LINGUACULTURAL ANALYSIS OF SOMATIC PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS IN THE ENGLISH AND UZBEK LANGUAGES

Abstract

This research undertakes a linguacultural examination of somatic phraseological units in the English and Uzbek languages, investigating the manner in which body-part idioms encode and reflect divergent national worldviews and cultural identities. Grounded in the frameworks of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and linguoculturology, the study applies a comparative methodology to discern both universal cognitive schemas and culturally specific variations within somatic expressions. The findings indicate that although core somatisms—such as "head," "heart," "hand," and "eye"—are productively employed in both languages to represent abstract ideas, their semantic trajectories are profoundly shaped by disparate historical, religious, and social milieus. For example, the English phrase "to lend a hand" and its Uzbek counterpart "qo'lidan kelmoq" both associate the hands with the concept of ability, illustrating a shared embodied metaphor. Conversely, pronounced cultural specificity is evident in symbols like the English "heart of stone," denoting emotional coldness, as opposed to the Uzbek reliance on the liver ("jigar") as the central locus of deep affection and kinship ties. The results affirm that somatic idioms operate as ethnocultural units, concurrently validating a common human embodiment while codifying the distinctive value systems—ranging from Western individualism to Central Asian collectivism—inherent to each linguistic community