhat less than enthusiastic about the L&N framework before the lexicon was published having read numerous works by E. A. Nida from previous decades and a book on semantics by J. P. Louw from the 1980s. However I have found the lexicon useful and consult it on a regular basis alongside all the other lexicons which are using frameworks much older like LSJ, Grimm-Thayer, BAGD, F. Danker.

Secondary sources in biblical studies are laced with outdated theory about language. So one must develop a tolerance for this or not read the secondary literature. Academic linguistics is always spinning off new frameworks and biblical studies generally ignores these until they have been around for several decades or longer.
C. Stirling Bartholomew
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