PROVERBS: CULTURALLY DISTINCTIVE LINGUISTIC FORMS OF IDENTITY IN TRANSLATION

Abstract

Language and communication are aspects of the production of a wide variety of identities expressed at many levels. Identities are linguistically constructed through the use of particular linguistic forms associated with specific national, ethnic, or other identities, and through the use of communicative practices.
A specific area is that of proverbs, which are culturally distinctive linguistic forms of expressing identity. The study of proverbs is closely connected with language ideology since they link verbal peculiarities to specific social, historical and cultural contexts. In this respect, “ideology stands in useful contrast to framings of talk as social practice to deal with situated interactional perspective and social values, which can vary and shift between contexts and communities. This is a particularly important issue in scenes of social and linguistic contact, conflict, and change, where unrecognized and misrecognized differences in modes of
interactional engagement arise” (Errington 2001, in Duranti 2001: 111).