Proverbs Reveal Culture Diversity

Abstract

Through the analysis of property of culture and proverb, it can be known that proverb can help one to understand a culture. The way proverb reveals culture diversity can be connected with the patterns of value dimension, which conveys the information of a culture’s deep meaning. From the perspective of uncertainty-avoidance, it can be seen that although Ireland and America both are low-uncertainty-avoidance cultures, they mainly have different life attitudes, because that Americans put more emphasis on competition. From the perspective of high-context and low-context, the text provides the concepts of non-verbal communication and two layers of meaning of silence. And under this background, the paper analyzes several culture patterns, especially America and Japan. From the perspective of power-distance, it reveals the different views on equality between Arab and America, and analyzes the reasons of culture tradition. However, although culture diversity mainly reveals the culture difference, there are common aspects between cultures.