Conceptualization of HAPPINESS by young native speakers of Kazakh
Abstract
The present study analyses the way HAPPINESS is contextualized by young native speakers of the Kazakh language who were asked to write an essay on “What is happiness?” The object of the research is definitions given to ‘happiness’ by participants of the experiment in their essays. The analysis showed that the basic criteria of HAPPINESS are related to participants’ families and their close environment. The analysis also revealed that conceptualization of HAPPINESS by respondents is constructed on the basis of conceptual metaphors, conceptual metonymies, and related concepts. As a result, prototypical cognitive models have been derived as “happiness is being glad” and “happiness is making glad”.
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