The proverbial discourse tradition in the history of English

Abstract

The present contribution sheds light on the mental representation of proverbs in relation to the norms and conventions of discourse traditions (cf. Koch, 1997; Oesterreicher, 1997). While the proverbial tradition is seen as a very important discourse tradition of medieval England (for example Schaefer, 1992; Shippey, 1994; Aurich, 2012a), it is widely acknowledged that it is no longer as influential in modern times. The article introduces a new model of mental representation (“dual layer storage model of proverb representation”) which is a modified version of the “superlemma model of idiom representation” (Sprenger et al., 2006). This new model incorporates a facilitation process in line with the usage-based view (e.g. Bybee, 2013). The article argues that the particular norms and conventions of discourse traditions in the history of English which are connected with the proverbial tradition have an effect on the strength of the representation of proverbs in the mind.