Lexicological Characteristics of Euphemisms in English And Uzbek Media Discourse: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

Аннотация

Aspects of lexis in euphemisms from English and Uzbek media are examined from the viewpoint of linguoculturology. Putting sensitive subjects into euphemistic language helps soften conversations which demonstrates the culture and beliefs of a community. 200 news articles from 2020 to 2024, published in both languages, were brought together for this study and compared for their use of euphemistic expressions. The study looks into semantic domains, the way euphemistic expressions are formed and how common metaphor, generalization and nominalization are. The results are organized in tables and charts, showing that English media uses euphemisms and metaphors very often, while Uzbek media prefers to describe actions in vague terms and adopt borrowed terms. The analysis demonstrates there are large differences in how cultures use euphemisms which shows the value of taking cultural factors into account in the media. This research increases our awareness of euphemistic language as occurring in both words and culture and it has some relevance for studies in media, translation and intercultural communication. Keywords: Euphemisms, media discourse, cross- cultural analysis, corpus linguistics, quantitative lexicology, semantic strategies, linguocultural relativity, English-Uzbek comparison. Introduction: Euphemism, as a linguistic strategy, European International Journal of Philological Sciences 30 https://eipublication.com/index.php/eijps European International Journal of Philological Sciences allows speakers to soften, obscure, or reframe structural and cultural patterns in euphemistic usage. expressions that might otherwise be deemed At the foundation of this inquiry lies the stylistic offensive, impolite, or socially disruptive. In the transparency model proposed by Enkvist (1985), which context of media discourse, where language choices posits that euphemisms often operate by reducing directly influence public perception, euphemisms cognitive transparency between signifier and referent. function as a powerful lexical and ideological tool. The This obfuscation becomes strategically valuable in lexicological study of euphemisms is essential not only institutional discourse, particularly in media language, for understanding their structural characteristics but where euphemisms are employed to mitigate also for revealing deeper cultural and communicative confrontation, maintain decorum, or align with values embedded within a language. ideological narratives. While mainstream theories by Allan & Burridge (1991) To investigate the structural dimensions of euphemistic and Lakoff (1973) dominate euphemism studies, this language, this study also draws from Vladimír Skalička’s research draws upon lesser-known yet valuable functional-structural typology, which emphasizes the theoretical contributions. Notably, Enkvist’s (1985) evolution of word-formation processes based on the model of stylistic transparency provides a nuanced communicative needs of a linguistic community. framework for examining the lexical obfuscation that Skalička’s typology enables a comparative analysis of euphemisms perform in public discourse. Similarly, English’s synthetic-compound tendencies versus Vladimír Skalička’s functional-structural typology Uzbek’s agglutinative and lexical borrowing tendencies sheds light on how euphemisms evolve differently in euphemism formation. across language systems depending on their Complementing these qualitative perspectives, the morphological traditions and socio-communicative study employs a quantitative lexicology approach, functions. grounded in Baayen’s (2001) work on lexical statistics, In addition, the study utilizes the cultural-historical to analyze frequency, distribution, and morphological linguistics model proposed by Ivanov and Toporov patterns of euphemisms within a bilingual corpus. By (1976), which situates euphemistic usage within a measuring the recurrence and semantic categories of mythopoetic framework, emphasizing symbolic euphemisms across domains (e.g., politics, health, substitution rooted in collective national crime), the analysis uncovers statistically significant consciousness. This approach proves particularly preferences within and across linguistic cultures. useful in understanding the persistence of Furthermore, corpus linguistics methods underpin the euphemisms in Uzbek media, where cultural taboos empirical portion of the study. A balanced corpus of 200 remain deeply entrenched in linguistic practice. English and Uzbek media articles was compiled and The primary objective of this study is to analyze and manually annotated for euphemistic expressions. compare the lexicological features of euphemisms in Frequency analysis and category tagging were English and Uzbek media discourse, focusing on word conducted using a mixed-method approach, formation, semantic strategies, and cross-cultural incorporating manual coding with spreadsheet analysis motivations. A bilingual corpus of recent