Proverb is a brief, simple and popular saying, or a phrase that gives advice and effectively embodies a commonplace truth based on practical experience or common sense. A proverb may have an allegorical message behind its odd appearance. The reason of popularity is due to its usage in spoken language as well as in the folk literature. Some authors twist and bend proverbs and create anti-proverbs to add literary effects to their works. However, in poetry, poets use proverbs strategically by employing some parts of them in poems’ titles such as Lord Kennet has written a poem, A Bird in the Bush, which is a popular proverb. Some poems contain multiple proverbs like Paul Muldoon’s poem Symposium.
Use of Popular Proverbs in Everyday Speech :
1.Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
2.Laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone.
3.Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
4.All that glitters is not gold.
5.An army of sheep led by a lion would defeat an army of lions led by a sheep.
Examples of Proverbs from Literature
Example 1 :
From Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart:
“If a child washes his hands he could eat with kings.”
If you remove the dirt of your ancestors, you can have a better future. Everyone can build his/her own fame.
“A toad does not run in the daytime for nothing.”
Everything happens for a reason and for something not for nothingness.
Example 2 :
From William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet:
“The weakest goes to the wall.”
The weak people are never favored.
“He that is strucken blind cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.”
A man who loses his eyesight can never forget the importance of lost eyesight.
“One fire burns out another’s burning,
One pain is lessen’d by another’s anguish.”
You can burn new fire from lightening another fire, similarly a new pain could mitigate your old pain.
Example 3 :
From The Bible
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (1:7)
Wise men always fear the Lord, while fools do not like wisdom and guidance.
“Every word of God is flawless; He is a shield to those who take refuge in him.” (30:5)
Saying of the God are never flawed, He protect them who ask for His help and follows His path.
“Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.” (16:3)
Do your efforts then put faith in Lord for the results, for He knows better and give you reward accordingly.
Example 4
From Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory
“And when we love our sin then we are damned indeed.”
When do not repent our sins and instead loving them, and then we are damned.
“Nothing in life was as ugly as death.”
Death is the most horrible experience in life.
“There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in…We should be thankful we cannot see the horrors and degradations lying around our childhood, in cupboards and bookshelves, everywhere.”
Childhood is a blessing for us, as we do not face horrible experiences like humiliation and degradation from people.
Function of Proverb
Proverbs play very important roles in different types of literary works. The most important function of proverbs is to teach and educate the audience. They often contain an expert advice with a role for educating the readers on what they may face if they would do something. Hence, proverbs play a didactic role, as they play a universal role in teaching wisdom and sagacity to the common people. Since proverbs are usually metaphorical and indirect; therefore, they allow writers to express their message in a less harsh way.
link of one thesis that relate with this materi is :
https://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12613381/index.pdf
One way to help these students overcome their language related problems is to teach them formulaic and figurative expressions such as proverbs, idioms, metaphors, phrasal verbs etc. which are a crucial part of natural language production (Ellis, 2008). Among these, proverbs are selected as the focus of this study because it is seen that proverbs are not given enough place in the literature concerning language teaching despite the advantages they could bring into the language classrooms. Proverbs as part conventional fixed expressions can make their speech fluent, natural and colourful, can allow them to perform certain communicative functions and increase their understanding and awareness of the target language and culture. Lack of knowledge of idiomatic expressions is the problem of most language learners that can result in the aforementioned communication difficulties. Although there have been many attempts to define ―proverb‖, a broad definition is provided by Mieder (2004:3): ―A proverb is a short, generally known sentence of the folk which contains wisdom, truth, morals, and traditional views in a metaphorical, fixed and memorizable form and which is handed down from generation to generation‖ (See Section 3.1.).
Due to the characteristics of proverbs reflected in the definition above, proverbs are ―a significant rhetorical force in various modes of communication‖ used by native speakers not only in friendly chats and powerful political speeches but also in best seller novels and the influential mass media (Mieder, 2004:1). Importance and usefulness of proverbs in communication and in language classrooms are further explained from various aspects below:
- As part of cultural references, proverbs are traditional and a part of cultural literacy and express the shared knowledge, experiences, values, history and thoughts of a nation (e.g. Alkaya, 2001; Hirsch, Kett & Trefil, 2002) and therefore, study of proverbs can contribute to the development of cultural and intercultural competence by enabling learners to gain insights into how native speakers conceptualize experiences, things and events in their language (e.g. Bessmertnyi, 1994; Ciccarelli, 1996; Richmond, 1987; Yano, 1998).
- As part of figurative language, many proverbs are metaphorical and contain prosodic devices (e.g. D‘Angelo, 1977; Lakoff & Turner, 1989; Mieder, 2004; Norrick, 1985; Ridout & Witting, 1969) and hence, can be used to prompt figurative thinking and enhance metaphoric competence (Littlemore & Low, 2006a).
- As part of functional language, proverbs are used to carry out many communicative functions particularly indirect speech act as a politeness strategy (e.g. Mieder & Holmes, 2000; Norrick, 2007; Searle, 1975), and are employed in text organization (Littlemore and Low, 2006a). The flexibility of proverbs also allows playing with their language and generating anti-proverbs which can be used to create humour, irony and jokes (Litovkina & Mieder, 2006; Mieder, 2004). Therefore, teaching the pragmatic aspects of proverbs in context can contribute to the improvement of pragmatic competence (Charteris-Black, 1995).
- As part of formulaic language, use of proverbs can enable fluent and natural language production (e.g. Wray, 2000; Yorio, 1980) and hence, teaching of proverbs can help to produce language more fluently and naturally which can in turn increase motivation (Porto, 1998). Although non-native speakers or language learners avoid using idiomatic expressions and prefer literal and direct language items (O‘Keeffe, McCarthy & Carter, 2007), ―avoiding the use of idioms gives language a bookish, stilted, unimaginative tone‖ (Cooper, 1999:258), which underlines the importance of learning idiomatic expressions to accomplish command of authentic language.
- Knowledge of proverbs as part of idiomatic expressions can increase comprehension of texts and using them can make learners‘ verbal and written communication more effective (Irujo, 1986; Vanyushkina-Holt, 2005).
- Proverbs are practical tools to teach vocabulary, exemplify and practice grammar points, to show creative use of language, and to teach and practice pronunciation due to their musical quality (e.g. Abu-Talib, 1982; Holden & Warshaw, 1985; Nuessel, 2003; YurtbaĢı, n.d.).
At this point, it needs to be pointed out that it is not easy to learn proverbs without explicit instruction in the language classrooms particularly in EFL settings. Regarding this, O‘Keeffe, McCarthy and Carter (2007:94) state that ―many advanced successful English users still have problems with idioms even when they have mastered most other aspects of the language system‖. Since proverbs are cultural, often figurative and indirect, they are not always comprehended easily requiring background knowledge and familiarity. In addition, as the common knowledge of a society, they are not always used as a whole expecting the hearer to identify it (Bessmertnyi, 1994; Mieder, 2004). Native speakers usually play with the language of proverbs to create humour, irony and jokes (Litovkina & Mieder, 2006), which could only be made sense of if the proverb is known to the hearer or the reader. If lucky enough, learners can make use of their L1 knowledge to comprehend a proverb resulting in positive transfer but they are not always lucky enough to achieve this particularly with proverbs that are different both syntactically and semantically across the two languages. The studies on the processing of idioms and proverbs reveal negative transfer from L1 particularly in comprehending similar idioms -idioms that are semantically same but syntactically different (e.g. Boers and Demecheleer, 2001; Elkılıç, 2008; Hussein, Khanji, & Makhzoomy, 2000; Irujo, 1986). These studies also show learners‘ difficulty in comprehending and interpreting idioms and proverbs that are opaque and different in expression and meaning across the two languages (See section 3.6.). Because of these reasons, proverbs cannot be learned without explicit instruction in the classroom in an EFL setting such as Turkey since there is limited exposure to English outside classroom even though access to English speaking channels on TV, internet and other means of mass media has increased. Based on this, Irujo (1984:122) puts forward that ―television and movies do not allow for opportunities to clarify meaning and receive feedback on use, which are essential for acquisition‖. For these reasons, explicit instruction on idiomatic expressions is essential for future EFL teachers who can then provide instruction on these expressions for their students more confidently.
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