Przysłowie jako tekst minimalny

Chapter 1, “Minimal text” in the light of so-called integral text linguistics, presents arguments in favour of treating proverbs as a text, and in consequence, as linguistic units. The starting point is the concept of integral text linguistics formulated by Jerzy Bartmiński and Stanisława Niebrzegowska-Bartmińska in their handbook Tekstologia (‘Text linguistics’, 2009). According to this theory, text is a supra-sentence linguistic unit, and the text of the parole plane corresponds to an abstract template of the langue plane. The argumentation that this chapter presents in favour of regarding proverbs as text is based on an analysis of examples from the National Corpus of Polish which contains proverbs. It shows clearly that proverbs fulfil all the requirements of textuality; among others, they are uniquely distinguished as a communicative whole, they receive a clear genre qualification, they have their senders and receivers, a clear communicative intent and a stylistic qualifier. The final part of this chapter contains a proposition to describe proverbs as a “minimal text”, and to separate the terms minimal text and prototypical text. Within this interpretation, a proverb is a prototypical minimal text that is different from both non-prototypical minimal texts, and from non-prototypical non-minimal long texts such as experimental novels, as well as prototypical texts such as fables which tend to be longer (non-minimal).

Chapter 2, Proverb as the research subject, leads into subject area of paremiology, proverb definitions and proverb features. Proverbs have been studied from a range of perspectives for various reasons, and the diverse research traditions have produced a breadth of differing terminologies, which require description and comparison. Generally, proverbs are traditional, formulaic and figurative, fairly stable and generally recognizable units. They are characteristically used to form a complete utterance, make a complete conversational contribution and to perform a speech act in a speech event. This differentiates them from non-sentential items like proverbial phrases, idioms, and so on. Proverbs make apodictic (expressed as undeniable truth) statements, or they evoke a scenario applicable to a range of analogous situations. In supplying ready-made responses to recurrent types of situations, proverbs seem to suggest particular evaluations or courses of action.

Proverbs are collected and anthologized as little texts complete in themselves; they can be described in their relations to other proverbs, in their discourse contexts and within their cultural matrix. Proverbs are valued as folk wisdom and bearers of traditional lore. Their cultural salience renders proverbs interesting in cross-cultural comparison as well, including questions of intercultural transmission and translation.

Chapter 3, Proverbs in the light of dictionary data, intends to outline a reconstruction of the linguistic picture of proverb in Polish. It is based on an overview of the information given in the dictionaries of the – both historical and modern – Polish, that is etymology of the word przysłowie (‘proverb’), its lexicographical definitions, word formation derivatives and idioms.

For folklorists, proverbs exist as items of folklore alongside riddles, proverbial phrases and jokes. They provide highly recognizable, (relatively) fixed textual building blocks with unique rhetorical potential. In chapter 4, Proverb and similar genres of speech, proverb is compared to such similar language forms, like idioms, “phrasemes”, “reproducts”, adages, dicta, “golden thoughts” or maxims.

Proverb variation by text and by speech community raises interesting issues. Chapter 5, Structure of proverbs, discusses derivatives, versions, and variants of proverbs. Derivation is understood here as transformation, not as generation. It involves four mechanisms: (1) developing a proverb by adding a new ending, (2) shortening a proverb, (3) changing of lexical components within the proverb, (4) blending two proverbs or a proverb with an idiom. The discussion of variants of proverbs is based on examples from Nowa księga przysłów i wyrażeń przysłowiowych polskich (‘New Book of Polish Proverbs and Proverbial Sayings’, 1969–1978).

Chapter 6 is devoted to the semantics of proverb. Because of their imagery, proverbs provide evidence of stereotypes and standard cultural metaphors. Proverbs and proverbial sayings often have striking images. This helps keep them noticeable and memorable despite relative infrequency and variation. Proverbs contain specialized images from pre-industrial life, rather than basic-level metaphors or images familiar to speakers today. Proverbs thrive on foregrounding, high visibility and cultural salience, and consequently their images must be striking and memorable, not quotidian.

In chapter 7, Pragmatics of proverb, it is pointed out that proverbs possess diverse stylistic and pragmatic potential and thus fulfil many different functions within a text. The most important approach in pragmatic regard is the introduction of the class of pragmatic phrasemes or routine formulae, which can only be described with pragmatic categories (greeting phrases, congratulatory phrases, and other). Proverbs also belong to the aforementioned class, because their functionality can only be identified and described in detail in textual and discourse context. In concrete communicative situations, they can function as expressions of speech acts such as warning, persuasion, argument, confirmation, comfort, appeasement, conviction, admonition, reprimand, assessment, characterization, explanation, description, justification, or summarization. In such cases, we speak about the contextual (pragmatic) function of proverbs.

Chapter 8, Selected proverbs in contemporary public discourse, is devoted to the functioning of the proverbs in multi-genre texts of contemporary Polish. It discusses the rhetoric potential of the selected phrases. Senders like to use them in the beginning (in the title) and at the end of the text. The persuasive efficiency of an utterance containing the discussed phrases is raised by granting the status of a proverb to the sentences like for example Diabeł tkwi w szczegółach (‘God is in the details’), and in particular, by garnishing them with such adjectives as dawne, stare, tradycyjne (‘ancient’, ‘old’, ‘traditional’), or a stylistic qualifier jak to mówią chłopi (‘as peasants say’). In fact, the antiquity and popularity of those maxims is a kind of mystification. The last part of the analysis is devoted to a reconstruction of the semantics of the proverbs.