Sayings and proverbs as pragmatic phraseological units, their features and functions

Lecture 5. Communicative phraseological units.

In folklore among all the variety and richness of its poetical significance and form it is difficult to find more interesting and researchable genre than proverbs and sayings, which are short, meaningful units and which have the rhythmic organization in poetic style – that people had created for centuries in their social and historical life.

A saying is a short, clever expression that usually contains advice or expresses some obvious truth. Many traditional sayings are still in general use today.

There are literally thousands of sayings in English (and all languages). The term saying conveys the idea of any expression of wisdom or truth, usually handed down by earlier generations. The origin of a saying is, in most cases, unknown. Many English sayings have come from other languages, and vice versa.

Most sayings are effective thanks to their shortness and directness. They use simple, vivid language, often based on everyday domestic situations, making them easy to understand and remember.

Sayings may be classified under a number of different terms, of which proverb is probably the best known. Other types of saying are adage, maxim, motto, epigram and aphorism, though frankly the distinction between them is often vague:

proverb: a piece of common-sense wisdom expressed in practical, homely terms ("A stitch in time saves nine")

adage: is a time-honored and widely known saying ("Where there's smoke, there's fire")

maxim: a general rule of behaviour drawn from practical experience ("Neither a borrower nor a lender be")

motto: a maxim adopted as a principal of conduct ("Honesty is the best policy")

epigram: is a brief, witty, or satirical statement that often gains effect through paradox ("The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it")

aphorism: similar to an epigram but more profound rather than witty ("He is a fool that cannot conceal is wisdom")

Proverb is a brief phrase that presents a truth or some bit of useful wisdom. It is usually based on common sense or practical experience. The effect of a proverb is to make the wisdom it tells seem to be self-evident. The same proverb often occurs among several different peoples. True proverbs have been passed from generation to generation primarily by word of month. They may also have been put into written form. Proverbs often find their way into literature.

Proverbs were always the most vivacious and at the same time the most stable part of the national languages, competing with the sayings and aphorisms of outstanding thinkers. They express the outlook of the amount of people by their social and ideal functions. Proverbs and sayings include some certain features of historical development and the culture of people.

The semantic sphere of proverbs is very wide and cannot limit them. The proverbs describe every branch of people's life. The fact is that proverbs and sayings are similar in meaning in spite of their diversity in form and language: A bird in hand is worth two in the bush. Лучше синица в руках, чем журавль на небе.

Many scholars tried to show the differences between proverbs and sayings in order to point out their border of limit. There are some features that can be helpful in identifying the proverbs from sayings.

Proverbs are characterized by their features:

Every proverb values or appreciates any event both positively and negatively. Such kind of features serve to make the proverbs popular among people.

Proverbs express wise and complete idea and sayings express the description of something but do not give complete meanings. They consist of one compositional element.

Proverbs can be used in neutral figurative meaning. This features of proverbs widen the sphere of their usage thematically. That's why proverbs are famous among different nations and people. Sayings are characterized by limited usage in one or two nations who are near to each other geographically and in non related languages.

The function of proverbs is to prove any event or situation.

In spite of their own specific features proverbs have general sides which also belong to the other types of folklore. One of such features of the proverbs is that they are created in language in a very long time and disappear in a long period. It is connected with the formal feature of the content of the proverb. To turn some wise thoughts into proverbs some conditions are required. And this conditions may be the followings:

Firstly, the proverbs should describe the economic, social and politic life of the people.

Secondary, the idea expressed in the proverb must have global character. It means that those proverbs that describe the characters related to the human beings are the same in all the languages.

Thirdly, the idea that can be used as sample and answers to the above conditions must be complete in literary Christianized form. When the pattern idea answers these three questions it turns to be a proverb. Also it should be pointed out that the character of immediate creation of proverbs are connected with sociable structure, the dominance and non dominance of politic, cultural, social - economic life. The content expressed in proverb changes depending on the change in social life.

Proverbs serve as rare base in researching or studying of people: the level of their cultural, politic, economic life in ancient time or periods. As proverbs reflect the life practice of people over different periods and also they reflect moral norms and religious faith of nation. One more feature of proverbs is that proverbs are often used in colloquial speech of people and are extended in varied forms.

As we know, proverbs are used for some practical, pragmatic purposes in various circumstances of everyday communication. It is not right to consider proverbs apart from pragmatic functions.

As to familiar quotations, they are different from proverbs in their origin. They come from literature and many people using them do not even know that they are quoting and very few could accurately name the play or passage on which they are drawing even when they are aware of using a quotation from Shakespeare: For example: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark; Brevity is the soul of wit.

The problem of defining a proverb appears to be as old as man's interest in them. People who consciously used them or began to collect them in antiquity obviously needed to differentiate proverbs from other gnomic devices such as apothegms, maxims, aphorisms, quotations.

Дата добавления: 2013-12-12