National stereotypes on education presented in folklore small texts (by the material of Russian, English and German proverbs and sayings)

Abstract

It is commonly acknowledged, that folklore texts (tales, proverbs, sayings, songs, etc.) fix people's wisdom throughout many generations, preserving cultural entity and peculiarity. This paper is dedicated to the investigation of the national stereotypic presentations on education. By means of cognitive and discourse analyses of small folklore texts, depicting the process of learning or schooling, the authors reveal the national stereotypes on the social event of education in different communities. The analytical corpus consisted of the proverbs and sayings taken from the authentic sources of three languages: Russian, English and German. The authors studied the lexical, communicative and stylistic means of rendering the conceptual sphere Education for each language. The results of the undertaken investigation disclose similar and differential features of national worldviews of Russian, English and German people.