SMS Messages in a Daily Finnish Newspaper : The Contect of Proverb Performances

Abstract

The article focuses on Finnish proverbs as a part of contemporary colloquial written language in everyday use and context. The article offers a view on what is happening with proverbs in the vernacular in Finnish everyday life. Most traditional Finnish proverbs originate from an agrarian context and still use agrarian language, even if nowadays they live in a new context with a new meaning. As empirical material this article uses a special case that demonstrates the use of proverbs in one Finnish newspaper: proverbs in SMS messages published as a letter to the editor in a newspaper.