Language. Culture. Communication

"LANGUAGE. CULTURE. COMMUNICATION" RESEARCH CENTER NAMED AFTER ACADEMICIAN Z.K. AKHMETZHANOVA

About

The “Language. Culture. Communication” Research Center was established in the spring of 2023 with the financial support of SDU, in honor of its founder, Professor Z.K. Akhmetzhanova.

Our mission and vision involve developing the scientific potential of the faculty within the “Linguistic Education” department and the Faculty of Education and Humanities, as well as increasing student motivation for research activities. Furthermore, the center conducts research aimed at identifying the relationship between language, culture, and communication, publishing articles, and popularizing science.

Aims and objectives

1) Organizing events (scientific seminars, workshops, round tables, and conferences) aimed at developing the research competencies of the department’s faculty
2) Inviting international and domestic colleagues to exchange experience and increase awareness in the field of educational research.
3) Establishing partnerships with domestic universities by organizing research internships for Master’s students.
4) Attracting grants for scientific projects to support the development of the center.
5) Actively involving the department’s faculty in research work to improve teaching effectiveness.
6) Increasing the interest of young faculty members in science and popularizing scientific research.
7) Actively engaging students at all levels in research work to strengthen the country’s scientific potential.
8) Contributing to the development of the “SDU University Bulletin: Pedagogy and Teaching Methods” journal.
9) Authoring joint scientific articles with the faculty of the department.
10) Preparing joint publications with the faculty’s Master’s and PhD students.

Team

Saule Tulepova

Director of Research Center

PhD in Philology, Associate Professor at SDU

Experience: Has been working at SDU since 2013. Served as the coordinator for Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD programs in “Foreign Language: Two Foreign Languages,” and as the Head of the Academic and Methodological Bureau of the Faculty of Education and Humanities.

Adilzhan Tirzhan

Center Assistant

Master’s student at SDU

Publications

In accordance with the working schedule of the Research Center “Language. Culture. Communication”, faculty teachers wrote a joint scientific article on the topic “The concept of “Wolf” in Kazakh language: traditional conceptualizations” published in the “Journal of Language and Cultural Education” on March 1, 2023.

Authors: Ordabekova H., Tulepova S., Zholshaeva M., Kurkebaev K.

The current article attempts to analyze the concept of “wolf” and its conceptualisations by native Kazakh people through the study of Kazakh idioms, set expressions, proverbs, sayings, and quotations with this component. The objective was to conduct the conceptual analysis in order to discern figurative-associative and evaluative meaning of the concept “wolf”. By presenting the cognitive model of this concept in the linguistic consciousness of the Kazakhs, its conceptualisation is demonstrated, the associative nature of the concept “wolf” and its universal, ideological and ethnocultural features are manifested. It was found that the concept “wolf” has various conceptualisations, reflecting the Kazakhs’ naive national-linguistic picture of the world and evokes interpretations with positive and negative connotations as well.

Workplan

Planned Activity	Timeline
Participation in juries for evaluating scientific projects in network competitions among NIS, secondary schools, lyceums, and gymnasiums	October, November 2026
Organizing and inviting leading scholars from SDU and other universities to conduct seminars	4 times a year
Organizing "Consultation Hours" on academic writing and publications for young specialists and students	Throughout the year
Conducting a series of scientific seminars on academic writing	Throughout the year (monthly)
Organize research placements and internships for master’s and doctoral students of the Foreign Language: Two Foreign Languages and Linguistics programs at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University under a cooperation agreement. Internship program	Semester 1
Send master’s and doctoral students of SDU University’s Foreign Language: Two Foreign Languages program to Al-Farabi Kazakh National University for research internships and monitor their progress under a cooperation agreement	Semester 1
Preparing joint publications in journals indexed in Scopus and Web of Science databases	Throughout the year
Preparing joint publications in QACMSHE journals and "SDU University Bulletin: Pedagogy and Teaching Methods"	Throughout the year
Holding a scientific project competition (across all majors)	April 20, 2026
Organizing a round table	Once a year
Participating in joint scientific projects with international and domestic researchers	Throughout the year
Undertake a research visit to a university in Kazakhstan or abroad to develop research collaboration	Throughout the year