The Concept “Wolf” in Kazakh Language: Traditional Conceptualisations

Abstract The current article attempts to analyze the concept of “wolf” and its conceptualisations by native Kazakh people through the study of Kazakh idioms, set expressions, proverbs, sayings, and quotations with this component. The objective was to conduct the conceptual analysis in order to discern figurative-associative and evaluative meaning of the concept “wolf”. By presenting the cognitive model of this concept in the linguistic consciousness of the Kazakhs, its conceptualisation is demonstrated, the associative nature of the concept “wolf” and its universal, ideological and ethnocultural features are manifested. It was found that the concept “wolf” has various conceptualisations, reflecting the Kazakhs’ naive national-linguistic picture of the world and evokes interpretations with positive and negative connotations as well.