Anthropocentric Worldview In English And Uzbek Phraseology: Comparative Analysis Of Cultural Models

Abstract

This thesis examines how anthropocentric worldviews are encoded in English and Uzbek phraseology and how these encodings reflect broader cultural models. Building on cognitive-linguistic and linguocultural approaches, the study compares idioms and proverbs referring to the human body, emotions, character, social roles, and moral evaluation. A purpose-built mini-corpus of 420 English and 410 Uzbek units was compiled from reputable dictionaries and proverb collections and analyzed through conceptual metaphor and frame-semantic lenses with attention to usage notes where available. The findings reveal convergent universals—such as the body as a primary experiential source domain for emotion—and salient divergences shaped by value hierarchies, sociality norms, and evaluative pragmatics. English phraseology privileges individual agency, self-regulation, and contractual sociality, while Uzbek phraseology foregrounds communal harmony, honor, and intergenerational ethics. Cross-domain mappings like HEART/KO‘NGIL→EMOTION, HEAD→REASON/CONTROL, and FACE/CHEHRA→REPUTATION occur in both languages but are distributed and evaluated differently. The article argues that phraseological units function as culturally saturated mini-narratives that stabilize moral expectations and interactional scripts. Implications are offered for translation studies, intercultural communication, and EFL/Uzbek FL pedagogy.