International Programs

The understanding of how specific cultures use symbols such as proverbs, and how people adapting to new environments use these symbols, benefits the areas of second language learning, cultural adaptation, intercultural studies, and research on individual cultures. This study attempts to ascertain the main influences on proverb interpretation, especially cultural familiarity, language ability, specific cultural traits, and the existence of equivalent proverbs in various languages. One group of bilingual Mexican native Spanish speakers and a second group of bilingual North American native English speakers were asked to interpret proverbs from their own culture and from that of the other group. These interpretations were then compared for intra- and inter-group similarity. The Mexican group provided both more intra-group similarity and more similarity to the non-member group than did the North Americans. Interpretations of individual proverbs varied greatly, from higher similarity within the non-member group, to higher similarity within the member group. Levels of similarity within groups and between groups seemed not to show cultural familiarity as the determining factor in proverb interpretation. Other influences such as how proverbs are used in individual cultures and familiarity with equivalent proverbs are explored as alternative explanations for patterns seen in proverb interpretation.