Meeting of the Academic Folklore Society on September 22, 2011

The meeting of the Academic Folklore Society will take place on Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 16.15  in the Estonian Literary Museum (Vanemuise 42).  Liisa Granbom-Herranen will present a paper, "Proverbs from childhood: what was accentuated in the early 20th century?"

Proverbs are an important part of raising, teaching and learning. They occur also as parts of pedagogical speech in everyday life. The proverbs used by parents and grandparents are special even in one’s adulthood. Passing from one generation to another, proverbs have been the speech of the family and the neighbourhood.

The main objective in my research has been to find out whether pedagogical discourse (by folklorist Charles Briggs) using proverbs is more like indoctrination, or a matter of genuine raising, or whether it is merely a question of transmitting tradition without any hidden purpose. To find out proverbs in contexts they have been used, I have looked at memories of childhood. Trying to get in touch with ordinary people’s everyday life and its routines I have used the folkloristic material from the Folklore Archives of the Finnish Literature Society in Helsinki. In the life-stories I found the listeners interpretation of the proverb used in his/her childhood. Besides the narratives, I have looked at the statutes concerning parenthood and especially children’s lives and living standards. The narrative material and the statuetes together make it possible to consider the educational aspects of everyday life.

The slowness of the changes both in society and everyday life strengthen the effect of the proverbs used in raising children. In the material used in this research, the proverbs in pedagogical speech go back to the 19th century in Finland, when Finland was an autonomous grand duchy of Russia.

The presentation will be in English; samples will be also provided in Finnish and questions can be asked either in English, in Finnish or in Estonian.

Everybody is welcome!

Board of the Academic Folklore Society

Information: Eda Kalmre 7377 741