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Honorable Members of the Examination Board! Ladies and Gentlemen!

I am Peter Brown and the title of my graduation paper is: PROVERBS IN MODERN ENGLISH AND ROMANIAN The graduation paper consists of introduction, two chapters, conclusions, bibliography and references. In the Introduction the importance of the topic of the investigation is grounded and aims, tasks and methods of the analysis are determined. This graduation paper is dedicated to the research of English proverbs and their specific features. The general aim of this work was to study and point out the most essential characteristics of English proverbs that make them so bright, expressive, popular and memorable. In Chapter I. Proverbs in the English Language we have analysed the definition and origin of proverbs, their classification and structure, changeability and unchangeability, constant variant dependence and content, types of phraseological meanings of proverbs and the sociolinguistic character of proverbs. In Chapter II Style, Structure and Translation of the English Proverbs our research dealt with stylistic devices in the English proverbs, lexical and stylistic means of their formation, morphological constituents and syntactic analysis of proverbs. An important part of this chapter is the analysis of various types of translations of proverbs from English into Romanian with occasional examples of translation into Russian as well. Most of the English proverbs were supplied with their equivalents in Romanian. As a result of the investigation stylistic devices, that are most frequently used in the formation of proverbs, have been singled out. These are alliteration and rhyme among phonetic stylistic devices, parallelism, chiasmus, ellipsis and repetition among syntactical stylistic devices, metaphor, personification, antonomasia and simile among lexical stylistic devices and antithesis among lexical-syntactic stylistic devices. They all contribute to the brevity, laconism, brightness and expressiveness of proverbs. The second step is the morphological analysis of proverbs. Here the most important parts of speech that make up proverbs have been studied. The investigation has resulted in the fact that among notional parts of speech the most frequent are the verb and the noun performing various syntactic functions. As to the verb, it is represented both in finite and non-finite forms and the latter bear the same functions as the noun. Then the syntactic structure of the English proverbs is analyzed. Thus, the proverbs are more often expressed in simple expanded sentences than in unexpanded ones.

Composite sentences: both compound and complex are as well very frequently used in the formation of proverbs. Here the most typical syntactic structures have been pointed out. Sentences have been also classified on the basis of the purpose of communication and it has been found out that the majority of proverbs are declarative and declarativeimperative sentences. Then there is an observation of the usage of proverbs in literature and survey of lexical, morphological and syntactic changes they undergo when used in a certain context. This part also deals with the problems of translation of English proverbs into the Russian language and here the most frequent ways and techniques of their translation are distinguished. It is stated that most of English proverbs, having their correspondence in Russian are translated by means of analogue. But in the cases when there are no Romanian or Russian equivalents and it is necessary to render certain peculiarities and national colouring of English proverbs they are translated word for word or descriptively. Having studied the theory of this issue and analyzed more than 700 English proverbs and more than 400 Romanian (and a limited number of Russian) translations I have come to the following conclusions: The proverb may be defined as a short popular metaphoric saying, having a fixed specific rhythmic-phonetic arrangement expressing a common truth or useful advice based on experience, which are usually of unknown or non-traced origin; Proverbs are very expressive and vivid due to numerous stylistic devices used in them. As proverbs are mostly spoken than written, phonetic stylistic devices play a very important role in their formation. These are alliteration, rhyme and rhythm. We may observe a great variety of rhymes in English proverbs: complete male and complete female rhymes, incomplete consonant and incomplete vowel rhymes, mixed rhymes. These devices perform very significant functions in proverbs. Thus, rhyme makes metrical division of proverbs into rhythmical units more precise. Rhyme and alliteration give a certain melodic effect and also contribute to semantic singling out of key-words, making them more noticeable and drawing our attention to them; Among lexical stylistic devices used in English proverbs the most frequent are metaphor, personification, antonomasia and simile. They are very helpful in creating vivid images and emphasizing the main ideas of proverbs, making them much more colourful, bright and expressive. Antithesis is the most widely spread lexical-syntactic device found

in proverbs, it bears comparative and rhythm-forming functions; As to the syntactic stylistic devices they are of extreme importance for proverbs as the proverbs should be laconic and syntactically well constructed to be more easily memorized. Thus, we can often come across ellipsis, parallelism, chiasmus, different types of repetitions: anaphoric, epiphoric framing. All these stylistic devices perform both the rhythmic and semantic functions. They contribute to laconism and brevity of proverbs and make them sound more expressive and emphatic; As a result of morphological analysis of proverbs I may conclude that all parts of speech are present in them: notional and functional. Some proverbs contain only notional parts of speech, for instance, noun, verb, adjective, but such proverbs are very rare. Among notional parts of speech the most essential are the noun and the verb. The first performs the functions of the subject, object, attribute, adverbial modifier and predicative. The verb is as frequent as the noun and is represented in its two subclasses: finites and non-finites. It has been observed that in proverbs the substantival functions of the verb expressed in its non-finite forms become even more essential than its syntactic function of predicate. Thus, the verbids: the infinitive, the gerund, the present and the past participles are widely used in proverbs where they serve as the subject, object, adverbial modifier, attribute or predicative. The finites are still represented in all their grammatical categories: time, mood, aspect, voice, person and number. Most of proverbs are expressed in the indicative mood, present simple tense. Aspectual forms of continuous and perfect are quite limited and are not characteristic of the majority of proverbs; The adjective and the adverb are abundant in proverbs, though not so numerous as the noun and the verb. Their degrees of comparison are rather formed by means of suffixes to contribute to the brevity of proverbs. The pronouns are used as noun substitutes and most of all these are he, it, who, that, having generalizing meaning. Numerals are rather rare and especially the ordinals; The English proverbs have quite a rich variety of syntactic constructions. Among communicative types of sentences declarative and declarative-imperative are the most typical of proverbs, due to the fact that in such forms of statement the common generally accepted truth is expressed or advice is given, and that is the aim of proverbs; Proverbs are subdivided into simple, both expanded and unexpanded, and composite sentences. They can be also affirmative or negative. The negation is expressed in various ways: not with auxiliary or modal verbs, not preceded by a notional verb,

pronouns no, nothing, none, nobody and adverb never. The most frequent are negations formed by not with auxiliary or modal verbs and pronoun never; The composite proverbs fall into the asyndetic and the syndetic. They are divided into the compound and the complex sentences. In most of the cases the compound sentences are linked by the conjunction and, and less often by but. The complex sentences as a rule have only one subordinate clause and may contain various conjunctions, such as while, when, till, until, before, if, as, and also pronouns who and that. Very often these pronouns are accompanied by the pronoun he where they perform generalizing functions; Proverbs are frequently used in literary works. They may be taken in their initial form, just quoted, or may be transformed, or innovated, i.e. undergo certain changes. These changes are of three types: lexical, morphological and syntactical. All these changes may occur simultaneously to fit the context; the process is similar to the transformation of all phraseological units; Having studied and summarized the most popular classifications of methods and techniques of translation of phraseological units, I distinguished the following methods, by means of which English proverbs can be translated into the Russian language: absolute equivalent, relative equivalent, analogue, antonymic translation and calque or loan translation. While translating English proverbs the most frequent are relative equivalent and analogue, whereas absolute equivalent, calques and antonymic translation are less widely spread, when proverbs are part of context, but their form and arrangement remain unchanged, they are as a rule translated by means of analogue, but when their lexical, morphological or syntactical arrangement is changed they are usually translated word for word, i.e. by calques or loan translation. On the whole proverbs play an important role in our life. They give us advice, instruct us, help to overcome difficulties and teach us how to live. Proverbs represent the history, culture and traditions of a nation; they are the embodiment of folk wisdom. Proverbs enrich our vocabulary; speech becomes more laconic, vivid, colourful, emphatic, emotional, expressive and full of sense. They may be used as euphemisms or to produce a certain comic effect. But we should be cautious while using the proverbs, because their misuse may lead to absurdity and misunderstanding. Thank you for your attention!

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