Saturday, October 22, 2016

Review About Typology and Discourse Analysis

Typology and Discourse Analysis

By John Myhill


0 Introduction

The relationship between the typology and the analysis of discourse has been characterized by, on the one hand, the compatibility of a common ideology and, on the other hand, the practical difficulties inherent in combining the interests of both sub-disciplines. Compatibility common ideology is the result of sub-disciplines various views that the study of language should be based on empirical data analysis rather than a thought experiment. In syntax, semantics, and even pragmatics, intuitions have played a central role in gathering data, and interaction with discourse analysis has tended to be controversial from the outset because of the emphasis in discourse analysis upon the empirical analysis of linguistic data. A discourse analyst interested in the subdiscipline’s relationship with, for example, syntax must immediately discuss performance data and phenomena that mainstream syntacticians simply reject as irrelevant; thus any syntax combined with discourse analysis can only be nonmainstream syntax. No such ideological problem arises in the case of typology: intuitions play essentially no role in the data analyzed by typologists, and typologists are only too happy, in principle, to consider the possible relevance of discourse phenomena to the problems they investigate. There has, therefore, been relatively little research which can be said to have been the product of the interaction between these subdisciplines. Before proceeding, it will be necessary to describe what I am taking to be “typology.”


The prototypical typologies studies have data from a variety of genetically unrelated languages, analyzed in a general descriptive paradigm that allows for direct, systematic, and (relatively) just comparing data from various languages ​​and propose hypotheses about human language in general. This type of study was pioneered by Joseph Greenberg (1966a, 1966b), who categorized a large number of languages according to, e.g., most common order of subject, verb, and direct object, order of adposition and noun, etc., and, on the basis of this categorization, determined correlations which could be hypothesized as characteristic of human language in general (e.g. verb-object languages are very likely to have prepositions rather than postpositions). It is the use of a systematic common descriptive paradigm, allowing for direct comparison between a wide variety of languages, which distinguishes the methodology of typology from that of other approaches. Within the field of discourse analysis, there have been many studies which have compared different languages but which would not, on this understanding, be considered to be specifically typological, because they are not focused upon developing a system for direct, systematic, and universal comparison of a wide variety of languages as Greenberg’s studies were (e.g. Tannen 1981; Brown and Levinson 1987; Blum-Kulka 1991). Such works are discursive in nature, typically comparing English with one (or very rarely two) other language(s) and selecting examples which show how the languages differ in certain respects, or, alternatively, how they can fulfill similar discourse functions using constructions which may superficially appear to be different.

Thus, although such studies are comparative, they are not really directed toward establishing a systematic universal framework for categorizing discourse phenomena in the way that Greenberg’s studies established systematic universal framework for categorizing syntactic phenomena. Because I am discussing the relationship of typology and discourse analysis, then, I will in the present chapter discuss those approaches which have been more similar to Greenberg’s in this respect. Section 1 of this chapter will describe general problems associated with methodology combining typology and discourse analysis. Sections 2 and 3 then discuss two approaches to these problems, the use of universal conceptual systems of classification and the use of translation data.

1 Problems of Typological Discourse Analysis

The study of the phenomenon of discourse within the framework of the typology presents some inherent difficulties which can not be found in other areas typology. Traditional typological studies (Greenberg 1966a; Bybee 1985; Croft 1990) use as their main source of data reference grammars from a wide variety of languages, and the linguistic phenomena they consider are those which are likely to be found in a reference grammar, e.g typical word order (of subject/object/verb, adposition/noun, etc.), structural characteristics of voice alternations, phonological inventory, etc. Unfortunately, this is not possible with the sort of phenomena typically of interest to discourse analysts. For example, if I were to attempt to do a typological study of the functions of contrastive connectives similar to English but, I could probably gather a list of words in a wide variety of languages with some type of generally similar function, but it would be impossible on the basis of the descriptions of these particles
in reference grammars to understand and then compare the functions of these different words.

Another problem for typological discourse analysis as compared with more traditional discourse analysis is the degree of familiarity of the researcher with the languages to be analyzed; in a typological study the linguist is not going to know all the languages under investigation very well, while in a traditional discourse stud the investigator is likely to be a native speaker of or very proficient in the language(s) under investigation. While there are recorded cases of individuals knowing a large number of languages, these are typically closely related or at least related languages; in typological studies, on the other hand, it is typical to have data from languages from 15–20 different language families. Even in this case there has to be much more dependence upon observations of textual patterns (so that longer texts must be used) and much less upon introspective judgments than would be the case for linguists working in their native languages. In such a situation, we cannot expect the relatively quick and impressive types of language-universal generalizations which individual typological studies of, e.g., word order patterns have been able to produce; in fact, it is unlikely that any single researcher will be able to conduct studies of a genetically diverse enough group of languages to allow for the degree of confidence in universality which typologists are accustomed to. Rather, in order to achieve an extensive genetic spread, it is necessary for a variety of discourse analysts, each working in a number of languages, to develop a uniform means of systematically comparing their results from these different languages.
  
1.1  Cross-linguistic comparison of discourse function and categories

A side of the question of where the data to analyze, it is also necessary to typology discourse analysts consider the nature of the discourse categories that will be used. this very common for experts describe the category of discourse in different languages ​​to using the same words to describe something in a language they are investigating, for example, "Topics," "focus," "On the contrary," etc., but this does not mean that they are referring to the phenomenon of the same discourse. For example, although the term “topic” has been used to refer to a supposedly discourse-based category in a wide variety of languages, there is no cross-linguistic agreement about what a “topic” is. In each language, “topic” actually refers to whatever discourse properties result in a certain language-specific structure being used, so that the definition is a result of the language-specific pattern, and these structures in different languages actually serve clearly distinct functions.

In order to deal with this problem of cross-linguistic comparison of function, linguists working in typological discourse analysis have focused upon developing a set of criteria which make it possible to give an objective, cross-linguistic definition of the discourse function of a particular form or construction. Using these criteria, a linguist can go through a text in a given language, note all the occurrences of a given form or construction in that language, determine numerical scores for that form or construction according to various parameters (e.g. for an NP, how recently its referent has been mentioned, whether it refers to a human being, etc.), and then compare these scores with those of other constructions in other languages. The question, of course, is exactly which scores should be used in which cases, and this is a matter of ongoing research. A second approach to the problem of comparison is to use translation data; we can get some idea of the functional similarity of and difference between constructions in different languages by seeing how often and in what circumstances they translate as each other. In section 2, I will discuss parameters used in classification of discourse function; in section 3, I will discuss the use of translation data.

2 Universal Systems of Classification of Discourse Function

I will describe here various text-count methods which have been developed to give an objective, cross-linguistically applicable description of the discourse function of a given construction. The use of such text counts does not suggest that speakers themselves go through any calculations similar to those of the linguist, nor does it imply that a given text-count score will predict with 100 percent accuracy which construction will be used on each occasion. Rather, such counts are purely descriptive tools to allow for cross-linguistic comparison.

2.1 Referential distance and topic persistence

The most widely used text-counts, associated particularly with Talmy Givón and students of his, are called Referential Distance (RD) and Topic Persistence (TP). We can say that an NP is generally more topical if its RD is low and its TP is high, but of course we are really measuring two types of topicality here, anaphoric (RD) and cataphoric (TP). RD and TP counts make it possible to give a functional profile of a given construction or NP type. For example, suppose that we are trying to give a general characterization of the function of the active–passive alternation in English, e.g. Bill wrote that book vs. That book was written by Bill. We go through a text, collecting all active transitive and passive constructions, and then count the average RDs for the Agents of actives (Bill in Bill wrote that book), the Agents of passives (Bill in That book was written by Bill), the Patients of actives (that book in Bill wrote that book), and the Patients of passives (That book in That book was written by Bill). We then calculate the mean and median RD and TP scores for active Agents, passive Agents, active
Patients, and passive Patients, or list the populations in a table. By doing similar studies in a variety of languages, we can systematically compare the discourse functions of active and passive constructions in different languages. This approach has been useful in providing a typological perspective on functional alternations, clarifying the discourse motivations underlying these alternations, and also sharpening the descriptive tools for typological descriptions; it does not suggest that speakers make such calculations in deciding which construction to use (although RD can be interpreted as being generally correlated with cognitive accessibility). In the remainder of this section, I will discuss a number of studies which have been done using these measures.
  
2.1.1 RD and TP in analysis of voice systems

Voice alternations in different languages have been characterized in various descriptive grammars in a variety of ways, in particular Active vs. Passive, Direct vs. Inverse, Ergative vs. Antipassive, and (for Philippine languages) Agent Focus vs. Goal Focus. However, the basis for such characterizations has often been unclear. Consider, for example, the following constructions in Tagalog :
(1) Bumasa ang lalaki ng diyaryo.
read man newspaper
“The man read a newspaper.”
Case functions in Tagalog are marked by prepositions, here ang and ng. It is clear that ang marks intransitive subjects (e.g. matalino ang lalaki “intelligent ang man” = “The man is intelligent”). The question here is what general function to ascribe to ang and ng. One possibility is to say that ang marks subjects (both intransitive and transitive) and ng marks direct objects and oblique NPs. Then (1) would be an active construction, with lalaki as the subject and diyaryo as the direct object, while (2) would be a passive construction, with diyaryo as the subject and lalaki as the oblique Agent. Alternatively, we might say that ang is an absolutive case marker (marking intransitive subjects and direct objects), while ng is an ergative (transitive subject) and oblique case marker. Then (1) would be an antipassive construction (grammatically intransitive), with lalaki as the intransitive subject marked with the absolutive preposition ang, and diyaryo (which is in this case an oblique rather than direct object) marked with the oblique preposition ng, and (2) would be an ergative construction,
with lalaki as the transitive subject, marked with the ergative preposition ng, an diyaryo as the direct object, marked with the absolutive preposition ang. In fact, earlier studies of Philippine languages (e.g. Schachter and Otanes 1972) used yet anothe type of terminology, referring to ang as marking “focused” constituents (which causes confusion of another type in terms of cross-linguistic comparison, since the term “focus” is usually used with some sort of entirely different meaning) and ng as marking certain nonfocused constituents, so that (1) is an “Actor Focus” construction while (2) is a “Goal Focus” construction. Similar labeling problems arise in many other languages (see Givón 1994).

2.1.2 RD and word order

Linguists have also applied RD to investigating word order variation. Studies from a variety of languages have found that preverbal arguments have on average a higher RD than postverbal arguments (there does not seem to be any corresponding clear pattern relating TP and word order). However, it is possible to suggest a resolution to this apparent contradiction (although this is speculative and should be checked against more data). Supporting this idea is the fact that in the data from the only SVO language here, Spanish, the researcher specifically excluded existential-presentative constructions from the counts (see Bentivoglio 1983); if these constructions are included, the picture changes, as the postverbal subjects
have a higher RD (11.99, N = 141) than the preverbal ones (8.22, N = 180).

2.2 Temporal sequencing

Another criterion for categorizing discourse function in different languages is temporal
sequencing or foregrounding. Introduced in Labov (1972) (as the concept “narrative clause”), this was first extended to data in a variety of languages in Hopper (1979).
For example, Schiffrin (1981) shows that the English historical present is associated with temporally sequenced clauses, while Hopper (1979) shows that temporal sequencing is associated with the use of the verbal forms with a di-prefix in Malay. Myhill (1992) argues that, in languages with a relatively high frequency of VS order, sequencing is particularly associated with VS word order, while SV order is associated with unsequenced clauses. On the other hand, in languages with a lower frequency of VS order, this correlation is not found. This is shown by the data in table 8.3 (see also data from Old English in Hopper 1979). The Biblical Hebrew data here are particularly striking, in that they show that when the language changed to a lower frequency of VS order, the association between temporal sequencing and VS order disappeared. The concept of temporal sequencing therefore makes it possible to make a typological generalization regarding word order type.

2.3 Other types of text-counts

Linguists have proposed other types of text-counts which can be useful in giving a profile of the discourse function of a construction. Myhill and Xing (1996) propose a definition of the term “contrast” which can be objectively applied to naturally occurring usages so as to categorize individual clauses as contrastive or not (and also to distinguish between different subtypes of contrast), so that one or another contrastive function can be shown to be statistically associated with the use of a certain word order, intonation pattern, or particle (e.g. Japanese wa, Korean -(n)In). In Forrest’s (1994) study of voice alternations in Bella Coola, in addition to counts associated with NP information status such as RD and TP, she also uses a text-count distinguishing between NPs which refer to major characters in a story and those which do not, and shows that variation on this parameter correlates with the use of one or other voice construction.

3 Translation Data

Translation provides another means of comparing discourse functions in different languages. It is useful in that it gives some idea of the functional similarity or difference between constructions in different languages. For example, in Dryer’s (1994) study of voice in Kutenai, he asked a bilingual Kutenai–English speaker to translate a Kutenai text into English. He found that, out of 70 clauses using a certain Kutenai construction clearly associated with highly topical Patients, only nine were translated into English as passives, the rest being translated as actives, suggesting that this Kutenai construction is functionally like an inverse rather than a passive. Sometimes, translation data show that text-counts such as RD and TP do not give a true picture of the functional similarity or difference between different constructions in different languages. For example, Sun and Givón (1985) use data such as RD and TP to argue that object-fronting constructions in Chinese and Biblical Hebrew serve basically the same function. However, Myhill and Xing (1993) show that, if we look at translation data, we see that the object-fronting constructions in these languages are frequently not translated as each other; for example, of 82 OV constructions in a Biblical Hebrew database, 48 (59%) do not use an OV construction in the Chinese translation, while of 193 OV constructions in the Chinese translation, 159 (82%) do not use an OV construction in the Hebrew original. In other words, in the majority of cases, an OV construction in one language would not be used where an OV construction would be used in the other language. This shows that the Hebrew and Chinese OV constructions clearly differ significantly in discourse function, in spite of their RD and TP scores.

References

Bentivoglio, Paola. 1983. Topic continuity
and discontinuity in discourse: a
study of spoken Latin-American
Spanish. In Givón 1983a, pp. 255–312.
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana. 1991.
Interlanguage pragmatics: the case of
requests. In R. Phillipson, ed., Foreign/
Second Language Pedagogy Research,
pp. 255–72. Clevedon: Multilingual
Matters.
Brown, Penelope and Stephen C. Levinson.
1987. Politeness: Some Universals in
Language Usage. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Bybee, Joan L. 1985. Morphology.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Chafe, Wallace L. 1976. Givenness,
contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects,
topics, and point of view. In Li 1976,
pp. 25–56.
Chafe, Wallace L., ed. 1980a. The Pear Stories.
Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Chafe, Wallace L. 1980b. The deployment
of consciousness in the production
Typology and Discourse Analysis 173
of a narrative. In Chafe 1990a,
pp. 9–50.

Monday, October 3, 2016

Definition of Discourse Analysis from Experts

Discourse is generally used to designate the forms of representation, codes, conventions and habits of language that produce specific fields of culturally and historically located meanings. Michel Foucault's early writings ('The Order of Discourse', 1971; The Archaeology of Krlowledge, 1972) were especially influential in this.

Van Dijk (1997a) mentions that discourse is usually identified as a form of spoken language, what is said in public speeches for example, or it could also refer to the ideas of certain schools of thoughts, for instance the discourse of contemporary philosophies.

Discourse is the creation and organization of the segments of a language above as well as below the sentence. It is segments of language which may be bigger or smaller than a single sentence but the adduced meaning is always beyond the sentence. The term discourse applies to both spoken and written language, in fact to any sample of language used for any purpose. Any series of speech events or any combination of sentences in written form wherein successive sentences or utterances hang together is discourse. Discourse can not be confined to sentential boundaries. It is something that goes beyond the limits of sentence. In another words discourse is 'any coherent succession of sentences, spoken or written' (Matthews, 2005:100).

The definition of analysis is the process of breaking down a something into its parts to learn what they do and how they relate to one another.

Analysis is a careful study of something to learn about its parts, what they do, and how they are related to each other.

Van Dijk (1997a) mentions that it is generally thought that discourse analysis can only be done with spoken language since there is an evident interaction between the speakers; nevertheless, written materials can also be analyzed because readers assimilate what they are reading in spite of what may seem a passive interaction between the reader and the text.

Discourse analysis is a broad term for the study of the ways in which language is used in texts and contexts. Also called discourse studies. Developed in the 1970s, the field of discourse analysis is concerned with "the use of language in a running discourse, continued over a number of sentences, and involving the interaction of speaker (or writer) and auditor (or reader) in a specific situational context, and within a framework of social and cultural conventions" 
(Abrams and Harpham, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 2005).

"Discourse analysis is concerned with language use as a social phenomenon and therefore necessarily goes beyond one speaker or one newspaper article to find features which have a more generalized relevance. This is a potentially confusing point because the publication of research findings is generally presented through examples and the analyst may choose a single example or case to exemplify the features to be discussed, but those features are only of interest as a social, not individual, phenomenon."
(Stephanie Taylor, What is Discourse Analysis? Bloomsbury,2013)
 
"Discourse analysis is not only about method; it is also a perspective on the nature of language and its relationship to the central issues of the social sciences. More specifically, we see discourse analysis as a related collection of approaches to discourse, approaches that entail not only practices of data collection and analysis, but also a set of metatheoretical and theoretical assumptions and a body of research claims and studies."
(Linda Wood and Rolf Kroger, Doing Discourse Analysis. Sage, 2000)

The first linguist to refer to discourse analysis was Zellig Harris. In 1952, he investigated the connectedness of sentences, naming his study 'discourse analysis'. Harris claimed explicitly that discourse is the next level in a hierarchy of morphemes, clauses and sentences. He viewed discourse analysis procedurally as a formal methodology, derived from structural methods of linguistic analysis: such a methodology could break a text down into relationships (such as equivalence, substitution) among its lower-level constituents.

A definition as derived from formalist assumptions is that discourse is 'language above the sentence or above the clause' (Stubbs 1983:1).

Michael Stubbs says, 'Any study which is not dealing with (a) single sentences, (b) contrived by the linguist, (c) out of context, may be called discourse analysis.' (Stubbs 1983:131).

Widdowson, also criticizes the well familiar definition of discourse analysis that discourse is the study of language patterns above the sentence and states; If discourse analysis is defined as the study of language patterns above the sentence, this would seem to imply that discourse is sentence writ large: quantitatively different but qualitatively the same phenomenon. It would follow, too, of course, that you cannot have discourse below the sentence. (Widdowson, 2004: 3)

In other words, the discourse information is crucial to a complete theory of language. Smith and Kurthen also argue that 'the existence of arbitrary and language-specific syntactic and referential options for conveying a proposition requires a level of linguistic competence beyond sentential syntax and semantics' (Smith and Kurthen 2007:455).

Discourse analysis is necessarily the analysis of language in use. The functionalist view of discourse analysis asserts that 'the study of discourse is the study of any aspect of language use' (Fasold 1990:65).

Sunday, June 26, 2016

The Branches of Semantics "Idiom"



An idiom (also called idiomatic expression) is an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning conventionally understood by native speakers. An interesting fact regarding the device is that the expression is not interpreted literally. The phrase is understood as to mean something quite different from what individual words of the phrase would imply. Alternatively, it can be said that the phrase is interpreted in a figurative sense. Further, idioms vary in different cultures and countries. This meaning is different from the literal meaning of the idiom's individual elements. In other words, idioms don't mean exactly what the words say. They have, however, hidden meaning.

Idiom Examples

 

Example 1 :

“Every cloud has its silver lining but it is sometimes a little difficult to get it to the mint.”
The statement quoted above uses “silver lining” as an idiom which means some auspicious moment is lurking behind the cloud or the difficult time.

Example 2 :

“American idioms drive me up the hall!”
Here, the word “idioms” is used as an idiom.

Example 3 :

“I worked the graveyard shift with old people, which was really demoralizing, because the old people didn’t have a chance in hell of ever getting out.”
In the extract quoted above, “graveyard shift” is employed as an idiom.

Example 4 :

“As happy as a clam”
Mary was happy as a clam on the day of her wedding.
Meaning : Pleased, very content
Origin : So why in the world would a clam ever be happy? They're shellfish, they don't have feelings. The expression most likely began because when a clam's shell is opened up, it does look like the clam is smiling.




Other Example :
“A hot potato”
Speak of an issue (mostly current) which many people are talking about and which is usually disputed
“A penny for your thoughts”
A way of asking what someone is thinking
“Actions speak louder than words”
People's intentions can be judged better by what they do than what they say.
“Add insult to injury”
To further a loss with mockery or indignity; to worsen an unfavorable situation.
“An arm and a leg”
Very expensive or costly. A large amount of money.
“At the drop of a hat”
Meaning: without any hesitation; instantly.
“Back to the drawing board”
When an attempt fails and it's time to start all over.
“Ball is in your court”
It is up to you to make the next decision or step
“Barking up the wrong tree”
Looking in the wrong place. Accusing the wrong person


Functions of Idiom


Writers and public speakers use idioms generously. The purpose behind this vast use of idioms is to ornate their language, make it richer and spicier and help them in conveying subtle meanings to their intended audience. Not only do idioms help in making the language beautiful, they also make things better or worse through making the expression good or bad.

For example, there are several idioms that convey the death of a person in highly subtle meanings and some do the same in very offensive terms. They are also said to be exact and more correct than the literal words and sometimes a few words are enough to replace a full sentence. They help the writer make his sense clearer than it is, so that he could convey maximum meanings through minimum words and also keep the multiplicity of the meanings in the text intact.

It has also been seen that idioms not only convey subtle meanings but also convey a phenomenon that is not being conveyed through normal and everyday language and also they keep the balance in the communication. Furthermore, they provide textual coherence, so that the reader could be able to piece together a text that he has gone through and extract meanings the writer has conveyed.

References :

http://literarydevices.net/idiom/
http://www.myenglishpages.com/site_php_files/vocabulary-lesson-idioms.php
http://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-an-idiom-definition-examples-quiz.html
http://www.smart-words.org/quotes-sayings/idioms-meaning.html

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

The Branches of Semantics "Proverb"

Proverb is a brief, simple and popular saying, or a phrase that gives advice and effectively embodies a commonplace truth based on practical experience or common sense. A proverb may have an allegorical message behind its odd appearance. The reason of popularity is due to its usage in spoken language as well as in the folk literature. Some authors twist and bend proverbs and create anti-proverbs to add literary effects to their works. However, in poetry, poets use proverbs strategically by employing some parts of them in poems’ titles such as Lord Kennet has written a poem, A Bird in the Bush, which is a popular proverb. Some poems contain multiple proverbs like Paul Muldoon’s poem Symposium.

A. Function of Proverb


Proverbs play very important roles in different types of literary works. The most important function of proverbs is to teach and educate the audience. They often contain an expert advice with a role for educating the readers on what they may face if they would do something. Hence, proverbs play a didactic role, as they play a universal role in teaching wisdom and sagacity to the common people. Since proverbs are usually metaphorical and indirect; therefore, they allow writers to express their message in a less harsh way.

B. Examples of Proverbs in Literature

 

Example 1 :

From William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
“The weakest goes to the wall.”
The weak people are never favored.
He that is strucken blind cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.”

A man who loses his eyesight can never forget the importance of lost eyesight.
“One fire burns out another’s burning,
One pain is lessen’d by another’s anguish.”


You can burn new fire from lightening another fire, similarly a new pain could mitigate your old pain.


Example 2 :

From The Bible
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (1:7)
Wise men always fear the Lord, while fools do not like wisdom and guidance.
“Every word of God is flawless; He is a shield to those who take refuge in him.” (30:5)
Saying of the God are never flawed, He protect them who ask for His help and follows His path.
“Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.” (16:3)
Do your efforts then put faith in Lord for the results, for He knows better and give you reward accordingly.




C. Proverbs Throughout the World


African Proverbs

Across the vast continent of Africa, many African nations disseminated proverbs that were meant to educate and inspire those who used them.
Here are a few examples of African proverbs :
a)    “A tree is known by its fruit” – (of Zulu origin - this means that success is shown by the deeds.)
b)    “I have been bitten by a tsetse fly” – (of Tanzanian origin – this means that a person will continuously be a pest until you pay off a debt.)
c)    “The word of friend makes you cry – the word of an enemy makes you laugh” – (of Algeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger – this means that a friend will tell you the truth and sometimes the truth hurts, whereas an enemy will only lead you down the wrong path by giving you advice that seems good but is not.)

Asian Proverbs

Some examples of Asian proverbs include the following :
a)    “The old horse in the stable still yearns to run” – (this means that those who are older still have things they would like to accomplish.)
b)   “A spark can start a fire that burns the entire prairie” – (this means that a small problem can snowball into a huge problem that can cause major damage.)

c)    “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” – (this means that teaching people is better in the long run because it gives them the skills to provide for themselves as opposed to you doing things for them.) 

American Proverbs

Some examples of American based proverbs include :
a)    "Absence makes the heart grow fonder” – (this means that when you separate from someone that you love by putting distance between you that you will inevitably love them more and yearn to see them.)
b)   "All that glitters is not gold” – (this means that just because something looks good, does not necessarily mean that it is good.)
c)    "A monkey in silk is a monkey no less” – (this means that just because someone dresses fancy does not necessarily mean that they are fancy or of good character.)

English Proverbs

Some examples of English proverbs include :
a)    Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
b)   It’s no use locking the stable door after the horse has bolted.
c)    Laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone.
d)   See a pin and pick it up, all the day you’ll have good luck; see a pin and let it lie, bad luck you’ll have all day.
e)    ‘Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.
f)    Monday’s child is fair of face/Tuesday’s child is full of grace,/Wednesday’s child is full of woe,/Thursday’s child has far to go,/Friday’s child is loving and giving,/Saturday’s child works hard for its living/And a child that’s born on the Sabbath day/Is fair and wise and good and gay.

Proverbs from Other Countries

a)    Arabic Proverb: An army of sheep led by a lion would defeat an army of lions led by a sheep.
b)   Finnish proverb: Even a small star shines in the darkness.
c)    Italian Proverb: After the game, the king and pawn go into the same box.
d)   Jewish Proverb: God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers.
e)    Russian Proverb: Better to stumble than make a slip of the tongue.
f)    Spanish Proverb: Since we cannot get what we like, let us like what we can get.




D. Role of Proverbs in Society

Proverbs play many roles in society. The first, possibly, most common role that a proverb plays is to educate. Most often tossed around as expert advice in conversation, the innate role to educate people on what might happen if they do something. Think of a proverb as a little tidbit of wisdom that just about everyone – no matter where they are from – can offer. There is a proverb for just about every circumstance, and proverbs can be applied to any situation. 
English and American proverbs are almost second nature when delivered. The origins are quite often little known, yet the expressions are popular. Ethnic proverbs, on the other hand, may be a little deeper to digest, and require non-natives of the proverb’s country of origin, to think about the meaning in order to better understand how it applies to their lives.
A proverb (from Latin: proverbium) is a simple and concrete saying, popularly known and repeated, that expresses a truth based on common sense or experience. They are often metaphorical. A proverb that describes a basic rule of conduct may also be known as a maxim. Proverbs fall into the category of formulaic language.
Proverbs are often borrowed from similar languages and cultures, and sometimes come down to the present through more than one language. Both the Bible (including, but not limited to the Book of Proverbs) and medieval Latin (aided by the work of Erasmus) have played a considerable role in distributing proverbs across Europe. Mieder has concluded that cultures that treat the Bible as their "major spiritual book contain between three hundred and five hundred proverbs that stem from the Bible." However, almost every culture has examples of its own unique proverbs.
Examples :
a)    Haste makes waste
b)   A stitch in time saves nine
c)    Ignorance is bliss
d)   Mustn't cry over spilled milk.
e)    You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar.
f)    You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
g)   Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
h)   A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
i)     Fortune favours the bold
j)     Well begun is half done.

References :

http://literarydevices.net/proverb/
http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-proverbs.html
http://www.yourdictionary.com/proverb
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proverb