Non-Standard Metaphors of Motion in Kazakh-Russian Bilinguals

Rakhilina E.V. Kazkenova A.
2025 Brigham Young University

Russian Language Journal
2025 #75 Issue 1

This paper examines a specific case of fictive motion conceptualization—non-standard motion metaphors identified in texts from the Kazakh subcorpus of the Russian Learner Corpus (http://www.web-corpora.net/RLC). The texts were written by students from several universities in Almaty who are native speakers of Kazakh (L1) and second-language speakers of Russian (L2). Our study focuses on three aspects of fictive motion: (1) how the verbs idti and xodit’ are used to conceptualize processes or states in non-standard metaphorical contexts; (2) how trajectors are selected with the verbs prijti and projti; and (3) how motion direction is conceptualized with vxodit’ / vojti and vyxodit’ / vyjti in metaphorically closed and open spaces. Analyzing these non-standard motion metaphors sheds light not only on the strategies bilingual speakers use to construct motion metaphors, but also on key differences between Kazakh and Russian in the conceptualization of fictive motion. More broadly, it highlights the variability within this semantic zone.

fictive motion , Kazakh-Russian bilingualism , metaphor , Russian language , second language acquisition , verbs of motion

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V.V. Vinogradov Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation
Narxoz University, Almaty, Kazakhstan

V.V. Vinogradov Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Narxoz University

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