Animal-related proverbs in a cognitive and cultural perspective

Abstract The present study investigates dog-related proverbs found in language data from Modern Greek. Two corpus materials were examined and contrasted: one with the proverbs and one concerning the overall cultural schema for the animal. The analysis takes into consideration universal aspects regarding meaning construction in proverbs, together with culture-specific aspects influencing the perception of the animal in the Greek language and culture. The investigation of the language data reveals contradictory conceptualizations for the animal, both literally and metaphorically. However, proverbs reflect mainly negative features of its behavior. Furthermore, apart from the older metaphorical conceptualizations of dogs found in Greek and other languages, newer metaphorical conceptualizations were found in the corpus. Moreover, a dog’s life is perceived in three different ways in Greek language and culture while a distinction between domestic and stray dog emerges through the corpus data.