In this theoretical framework we will present the main constructs that underpin the imagological approach in the study of a problem that we are currently researching - Hypostases of identity and alterity in the Romanian literary folklore between the Prut and the left bank of the Dniester. Our research aims to capture two hypostases of identity and alterity. It is the ethnic and gender perspective, which the anonymous creator retained and generated folk texts, motifs, symbols over time. In order to substantiate our imagological approach, we will synthesize the paradigms of the scientific community about operational concepts such as imagology, image, self-, heteroimage in this first part, and social representations, stereotypes in the second part of another article.