An Analysis of Four-Character Proverbs in Mandarin Chinese

• Main Authors: Lin Shui-mei, 劉淑美
• Other Authors: Prof. Chiang Tai-hui
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 1993
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/46440370831275721559

碩士 === 國立師範大學 === 英國語文學研究所 === 81 === Four-character proverbs, being an important part of the linguistic competence of native Chinese speakers, are unique in terms of their formal properties. A proverb manifests itself either as a sentence or as a phrase while the proverb as a whole serves merely as a component of a statement. A number of proverbs have been observed to conform to certain formulaic patterns or devices, including the reduplication of characters, various forms of parallelism, and numeration. Besides, the compound status of four-character proverbs has been verified by the syntactic and semantic features a proverb manifests. The metaphorical nature of four-character proverbs has been examined and illustrated in terms of different types of metaphorical transference that occur in such proverbs. Some other related devices such as symbolism, hyperbole, and personification have also been investigated with regard to their application in proverbs. The analysis of four-character proverbs has also been approached from a contextual perspective, and has especially been investigated in the real- life communicative context of three everyday conversations, in terms of proverb interpretation, proverb comprehension, the functions that proverbs may serve, and even how proverbs are used to reflect or embody social norms or customs. In view of the compound status of the four- character proverb as well as its conventionalized and noncompositional meaning, we contend that a four-character proverb should be accessed as a single lexical item and, as a result, should be learned and memorized as such. From the perspective of culture as a crucial factor in language development, the Chinese four-character proverb, owing to its peculiarities in some ways, serves well as a mirror to reflect the Chinese way of perceiving the world and their ways of life.