The Cultural Worldview of Filipinos through Philippine-English Proverbs

Proverbs are linguistic expressions of cultural truths about people’s values and beliefs handed down from generation to generation. Thus, for cross-cultural communicative competence and effective social interactions with Filipinos, understanding their proverbs would be essential for those working or interacting with Filipinos. This study investigated Filipino proverbs written in the Philippine English language to find the most prevalent proverb themes or topics that reflect the Filipino cultural worldview. The data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively, using content analysis. The quantitative results showed that Filipinos tend to believe in Heaven, Life and Death, and Evil, respectively. The proverbs also depicted the robust worth of family relations and friendships. Qualitative results showed that some Filipino proverbs have corresponding ones in British English whereas a number of them do not, for they have culture-specific denotations and/or connotations. Additionally, reconsidering the genres or topics of certain proverbs was recommended. The findings also led to implications to teaching English as an International Language, a Lingua Franca, or a Foreign Language, including cross-cultural communication.