SEMIOTIC AND SYMBOLIC SIGNIFICANCE OF SACRED NOTIONS IN WEDDING RITUAL FOLKLORE

Abstract

This article examines sacred concepts in wedding rituals within the framework of traditional worldview categories. The relevance of the study is determined by the fact that sacred concepts represent a relatively new object of research in literary studies; therefore, there is a clear need for a systematic analysis of their manifestations in folklore. Sacred cognition (Latin sacrum – holy, sacred; Russian сакральное; English sacred) is a complex category that has been extensively studied in the humanities. The phenomenology of sacrum, initiated by the works of É. Durkheim, R. Otto, and M. Eliade in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, has become one of the key research areas in contemporary global humanities. Early scholars comparatively analyzed the concept of sacredness through the categories of sacrum (the sacred) and profanum (the secular), linking them primarily with religious perceptions. In folklore studies, sacred cognition not only defines the spiritual sphere of archaic societies but also functions as a semantic core of folklore texts and ritual practices.

The aim of this research is to analyze the semiotic and symbolic semantics of sacred concepts associated with Kazakh wedding rituals. The research materials include ritual practices related to wedding traditions (qyz uzatu – the bride’s farewell ceremony, kelin tusiru – the bride welcoming ceremony, pouring oil into the fire, establishing a new household) as well as folkloric poetry (zhar-zhar, synsu). The results of the study demonstrate that the traditional worldview, lifestyle, and culture of the Kazakh people can be comprehensively interpreted through the analysis of sacred concepts, which are revealed as multilayered cultural constructs within folklore studies. Systematizing the symbolic and semiotic meanings of sacred concepts in wedding rituals based on Kazakh traditional knowledge is presented as the scientific novelty of the research.