1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910792595603321

Autore

Domínguez Barajas Elías <1968->

Titolo

The function of proverbs in discourse [[electronic resource] ] : the case of a Mexican transnational social network / / by Elías Domínguez Barajas

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, NY, : Mouton de Gruyter, 2010

ISBN

1-282-71642-5

9786612716423

3-11-022489-5

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (197 p.)

Collana

Contributions to the sociology of language ; ; 98

Classificazione

400

IM 7075

Disciplina

401/.41

Soggetti

Proverbs - History and criticism

Discourse analysis

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Chapter 1 Introduction -- Chapter 2 The López social network and its proverbs -- Chapter 3 Proverbs mean more than they say -- Chapter 4 Proverbs do more than they mean -- Chapter 5 Toward praxis: Linking the saying with the thinking -- Chapter 6 The academic stakes of language use -- Chapter 7 Beyond school halls -- Backmatter

Sommario/riassunto

Grounded primarily in the ethnography of communication and aligned with the multidisciplinarity of discourse analysis, the book examines the use of proverbs in the daily life of a social network of Mexican-origin transnational families in Chicago and Michoacán, Mexico. Various and detailed analyses of actual proverb use reveal that proverbs in this particular population function as a highly contextualized communicative strategy that serves four discrete social functions: to argue, to advise, to establish rapport, and to entertain. Proposing that the social and cognitive aspects of language use must be combined for a complete understanding of how such genres of language are actually used by regular people in daily life, the author shows how ordinary people use sophisticated cognitive processes to



interpret the socially-relevant meanings of proverbs in everyday conversation. The book provides an unusual mix of contextualized discourse analysis that is ethnographic, linguistic, and cognitive, yielding much needed insight into a segment of the Mexican-origin population of the Midwestern U.S., a population whose increasing importance and size is often mentioned, but about which precious few linguistic studies have been conducted. The volume not only helps to fill this void but it is also one of the few studies that focuses on the impact of transnationalism on linguistic practices, regardless of cultural group. Departing from the conventional approach of ignoring the role of everyday-language use in order to focus exclusively on culture, economics, or migrant patterns, the book makes linguistic practice the central issue, and thus affirms that it is language that weaves together the two distant sites of transnational communities, providing a fertile area for understanding the perspectives of the transmigrants themselves.