Cover not available

Article In: Review of Cognitive Linguistics: Online-First Articles

All bark or all bite?

The role of cultural knowledge in the semantics of the Russian verb sobatchitsya versus the English to dog

ORCiD logo with link | University of Potsdam
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
The article presents a contrastive analysis of two metaphorical “animal verbs” in English versus Russian, focusing specifically on the diverging semantics of the English to dog ‘to follow with a malicious intent’ and its Russian counterpart собачиться [sobachitsya, lit. ‘to dog oneself/each other’] ‘to quarrel loudly, to rant’. Historical corpus data as well as lexicographical data paired with semantic field analysis are employed to selectively reconstruct the respective cultural models of dog around the attested time of N→V conversion in each language. This reconstruction points to a link between chronologically dominant cultural conceptualisations and the resulting differences in the lexical meanings of both denominal verbs.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
  • 3.Data and method
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Overlap in the cultural models of dog in English and Russian
    • 4.2The 16th century English cultural model of dog
    • 4.3The 19th century Russian cultural model of sobaka
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Author queries
  • References
References (33)
References
Dictionaries and corpora
Oxford University Press. (n.d.). Oxford English Dictionary Online. Retrieved 30 September 2025, from [URL]
Russian National Corpus. (n.d.). Natsional’nyy korpus russkogo yazyka [Russian National Corpus]. Retrieved 8 July 2025, from [URL]
Department of Modern Languages, University of Helsinki. (1991). The Helsinki Corpus of English Texts. Retrieved 30 September 2025, from [URL]
Further sources
Arkhanhelska, Alla M. (2020). Sobaka kak « necistoe » zhivotnoe v tradicionnoj narodnoj kul’ture i jazyke [The dog as an ‘unclean’ animal in traditional folk culture and language]. Slavica Slovaca, (1), 100–122.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aronoff, Mark. (1980). Contextuals. Language, 56(4), 744–758. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Balteiro, Isabel. (2007). A contribution to the study of conversion in English. Waxmann.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baranyiné Kóczy, Judit. (2024). A cultural linguistic study of embodied Hungarian proverbs representing facial hair. In S. Belkhir (Ed.), Proverbs within Cognitive Linguistics: State of the art (pp. 298–327). John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bauer, Lauri, & Valera Hernández, Salvador (Eds). (2005). Approaches to conversion/zero-derivation. Waxman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dal’, Vladimir I. (1989/1862a). Poslovicy russkogo naroda [Proverbs of the Russian people] (Vol. 2). Khudozhestvennaya Literatura.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1989/1862b). Poslovicy russkogo naroda [Proverbs of the Russian people] (Vol. 1). Khudozhestvennaya Literatura.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Đurović, Tatjana. (2010). Beavering away or Monkeying around: Metaphoricity of phrasal verbs related to animals. In G. Raţă (Ed.), Teaching foreign languages: Languages for special purposes (pp. 330–342). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Geeraerts, Dirk. (1997). Diachronic prototype semantics: A contribution to historical lexicology. Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2010). Theories of lexical semantics. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ivan Krylov: Elephant and Pug. (n.d.). Retrieved from RuVerses website: [URL]
Karius, Ilse. (1985). Die Ableitung der denominalen Verben mit Nullsuffigierung im Englischen. De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Knyazhevich, Dmitrii M. (1822). Polnoe sobranie russkikh poslovits i pogovorok, raspolozhennoe po azbuchnom poryadku [Complete collection of Russian proverbs and sayings, arranged in alphabetical order]. Typography of Karl Krail, published by I. Zaikin.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Korshunkov, Vladimir A. (2024). Damy s sobachkami: otnoshenie k sobakam v Rossii v XVIII–XIX vv. [Ladies with little dogs: Attitudes towards dogs in the 18th- and 19th-century Russia]. Этнографическое обозрение, (1), 115–132.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Korshunkov, Vladimir A., & Korschunkova, A. В. (2021). Pozavidovala koshka: otnoshenie k domashnim zhivotnym v Rossii v XVIII — nachale XX veka (kul’turno-istoricheskie i zooantropologicheskie aspekty) [‘The cat envied the dog’s life’: The attitude towards domestic animals in Russia in the 18th — early 20th centuries (cultural, historical and zooanthropological aspects]. Вестник гуманитарного образования, (2(22)), 139–150.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kytö, Merja, & Rissanen, Matti. (2011). CoRD | Helsinki Corpus (HC). Retrieved 10 July 2025, from [URL]
Manova, Stela. (2011). Understanding morphological rules: With special emphasis on conversion and subtraction in Bulgarian, Russian and Serbo-Croatian. Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martsa, Sándor. (2013). Conversion in English: A cognitive Semantic Approach. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marugina, Nadezhda I. (2009). Koncept « Sobaka » kak element russkoj jazykovoj kartiny mira [The concept ‘dog’ as an element of the Russian linguistic worldview]. Язык и культура, 2(6), 11–30.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Menache, Sophia. (1998). Dogs and human beings: A story of friendship. Society & Animals, 6(1), 67–86. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Minci, Wan. (2016). Koncept « sobaka » v russkoj i kitajskoj jazykovykh kartinakh mira (na materiale poslovic i pogovorok) [The concept dog in the Russian and Chinese linguistic worldviews (based on proverbs and sayings)’. Вестник Псковского ГосударственногоУниверситета, 4, 150–155.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Palmatier, Robert Allen. (1995). Speaking of animals: A dictionary of animal metaphors. Greenwood Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Panther, Klaus-Uwe, & Thornburg, Linda L. (2012). Conceptualizing humans as animals in English verb particle constructions. Language Value, (4), 63–83.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paton, Bernadette. (2012, August 16). The dog: Man’s best friend? Retrieved 7 March 2022, from [URL]
Polzenhagen, Frank, Wolf, Hans-Georg, Latić, Denisa, & Peters, Arne. (2024). World Englishes and cultural linguistics: Theory and research. World Englishes, 43(3), 360–378. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Popova, Zinaida D., & Sternin, Iosif A. (2001). Ocherki po kognitivnoy lingvistike [Essays in cognitive linguistics]. Istoki.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wolf, Hans-Georg. (2021). Cultural conceptualizations of magical practices related to menstrual blood in a transhistorical and transcontinental perspective. In H.-G. Wolf, D. Latić, & A. Finzel (Eds), Cultural-linguistic explorations into spirituality, emotionality, and society (pp. 41–76). John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wolf, Hans-Georg, & Polzenhagen, Frank. (2009). World Englishes: A cognitive sociolinguistic approach. Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold-dark jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold-light jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold prag Twitter_Logo_Blue