THE ROLE OF CONCEPTUAL BLENDING IN TRANSLATING ENGLISH IDIOMS INTO UZBEK

Annotatsiya

This article examines the role of conceptual blending theory in understanding and resolving the challenges that arise when English idioms are translated into Uzbek. Drawing on the foundational work of Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner, the study argues that idioms are not arbitrary frozen expressions but the products of motivated cognitive blending operations in which elements from multiple mental spaces are integrated into emergent meaning structures. Because this blending process is grounded in culturally specific experiential domains, the structural asymmetry between English and Uzbek idiomatic systems presents translators with difficulties that purely equivalence-based approaches are ill-equipped to address. The article analyzes representative English idioms — including expressions tied to conflict, interpersonal dynamics, and social behavior — and traces the input spaces, vital relations, and emergent meanings that constitute their blended structure, before exploring how comparable or divergent blending configurations manifest in Uzbek. It identifies three principal translation strategies available to the practitioner: sourcing a target-language idiom that activates a structurally analogous blend, adapting the source imagery to a culturally proximate Uzbek equivalent, and unpacking the blend into explicit paraphrase when no viable figurative parallel exists. Each strategy is evaluated in terms of its cognitive and communicative trade-offs