CULTURAL TRANSMISSION THROUGH PROVERBS AND ITS INFLUENCE ON CHILDREN’S VERBAL EXPRESSION

Abstract

Proverbs, as concise vehicles of cultural wisdom, play a significant but often under-examined role in children's linguistic and cognitive development. This study investigates the influence of cultural transmission through proverbs on the verbal expression of primary school children. Employing a mixed-methods approach, we analyzed the proverb comprehension and usage of 60 children aged 8-11 from two distinct cultural communities in an urban setting. Data were collected through structured storytelling tasks, comprehension assessments, and semi-structured interviews with both children and their caregivers. The results indicate that children actively incorporate proverbs into their narratives, but their application often reflects a concrete, context-bound understanding rather than the abstract, metaphorical reasoning typical of adult usage. Furthermore, the frequency and type of proverbs used correlated strongly with the transmission practices observed in the home environment, such as parental didactic usage and intergenerational storytelling. The study concludes that while proverbs serve as a direct conduit for cultural and ethical norms, their influence on children's verbal expression is characterized by a developmental trajectory from rote repetition to emergent analytical application. These findings have implications for understanding the interplay between cultural pedagogy and child language acquisition.