PRAGMALINGUISTIC PROBLEMS IN UZBEK PROSE: COMMUNICATIVE STRATEGIES AND IMPLICIT MEANING IN KHAYRIDDIN SULTONOV'S NOVELLAS
Keywords:
pragmalinguistics; speech act theory; indirect speech acts; implicature; presupposition; Uzbek prose; Khayriddin Sultonov; communicative strategies; politeness theory; literary pragmaticsAbstract
This article investigates pragmalinguistic problems manifested in Uzbek literary prose through a detailed analysis of three novellas by contemporary Uzbek writer Khayriddin Sultonov: Ko'ngil ozodadur (Freedom of the Heart), Yozning yolg'iz yodgori (The Lone Memory of Summer), and Saodat sohili (The Shore of Happiness). Drawing on speech act theory (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969), the Cooperative Principle (Grice, 1975), and Brown and Levinson's politeness theory (1987), the study examines how indirect speech acts, implicature, presupposition, and face-threatening strategies function as primary vehicles of meaning-making in Sultonov's narrative discourse. Particular attention is given to the communicative behaviour of key characters, whose utterances frequently operate at the level of implicitness – conveying ideological, psychological, and ethical content beyond the literal propositional meaning. The findings suggest that Sultonov systematically exploits pragmatic indeterminacy to construct psychologically dense characters and to encode socially sensitive themes within the conventions of post-Soviet Uzbek literary fiction. The article contributes to ongoing debates in Uzbek pragmalinguistics and opens new avenues for the stylistic analysis of Central Asian literary texts.
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