Search results for "proverbial utterance"

Some theoretical aspects of processes behind the meanings of proverbs and phrases

2013

This article examines the process that makes proverbial utterances meaning-carrying units. The aim is to show why proverbial utterances are used and understood in everyday speech, focusing particularly on their context-connected aspects. Context is understood as a cultural matter, as a matter of an individual experience, and as offering a frame for interpreting an utterance. The examples of Finnish utterances included are taken from both the past and present. The theoretical background of this study stands on the view that language structures reality. Grice’s cooperative principles, Frege’s deviation of lexical and implicated meaning, and Hintikka’s and Sandu’s manner of understanding possi…