A sociolinguistic analysis of selected African-American women proverbs

Abstract EN

The status of women has been witnessing dramatic changes throughout the history of Europe and America.

These changes have not taken the same form or directions, they rather differ from one place and another and from one culture to another.

As for America, the concentration of this study is basically upon the status of Afro-American women.

The present study aims at explicating how African-American women are identified through the use of proverbs.

Women proverbs are commonly used by men, however, women themselves make use of these proverbs as well.

The study investigates women representation through African-American proverbs.

For this, it starts with introducing different accounts given for defining proverbs, their uses, characteristics and functions.

A brief account of the African – American variety is then presented in order to help understanding the analyzed proverbs as they are used in their actual context.

Dell Hymes' model (1974) is adopted as a viable sociolinguistic framework for analyzing some representative selected African American proverbs.