CULTURAL BRANDING MODELS IN ENGLISH AND ROMANIAN PROVERBS.
A CONCEPTUAL METAPHORIC ANALYSIS
GABRIELA ANDRIOAI 1, ALEXANDRA MORARU 2 1. “Vasile Alecsandri” University of Bacău, Romania
2. “Dimitrie Cantemir” Christian University of Bucharest, Romania
The present paper attempts to decode cultural differences, as well as specific national brands in terms of linguistic projections of cultural identities. The paper finds its place in the series of discourse analyses which apply linguistic and cultural theories to different texts. However, the novelty of this work resides in its use of the latest linguistic trend – cognitive semantics – as its most important apparatus as well as the application of Conceptual Metaphor Theory to English proverbs by following the theoretical cognitive-semantic studies of George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, Gilles Fauconnier and others. Starting from the premise that a brand is a particular product made by a company exactly as language is the cultural tool of a society, the paper proposes an interpretation of proverbs as cultural branding products. Proverbs are rich sources of cultural models which speak about the national identity of a society. Moreover, proverbs may be interpreted as cultural signs which convey moral lessons to be learned from certain events or happenings. The metaphorical images that we perceive while interpreting proverbs help us interpret similar situations.
