The Contemporary consumer and creator of proverbs, or why do we need proverbs today?

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Tautosaka; Tradicijos; Pasakojimas; Patarlės; Paremiologija; Paremiology; Folklore; Folk Traditions; Storytelling; Proverbs.

ENAmong international paremiologists it is universally recognised that the proverb genre has survived the challenges of modern communication, has spread into new uncharacteristic spheres, is taking on new forms, is changing and continuously developing. The goal of this article is to present contemporary Lithuanian proverb usage within an international context in order to highlight both its cosmopolitan aspects and national singularities. We will review how contemporary Lithuanian proverbs are used and how they can be applied in the public sphere; we will present what kinds of proverbial expressions are used by the contemporary Lithuanian-speaking community and how they are modified in order to achieve linguistic and paralinguistic goals; and we will attempt to draw conclusions about the intentions behind the use of proverbs in contemporary communication. Lithuanian paremiology stands on asolid tradition of studying proverbs: substantial historical comparativistic and aesthetic paremiological studies are complemented by Lithuanian ethnolinguistic works. Researchers only started paying attention to contemporary proverb usage at the end of the twentieth century, when they began to collect new combinations such as reworkings of traditional proverbs (anti-proverbs) and began to examine the specifics of new communications contexts. Until then, Lithuanian folklorists did not consider modern proverbial expressions to be equally valuable as older texts-they saw the parodying of traditional proverbs as a sign of the degradation of folklore and considered new derivations as removed from the purview of paremiology and as atypical, non-traditional, and individual witticisms. As a result, researchers noted and recorded such sayings only inadvertently, or as paremiological curiosities.It is now evident that tendencies in contemporary Lithuanian proverb usage are similar to those taking place in other linguistic communities worldwide. The most distinct signs of these tendencies are: a changed and continuously changing pool of proverbs; the spread of proverbs to multiple communications fields; changes in the functions of proverbs; the tendency to improvise on and re-phrase traditional sayings, to modify them and create so-called anti-proverbs; and the active borrowing of proverbs. Within the context of international contemporary paremiological phenomena it becomes possible to look for national particularities—in terms of linguistic expression (for example, different models of anti-proverb model formation are popular in different languages); political, social, and cultural environment (each nations active paremic fund reflects that culture's realities and going concerns); and aspects of national identity. [Extract, p. 134-136]