Proverbiallinguist Emails 1 2004

On “Traditional Theories and Structuralism” and Analysis of Proverbs: A Ka:rmik Linguistic Review 1

Chilukuri Bhuvaneswar, CIEFL, Hyderabad

I. INTRODUCTION

Proverbs are a complex genre of language. They are formed, acquired, applied, and comprehended as composite structures with formal, functional, cognitive, and dispositional (svabha:vik) linguistic properties fused together in them in the manner of chemical compounds. As a result, they cannot be described comprehensively in a single theoretical framework of formal, or functional, or cognitive linguistics. It is also very difficult to describe proverbs eclecticallycombining all these frameworks for the following reasons: first, proverbs are not formed in the manner of chemical mixtures which can be separately described componentially; second ,these frameworks are fragmentary and biased in their goals and scope; third, in such eclectic approaches, the inherent contradictions in the theories disfigure the underlying unitary basis of the genre; finally, they serve only to expose the missing links but fail to hit the nail of description on the head. In such a complex situation, we need a unified theory – somewhat similar to the problem of integrating the classical and quantum theories in physics - that integrates the formal, functional, and cognitive linguistic branches of linguistics to provide a coherent and comprehensive account of proverbs. Such a theory can be The Ka:rmik Linguistic Theory inspired by Sri: Samkara Bhagavatpu:jyapa:dah's advaita siddhanta. In the Karmik Linguistic Theory, FORM is considered an expansion (or projection or an embodying) of a PATTERN which further embodies a MEANING to constitute a single object, a state, or an action. This form is further considered to be another level of expansion of a FUNCTION embodying a DESIRE born out of SVABHAVAM (disposition) in the case of humans and other sentient creatures. This svabhavam is again considered to be a product of an individual's KARMA earned as a result of his actions performed in the past. Therefore, FORM - PATTERN - MEANING - FUNCTION - SVABHAVAM - KARMA are all interlinked and interdependent in the evolutionary production of any action in the physical, mental, or vocal planes. Accordingly, this theory can be successfully applied as a unified theory of Form - Meaning - Function - Svabhavam of language as KARMIK ACTION.

All these terms will be explained in detail later.

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Proverbiallinguist Emails 1 2004

In the next section, let us make a brief review of the formal, functional, and cognitive linguistic theories and point out why they are inadequate by themselves or eclectically to provide a coherent and comprehensive account of proverbs. Then, we will see how the ka:rmik linguistic theory avoids the defects of these fragmentary and isolationist models with limited scope and comprehensively describes the various properties of proverbs.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

Extensive research has been done on proverbs in various languages across the world. Mieder (2001) lists 7,368 such references in his monumental annotated bibliography of proverbs - still this is not a complete list of the existing work on proverbs; for example , I have listed more than 250 references in my bibliography of Telugu proverbs which are not yet included in his list . Among them, there are numerous articles on the semantics, syntax, and lexicology of proverbs and a few more on their phonology and discourse analysis. Notwithstanding such a huge corpus of research on the linguistics of proverbs, it appears that no work on a linguistic theory of proverbs has been attempted so far. We have yet to come across any significant attempts on the part of paremiologists to analyse proverbs in a particular school of thought such as the formalist, or functionalist approach.

The linguistic theories in the western tradition can be grouped historically into two branches: 1. traditional; 2.modern. The traditional grammars are those based on the Latin models and are widely used throughout the world in teaching English. The modern grammars are those which have the influence of nativist and functional theories about language. Let us make a brief review of these models and see how they can be applied to the analysis of proverbs.

a) Traditional Theories

The traditional grammar of English is simple and easy to use even though it has its own defects, one being its concentration on " grammaticality ( ie, on telling you how to form granmmatical phrases and sentences )" ( Radford 1995 :4 ) and its neglect of "ungrammaticality (ie, on explaining why certain types of structures are ungrammatical)" (ibid.)as in the Chomskyan paradigm of transformational - generative grammar. Traditional grammar is mainly concerned with devising a grammar (ie, a principled account) of a

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Proverbiallinguist Emails 1 2004

particular language within the discipline of descriptive linguistics unlike its modern counterpart of T-G whose main concern is devising a theory of grammar itself.

The greatest contribution of the English traditional grammar - although based on the grammar of Latin - is in the field of functional categories such as the noun, the pronoun, the adjective, the verb, the adverb, the preposition, the conjunction, and the interjection and the classification of sentences. Nonetheless, there was less focus on phonology and no motivation of the functional categories and sentence types and classes such as the declarative,interrrogative,imperative,and exclamatory,and the simple,complex,compound,and complex - compound sentences.This is also the case with T-G. Among the modern grammars, we find that there are two distinct schools : formal; and functional.In the formal linguistic tradition, we have the behaviourist,the structural and the nativist schools of thought.The Behaviourist Tradition is followed by Skinner and his associates while that of the American Structuralism by Bloomfield and his followers. In the Nativist School of Thought, Noam Chomsky is very popular with his Transformational - generative Grammar. In the Functional Linguistic School of Thought, Michael Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistic Model is very popular. In addition, we also have the cognitive linguistic tradition.

b) American Structuralism

Bloomfield is the pioneer of structuralism and this school of thought is mainly derived from Language written by him in 1933. The main focus of Bloomfield was " a) to delimit the role of linguistics in relation to other sciences, and b) to develop the principles and concepts of linguistics into a well - balanced and unified structure ." (Stern 1999 :138).

According to structuralism , " the task of the linguist is to study the corpus of utterances and to discover regularities and structures, in other words, the langue in the specimens of parole." (ibid.).Even though such a severe restriction in the field of enquiry helped linguists to establish itself as an autonomous field and led to much etailed and accurate linguistic research, many linguists such as Pike (1960) believed that such a language analysis that abstracts too severely from the social context cannot be sustained and is unprofitable.What is more, even the semantic component of language has been omitted in structuralism.

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Proverbiallinguist Emails 1 2004

Structuralism fails to offer a model that can give a principled account of proverbs simply because they are inherently contextual in their structure, ie, a decontextualised proverb ceases to be a proverb. For example," Don't look a gift horse in the mouth" can be an ordinary imperative sentence if it is viewed only in terms of its structure. There is no clue - such as the cultural confirmation or the contextual application - whatsoever to say that it is a proverb. Mere structure alone cannot tell us that "A chicken in the hand is worth two in the market." is not a proverb since it is similar to "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush". A theory of grammar that attempts to provide a principled account of proverbs should incorporate not only structure but also context and culture into its framework, without which it is impossible to do so. So also is the case with the meaning of proverbs, since the referential meaning of a proverb is different from its prototypical and contextual meanings (cf. Bhuvaneswar 1998 - 2004).

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