These lectures, delivered at China International Forum on Cognitive Linguistics, December 2016, reflect my conviction that the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach can be rightly seen as a part of the cognitive linguistics movement. I would like to thank Professor Thomas Li for the invitation to participate. It was a honour to present in a series which has featured so many distinguished cognitive linguists over the years.
Although the 10 Lectures in this volume are very closely based on lecture transcripts, they are not verbatim transcripts. I have tidied them up in various ways, while still preserving the oral quality. As for referencing, I have added a few additional in-text references to the lectures, but I’ve tried to keep these to a minimum. There is a large bibliography that will enable interested readers to locate other key works.
I would like to express my appreciation to the Chinese students and scholars who attended the lecture series. I was greatly impressed by your knowledge, talent, and seriousness of purpose.
The influence of Anna Wierzbicka’s brilliant scholarship will be evident throughout the series. I would like to thank Zhengdao Ye for valuable advice about the planning of the lecture series and Mee Wun Lee for help with editing the transcripts.