<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>“The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence/hill” is an old English proverb which shows that people tend to appreciate more what others have, just by crossing (with their eyes) the border represented by the fence/hill. Though the afore-mentioned proverb is a strong piece of advice against comparing what we possess with what others have, the aim of my paper is exactly that: to compare proverbs belonging to the Romanian culture to those of the Korean one, not for the sake of highlighting the wisdom or beauty of the Romanian over the Korean proverbs or vice versa but rather for identifying similarities and differences in terms of structure, vocabulary, and, above all, meaning, being aware that proverbs are elements of language that best reflect a culture’s beliefs and values. To this aim, 50 Romanian proverbs selected from two memorable Romanian sources (Iordache Golescu’s <italic>Proverbe comentate</italic> ‘Commented Proverbs’ and Anton Pann’s <italic>Proverbele românilor</italic> ‘The Romanians’ Proverbs’) will be compared with their Korean counterparts.</p></abstract>

“The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence/hill” is an old English proverb which shows that people tend to appreciate more what others have, just by crossing (with their eyes) the border represented by the fence/hill. Though the afore-mentioned proverb is a strong piece of advice against comparing what we possess with what others have, the aim of my paper is exactly that: to compare proverbs belonging to the Romanian culture to those of the Korean one, not for the sake of highlighting the wisdom or beauty of the Romanian over the Korean proverbs or vice versa but rather for identifying similarities and differences in terms of structure, vocabulary, and, above all, meaning, being aware that proverbs are elements of language that best reflect a culture’s beliefs and values. To this aim, 50 Romanian proverbs selected from two memorable Romanian sources (Iordache Golescu’s Proverbe comentate ‘Commented Proverbs’ and Anton Pann’s Proverbele românilor ‘The Romanians’ Proverbs’) will be compared with their Korean counterparts.

Proverbs as a Means of Crossing Cultural Borders

Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Proverbs as a Means of Crossing Cultural Borders"}

“The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence/hill” is an old English proverb which shows that people tend to appreciate more what others have,...

Proverbs as a Means of Crossing Cultural Borders

Published Online: Feb 25, 2019

Page range: 85 - 97

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2018-0015

Keywords
proverb, internal and external markers, cultural characteristics

© 2018 Elena Buja, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Proverbs as a Means of Crossing Cultural Borders

Published Online: Feb 25, 2019

Page range: 85 - 97

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2018-0015

Keywordsproverb, internal and external markers, cultural characteristics

© 2018 Elena Buja, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
proverb, internal and external markers, cultural characteristics