Symbolic landscapes in language: a cognitive and cultural study of hydronyms

Нуниязова, Шахло

Lingvospektr · 2025-yil

Annotatsiya

This article explores the cognitive and cultural aspects of hydronymy – the naming of rivers, lakes, and streams – as an essential layer of toponymy that reflects both geographic reality and the symbolic world of human communities. Traditionally, hydronyms have been treated as “linguistic fossils,” preserving archaic forms and traces of ethnic migration. Recent approaches in cognitive linguistics, however, reveal that hydronyms also embody conceptual metaphors and function as cultural texts that transmit collective memory and worldview. In this study, a comparative analysis of English and Uzbek hydronyms highlights both universal embodied schemas (rivers as paths, lakes as containers, water as life) and culture specific symbolic oppositions (for example, “white” = purity and blessing, “black” = danger and hardship), particularly strong in the Uzbek tradition. While English hydronyms predominantly emphasize descriptive features and historical stratification, Uzbek hydronyms add evaluative and symbolic dimensions rooted in ecology and nomadic traditions. The findings suggest that hydronyms represent intangible cultural heritage, linking cognition, ecology, and identity.

Maqola ma’lumotlari
MualliflarНуниязова, Шахло
JurnalLingvospektr
Nashr sanasi2025-10-12
Jild9
Son1
Betlar178-182
TilIngliz

Kalit so‘zlar

Гидронимия, когнитивная лингвистика, концептуальная метафора, английский язык, узбекский язык, символические оппозиции, топонимика, культурная география, Gidronimika, kognitiv lingvistika, lingvistik antropologiya, konseptual metafora, madaniy geografiya, ingliz tili, o‘zbek tili, Hydronymy, cognitive linguistics, linguistic anthropology, conceptual metaphor, cultural geography, English, Uzbek

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