The place of proverbs, sayings and familiar quotations with respect to set expressions is a controversial issue. A proverb is a short familiar epigrammatic saying expressing popular wisdom, a truth or a moral lesson in a concise and, imaginative way. Proverbs have much in common with set expressions because their lexical components are also constant, their meaning is traditional and mostly figurative, and they are introduced into speech ready-made. That is why some scholars following V. V. Vinogradov[24] think proverbs must be studied together with phraseological unities. Others like J. Casares2 and N. N. Amosova[25] think that unless they regularly form parts of other sentences it is erroneous to include them into the system of language because they are independent units of communication. N. N. Amosov[26] even thinks that there is no more reason to consider them as part of phraseology than, for instance, riddles and children's counts. This standpoint is hardly acceptable especially if we do not agree with the narrow limits of phraseology offered by this author. As to the argument that in many proverbs the meaning of component parts does not show any specific changes when compared to the meaning of the same words in free combinations, it must be pointed out that in this respect they do not differ from very many set expressions, especially those which are emotionally neutral. Another reason why proverbs must be taken into consideration together with set expressions is that they often form the basis of set expressions. For example; the last straw breaks the camel's back: the last straw; adrowning man will clutch at a straw: to clutch at a straw; it is useless to lock the stable door when the steed is stolen: to lock the stable door 'take precautions when the accident they are meant to prevent has already happened'. Both set expressions and proverbs are sometimes split and changed for humorous purposes, as in the following quotation where the proverb. All is not gold that glitters combines with an allusion to the 'set expression golden age: It will be an age not perhaps of gold, but at least of glitter.
Taking a familiar group of words: A living dog is better than a dead lion (from Ecclesiastes) and turning it around, a fellow critic once said that Hazlitt was unable to appreciate a writer till he was dead" that Hazlitt thought a dead ass is better than a living lion. A. Huxley is very fond of stylistical, mostly grotesque, effects achieved in this way. So, for example, paraphrasing the set expression marry into money he says about one of his characters, who prided herself on her conversation, that she had married, into conversation.
Lexicology does not deal more fully with the peculiarities of proverbs created in folklore, they are studied by folklorists, but in treating units introduced into the act of communication ready-made we cannot avoid touching upon them too.
As to familiar quotations, they are different from proverbs in their origin. They come from literature but by and by they become par and parcel of the language, so that many people using them do not even know that they are quoting and very few could accurately name the play or passage on which they are drawing even when they are aware of using a quotation from Shakespeare.
For example: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark; Brevity is the soul of wit.
Quotations from classical sources were once a recognized feature of public speech 'times change, and we change with them'; I fear the Greeks, even when bringing gifts'. Now they are even regarded as bad form because they are unintelligible to those without a classical education. So, when a speaker ventures a quotation of that kind he hastens to translate it. A number of classical tags nevertheless survive ineducated speech of many countries, in Korean no less than in English. There are the well-known phrases, such as for this special reason'; 'in good faith'.
In giving this review of English set expressions we have paid special attention tothe fact that the subject is a highly complex one and that it has been treated bydifferent scholars in very different ways. Each approach and each classificationhave their advantages and their drawbacks. The choice one makes depends on the particular problem one has in view and even so there remains much to be studied in the future. It is likely unreasonable to imagine that the proverb could have its say, about the matters which have no social relevance or topicality, or in situations including no alternatives, or that it could state something with entire indifference, or put forward statements which let no strategic (prescriptive) advices or hints to be derived from them. It also appears to be obvious that a proverb cannot order, interdict, advise anything without qualifiying previously as good or bad (or axiologicaliy irrelevant) either the suggestable or forbiddable activity or attitude itself or something linked to this activity or attitude, e.g., its end, means, degree of intensity, speed, time, place, etc.; and if the proverb puts forward appraisals, these appraisals are, in turn, likely to be founded on some cognized truths, laws and, regularities (or current opinions, beliefs or at least prejudices).
The problem of defining a proverb appears to be as old as man's interest in them.People who consciously used them or began to collect them in antiquity obviouslyneeded to differentiate proverbs from other gnomic devices such as apothegms,maxims, aphorisms, quotations, etc. Jan Fredrik Kindstrand[27] reviewed some of these early definition attempts in his fascinating paper on "The Greek Concept of Proverbs," and Bartlett Jere Whiting[28] had already in 1932 assembled dozens of definitions from ancient times to the modern age in his remarkable essay on "The Nature of the Proverb." The last fifty years since Whiting's detailed study have* witnessed highly scholarly articles, monographs and even books which all seek to come to terms with эuniversal proverb definition. Scholars around the worldcontinue to find their own so-called "working definitions," of which some of the most recent attempts in the English language are those by Shirley Arora, Nigel
Barley, Otto Blehr, Margaret Bryant, David Cram, Alan Dundes, Galit Hasan-Rokem, George Milner, Peter Seitel, etc[29]. And yet, despite their erudite and important new definitions based on structural, semiotic or linguistic insights, all must eventually agree with the contention of the old master proverb scholar Archer Taylor that "an incommunicable quality tells us this sentence is proverbial and that one is not." The newer definitions might in fact fit those sentences which we know already to be proverbial, but, again in the words of the insightful Taylor, "no definition will enable us to identify positively a sentence as proverbial." A definition cannot deal with such aspects as currency, tradition and familiarity which certainly are necessary ingredients for a true proverb.
The following tentative typology draws of the material of Korean proverbs. The classification criteria are as follows:
(1) the "normality" versus the contradictory or "broken" nature of the literal sense of the proverb text;
(2) the presence versus absence of semantic transformation (trope);
(3) the totality versus partiality of the semantic transformation.
The classes will represent different combinations of those alternatives. The result is not an exhaustive typology but rather a list of predominant combinations that is bound to get us into a scrape in more complex cases, being unable to decide between competing alternatives while trying to classify certain concrete proverbs.
Proverbs in traditional Korean society differ from those of western societies, in that they are a cultural heritage of the lower class of society and therefore they are not shared by the upper class, who had for their cultural vehicle the "sijo" poetry, the three-lined, forty-five syllabled form of vernacular language. Though there are some proverbs borrowed from Chinese and Korean classics, the majority of Korean proverbs were made by the common people as lessons and guidelines oflife for themselves. This explains why the language is vulgar and coarse in mostcases. The Korean word for proverb, "sokdam", in fact, means a vulgar saying ofthe common people.
Proverbs often have scatological and abusive references, reflecting the crude and uncouth pattern of life. The common people used the proverbs to describe the inner « thoughts of their hardship, to warn against the dangers of life, to vent their grievance against the oppressions of the ruling upper class, and to express the joys of life. In short the proverbs disclose most revealingly the realities of lower class life. The proverbs in this sense function as important social documents. What is mirrored in these proverbs show how poor the common people were who thesepoor vulgar people were, how they struggled to survive in tough circumstances,and what their philosophy of life was. These are random selections from Korean proverbs which typically portray the life of the common people. They show a picture of a poor man, who does not like rich men, and who hates the noble, ruling' class. Although he is always victimized, he is secretly longing for the days when he can have his revenge. Meanwhile he has to be quiet and careful not to make mistakes. All he can do is to help educate his children for a future opportunity.
In this paper I try to describe who the poor people were, what their identities were, how they lived, and what they regarded as the most important purpose of life. In so doing I aim at defining the core of the common culture of the traditional society of Korea.
As that trend goes on, English proverbs which are part of traditional culture lose their conventional significance. The proverb used to be a form of collective' consciousness and has evolved in its language based on traditional experiences. Transmission of proverbs was an essential part of culture and a prerequisite for education and the formation of self. Those past proverbs, however, have been driven away from education. What is more, the proverb is even on the verge of extinction. The proverb has been left as mere information which is individualistic, but not imperative or social at all.
2.2 TYPES OF PROVERBS ON MEANINGS MOTIVATION
But let us leave the world of the serious paremiologist for a moment and consider Taylor's "maxim" of the incommunicaole quality that supposedly tells us what a proverb is. What do non-specialists of proverbs think about them and what are proverbs to them? How do they in fact identify a statement as a proverb and what are the characteristic elements that comprise a proverb in their minds? In other words, what is a proverb today to the general public? In order to answer this question let us look at a sample of 55 proverb definitions which I collected from students, friends and acquaintances in the past year or so. To my knowledge nobody has ever bothered to undertake such a survey, and even though my sample is a relatively small one, it should still be able to give us a basic idea of what people today think a proverb to be. To this I will add an analysis of a number of popular articles on proverbs in magazines and' newspapers which have also not been considered by proverb scholars. These essayistic treatments that appeared from 1877 to 1984 in such publications as The Ne w York Times, Saturday Review, Atlantic Monthly, Time, Newsday and others will certainly help to come to terms with a general definition of the proverb as the "folk," and not the scholar, sees it.
Before starting this discussion, it might be wise to mention here at' least some of the English proverbs which in themselves are folk definitions of a sort: "A good maxim is never out of season"; "All the good sense of the world runs into proverb"; "Proverbs are the children of experience"; "Proverbs are the wisdom of the streets"; "Nothing can beat a proverb"; "Proverbs cannot be contradicted"; "Though the old proverb be given up. it is none the less true"; "The old saying cannot be excelled"; "The wisdom of the proverb cannot be surpassed"; "Common proverb seldom lies"; "The old saying, long proved true, shall never be belied"; "Old saws speak truth"; "Every- proverb is truth"; "Old proverbs are the children of truth"; "What everyone says is true"; etc. It appears that to the mind of proverb users, i.e. the general population in all walks of life, the proverb contains a good dose of common sense, experience, wisdom and above all truth.[30] Do such "definitions" still hold truetoday, or do modern adults in a technological society see proverbs in a much morecritical light? Are proverbs still considered to be solid kernels of wisdom and truth, or are they laughed off as antiquated bits of moral teaching? The following 55 recent definitions of proverbs might include some surprises when one considers that they come from members of a sophisticated and highly educated society. The definitions were collected by merely asking various people to write their definition of a proverb on a piece of paper without any previous discussion of proverbs whatsoever. They represent spontaneous reactions to the simple isolated question "How would you define a proverb?" Here are the fascinating answers in alphabetical order:
1. A proverb consists of a short sentence which contains a general piece of wisdom.
2. A proverb contains wisdom which has been handed down from one generation to the next.
3. A proverb describes situations which happened before and which are repeated again and again.
4. A proverb expresses folk wisdom in formulaic, short and metaphorical language.
5. A proverb has been passed down through many generations. It sums up, in one short phrase, a general principle or common situation, and when you say it, everyone knows exactly what you mean. It is often graphic, symbolic or rhyming, so that it is easily remembered.
6. A proverb is a common expression whose origin is not known or has been forgotten. It expresses wisdom concerning life.
7. A proverb is a common, repeated and generally known phrase which expresses a general idea taken to be true. It usually draws upon everyday occurrences or events in nature which are easily understood.
8. A proverb is a commonly-known, easily understandable example of descriptive, colorful, "folksy" wisdom, which, independent of the era, carries a lesson to and conveys a philosophy of life for the common man.
9. A proverb is a commonly-known, often-quoted, concise saying which expresses a generalization concerning some aspect of everyday existence.
10. A proverb is a commonly used or known phrase, expressing knowledge, a conclusion or an attitude about aspects of life that are universally familiar to mankind.
11. A proverb is a complete sentence which usually contains a moral or didactic "message"
12. A proverb is a condensed form of age-old folk sayings and biblical teachings. The proverb attempts to teach us, via the trials and tribulations of others who were not as fortunate as we. Proverbs can be positive or negative in nature; unfortunately, far too many of them are anti-women in their conclusions.
13. A proverb is a condensed version of basic opinions, prejudices and beliefs common to a group of people. These are usually in the form of very short, easy-to-re member sentences or phrases.
14. A proverb is a fixed-phrase, metaphorical statement.
15. A proverb is a fixed phrase piece of folklore consisting of a comparison or analogy, applying one set of circumstances to a different but similar situation.
16. A proverb is a formulaic expression of a certain truth which is applicable only in a special situation. Used generally a proverb is only half a truth.
17. A proverb is a linguistic attempt to express a general truth or wisdom in a few words.
18. A proverb is a metaphorical statement that illustrates a lesson of behavior.
19. A proverb is a one-sentence statement which encapsulates an element of folk wisdom; a specific reference which applies to many generalized situations or meanings.
20. A proverb is a phrase or sentence, accepted and integrated into common verbal usage of the general population, although often regional in character, which is most likely generated by astute, humanistic, albeit didactic, assessment of the human experience, offering tidbits of wisdom applicable to these paradigms of existential encounter.
21. A proverb is a pictorial phrase in which a message is given, many times a picture of an oft done action.
22. A proverb is a pithy statement or comment usually involving advice or a moral.
23. A proverb is a saying or generalization often accepted as truth; it contains words of wisdom.
24. A proverb is a saying that is known to the public; sometimes a moral or a threat.
25. A proverb is a saying with which people often identify because it is universal and meaningful in some way or other.