CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION
This chapter discusses the background of the study, research questions, objective of the
study, significance of the study, and Operational definitions and key terms.

1.1. Background of the study

Talking about humans and their humanity as well as their culture is a never-ending
discussion; there will be always a passion to dig it up, to uncover, and to reveal the
phenomenon around them as if they are the central of life itself. They have such qualities to be
the phenomenon of life that makes them dominate this world for million years.
They survive with their qualities improving from time to time, they make their own way
to live, and they train themselves struggling, they make their own tools to help them from
dangers and they help each other and communicate using their unique communication tools,
later we call this as the organs of speech and how they produce language using these organs of
speech.
Through the language they produce, the qualities they have will be also drawn in it; the
humans intelligent, wisdom, belief and the other values will be certainly observable. Those
cultural values will show us the humans way of life, their attitudes toward the life and the
values of humanity.
Based on these assumptions, the researcher believe that humans language is the
important key to reveal what happened in the past or what is going to happen in the future.
There are many expressions they make to deliver the meaning and its values, Sayings, Idioms,
proverbs, jokes, humorous expressions, quotes and many more of expressions through
language.
One of the phenomenons found in these many expressions are the cultural values and
the connectivity with the others. When we try to relate language and culture, something
initially comes to our mind is anthropological linguistic. Our minds automatically will push our
attention to this field of study. Anthropological linguistic is that sub-field of linguistic which is
concerned with the place of language in its wider social and cultural context, its role in forging
and sustaining cultural practices and social structures. (foley, 1997 )
Starting from this definition, especially heavily stress on the place of language in its
wider social and cultural context and its role of language forging and sustaining the cultural
practices will be lead us to reveal the phenomenon in the society when they use language to
forging and sustaining cultural practices.
A kind of expressions that possesses very high cultural values is proverb, the underlying
cultural value phenomenon have been successfully researched and noted by Gibbs and Beitel
and they empirical attempts to define proverbs and they found that proverbs have as many as
55 different definitions. For the purpose of the present discussion, I will adopt Gibbs' (1995:
134) view of proverbs, under which proverbs are "familiar, fixed, sentential expressions that
express well-known truths, social norms, or moral concerns".
The aspect of familiarity as noted by Gibss give the researcher a space to enlarge the
discussion and give a chance to relate this aspect with the attitude of the society in which the
people live and practice the usage of the proverbs as well as the value of the cultural values
they believe and practice in their daily lives.
Some related aspects coined by Gibbs in his definition of the proverb above to this
research are: (1). the expression of well-known truths, (2). Social norms, (3). Moral concerns.
These aspects, as the researchers belief, will lead the discussion to the cultural connectivity
between English Indonesian proverbs.
The values of the truth, social norms and moral concerns which are denotatively or
connotatively stated in the proverbs are practiced universally. These values are starting points
to associate the discussion to the different views, such as mentioned by the researcher in the
passages above and in his title of this research.
How to reveal and how to relate Gibbs definition to the main concern of this research;
cultural interconnectivity between English people and Indonesian people through the
interpretation of the proverb? , what importance to reveal it and what benefits will be
contributed to the English teaching and education from this research are the main purposes of
this research.
To reveal the values laid in the proverbs, the researcher will use phraseology theories to
generate the meaning of the proverbs both syntactical meaning and semantic meaning. For the
purposes of finding the connotative meaning the researcher will use pragmatic theories as well
as to interpret the proverb and to relate the cultural meaning and values of the proverbs, the
researcher will use Paremiology theories as well as to unfold the cultural interconnectivity.
Most of the proverbs are expressed using metaphoric language; some people may have
difficulties to understand the meaning and the values hidden in the proverbs. The proverb
forms could be metaphorical in nature
While most proverbial expressions are metaphorical in nature (e.g., the fish rots from the head
first), some of them may be based on personification (e.g., misery loves company), hyperbole
(it's easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of
God), or paradox (the nearer the church, the farther from God), the presence of meter (as in
the proverb you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink), rhyme (haste makes
waste), slant rhyme (a stitch in time saves nine), alliteration (live and let live), assonance (a
rolling stone gathers no moss), and parallelism (a penny saved is a penny earned). (Gibbs and
Beitel 1995). To this list, Kemper (1981) adds another important characteristics of proverbs,
namely the fact that these expressions exhibit a "generic" syntactic form, whereby the use of
the imperative mood or the subjunctive present tense is very common.












Foley, A. William, Anthropological Linguistics: An Introduction foreign language teaching and
research Press, Blackwell Publisher Ltd. 1997)