Chapter 11. A cultural linguistic study of embodied Hungarian proverbs representing facial hair

Abstract

This chapter offers a Cultural Linguistic analysis of the conceptualisations of beard and moustache in Hungarian proverbs. While facial hair is an underexploited field in paremiology, the chapter argues that it is an appropriate concept for capturing the cultural aspects of the figurative language collections of proverbs. The study analyses 31 proverbs selected from five collections, where the identification process of cultural conceptualisations involves conceptual analysis combined with drawing on other linguistic evidence and culturally relevant ethnographic data. The results show that the seven target concepts (personality, manliness, independence, patriotism, age, dignity, and wisdom) are interconnected in the Hungarian cultural model of man, and moustache has a dominance and more positive value in cultural cognition as compared to beard. The study shows how the theoretical framework and methodological tools of Cultural Linguistics can be used in studying the cultural elements of proverbs and how they can enhance the understanding of their linkage to cultural models.