Proverbs Research Articles

African Hermeneutics of Western education: A case of Yuyi Wamunyima Mupatu of Barotseland, Zambia, 1897-1982

An African proverb states that “until the lion tells his side of the story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter”. This is the case of the historiography of Western education in Africa, which was largely Eurocentric. Unlike many studies that are Eurocentric, the objectives of this article were to examine the history of education in Africa from the African’s point of view; to demonstrate that Africans were not passive recipients, but that they engaged Western education in a dialogue with indigenous African education. This has been achieved by examining the career of Yuyi Wamunyima Mupatu of Mongu-Lealui district, a man who made a significant contribution to the hermeneutics of Western education in Zambia. He became a teacher at Barotse National School but was twice fired for refusing to compromise on quality education. Mupatu led a movement that significantly decolonized education in a time which was forbidding. He established Makaplulwa School in 1945 but the school was closed due to local governance challenges in 1949. In 1963, the school reopened. Today Makapulwa School stands as Mupatu Combined School in Limulunga district. The study concludes that Mupatu’s is contribution to education is a demonstration of African people’s capability to interpret western culture and also their desire to retain what was African even as they embraced the West. It is a story of adoption, interpretation and adaptation of Western education. Mupatu was a product of both the Barotse indigenous education and Western education. To present this discourse, I relied on primary sources, mainly information from those who knew him; family members and his former pupils, his biography and other secondary sources on the subject. The study is significant because it highlights the people’s aspirations of what education should be in Africa.

Structural and Semantic Analysis of English and Russian Proverbs about Marriage as a Source of Expression of Cultural and National Identity

The article is devoted to the comparative structural and semantic analysis of proverbs of the English and Russian languages with the meaning marriage. The novelty and relevance of the study consists in the fact that the proverbs that go to the heart of the current problems of marriage relations were first analyzed with the use of comparative approach in the context of structural and semantic analysis. In the course of the analysis, on the material of the proverbs of these languages, the main meanings of the proverbs were identified and systematized. The proverbs reveal the view on the value of marriage, the view on the predestination of marriage, the roles of husband and wife, controversial aspects of marital relations, as well as the question of the unity and strength of the family. An important part of the article is the study of male and female views on the problem of marriage, family life and the choice of a life partner. In English proverbs, a critical attitude towards marriage and the mention of the advantages of a bachelor life can be found more often. In Russian proverbs, marriage is generally viewed more positively but almost half of the proverbs that reveal the hardships of life in marriage are proverbs that convey a womans view of marriage. The article reveals lexical components, syntactic structures, artistic techniques and figurative means pertain to the proverbs of both linguistic and cultural ethnic groups. The presence of unique and distinctive proverbs in each language reflects the peculiarities of the historical and cultural experience of the two peoples, but the proverbs of both languages also have many common features. This is explained both by the community of human nature and knowledge, and by borrowing from common sources. Both Russian and English proverbs are characterized by using methods of comparison, contraposition, allegory, the use of personifying metaphors, lexical antonymy, the use of zoonyms, proper nouns and somatisms. In Russian, the emotional and expressive component is higher due to the use of diminutive suffixes, vernacular and vulgar words, they represent more widely archaisms and vocabulary associated with the realities of peasant life. Most Russian proverbs are composed according to the laws of the folklore genre and have a compositional completeness due to their rhythmic and phonetic design. Most of the English proverbs contain sayings, teachings, and use more abstract and neutral vocabulary, although there are also bright and original proverbs among them. The author reveals interaction of the figurative means and the conceptual component of proverbs and concludes that the linguistic means and figurative motivation of proverbs are related to the peculiarities of the national-cultural thinking of the both peoples.

Proverbs and African Modernity: Defining an Ethics of Becoming

African proverbs have, for good reason, attracted considerable attention from scholars, both African and non-African. One notable testimony to such attention is the international conference in South Africa from which came a monumental collection of scholarly articles now available on CD and in print. Another evidence of the interest the subject has enjoyed among African scholars is the wealth of publications they have produced in recent years, for example, Adeleke Adeeko’s monograph Proverbs, Textuality, and Nativism in African Literature; Ambrose Adikamkwu Monye’s Proverbs in African Orature: The Aniocha-Igbo Experience; Kwesi Yankah’s The Proverb in the Context of Akan Rhetoric: A Theory of Proverb Praxis; and my Yoruba Proverbs. In addition, there have been influential articles by Ayo Bamgbose, Lawrence. A. Boadi, Romanus N. Egudu, Kwame Gyekye, Yisa Yusuf, and a host of others whose omission from this rather abbreviated list is not meant as a slight. In a recent conversation, the preeminent paremiologist, Wolfgang Mieder, called my attention to the lineup of articles in the most recent issue of Proverbium [23: 2006], in which four of the five lead articles are by Nigerian scholars (Abimbola Adesoji, Bode Agbaje, George Olusola Ajibade, and Akinola Akintunde Asinyanbola) and on African proverbs, an indication, he said of the present effervescence of, and future potential for, proverb studies and publications on them on African soil. Because of these efforts we now know a good deal about proverbs as a cultural resource, their functionality and the protocols for their usage, but also their artistry-structure, wordplay, imagery, and so forth, especially after calls such as Isidore Okpewho’s (1992) that scholars pay due attention to the aesthetic dimensions of traditional oral forms.

Concepts of health, illness, life, and death in Romanian and English proverbs

The aim of this article is to compare and contrast proverbs dealing with the antagonistic concepts of HEALTH, ILLNESS, LIFE and DEATH in Romanian and English proverbs from the cognitive linguistics perspective. Therefore, the proverbs are analysed in order to unveil similarities and difference in the Romanian and English cultures on the concepts under scrutiny to detect the cultural standpoints regarding the four concepts. Furthermore, the proverbs will be clustered into conceptual metaphors so as to reveal interconnections among concepts. The corpus is made up of fifteen Romanian and English proverbs dealing with the concepts of HEALTH, ILLNESS, LIFE and DEATH that are retrieved from both monolingual and bilingual dictionaries of proverbs. Thus, the primary sources are monolingual and bilingual dictionaries: Oxford dictionary of proverbs, Dicționar de proverbe și zicători românești, and a bilingual dictionary compiled by Virgil Lefter, entitled Dicționar de proverb englez-român și român-englez. The method chosen to detect the metaphors within the proverbs is a combination of the one offered by the Pragglejaz Group and Charteris-Black’s, whilst the conceptualisation technique is based on Lakoff and Johnson’s approach. The interconnections among the eight identified conceptual metaphors are arranged in spidergrams and the results prove that there are both similarities and differences between the Romanian and English cultures according to the manner they are reflected in proverbs. I examined the proverbs and conceptualised the metaphors and it resulted that 1) LIFE and DEATH are connected to each other; 2) LIFE and DEATH are related to both common or opposite concepts; 3) the differences in translation occurred mainly because of the symbols characteristic to the Romanian and English culture and the environment in which people live; 4) the specific musicality and structure of the proverbs play an important role in their translation.

FEATURES OF KAZAKH PROVERBS AND THEIR SIMILARITY WITH OTHER TURKIC LANGUAGES

In the article Kazakh proverbs are compared with the proverbs of some Turkic languages and the peculiarities inherent in them are discussed. Folklore scholars attribute proverbs and sayings to ancient genres. Researchers did not pay attention to the peculiarities of this genre and did not give a special definitions proverbs and sayings for each of them. The article briefly mentions the scientific works of scientists who studied Kazakh proverbs and sayings, as well as the definitions of some scholars of folklore scholars. As well as the article discusses the topics of proverbs and sayings, the peculiarities of their genre, as well as examines the influence of proverbs and sayings on folk wisdom, life experience and worldview. The source of Kazakh proverbs is discussed, as well as the common spiritual heritage of the Turkic peoples. İn proverbs and sayings, you can see the advice accumulated over the centuries by the people. In addition to discussing this feature, the article mentions the views of some scientists on the educational role of proverbs. Common proverbs and sayings and their reasons for similarity in the Turkic languages are considered. We also tried to reveal the subject of the common history and spiritual heritage of the Turkic peoples. Since cattle breeding has a special place in the life of nomadic Turks, the topic of livestock had an impact on proverb and sayings also. The article provides several examples of proverbs and sayings from the work of the Turkic dictionary of Mahmud Kashgari and compared them with proverbs in the Kazakh, Bashkir and Nogai languages. Some of these proverbs and sayings which are given in the article are still relevant today.

Conceptualisations of work in Romanian, French, Russian and English proverbs

Proverbs, as ‘the wit of one and the wisdom of many’, are timeless, still keeping the interest of linguists, anthropologists, paremiologists and educationalists awake. Proverbs epitomise life experiences and common judgment and are typically used to call attention to lessons learnt by humanity at large, to give advice, to celebrate virtues, behaviours, or to promote desirable attitudes. The aim of this paper is to analyse the manner in which work has been conceptualised in proverbs in four languages: Romanian, French, Russian and English. The methods used were analysis of specialist literature, cataloguing of proverb collections in the four languages (monolingual, bi- or multilingual), selection of a representative corpus of 122 work-related proverbs, corpus analysis using lexical-semantical and ethno-cultural analysis, as well as conceptual metaphor identification. The main instruments used were dictionaries of proverbs, both in print and online format (mono-, bi-, and multilingual). Following the identification, interpretation and categorisation of proverbs in the corpus, they were clustered around nine main concepts, which were further on analysed from the perspective of similarities and differences. The relationship between language and culture is undoubtedly indissoluble; however, it is extremely revealing to see how economic, social and political advancements have changed or enhanced the conceptualisations of various human activities, in this specific case, those related to work. Results revealed a prominent tendency of Romanian and Russian proverbs towards metaphorical imagery. In the case of the concept of laziness is evil, in Romanian it appears that sloth is much more consistently censored, in an ironic and sarcastic vein when compared to English, whereas in English a more neutral and impersonal tone was encountered.

Enriching English-Malay Proverbs using Proverbs Card Game for Second Language Learners

For ESL students, acquiring English proverbs have always been a struggle due to a wide range of aspects related to L2 that are mostly dissimilar with their L1. However, many studies conducted have accentuated the significance of comprehending L2 proverbs in encouraging students’ communicative competence in real-life context. Due to limited L2 exposure or knowledge related to proverbial texts, ESL students have the tendency to use word-for-word translation when they attempt to use them in writing and speaking. To encourage students to use suitable English proverbs, a 52-piece proverbs card game that consists of English proverbs with equivalent Malay proverbs pairs was introduced to 20 heterogeneous level of ESL diploma students. A case study with a predominant quantitative method was employed where the preliminary pre- and post-test were conducted to investigate the significance of introducing the proverbs card game to reduce students’ direct translation. Subsequently, the result was later validated with qualitative data where semi-structured interviews were conducted in order to identify the affective variables as proposed by Krashen (1982) in Affective Filter Hypothesis. From the findings, it can be presumed that there is a significant difference between pre- and post-test scores with the post-test scores being higher16than the pre-test scores. Moreover, based on the hypothesis, data analysed from the semi-structured interviews revealed respondents’ affective variables such as motivation, self-confidence, attitude were high and anxiety are high, thus, it allows more comprehensible input when they were playing with the proverbs card game. Therefore, it can be concluded that teaching L2 proverbs using card game can help students’ reduce dependency on direct translation and lower their affective filter hypothesis which enriches their usage of L2 proverbs.

ВОЗРАСТНЫЕ СТЕРЕОТИПЫ В АНГЛОСАКСОНСКОЙ ЯЗЫКОВОЙ КАРТИНЕ МИРА: СТАТИЧЕСКИЙ И ДИНАМИЧЕСКИЙ АСПЕКТЫ

The relevance of this work is due to the importance of age stereotypes for the life of society and the language picture of the world and the need to study the dynamic aspect of these stereotypes. Traditional age stereotypes are represented in proverbs correlated with this phenomenon and reflecting the axiology of age. However, these stereotypes cannot be considered permanent even within a certain linguistic and cultural community, they are subject to changes that can occur both over a long time and relatively quickly. The aim of the work is to identify the dynamics of age stereotypes in the Anglo-Saxon language picture of the world on the basis of comparing their representation in proverbs and English-language corpora. The comparative analysis of English proverbs and utterances in British and American corpora shows that most of the negative as well as positive stereotypes associated with youth and old age remain unchanged or are further detailed in the corpora. However, many new stereotypes are emerging, which is due to such factors as rapid technological progress, the emergence of digital technologies, the focus of society on intensive work and money-making, the tendency to youth obsession. New negative stereotypes concerning old age include increased fear of old age, disability, forgetfulness, loneliness, the need of older people for empathy, egocentrism. An additional positive stereotype is the stereotype about the love of old people for children. New negative stereotypes connected with youth include commitment of young people to bad habits, a tendency to crime, lack of perseverance, unwillingness to study, emotional instability, excessive haste, dependence on technology, leading to social isolation. There are also such new positive stereotypes as good adaptability, health and activity of young people, a large number of opportunities that are open up to them, rapid growth on the career ladder.

Образ женщины в англоязычных пословицах: стилистический анализ

This article deals with the English proverbs containing the concept of woman. The aim of the research was to analyse the means of expression used to portray the woman in her various social roles, to describe her personal traits and to reveal the attitude towards women in the society. The novelty of this paper lies in systematizing the stylistic devices used in proverbs about women and discovering a device that has not been included in the existing classifications of expressive means. In the course of the research, the authors selected English proverbs with the lexeme woman and analysed them from the point of view of stylistics. The fact that such proverbs are highly numerous indicates the importance of gender relations in a society, while their subject matter demonstrates an arrogant and often dismissive attitude towards women in a world dominated by men. The stylistic analysis found metaphor, simile and epithet to be the most productive lexical devices in creating a negative image of women, while parallelism, antithesis and repetition seem to be the most frequent syntactic devices serving to emphasize the connotations of the proverbs. Irony and paradox render the sarcastic, condescending attitude towards women; this function is also performed by intentionally illogical sequences of homogeneous parts of the sentence, when women are placed on a par with animals, inanimate objects, and the elements (the stylistic device for the first time described by the authors). It should be noted that the characteristic features of proverbs as a genre of folk art, i.e. rhythmic, intonational, and phonetic, are inherent in English proverbs about women as well. The material obtained can be used in linguistics courses at universities.

Word Meaning, Androcentrism, and Language Acquisition (Based on a survey of English proverbs)

In our days second language acquisition is not just an option but rather a necessity, particularly, when it is about English which is a global lingua franca. It is a permanent process involving consideration both of constantly updating methods and techniques and novel approaches to various aspects of language. Given the intensified discussions of the androcentric nature of some aspects of English and of the so called he/man approach, I decided to check whether and how similar phenomena may evolve among Georgian learners of English. For the sake of this goal, I conducted the following survey. The object of the survey was the dual meaning of the word man in English proverbs. The word referred either to “a male person” or “a person in general.” The survey was conducted in a group of 10 students. The students got a survey file while being on the online meeting. The language of the meeting was English. After having read all the proverbs, the students were to write “a male person” or “a person in general” at the end of each proverb. If they were unable to distinguish between the meanings, they could write “I cannot guess.” The paper presents the results of the survey with an emphasis on the students’ capability of distinguishing between generic and masculine meanings of the word in question and on related linguistic and didactic implications.

Word Meaning, Androcentrism, and Language Acquisition (Based on a survey of English proverbs)

In our days second language acquisition is not just an option but rather a necessity, particularly, when it is about English which is a global lingua franca. It is a permanent process involving consideration both of constantly updating methods and techniques and novel approaches to various aspects of language. Given the intensified discussions of the androcentric nature of some aspects of English and of the so called he/man approach, I decided to check whether and how similar phenomena may evolve among Georgian learners of English. For the sake of this goal, I conducted the following survey. The object of the survey was the dual meaning of the word man in English proverbs. The word referred either to “a male person” or “a person in general.” The survey was conducted in a group of 10 students. The students got a survey file while being on the online meeting. The language of the meeting was English. After having read all the proverbs, the students were to write “a male person” or “a person in general” at the end of each proverb. If they were unable to distinguish between the meanings, they could write “I cannot guess.” The paper presents the results of the survey with an emphasis on the students’ capability of distinguishing between generic and masculine meanings of the word in question and on related linguistic and didactic implications

The Semantic Analysis of Money-Related Proverbs in Three Linguacultures

Proverbs, being an element of ethnoculture, reflect the mentality, basic values of people, and their idea of the surrounding world. The author of the article accounts for the necessity to study money-related proverbs and notes that money is an unalienable part of the contemporary society, and consequently, it represents the material for psychological, sociocultural and linguistic research. Our aim is to conduct a comparative semantic analysis of proverbs in English, Romanian and Russian. The material for the research was 150 proverbs in the corresponding linguacultures. The author classifies proverbs by the semantic basis, identifies similarities and differences of English, Romanian and Russian proverbs

STRUCTURAL AND SEMANTIC CHARACTERISTICS OF PROVERBS

This paper is devoted to the analysis of semantic and structural features of some English proverbs. The equivalents of some proverbs in a target language are given for interpreting them in the other language to find out several important innovative ways of translation and contrasting their peculiarities in the English and Uzbek languages. The results and examples of this paper can help to distinguish some differences in the meanings of the English and Uzbek proverbs and to learn some peculiarities of them.

Developing a Cartoon-Based English Proverbs Training Program and its Effectiveness on Anxiety and Orientation of L2 learning in English Learners

Developing a Cartoon-Based English Proverbs Training Program and its Effectiveness on Anxiety and Orientation of L2 learning in English Learners

Investigating EFL teachers’ perceptions of teaching English proverbs in EFL classes: A cross-cultural study

Emerging from the experiences of a specific society, proverbs commonly mirror certain cultural signs of the traditions, beliefs, and values of that society. This appears as one of the ways of teaching the target culture through building intercultural connections in English as a foreign language (EFL) classes. Correspondingly, this study reserves two aims: First, to investigate the perceptions of Turkish EFL teachers on teaching English proverbs for intercultural relations and the frequency of using English proverbs in EFL classes and second, to examine the ideas of English native-speaker language teachers residing in Turkey about the intercultural role of learning and using proverbs in learning Turkish. To that end, 65 English teachers participated in a likert-scale pattern of two questionnaires and 4 native English lecturers were e-mail interviewed. The data collected from the participants is analysed and described related to the qualitative and quantitative research procedure of the instruments. The study revealed that for culture teaching in EFL classes, teachers favoured teaching proverbs and they believed that teaching proverbs was effective in improving learners’ language skills, grammar and vocabulary learning in learning an L2. As a second finding, native English lecturers were also positive towards learning Turkish proverbs as cultural connectors. Hence, the study accentuates the realization that proverbs can be effectively employed in teaching culture and evoking cultural relations between native language and the target language, plus in improving L2 skills and studies.

The Influence of Pragmatic Norms on the English Proverbs

In human languages proverbs constitute a very important aspect of language use. Thus, they have been a subject of varying attention from different specialists: linguists and language users in general. Shakespeare is described as the most adroit user of proverbs in literature; therefore, his plays have been the subject of numerous scientific investigations, whereby from a linguistic point of view the focus has primarily been aimed at vocabulary and grammar. On the one hand, attention has been paid regularly to lexical items because Shakespeare is supposed to have been a great innovator of words due to his coinage of new lexemes and his usage of several unknown expressions. Linguistic studies have also been concerned with grammatical constructions which are typical of the English at Shakespeare’s time. Many writers employ proverbs in their works but Shakespeare is different in the way he employs proverbs which are used to serve different functions and to achieve different illocutionary acts. These proverbs are embedded in the flow of conversations and they may flout one or more than one of Grice‘s maxims. The present study aims at analyzing proverbs and explaining how far Grice’s cooperative principles (maxims) are abided by in Shakespeare’s proverbs as specified in the data. Proverbs are sometimes said to mean something else in addition to what is explicitly stated. Words may mean something beyond those intended by the speaker or the writer. These extra meanings might achieve or refer to different illocutionary acts. The study explores whether or not these illocutionary acts share certain structural features. In order to achieve the aims of the research, the following hypotheses have been proposed: Grice’s cooperative principle is frequently flouted in Shakespeare’s proverbs. The maxim of Quality seems to be flouted more than the other maxims. This maxim is mainly flouted by the use of metaphor. Shakespeare’s proverbs are also characterized by the use of the speech

Когнитивно-семантический анализ структуры паремий с компонентом-зоонимом в татарском, русском и английском языках

The paper aims to reveal the structural-semantic features of the Tatar, Russian and English paroemias. Relying on the conducted analysis, the author identifies universal and nationally specific means of the animalistic image objectification, describes functions of the zoonym component in paroemias. Scientific originality of the study involves a comprehensive semantic analysis of the Tatar, Russian and English proverbs and sayings with the zoonym component. The research findings are as follows: the author proposes a structural-semantic classification of the Tatar, Russian and English paroemias, identifies their universal and nationally specific features. The researcher for the first time provides a comparative analysis of the Tatar, Russian and English paroemias from the viewpoint of cognitive linguistics, which allows identifying similarities and differences between the Tatar, Russian and English paroemiological worldviews.

DENOTATIVE AND CONNOTATIVE MEANINGS IN ENGLISH PROVERBS (A SEMANTIC STUDY)

This study aims at identifying denotative and connotative meaning in English proverbs, in Solomon’s Proverbs in Proverbs 25, 26, and 28, King James Version. It was conducted in order to explain the patterns of proverb that used on Solomon’s proverbs in Proverbs 25. 26, and 28, King James Version. In conducting this study, descriptive method were used. The data were collected through documentation, the writer spent many times in reading and analyze the Solomon’s Proverbs in Proverbs 25, 26, and 28, King James Version and the files that in relation with this research. The data were analyzed by following step of unitization, categorization, explanation and interpretation.The result shows that there are 36 English proverbs that used patterns of proverbs by Mieder which are Better X than Y, Like X like Y, No X without Y, One X doesn’t make Y, If X than Y. It is suggested that understand the denotative and connotative meaning in reading English writing especially English Proverbs should be considered in order to get the real meaning that the author or speaker exactly means. Other researcher may conduct a study about denotative and connotative meaning with different point or object.

African proverbs as pedagogical tools in the contemporary education system

Recently, there have been calls for the decolonisation of education in Africa to promote a culturally relevant, inclusive and appealing education system. African proverbs, as a component of indigenous knowledge system (IKS), are a cultural template and framework through which African societies leave an indelible mark. The beauty of proverbs lies in their relevance, which includes being a way of impacting wisdom, education and morality. Hence, considering the experiences of colonisation by African countries, displaced and consequently replaced African identity and the call for decolonisation across the education system, this study aims to explore and appraise the relevance of African proverbs in education. This study employs a qualitative research design which is underpinned by textual and interpretative analyses of selected Yoruba proverbs. Among other things, it is observed that the content and instructional component of these proverbs can reorient learners on the importance of education, provide a moral and culturally inclusive education and aid reflective learning and easy understanding of abstract ideas. This study concludes that the application of proverbs by educators can be a useful tool in enhancing the teaching and learning process and cultivating good character.

Primary Health Care, Proverbs, and Promise? Improving Child Survival in Northern Togo.

* Abbreviations: GPH — : global public health NMR — : neonatal mortality rate PHC — : primary health care U5MR — : under-5 mortality rate > Wood already touched by fire is not hard to set alight. > > Akan Proverb The use of proverbs in Africa is a powerful communication tool. Proverbs alert the listener to the importance of a topic and convey ancestral wisdom often with richly evocative imagery. The beauty of proverbs is their universal and timeless truths, which incorporate multiple interpretations across domains, cultures, and countries. It is fitting to use the interpretations of this West African (Akan) proverb “Wood already touched by fire is not hard to set alight” as a framework to comment on the study in Pediatrics by Fiori et al,1 who report the impact of a pragmatic, effectiveness primary health care (PHC) suite of interventions across 10 022 households over a 5-year period in Kara, a low-resource region of northern Togo, West Africa. The authors report on mortality, health use, quality and coverage outcomes, and cost. ### Interpretation 1: In the Right Setting, a Good Idea Can Easily Translate Into Reality This year marks the 43rd anniversary of the landmark Alma-Ata Declaration, which codified PHC as the key pillar and strategy all countries should adopt to ensure improved health for all.2 Introducing a suite of interventions into global public health (GPH) to attain multiplicative benefit has long been an attractive yet elusive goal, and in … Address correspondence to Cyril Engmann, MD, FAAP, Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Health Sciences Building, 1959 NE Pacific St, Seattle, WA 98195. E-mail: cengmann{at}uw.edu