Intersection of Cognitive Linguistics and Paremiology: Universality and Diversity in the Interpretation of World Languages Proverbsâ
Document Type : پژوهشی اصیل
Author
Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Teaching Persian Language,Tarbiat Modares University
Abstract
This article investigates the theoretical and empirical advantages of the intersection of cognitive linguistics and paremiology and aims to examine how to apply the concepts and theories of cognitive linguistics to the interpretation and understanding of proverbs in various languages such as (Persian, English, French, Croatian and Arabic), whereas previous research have mainly focused on conceptual metaphors, metonymies and schemas. Thus an important question raises here when focusing on the encounter between cognitive linguistics and paremiology: is it possible to consider the universal and cognitive principles for the interpretation of the proverb and take into account the proverbial concepts in all languages in the global sense? Or should it analyze them with regard to their own cultural-linguistic context without any attention to their cross-cultural and cross-linguistic behavior? To find a universal attribute or a common concept that is characteristic of cognitive linguistics does not necessarily mean the reduction of paremiological literature concerns with respect to folk literature. Cognitive linguistics has been adopted as a framework in this article in order to do a coherent research in both domains, the global aspects and the specific cultural aspects of proverbs, which, while taking into account common points analyze diversity in different languages and show how the proverb is perceived in real time speech. Data analysis showed that, despite the differences between the proverbs of the different languages that show the existence of the diversity of languages, we can apply cognitive linguistics and its theories based on the sensory experiences of human life used to interpret how to understand and apply proverbs in different languages. It is to note that cognitive linguistics which seeks linguistic universal would be easily able to justify linguistic diversities and proverbs with its own theoretical instruments like conceptual merging, metaphor, metonymy, image schemes.
Keywords
Subjects
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- Temple, Jon, & Richard Honeck (1999). Proverb comprehension: the primacy of literal meaning. Journal of Sociolinguistic Research 28.1: 41-70.
- Bauman, Richard, & Neil McCabe (1970). Proverbs in an LSD cult. The Journal of American Folklore 83.329: 318-324.
- Bradbury, Nancy Mason (2002). Transforming experience into tradition: Two Theories of Proverb Use and Chaucer’s Practice. Oral Tradition 17.2: 261-289.
- Brdar, Mario, Ida Raffaelli, & Milena Žic Fuchs, eds. (2012). Cognitive Linguistics: Between Universality and Variation. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
- Collins, Vere Henry (1974). Book of English Proverbs: With Origins and Explanations. Greenwood Publishing Group. Incorporated.
- Dabaghi, A. & Pishbin, E. &Niknasab, L. (2010). Proverbs from the Viewpoint of Translation. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 1(6), 807-814. Retrieved 20 July 2012 from http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=abstract&id=646590.
- Estaji, A., & Nakhavali, F. (2011).Semantic Derogation in Persian Animal Proverbs.Theory and Practice in Language Studies,1(9), 1213-1217. Retrieved 25 July 2012 from http://ojs.academypublisher.com/index.php/tpls/article/view/010912131217.
- Fauconnier, Gilles, & Mark Turner (1998). Conceptual integration networks. Cognitive Science 22.2: 133-187.
- Fauconnier, Gilles, & Mark Turner (2002). The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities. New York: Basic Books
- Gibbs, Raymond W., Jr., Herbert L. Colston, & Michael D. Johnson (1996a). Proverbs and the metaphorical mind. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 11: 207-216.
- Gibbs, Raymond W., Jr., Herbert L. Colston, & Michael D. Johnson (1996b). How to study proverb understanding. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 11: 233-239.
- Gorjian, B. (2008).Translating English proverbs into Persian:A case of comparative linguistics.In R. Xiao & L. He & M.Yue (Eds.), Proceedings ofThe International Symposium on Using Corpora in Contrastive and Translation Studies (UCCTS 2008).
- Hampe, Beate, & Joseph E. Grady, eds. (2005). From Perception to Meaning: Image Schemas in Cognitive Linguistics. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
- Honeck, R. P. (1997). A Proverb in Mind: The Cognitive Science of Proverbial Wit and Wisdom. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
- Honeck, Richard, & Jeffrey Welge (1997). Creation of proverbial wisdom in the laboratory. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 26.6: 695-629.
- Honeck, Richard, & Jon Temple (1994). Proverbs: the extended conceptual base and Great Chain Metaphor theories. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity 9.2: 85-112.
- Honeck, Richard, Brenda Sowry, & Katherine Voegtle (1978). Proverbial understanding in a pictorial context. Child Development 49.2: 327-331.
- Johnson, Mark (1987). The Body in the Mind. The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination and Reason.Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press.
- Kövecses, Zoltán (2005). Metaphor in Culture. Universality and Variation. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Lakoff, George (1987). Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Lakoff, George, & Mark Johnson (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Lakoff, George, & Mark Turner (1989). More than Cool Reason. A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Langacker, Ronald (1987). The Foundations of Cognitive Grammar: Volume I: Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
- Mieder, W. (2004). Proverbs: A Handbook. Westport: Greenwood Press.
- Norrick, Neal R. (2007). Proverbs as set phrases. Burger, Harald, Dmitrij Dobrovol'skij, Peter Kühn, Neal Norrick, eds. Phraseology: An International Handbook of Contemporary Research.Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science 28. Berlin: de Gruyter, 381393.
- Paczolay, Gyula (1997). European Proverbs in 55 languages. DeProverbio.com. p. 428. ISBN 1-875943-44-7.
- Panther, Klaus-Uwe, & Günter Radden, eds. (1999). Metonymy in Language and Thought. (Human Cognitive Processing 4). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
- Strauss, Emanuel (1998). Concise Dictionary of European Proverbs (Abbreviated ed.). Routledge. p. 331. ISBN 0415160502
- Sullivan, Karen, & Eve Sweetser (2010). Is ‘Generic is Specific’ a metaphor? Parrill, Fey, Vera Tobin, & Mark Turner, eds. Meaning, Form and Body. Standford: CSLI, 309-328.
- Temple, Jon, & Richard Honeck (1999). Proverb comprehension: the primacy of literal meaning. Journal of Sociolinguistic Research 28.1: 41-70.
