Year: 2008
Type: article
Abstract: The present study is an endeavor to apply the speech act theory to the American English proverbs and analyze them in away similar to that used in conversational speech acts in spoken language.The study concentrates on the speech act of advice to show whether it is subjected to certain rules and distinctive semantic meanings that prevent it from becoming misfire.This research is of a two fold function: The first one is devoted to the definition of proverb and its linguistic and the nonlinguistic characterization.It focuses on different aspects such as the etymological background, and the different definitions of proverb proposed by different scholars and linguists.The second one is devoted to the investigation and analysis of the proposed speech act, namely: advice in American English proverbs.The analysis will cover three levels: pragmatic, Semantic, and structural level to get a full account of this type of meaning. Proverbs in General ` What is a proverb?In the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (1914:412), the English word "proverb" is one of the etymological terms that descend from Latin and Greek.It comes from the Latin term proverbium with the meaning of an "old saying" "adage" or "proverb".The term proverbium has been taken over, after being modified, into the English language to mean a "short pithy saying in common and recognized use"(20ED .,s.v.) Proverbs constitute a significant part of verbal language.Like other types of folk-saying such as fables, riddles and parables; proverbs are considered genres of verbal communication which can be found in all languages regardless of their cultural background, rural or civilized, advanced or primitive.In other words, no language in the world is without proverbs for the reason is that : they convey a great deal of meaning, associated with people's * College of Education for Women -English Department.
Author: Lubna Riyadh Abdul Jabbar
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W3105177259