An Analysis of Social Proverbs from the Perspective of Cultural Semiotics

Abstract

Social proverbs contain life philosophies and experience as well as moral standards; aspects of social life are reflected in the mirror of social proverbs. Social proverbs are of both language and culture. Because of their abundant cultural information, social proverbs have been studied from the point of culture in many researches. Modern semiotics has been widely applied to cultural studies as an effective approach whose theories and methods can be generally and successfully used to interpret the meaning process of various social-cultural phenomena. Bakhtinian semiotic theory seizes a crucial position in Russian semiotics which features the cultural tradition. Because of the purpose of this paper to study the relation of social proverbs to culture, Bakhtinian semiotic theory mainly coping with such issues as the essence of utterances and the functions of ideological signs is chose as the major analytic tool of this study. Bakhtin Circle takes the utterance as the typical ideological sign. Social proverbs are special utterances and can therefore function as ideological signs. Ideology in Bakhtin Circle is the totality of reflection and refraction of natural and social reality in the human brain, which is greatly influenced by such cultural patterns as world views, belief and value systems which originate from the deep structure of culture. Ideological signs actually contain the content of the deep structure. The deep structure is the core of culture. In this sense, ideological signs are cultural signs. Social proverbs show a direct link with the deep structure; many conceptions composing the latter are revealed in them. Consciousness takes shape in the material of ideological signs. The deep structure, taking form of social proverbs, penetrates into the consciousnesses and shape individual mind; abstract cultural concepts are transformed into concrete perception and behaviour so that culture can endure.