English proverbs as a reflection of social stereotypes

Social stereotypes are extremely generalized and simplified views about various subjects and social phenomena that have evolved in the course of society development. Proverbs are also generalized statements that have been formulated by people throughout the history. The aim of our research is to pro...

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Main Author: T. E. Alexeeva
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Samara National Research University 2022-10-01
Series:Вестник Самарского университета: История, педагогика, филология
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.ssau.ru/hpp/article/viewFile/10681/9229
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author T. E. Alexeeva
author_facet T. E. Alexeeva
author_sort T. E. Alexeeva
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description Social stereotypes are extremely generalized and simplified views about various subjects and social phenomena that have evolved in the course of society development. Proverbs are also generalized statements that have been formulated by people throughout the history. The aim of our research is to prove that the proverbs are actually the reflection of social stereotypes that have long been affecting social relations. Using the method of continuous sampling we have selected the English proverbs that contain the main categories of existing stereotypes: gender, age, ethnic and professional stereotypes. We have studied the most wide-spread stereotypes about men and women, elderly people, popular occupations as well as some stereotyped notions of the British about themselves and have chosen the proverbs illustrating these generalized beliefs. We have shown that the laconic, metaphoric and memorable form of proverbs facilitates their rooting in the peoples consciousness and passing them on practically unchanged from generation to generation. Statistical and comparative analysis made it possible to group the proverbs on the basis of stereotype categories and to find out their percentage ratio. The proverbs containing gender stereotypes appear to be most numerous with the prevailing number of sayings about women. Age stereotypes reflected in the proverbs are mostly related to elderly people. Professional stereotypes embrace a small number of occupations and those few are most often of negative character. Ethnic stereotypes encountered in the proverbs represent the British most favorably. The relevance of the paper lies in the fact that the study of stereotypes as reflected in the proverbs would contribute to making people give up stereotyped thinking in favour of acquiring their own attitudes and viewpoints.
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spelling doaj.art-3c66aebaeb3344e09e21ac9591ffb1912023-10-25T09:38:57ZengSamara National Research UniversityВестник Самарского университета: История, педагогика, филология2542-04452712-89462022-10-0128312713510.18287/2542-0445-2022-28-3-127-1358820English proverbs as a reflection of social stereotypesT. E. Alexeeva0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9143-2380Academy of Law and Management of the Federal Penal Service of RussiaSocial stereotypes are extremely generalized and simplified views about various subjects and social phenomena that have evolved in the course of society development. Proverbs are also generalized statements that have been formulated by people throughout the history. The aim of our research is to prove that the proverbs are actually the reflection of social stereotypes that have long been affecting social relations. Using the method of continuous sampling we have selected the English proverbs that contain the main categories of existing stereotypes: gender, age, ethnic and professional stereotypes. We have studied the most wide-spread stereotypes about men and women, elderly people, popular occupations as well as some stereotyped notions of the British about themselves and have chosen the proverbs illustrating these generalized beliefs. We have shown that the laconic, metaphoric and memorable form of proverbs facilitates their rooting in the peoples consciousness and passing them on practically unchanged from generation to generation. Statistical and comparative analysis made it possible to group the proverbs on the basis of stereotype categories and to find out their percentage ratio. The proverbs containing gender stereotypes appear to be most numerous with the prevailing number of sayings about women. Age stereotypes reflected in the proverbs are mostly related to elderly people. Professional stereotypes embrace a small number of occupations and those few are most often of negative character. Ethnic stereotypes encountered in the proverbs represent the British most favorably. The relevance of the paper lies in the fact that the study of stereotypes as reflected in the proverbs would contribute to making people give up stereotyped thinking in favour of acquiring their own attitudes and viewpoints.https://journals.ssau.ru/hpp/article/viewFile/10681/9229social stereotypesgender, age, professional, ethnic stereotypesenglish proverbs
spellingShingle T. E. Alexeeva
English proverbs as a reflection of social stereotypes
Вестник Самарского университета: История, педагогика, филология
social stereotypes
gender, age, professional, ethnic stereotypes
english proverbs
title English proverbs as a reflection of social stereotypes
title_full English proverbs as a reflection of social stereotypes
title_fullStr English proverbs as a reflection of social stereotypes
title_full_unstemmed English proverbs as a reflection of social stereotypes
title_short English proverbs as a reflection of social stereotypes
title_sort english proverbs as a reflection of social stereotypes
topic social stereotypes
gender, age, professional, ethnic stereotypes
english proverbs
url https://journals.ssau.ru/hpp/article/viewFile/10681/9229
work_keys_str_mv AT tealexeeva englishproverbsasareflectionofsocialstereotypes