The article
focuses on SMS messages as short letters in a Finnish daily newspaper, Salon
Seudun Sanomat. A proverb is often included in the SMS message. The analysis
is based on Charles Briggs’s (1988) research on a proverb’s performances.
Proverbs in a spoken language are in many ways similar to proverbs in the
colloquial written form; presentational features are the same. The research is
also based on Lev Vygotski’s (1967) claim that a language is linked to a
thought, and on Gottlob Frege’s (2000) principle of context. Thirdly, an
utterance should follow Paul Grice’s (1975) cooperative principle of quantity,
quality, relation, and manner. In what follows the meaning of the proverbs will
be analyzed twofold; on the one hand we will analyze the meaning given by the
writer, and on the other hand a basic meaning. Proverbs get new forms and flexible.
Modern proverbs occur and the traditional ones are transformed. Proverbs are a
part of a contemporary Finnish communication and everyday language use,
although the context of use has changed over a period of one century.