This article is devoted to the study of the general provisions of the politeness category in linguistics, positioning politeness as an essential condition for successful communication. Various approaches to the definition «concept», the structure of the politeness concept is revealed and analyzed. Directly the universal category of the term «politeness» is analyzed by the authors. From the standpoint of cognitive linguistics, the authors also consider the specifics of the components of the «politeness» concept. The concept of «politeness» has a small figurative component, a large information content, a voluminous encyclopedic zone, and a small interpretive field in the frame of volume and structure. During the associative experiment, it is shown that the concept of politeness is represented by various associations and reflected the existing language consciousness of Kazakhstan's modern youth representatives. The authors reveals similarities and differences in the understanding of the concept studied by the representatives in comparison of Kazakh and Russian communicative linguocultures. It is necessary to understand, know and take into account both the general meanings and specific components of the concept in the frame of intercultural multicultural communication.