Lietuvių paremijų funkcijos. Тeorinės pastabos

LTStraipsnyje apžvelgiami paremijų funkcijų tyrimai pasaulyje bei Lietuvoje; apibendrinus juos, stengiamasi atskleisti polifunkcinę paremijų prigimtį ir apibrėžti aiškesnę lietuvių paremijų funkcijų sistemą: apibūdinamos skirtingų lygmenų paremijų funkcijos ir aprašomos būdingiausios tradicinių paremijų funkcijos. [Iš leidinio]Reikšminiai žodžiai: Funkcija; Funkcijos; Kontekstas; Paremija; Paremijos; Paremiologijha; Pastabos; Teorija; Žanras; Adages; Brief; Context; Funkcion; Genre; Jottings; Lithuania; Paremiology; Proverb; Theory.

ENDuring recent years, there is an increasing need to describe certain contemporary Lithuanian paremiological phenomena: i.e. creation of the so-called anti-proverbs and emerging new kinds of expressions; besides, usage of traditional proverbs in modern contexts is more intensively investigated as well. Functional peculiarities could be regarded as making difference in usage of traditional and modern proverbs. In order to facilitate their perception, more definite functional system of traditional proverbs is required. These theoretical remarks present an attempt at summarizing the functional studies by foreign paremiologists, linguists and sociologists, in order to discern (as much as possible, considering the poly-functional character of proverbs) different functional levels and to describe the most typical functions of traditional proverbs. The poly-functional character of proverbs should be perceived both as certain fitting together of different functional levels (proverbs simultaneously "act" as linguistic units, as representatives of traditional culture, as rhetorical means and as instruments of solving the social interactions) and as fulfilling several purposes of the same level, e.g. the social ones. If we accept the idea, that majority of proverbs can be characterized by stability of semantic contents, the most general sign of content, while actually used proverb is realized in various aspects acquiring situational meaning, it seems rational to maintain that proverbs have typical "inner" functions, while being used in definite situations they serve definite purposes and perform situational functions.The communicative function of proverbs is regarded as the most general one. Being folklore genre, proverbs also perform folkloric functions: that of preservation and representation of tradition, affirmation of belonging to a certain community and emphasizing its unity, the general educational, normative function and that of ensuring the psychological comfort. In his comparative study of "Lithuanian Proverbs", Kazys Grigas discerned two functions of Lithuanian proverbs and proverbial phrases: the semantic and the stylistic one. By semantic function, Grigas seems to have meant the whole entity of content-related functions of proverb: the assertive-generalizing (representative-referential), the evaluative (expressive-emotional) and the indicating (appellative-impressive) ones. The stylistic purpose is equally important for proverbs as the semantic one. The esthetic-stylistic function is manifested by the exceptionality of proverb in comparison with the "ordinary" elements of language: poetical images and peculiarities of form (the syntactic structure, rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, etc.) The contextual function embraces the intention (or intentions) of each separate instance of proverb usage. The experience accumulated by contextual research is particularly useful in describing the modern usage of proverbs and especially of anti-proverbs, because the latter are in themselves "contextual": they are frequently very tightly related to concrete relevant issues or created as specific illustrations of these issues, therefore situation of their usage determines both changes in semantic connotation and the distinctive purpose of usage. [From the publication]