THE FRIENDSHIP CONCEPT IN ENGLISH AND UZBEK LITERARY TEXTS: A DISCOURSE-PRAGMATIC PRESPECTIVE

Abstract

This article investigates how the concept of friendship is discursively constructed and pragmatically enacted in English and Uzbek literary texts. Drawing on discourse analysis and pragmatics, the study examines recurrent interactional scenarios (meeting, bonding, testing loyalty, conflict, reconciliation), speech acts and stance-taking practices that index “friendship work,” and politeness/solidarity strategies used to negotiate closeness, obligation, and moral evaluation. Results show that both traditions portray friendship as a morally loaded relation sustained through reciprocal support and loyalty; however, they diverge in how intimacy and obligation are talked into being. In Uzbek texts, friendship is frequently framed through collectivist ethics, respect registers, and quasi-kinship address practices, foregrounding duty, reputation, and communal evaluation. In English texts, friendship more often appears as voluntary affiliation negotiated through self-disclosure, equality talk, and boundary-sensitive politeness, highlighting personal choice and individual agency. The findings contribute to comparative linguocultural research by demonstrating how literary dialogue and narration encode culturally meaningful “friendship scripts” through discourse-pragmatic resources.