Conceptualization of Emotion in English and Uzbek: A Cognitive-Semantic Typology

Abstract

This article investigates how emotions are conceptualized in English and Uzbek through a cognitive-semantic lens, with a particular focus on metaphor, metonymy, cultural models, and typological contrasts. Although both languages rely on embodied experience to structure emotional meanings, they diverge significantly in the imagery, metaphoric extensions, and cultural scripts associated with core emotions such as anger, love, fear, and sadness. Drawing on cognitive linguistics and cross-linguistic typology, the study argues that emotional meanings are not universal but culturally contoured. English foregrounds individual experience and psychological internalization, whereas Uzbek frequently encodes relational, social, and honor-based dimensions. Data from dictionaries, corpora, literary usage, and common phraseological units form the basis of analysis. The findings demonstrate that emotion conceptualization reflects deeper cultural orientations: English tends toward psychological individuation, while Uzbek emphasizes collectivist, honor-sensitive models grounded in the heart, liver, soul, and “inner world.” These insights contribute to a broader understanding of how languages encode human experience differently.