"Better an octopus in hand than a hundert swimming". Snowclones in contrastive phraseology (German-Spanish): a corpus analysis

Abstract

In recent years, the term snowclone has been established in the field of phraseology, referring to a fixed sequence of words such as proverbs, quotes, or advertising slogans. These usually serve as a basis for substituting certain words with others for semantic-pragmatic purposes, often in a playful or humorous way. We will study the snowclones of the proverbs “Más vale pájaro en mano que ciento volando” (lit. ‘It is better a bird in hand than a hundred flying’) and “Lieber den Spatz in der Hand als die Taube auf dem Dach” (lit. ‘Better a sparrow in the hand than a pigeon on the roof’). We will provide a detailed description, both quantitative and qualitative, of their modifications in discourse and analyze their semantic, pragmatic, and communicative potential.