Linguistic Features of the Formation of Imagery in the Poetry of Storytellers

Abstract

The aim of this study was to identify how selected linguistic devices participate in the formation of poetic imagery in a purposively selected corpus of Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Turkish, and medieval Occitan poetic materials. The methodology was based on qualitative multistage analysis: historical and terminological review, operational coding of lexico-semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic–performative features, and cross-cultural comparison of the coded results. The source base included primary poetic texts, audiovisual performances, and secondary contextual materials. The analysis suggested that repetition, parallelism, formulaic constructions, epithets, and metaphorization organize imagery differently across the selected traditions. In the Central Asian Turkic block, repeated land–people and sky–earth imagery supported a collective–cosmic tendency; in the Turkish ashik material, recurrent spiritual lexemes and syntactic economy supported a mystical–contemplative tendency; and in the medieval Occitan material, pronouns, affective natural imagery, inversion, and sound organization supported an individual–anthropocentric tendency. The results should be interpreted as dominant tendencies within the selected corpus rather than as universal classifications of the traditions. The study contributes a working analytical framework for examining poetic imagery as a multilevel linguistic and cognitive mechanism.