Proverbs are among the most culturally saturated elements of any language. They encapsulate centuries of collective experience and serve as compact cultural codes transmitting values, emotions, and wisdom. When viewed from the lens of cognitive linguistics, proverbs reveal underlying conceptual metaphors — mental mappings that connect the concrete and the abstract, shaping how speakers of different languages perceive and interpret the world. From a linguocultural perspective, these metaphors do not exist in a vacuum; they are embedded in national traditions, religious thought, social behavior, and the linguistic structure of each culture (Kövecses, 2002). Examining English, Uzbek, and Russian proverbs through this dual cognitive and cultural framework allows for a deep understanding of how language, thought, and culture intertwine.

Charteris-Black, J. (2004). Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis. Palgrave Macmillan.

Ergasheva, G. I. (2021). Linguocultural Values in Uzbek Proverbs: A Cognitive Approach. Tashkent State University Press.

Holland, D., & Quinn, N. (Eds.). (1987). Cultural Models in Language and Thought. Cambridge University Press.

Karaulov, Y. N. (1987). Russkiy Yazyk i Yazykovaya Lichnostʹ [Russian Language and Linguistic Personality]. Nauka.

Kövecses, Z. (2002). Metaphor: A Practical Introduction. Oxford University Press.

Kukharenko, V. A. (2014). Interpretation of Culturally Marked Proverbs in Russian and English. Moscow University Press.

Lakoff, G. (1993). The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and Thought (pp. 202–251). Cambridge University Press.

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press.

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. Basic Books.

Teliya, V. N. (1996). Russian Phraseology: A Linguocultural Study. Nauka.

Turgunov, S. (2023). The Lexico-Semantic Field of Negative Emotions in English: A Cognitive Perspective. International Conference on Multidisciplinary Science, 1(4), 91–94.

Turgunov, S. (2025). Sociolinguistic Effects of Globalization: Change and Spread of Negative Expressiveness. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence, 1(4), 1230–1233.

Wierzbicka, A. (1992). Semantics, Culture, and Cognition: Universal Human Concepts in Culture-Specific Configurations. Oxford University Press.

Wierzbicka, A. (1997). Understanding Cultures through Their Key Words. Oxford University Press.