A questionnaire: University students and proverbs

Abstract

Results of the questionnaire in regard to proverbs, which has been done in April 2005 with the participation 84 university students, have been evaluated in two respects. Firstly, proverbs which are the products of oral cultures are patterned expressions and due to their formulaic patterns they are easy to remember. It also shows that thinking processes of oral and literate cultures share great deal of similarities in respect to the verbal expressions like proverbs. In addition to this, results have shown that, patterned expressions like proverbs could substitute each other. Secondly, the possible relationship between proverbs and historical experiences has been analyzed. The proverbs which are patterned expression forms contain certain social and historical experiences generally accepted by people. Based on the fact that the most of the university students primarily cited proverbs with "economic" contents, it is been argued that this collectivity of answers in economic grounds could be related to the "saving discourse" of the Turkish Republic and social history.