The Human Trait in Proverbs and Sayings: A Cognitive-Philosophical Insight into the Characterization of Language

Abstract

The article focuses on the linguocognitive and philosophical analysis of the definition and characterization of human traits in proverbs and sayings through the conceptualization of language. Using a comparative method within an anthropocentric framework, the study analyzes French and Armenian proverbs and sayings, emphasizing the role of speech as a practical manifestation of language in revealing human traits. It situates truthfulness and deceitfulness within the interplay between the philosophy of language and reality, considering the construction of reality and the generation of meaning as functions of speech. Furthermore, the cognitive-pragmatic dimension highlights the influential potential of speech in relation to cautiousness. Cognition serves as the vehicle for the ontological, epistemological and ethical mapping of reality within proverbs, defining human nature in the context of the relationship between linguistic unit and concept. Speech, at the metalinguistic level, structures human nature via the concept of language. Consequently, linguocognitive analysis provides a means of defining the semantic framework of the philosophy of proverbial discourse. Within the conceptual field, proverbs and sayings use metaphorical structures to compress ways of characterizing human traits by language and its application: speech. Linguocognitive study of proverbial discourse provides a path for interpreting the philosophy of language, and metaphorical representations, from an intercultural perspective, reveal the domains where these pathways parallel and intersect.