Linguistics, Vol. 10 No. 1, 2009.
Original scientific paper
PROVERBS IN WRITTEN PUBLIC COMMUNICATION IN CROATIAN AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Draženka Molnar
orcid.org/0000-0002-4512-7270
; Faculty of Philosophy, University of Osijek
Abstract
Proverbs are miniature linguistic units which schematize concrete experiences and convey
general truths. In view of their origin, they are expected to appear more often in oral rather
than written communication. However, proverbs as well as their modifications, seem to feature
as an increasingly common rhetorical and stylistic device in written texts. Working on a
corpus comprising written texts (newspaper reports, comments, graffiti, etc.) we will primarily
be concerned with establishing in what types of texts canonical and modified proverbs appear,
who emits them and what is their pragmatic effect. We hypothesize that proverbs and
their modifications will be more common in comments where they are used to achieve irony,
sarcasm and humour.
Keywords
proverb; modification; pragmatic effect; stylization; metaphor; written public communication
Hrčak ID:
43495
URI
Publication date:
18.11.2009.
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