Proverbs in a Function and Purpose Perspective
摘要
1. Introduction In Otto Jespersen' s book the Philosophy of Grammar ( 1951 ),the definition of formulas is mentioned: formula may be a whole sentence or a group of words, or it may be one word, or it may be only part of a word,--that is not improtant, but it must always be something which to the actual speech- instinct is a unit which cannot be further analyzed or decomposed in the way a free combination can(1951:24) .Thus proverbs belong to formulas, as the example Handsome is that handsome does given by Jespersen. This paper focuses on those proverbs, such as ‘Speech is silver, silence is golden', ‘ Empty vessels make the most sound', ‘ Still waters nm deep',which are all about speech and silence. Moreover,this paper aims to answer two questions: