LINGUOCULTURAL FEATURES OF THE CONCEPT OF “COMPLIMENT” IN ENGLISH AND UZBEK TEXTS (IN THE EXAMPLE OF OSCAR WILDE'S “THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST” AND SAID AHMAD’S “KELINLAR QO‘ZG‘OLONI”)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.66345/stj.v4i4/1.6000Keywords:
linguoculturology,, compliment, speech act,, contrastive pragmatics,, Oscar Wilde,, Said Ahmad, English, Uzbek, politeness theory, dramatic discourse.Abstract
This study investigates the linguocultural features of the concept of "compliment" as a speech act in two distinct dramatic traditions: Oscar Wilde's canonical English comedy “The Importance of Being Earnest” (1895) and Said Ahmad's celebrated Uzbek play “Kelinlar Qo'zg'oloni” (1960). Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of speech act theory, politeness theory, and linguoculturology, the study identifies, classifies, and comparatively analyzes complimentary utterances extracted from both texts. Using a qualitative corpus-based approach, 58 complimentary exchanges were identified across both works and categorized according to their semantic domains, syntactic structures, pragmatic functions, and underlying cultural values. Results demonstrate that while both languages employ
compliments as tools of social bonding and face-enhancement, they differ substantially in their thematic targets, formulaic patterns, gender dynamics, and the cultural norms that govern their use. English compliments in Wilde's text are characterised by irony, wit, and aesthetic self-performance, whereas Uzbek compliments in Said Ahmad's play reflect communal values, age-based hierarchy, and moral virtue. This study contributes to the growing field of contrastive pragmatics and offers implications for cross-cultural communication, literary linguistics, and the teaching of English and Uzbek as foreign languages.
Downloads
References
1. Ahmad, S. (2005). Kelinlar qo'zg'oloni. Tanlangan asarlar (Vol. 2, pp. 114–198). G'afur G'ulom Nashriyot uyi.
2. Akbari, M. (2002). Compliment and compliment responses in Azerbaijani. Journal of Linguistics and Language Teaching, 4(1), 31–48.
3. Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Oxford University Press.
4. Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge University Press.
5. Chen, R. (1993). Responding to compliments: A contrastive study of politeness strategies between American English and Chinese speakers. Journal of Pragmatics, 20(1), 49–75.
6. Doğan, G. (2014). A cross-cultural study of complimenting behavior in Turkish and American English. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, 10(2), 55–72.
7. Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction ritual: Essays on face-to-face behavior. Anchor Books.
8. Golato, A. (2005). Compliments and compliment responses: Grammatical structure and sequential organization. John Benjamins.
9. Herbert, R. K. (1990). Sex-based differences in compliment behavior. Language in Society, 19(2), 201–224.
10. Holmes, J. (1988). Compliments and compliment responses in New Zealand English. Anthropological Linguistics, 30(4), 445–508.
11. Khudoyberdiyeva, N. (2018). O'zbek muloqot madaniyatida odoblilik kategoriyasi. Toshkent davlat o'zbek tili va adabiyoti universiteti nashri.
12. Manes, J., & Wolfson, N. (1981). The compliment formula. In F. Coulmas (Ed.), Conversational routine (pp. 115–132). Mouton.
13. Maslova, V. A. (2001). Lingvokul'turologiya. Akademiya.
14. Pomerantz, A. (1978). Compliment responses: Notes on the co-operation of multiple constraints. In J. Schenkein (Ed.), Studies in the organization of conversational interaction (pp. 79–112). Academic Press.
15. Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge University Press.
16. Shahsavari, S., Rasekh, A. E., & Rasekh, A. A. (2012). Compliment responses in Persian. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2(2), 365–371.
17. Toshmatov, N. (2019). O'zbek lisoniy-madaniy birliklari tahlili. Fan va texnologiya.
18. Vorobyev, V. V. (1997). Lingvokul'turologiya: Teoriya i metody, Izdatel'stvo Rossiyskogo universiteta druzhby narodov.
19. Wilde, O. (2006). The importance of being earnest: A trivial comedy for serious people. Oxford University Press
