Pragmatic Functions of Cooking Verb Metaphors in Kazakh and English: A Contrastive Study

Despite significant research interest in the semantics of culinary verbs in Kazakh and English, their pragmatic potential, particularly in comparative contexts, remains understudied, making this study relevant. The aim of this study is to identify metaphorical patterns and pragmatic functions of verbs denoting the thermal processing of food in two languages reflecting fundamentally different cultural and economic systems. The study was conducted within the framework of a cognitive-pragmatic approach. The material for the analysis comprised 130 metaphorical utterances, drawn from 12 Kazakh and 32 English verbs denoting cooking methods and actions, extracted from the Qazcorpus, Qazcorpora, Sozdikkor, and Farlex and Reverso dictionaries. The analysis revealed that culinary metaphors in both languages form a stable conceptual network, confirming the universal nature of metaphor as a cognitive mechanism. At the same time, significant cross-linguistic differences were identified: the emotional sphere dominates in Kazakh (56%), while contexts of social interaction and deception predominate in English (61%). Pragmatically, Kazakh speakers more often express emotions directed at others, reflecting the collectivist orientation of the culture, while English speakers prefer personal assessments characteristic of individualism. Intensification is a universal function, recorded in 25% of Kazakh and 21% of English samples. The obtained results indicate that Hofstede’s cultural dimensions have explanatory power with respect to differences in metaphorical systems. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the development of a cognitive-pragmatic classification of culinary verbs and their cultural-pragmatic interpretation using data from two languages.