Idamsokchan (耳談續纂, Additions to an Earful of Conversation) is an early collection of Korean proverbs capturing 418 proverbs from China and Korea with Chinese translation, most of which are social proverbs. Through a contrastive analysis of the formation mechanism of social proverbs in Idamsokchan, this study explores the influence of Chinese and Korean mindsets on language. Specifically, the study analyzes the structure, semantics, and topic of social proverbs from both Chinese and Korean sources in Idamsokchan. The results indicate that the influence of concrete-versus-abstract and practical-versus-theoretical thinking on proverbs varies. Generally, Korean proverbs exhibit a tendency towards abstract thinking, whereas Chinese proverbs are characterized by an emphasis on concrete thinking. The structural characteristics of Korean and Chinese proverbs are distinct. Korean proverbs are typically formed as a single sentence, whereas Chinese proverbs often employ fixed sentence patterns and connectives. In addition, the syntax of Chinese translations of Korean proverbs in Idamsokchan tends to be morphological. Regarding semantics, a greater proportion of Korean proverbs are of a philosophical nature when compared to Chinese proverbs. While Korean proverbs employ a simplex network and extend metaphors through contrast, Chinese proverbs are adept at using the creative double-scope network. In terms of topic selection, both Korean and Chinese proverbs, cover eight types of topics, using interrogative pronouns as subjects. Nonetheless, the contrastive-topic structure is more commonly observed in Chinese proverbs. Moreover, while the first-person singular pronoun is commonly utilized as a topic in Korean proverbs, the equivalent in Chinese proverbs is the third-person pronoun 其 (qi).

• 金菊花(上海外國語大學) | Juhua JIN