Contrastive discourse analysis of Persian and English animal proverbs

Adopting social, discoursal and contrastive view, this paper primarily aims at investigating the discoursal and content feature of Persian and English animal proverbs relating to cat, dog and donkey taking the prototype model. As the second goal, it investigates the similarities and differences between these two languages based on Duczmal and Schmitz's (1983 cited in Yarmohammadi 2002) framework. Based on the findings of the study proverbs are treasures of wisdom to both Persian and English and have shown particular characteristics of people, their ideologies and culture, but on the other side, they also reveal similarities and dissimilarities between these two societies. They are assigned to guide and stimulate their people to achieve the best of life in society, politics, law, belief and religion.