This posthumous work offers an ambitious synthesis of Peeter’s research on Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) and its application to language–culture relations. Organised into two complementary volumes, the work combines a theoretical exposition of applied ethnolinguistics with a series of ethnoaxiological case studies based on French linguistic data. Peeters seeks to provide a solid methodological framework aimed at reducing ethnocentric bias in the description of the linguistic and cultural phenomena that are cultural values.
The book is organised into two main parts: Part I (Fondements de l’ethnolinguistique appliquée, chapters 1-3) and Part II (Illustrations, chapters 4-15). It is published in two volumes, with Volume 1 covering chapters 1–10 and Volume 2 chapters 11–15.
Part I presents the principles of NSM in a systematic manner, grounded in the hypothesis that a restricted set of universal semantic primes can support language-independent semantic explications and cultural scenarios. Ultimately aiming at formulating those scenarios in “minimal French” metalanguage (a tool built up from French NSM), Peeters defines an applied ethnolinguistic approach structured around six research protocols (ethnolexicology, ethnometaphorology, ethnophraseology, ethnosyntax, ethnopragmatics and ethnoaxiology, which he discusses before demonstrating their practical application. The sixth ethnoaxiological protocol is particularly developed in Volume 2. These protocols are situated within the broader NSM theoretical framework, drawn from ethnocognitive linguistics, as well as the fields of foreign language learning and teaching and intercultural communication, those latter theoretical inputs being much less developed.
Part II applies this NSM framework to a corpus covering a large range of data drawn from French as used in France, including lexical items and structures, idiomatic expressions, metaphors, and syntactic patterns associated with culturally salient practices. On this basis, the author identifies a set of presumed cultural values: he distinguishes salient ones (collected over a long period) such as “la prise de position” (chap.13), “la débrouille” (chap.12), “l’esprit de contestation” (chap. 15) from merely emerging, latent values, for example “la méfiance” (chap. 14). Particularly thought-provoking is the study of those values, which are then reformulated using minimal French (NSM universal primes). By way of illustration, the expression “l’habit ne fait pas le moine” is interpreted as supporting the hypothesis of méfiance as a culturally salient value in French society (vol. 2, p. 130). This interpretation is embedded in the ethnoaxiological protocol, which aims to confirm or disconfirm cultural values through linguistic and extralinguistic evidence treated as their manifestations.
While consistent with the methodological framework, such analyses raise questions regarding the extent to which values inferred from isolated expressions can be meaningfully generalised – hence the relevance of the theoretical discussions in the first part, including the reflections about the use of stereotypes in applied ethnolinguistics (part I, chapter 2).
A major strength of the work lies in its effort to make NSM research accessible to a francophone audience. The exposition of NSM principles and the analytical protocol are clear and systematic, offering an excellent entry point for non-specialist readers. The case studies effectively demonstrate the value of the approach, bringing to light French cultural values that often remain implicit. In doing so, the book encourages a re-examination of familiar linguistic data from a renewed analytical perspective. Several chapters are therefore readily adaptable to advanced-level French as a foreign language teaching context.
The editorial work of Sadow, Mullan and Béal also deserves explicit recognition. The editors’ interventions, which signal the incomplete status of certain sections while ensuring overall coherence, reflect a careful effort to preserve the integrity of the author’s intellectual project. This process of editorial mediation makes accessible material that would otherwise have remained fragmentary.
The corpus of Peeters’ work is notable for its remarkable heterogeneity: covering encyclopaedic discourses as well as extracts of internal and external testimonies, its selection follows six specific series of stages – corresponding to the protocols – which orient the search for tangible clues to confirm or disconfirm the existence of the linguistic entities and values under examination. As it is presented, the whole set of data reflects a fractal-type of architecture: seemingly fragmented at first glance, it is nonetheless structured around broad cultural values, with the analysis proceeding from the general to the particular. Diachronically, the corpus draws on literary texts from various periods, complemented by media sources and scholarly works on French language and culture.
While the primary focus remains on linguistic and cultural data from France, Peeters also examines how Frenchness is perceived from an external perspective, notably using Australian sources. This comparative dimension enriches the analyses by situating cultural values not only within French discourse (internally) but also within broader intercultural processes of representation. In fact, Peeters’ analysis is drawn from learners’ commentary, foreign representations of the French, as well as explicit testimonies from both cultural insiders and less- or non-initiated observers, thereby yielding a nuanced and dual perspective, simultaneously internal and external. The latter proves particularly revealing when it captures the reaction of outsiders encountering destabilising cultural practices, such as the shock experienced upon discovering what it means to “take a stance” (“prise de position”), the French way.
With that in mind, breadth constitutes both the work’s chief asset and its principal limitation. On the one hand, it enables a richly textured portrayal of French cultural values, animated by engaging anecdotes. On the other, the juxtaposition of widely disparate contexts, compounded by occasionally extensive footnotes, risks producing a sense of cognitive saturation. Herein lies the paradox of such documentary abundance: undeniable analytical richness, tempered by a degree of encyclopaedic heaviness.
Several aspects of the work nonetheless deserve more critical attention. The editors have acknowledged, within the volumes themselves, the unfinished nature of Peeters’ project. This is most apparent in the second volume and particularly in chapter 11 devoted to “la franchise”, which the editors describe as a mere draft (“ébauche”). Yet, a discerning reading of Peeters’ work will certainly gauge the value of those gaps and paradigms for further research. Therefore, recognising them may positively shape the reader’s engagement.
One recurring question concerns the notion of salience, which Peeters could have defined further in reference to other relevant works in the field. He invokes salience to differentiate cultural values according to their degree of attestation by linguistic evidence – from tentatively identified to fully attested – and their visibility in discourse – from emergent to “spectacular.” That these two dimensions are not always clearly distinguished is itself a question Peeters’ framework leaves open. Furthermore, the organisational principle underlying the hierarchy of values remains open to discussion. Several values treated as distinct entities, such as méfiance, débrouillardise, franchise, prise de position, and esprit de contestation, could arguably be understood as manifestations of broader conceptual families not addressed in the work, such as critical thinking, a duty of advocacy, resistance to oppression, or even the pursuit of truth. Alongside a classification of values according to their degree of salience, a branching taxonomy of value families situating values within such overarching categories would be a productive direction for future modelling and would strengthen the internal coherence of the ethnoaxiological protocol.
A related limitation concerns the analytical perspective adopted in some of the case studies. Although the methodology is explicitly designed to minimise ethnocentric bias, some analyses reflect at times a view from the outside – shaped, perhaps inevitably, by Peeters’ own positionality as an external observer of French culture rather than a native participant in it. This does not diminish the analytical interest of these views but rather invites the reader to approach them as situated interpretations, open to a complementary, internally-oriented lens.
A further area that remains relatively underdeveloped is the role of cognitive and interpretative processes in the enactment of cultural values, as well as the embedding of these values within wider historical and intellectual contexts. Peeters demonstrates persuasively how values such as la prise de position and l’esprit de contestation are reflected in the ways French speakers articulate opinions to others. Yet one might equally ask whether these values are not also constitutive of the way the French tend to think – that is of a deeply internalised disposition to deconstruct received information, interrogate its premises and reconstruct it critically before accepting it. If so, la méfiance might be understood not merely as one value among others but as a broader representation of which other values are particular expressions, possibly rooted in identifiable socio-historical conditions. In this respect, a greater engagement with historical and intellectual contexts from which these values may have emerged could have enriched the analysis considerably: it would raise for instance questions about the legacy of the Lumières or of older traditions of dialectical inquiry, without necessarily resolving them.
These observations do not undermine the coherence of the project or the interest of Peeters’ analyses. Rather, they highlight the exploratory nature of an ambitious research project that deliberately leaves room for further refinement. It is precisely at the crossroad of the incompleteness of the study and the fine methodological craftwork, that its generative potential resides.
To conclude, regardless of whether or not one accepts each of the proposed cultural values presented in this ethnolinguistic research, it is their scrupulous deconstruction following a thorough analysis that particularly stands out, inviting further reflection on French cultural representations but also transmitting skills to encourage the continuation of a vital work. Grounded in the theoretical framework of NSM, the author goes beyond a straightforward application of this linguistic theory. The explicitly articulated methodology he has intentionally designed for didactic approach, remains one of the most remarkable innovations of his work at large.
In fact, the uniqueness of Peeters’ contribution emerges at the elementary level of the NSM research protocol that he crafted meticulously and which proves to effectively lead to the development of NSM cultural scenarios and the descriptions of inherently intangible cultural values. It is this theoretical effort that gives the work its coherence and scholarly significance, hence it can be considered Peeters’ legacy. As a matter of fact, he has marked out the road –previously left open to interpretation or accessible to NSM specialists only – to guide a larger audience to follow in his steps, calling readers to continue his work.
The book therefore represents a major contribution to the dissemination and innovation of NSM, particularly in francophone scholarship. Through the breadth of its synthesis and the diversity of its analyses, it provides a robust framework for investigating the relationships between language, culture, and values, while opening up avenues for future research and applications in language teaching.
Despite their posthumous nature and the editorial interventions they required, both volumes maintain a strong internal coherence and preserve Peeters’ recognisable analytical voice, with hints of humour at times, which contributes to a pleasant reading. Not only does this work deserve special credit as a scientific, long-term foundation for NSM, it will also be of great interest to a broader readership of linguists, researchers and educators working on the (inter-)cultural dimensions of language and their pedagogical implications.
