Challenges In Translating Culture-Specific Expressions Between English And Uzbek: A Linguocultural Perspective

Abstract

Translation between English and Uzbek involves more than transferring lexical and grammatical meaning from one language into another. Culture-specific expressions frequently contain cultural associations, historical references, social conventions, and pragmatic meanings that cannot be adequately conveyed through direct lexical substitution. This article examines the major challenges involved in translating culture-specific expressions between English and Uzbek from a linguocultural perspective. Particular attention is given to idioms, proverbs, forms of address, culturally marked concepts, and expressions associated with everyday life and social traditions. The study employs a comparative analytical approach and considers several translation procedures, including literal translation, functional equivalence, cultural substitution, descriptive translation, borrowing, and paraphrase. The analysis demonstrates that successful translation depends not only on semantic correspondence but also on the translator's ability to recognize cultural associations and communicative intentions. The comparison of English and Uzbek expressions further indicates that some expressions have close functional equivalents, whereas others require explanation or adaptation because their cultural imagery has no direct counterpart in the target language. The article argues that a linguocultural approach can help translators preserve both communicative meaning and culturally significant information.

Keywords

culture-specific expressions • translation • English • Uzbek • linguoculturology • cultural equivalence • idioms • translation strategies

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