A Contrastive Study of Proverbs Containing Body- part Terms in Persian and English Based on Semantic Typological Principles

Document Type : .

Authors
Hamed Mowlaei Kuhbanani 1
Abouzar Oraki 2
Fatemeh . Bejgool 1
1 Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Foreign Languages, , Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan
2 Translation Studies Department, Faculty of Foreign Languages,
10.30465/lsi.2025.48433.1744
Abstract
Proverbs play a vital role in the culture of countries as a tool to show the past beliefs and the history of the culture of any country, we intend to analyze Persian and English proverbs on this basis. Based on this, in this research, we will examine the proverbs in which parts of words are used. On the other hand, word organs are considered one of the lexical domains that are considered in taxonomic studies. In all the languages of the world, the human body is conceptualized in the form of its parts, and as a result, what becomes important is not that all languages have words to name parts of the body, but that in different parts of the world, people they have knowledge and mental vision of different parts of the body. In the current research, the meta-linguistic natural semantic method (Viersbika, 2007), which is a semantic theory, has been used as a theoretical framework. Based on this theory, the semantic categories can be analyzed taxonomically and cross-linguistically. The results of the research in the section of Persian proverbs show that the first hypothesis of the research that absolute universals are more used than approximate universals of adverbs in Persian language proverbs is rejected. because the results are such that it is not possible to make a clear distinction between the usage of absolute and approximate universals in Persian proverbs. The results related to the examination of English data also lead to similar results. The results of the comparative study in the language also indicate that in the English language, as in the Persian language, there is no significant difference between the usage of absolute and approximate universals (Viersbika, 2007) and both mentioned universals are used almost equally in every bilingual. The amount of use of the absolute worlds of body and hand in both Persian and English languages is almost the same, and the approximate worlds are equal in both Persian and English languages.
Keywords
Proverb
Body parts
Persian
English
Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach
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Language and Linguistics
Volume 20, Issue 40
March 2025
Pages 53-78