A Comparative Study of English, Russian and Czech Proverbs

This thesis deals with the usage of proverbs in contemporary language and compares English, Russian and Czech proverbs. The theoretical part explains the differences in terminology between idiomatics and phraseology, defines phraseology and incorporates proverbs into the field of paremiology together with an explanation of its subject of study and paremiographic activities. Further on, the proverbs themselves are described and their individual types and subtypes are set apart. Attention is also paid to their origin and meaning in the past and today. The practical part examines concrete proverbs of three languages. For the purpose of comparative study, four types of equivalence are established and on this basis, selected proverbs are compared and contrasted. The analysed proverbs are further examined from grammatical and semantic perspectives. The geographical viewpoint is also taken into account because it is evident that proverbs of the individual languages can differ due to the different locations of the given countries