EAN: 9783110224887

THE FUNCTION OF PROVERBS IN DISCOURSE - ELÍAS D...

Grounded primarily in the ethnography of communication and aligned with the multidisciplinarity
of discourse analysis  the book examines the use of proverbs in the daily life of a social
network of Mexican-origin transnational families in Chicago and Michoacán  Mexico. Various and
detailed analyses of actual proverb use reveal that proverbs in this particular population
function as a highly contextualized communicative strategy that serves four discrete social
functions: to argue  to advise  to establish rapport  and to entertain. Proposing that the
social and cognitive aspects of language use must be combined for a complete understanding of
how such genres of language are actually used by regular people in daily life  the author shows
how ordinary people use sophisticated cognitive processes to interpret the socially-relevant
meanings of proverbs in everyday conversation. The book provides an unusual mix of
contextualized discourse analysis that is ethnographic  linguistic  and cognitive  yielding
much needed insight into a segment of the Mexican-origin population of the Midwestern U.S.  a
population whose increasing importance and size is often mentioned  but about which precious
few linguistic studies have been conducted. The volume not only helps to fill this void but it
is also one of the few studies that focuses on the impact of transnationalism on linguistic
practices  regardless of cultural group. Departing from the conventional approach of ignoring
the role of everyday-language use in order to focus exclusively on culture  economics  or
migrant patterns  the book makes linguistic practice the central issue  and thus affirms that
it is language that weaves together the two distant sites of transnational communities 
providing a fertile area for understanding the perspectives of the transmigrants themselves.

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