Paremiological Analysis of Proverbs in Pashto and English: A Cross-cultural Pragmatic Study (original) (raw)
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Pashto Proverb Collections: A Critical Chronology
2010
This article presents a critical review of Pashto proverb scholarship, especially proverbs compilations. It reviews the work of well-known foreign and local scholars on Pashto proverbs andargues that while the large number of Pashto proverb collections is encouraging, most of them lack academic rigor. The article shows that most of the Pashto proverbs collectors have simply listed proverbs without providing contextual explanations; most of the authors have failed to provide enough methodological details of how proverbs were collected; and, while collection of proverbs (Paremiography) is a well-established field, the analytical study of Pashto proverbs (paremiology) need significant attention from folklorists. Along with others, the article particularly evaluates the two-volume “RuhiMataloona” of Mohammad Nawaz Tair (1975-81) and points out a number of shortcomings of the same. The article also provides a few proposals for improving Pashto proverb collections and points out new lines...
Introducing Cultural Linguistics as an investigative framework to analyze proverbs
As collections of thoughts and ideas, proverbs are stated in short figurative phrases and sentences. The last twenty years have witnessed an increasing interest in studies on proverbs (paremiology) from various perspectives including the description, comprehension, and comparison of L1-L2 proverbs most of which have centered on structural, lexical and verbal processes analysis in the total negligence of any cultural focus. To bridge this gap, this paper aims to present Cultural Linguistics as an investigative framework to unveil the cultural elements in proverbs. To do so, first the previous linguistic models and tools to study proverbs are presented and examined thoroughly to highlight lack of a culturally-oriented linguistic analysis in paremiology. Then, Cultural Linguistics is introduced as a framework to reveal the cultural content of proverbs using the three elements of cultural schema, cultural category and cultural metaphor, collectively known as cultural conceptualization (Sharifian, 2015). To substantiate the issue, proverbs from different languages are analyzed using the framework. It is argued that such analysis can assist paremiologists to deepen their understanding of proverbs especially when comparing proverbs of different languages with distinct cultural backgrounds.
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This introduction to the special issue on proverbs across cultures presents a theoretical backdrop to the field of studying proverbs in general and within pragmatics in particular. It is an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural scrutiny which discusses pragmatic and sociolinguistic research on the role of proverbs in the (de)construction of gender ideologies, the transmission of cultural values, and their conceptual meaning, functions and contexts of use. It examines issues of language, society, and identity such as gender representation, politeness and language contact and discusses some of the central problems relevant to pragmatic research on proverbs. The authors highlight, among other things, how proverbs reveal instances of cultural sharing in some contexts while at the same time, reflecting the diversity in world views.
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Recent observations of the interrelation between language and culture guided scholars to the sphere of Paremiology. Making up a specific layer of the word stock, proverbs contain valuable information about national traditions and worldview.Proverbs can be found in all languages and they have been investigated from different perspectives.The present article attempts to illustrate the paremiological expressions and classify them in the system of the language and culture.
Book review Anti proverbs today a comparative linguistic
Anti-proverbs today: a comparative linguistic analysis of five languages [A közmondásferdítések ma: Öt nyelv antiproverbiumainak nyelvészeti vizsgálata]. Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó. A good beginning is half the bottle. Or is that battle? In the present book, the authors deal not only with traditional, well-known proverbs, but mostly with their modified versions, antiproverbs. Anti-proverbs permeate all aspects of our lives and appear in a broad range of generic contexts. Although the alterations of proverbs are as old as proverbs themselves, their proliferation resulting from the rapid development of media is now faster than ever. Hrisztalina Hrisztova-Gotthardt, Anna T. Litovkina, Péter Barta and Katalin Vargha have for decades been associated with proverbs, anti-proverbs and humour as a linguistic phenomenon. They have each made important contributions to their overall success, as they all have a firm grounding in linguistics: their core areas of research include humour, phraseology, paremiology, teaching proverbs and anti-proverbs. The authors summarise their common and individual findings from the last decade, mostly carried out within the framework of the International Linguistic Folklore Research Group, of which they all are founding members. In this book, the authors successfully combine their expertise in all these areas to present an impressive and convincing argument in favour of a contrastive linguistic approach to the nature and use of anti-proverbs. It should be noted that the idea of entertainment in learning contributes effectively to the latter's success, and paremiology is one of the most entertaining research areas in linguistics. The present book is the 203th volume of the Linguistic Studies Handbook Series. Although the language of the book is Hungarian, we somehow feel that the book is part of five different cultures and five different languages. This is not surprising at all, considering that we meet Hungarian, English, German, French and Russian (anti-)proverbs on almost each page. Still, it is perhaps not the great number of very rich and entertaining examples that increases the scientific value of the volume, but rather the linguistic observation, the classification and description of general tendencies, the differences and similarities between the analysed (anti)proverbs of these languages, the presentation of their international distribution and the alteration devices. All this is based on a large and meticulously constructed corpora. The preface and the introduction, besides giving a general description of the study and its central aims, outline the structure of the book and define its key terms. The book consists of the preface, introduction, two parts, conclusion, references and sources, annexes. The term anti-proverb itself-coined by Wolfgang Mieder, 1 to whom the book is dedicated-also needs to be clarified, given the great number of terms and definitions ascribed 1 Prof. Mieder specialised in the areas of German and international folklore, the history of the German language, the Middle Ages, and the study of proverbs in particular. Since 1984, he has been the editor of
Revealing the Implicit Meaning of Language Style in Madurese Proverbs
Language Literacy: Journal of Linguistics, Literature, and Language Teaching
Proverb is categorized as the simplest form of myriad types of folklore. It is used to express the truth based on the traditional saying, which has some implicit meanings. One of the interesting proverbs to be investigated is the Madurese proverb connecting with some crucial life principles. The present study is aimed to reveal the implicit meaning of Madurese proverbs, which have a special meaning on foregrounding values. The study has designed a qualitative method and used the theory of conversational implicature, pioneered by Grice (1989). The analysis and the pragmatics approach are elaborated since the data were gained using the extracted method. The findings show that Madurese proverbs can be categorized as two common types of implicature: generalized conversational implicature and particularized conversational implicature. The results also reveal that those chosen proverbs represented three main Madurese social principles: (i) courage (ii) upholding the honor of moral values, and (iii) upholding selfdignity.
Global Language Review, 2020
Language is the most effective tool of communication across cultures. Proverbs are one such component of stylistic poetic and rhetoric devices which serves to communicate the worldview of an ethnic group. The paper is an analysis of ways in which gender differences are perceived, symbolized, portrayed, expressed and promoted rhetorically through the use of proverbs amongst various ethnic groups in Pakistan such as Pashto, Saraiki, Urdu and Sindhi consistent with the Whorfian hypothesis of linguistic determinism and relativism. The study employs qualitative data using the descriptive methodology. Discourse analysis of the secondary data and participant observations cast as primary methodological approaches has been gauged to decipher the meanings and intent of the proverbs. The study findings suggest that meanings of proverbs and messages are context-bound and reflect power dynamics rooted in conventional gender roles which serve to construct and deconstruct the notion of ‘womanhood’ in the ethnicities mentioned above.