CULTURAL SYMBOLISM IN METAPHORS IN THE UZBEK AND ENGLISH LANGUAGES

Abstract

Abstract. This article examines how cultural symbolism is encoded in the conventional metaphors of Uzbek and English. Working within Conceptual Metaphor Theory [1] and its cultural-cognitive extension [2], it treats metaphor not as ornament but as a mechanism of thought through which abstract experience is structured by concrete, embodied, and culturally shaped source domains. A qualitative contrastive analysis of idioms, proverbs, and phraseological units—drawn from lexicographic, corpus, and literary sources—is organised around five conceptual fields: zoomorphic, chromatic (colour), somatic (body-part), natural-landscape, and religious–Sufi metaphors. The two languages share a substantial layer of embodiment-based mappings yet diverge systematically in the symbolic values attached to identical source domains: English foregrounds pragmatic, individualistic, and maritime-commercial experience, whereas Uzbek foregrounds collectivist, moral, pastoral-agrarian, and Islamic–Sufi experience. Interpreted through Kövecses's causes of metaphor variation, these divergences show that metaphorical systems act as compact repositories of cultural memory, with direct consequences for translation, language pedagogy, and intercultural communication.