Abstract
This study investigates the crucial replay relationship between proverbs and culture, then more emphasis has been put upon the role of proverbs in revealing national culture. The meaning of ‘culture’ and the various implications of this concept is discussed through the context of English and Arabic proverbs. A special attention has been paid to the religious and heritage features and their impact on people’s behavior in both England and Arab Emirates society in particular. Hofstede’s (1980, 1991) theory of cultural models is adopted to better understand the meaning of the national culture. Five dimensions of this model (power distance, uncertainty-avoidance, individualism-collectivism, and masculinity-femininity, long-short term orientation) were suggested to explain the implications and cultural values that categorize the particular culture from another. The paper analyzes several culture values through English and Arabic proverbs. Although culture diversity mainly reveals culture difference, there are common aspects between both communities.
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Notes
- 1.
The main focus of discussing the term “culture” will be on cognitive perspective. See Hofstede’s definition (1991).
- 2.
Stuart Chase, The Proper Study of Mankind. An Inquiry into the Science of Human Relations (Harper and Brothers, New York, 1948).
- 3.
Operationlism is a method by which culture aspects are measured, was extremely influential during the 1940s and the 1950s.
- 4.
Edward B. Tylor’s Primitive Culture articulates one of two major theories of culture to emerge around. His theory defines culture in descriptive terms as the “complex whole” that makes up social ideas and institutions, and in this it helped to establish anthropology as a recognized science.
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Ba-awaidhan, A.G. (2019). Culture Diversity in G. Hofstede’s Model with Reference to English—Arabic Proverbs. In: Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, B. (eds) Contacts and Contrasts in Cultures and Languages. Second Language Learning and Teaching(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04981-2_4
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