THE CONCEPT OF “HONOR” AND “SHAME” IN ENGLISH AND UZBEK PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS: A COGNITIVE-LINGUOCULTURAL APPROACH

Abstract

This article examines how the moral-emotional pair HONOR and SHAME is conceptualized and linguistically packaged in English and Uzbek phraseological units. Working within a cognitive-linguocultural perspective, the study treats idioms and fixed expressions as “compressed” cultural knowledge: they preserve shared evaluations, social scripts, and embodied imagery through which speakers recognize what counts as honorable conduct and what triggers shame. A qualitative contrastive analysis of phraseological material (dictionary sources and curated discourse examples) shows that English phraseology tends to foreground individual reputation, personal integrity, and public face management, while Uzbek phraseology more consistently encodes collective evaluation, social surveillance, and honor as a relational value tied to family/community. Across both languages, recurring conceptual mechanisms include spatial and weight metaphors (falling, lowering, carrying), somatic imagery (face, head, heart), and scenario-like constructions that present shame as exposure and honor as maintained standing. The findings support the view that phraseology provides a privileged window into culturally patterned emotion concepts and helps explain persistent asymmetries in idiom equivalence and translation.