LINGUOCULTURAL AND PRAGMATIC FEATURES OF IDIOMS USED IN ENGLISH AND UZBEK LITERARY TEXTS (BASED ON THE WORKS OF J. GALSWORTHY AND G'. G'ULOM)

Abstract

The article investigates idioms as carriers of cultural meaning and as pragmatic tools in English and Uzbek literary discourse, taking the prose of John Galsworthy and G'afur G'ulom as the focus of analysis. Relying on the principles of phraseology, linguoculturology and pragmatics, the study identifies the cultural codes encoded in idiomatic units (social status and property, emotional restraint, hospitality, kinship, religion, folk wisdom), describes the conceptual and imagery bases of idioms in the two languages, and analyzes their pragmatic functions in literary communication: characterization, expression of evaluation and irony, politeness and face-saving, euphemism, and the creation of a narrator's stance. The results show that the English text tends to use idioms for understatement, social distancing and ironic evaluation, while the Uzbek text uses idioms mainly for expressive emotional coloring, folk humor and the construction of collective moral judgment. Translation implications of the differences are discussed.