Some theoretical aspects of processes behind the meanings of proverbs and phrases

Abstract

This article examines the process that makes proverbial utterances meaning-carrying units. The aim is to show why proverbial utterances are used and understood in everyday speech, focusing particularly on their context-connected aspects. Context is understood as a cultural matter, as a matter of an individual experience, and as offering a frame for interpreting an utterance. The examples of Finnish utterances included are taken from both the past and present. The theoretical background of this study stands on the view that language structures reality. Grice’s cooperative principles, Frege’s deviation of lexical and implicated meaning, and Hintikka’s and Sandu’s manner of understanding possible world semantics create a framework for understanding the process by which utterances become meaning-carrying expressions. In everyday life, proverbs and phrases are relatively permanent expressions but the meaning of an utterance may change when moved from one context to another.