A COMPARATIVE LINGUOCULTURAL ANALYSIS OF “JOY” IN ABDULLA QADIRI’S “O’TGAN KUNLAR” AND VIRGINIA WOOLF’S “MRS DALLOWAY”

Abstract

This study employs a comparative linguocultural methodology to analyze the verbalization of joy and happiness in two seminal literary works: Abdulla Qadiri’s Uzbek novel O’tgan kunlar (Bygone Days) and Virginia Woolf’s English modernist novel Mrs Dalloway. Through semantic and psycholinguistic analysis, this research examines how lexical choices, metaphorical mappings, and narrative strategies reflect deeper cultural constructs. In O’tgan kunlar, joy is expressed through collective, somatic, and nature-based phraseology tied to concepts of fate ("Baxt") and spiritual harmony. In Mrs Dalloway, joy emerges as ephemeral “moments of being” experienced individually and articulated through abstract metaphors of elevation and light. The findings reveal a fundamental cultural contrast: English modernist discourse prioritizes subjective, internal emotional states, whereas Uzbek classical discourse embeds emotion within social ethics, familial bonds, and a predetermined cosmic order. This article contributes to the broader field of cultural linguistics by demonstrating how universal emotions are filtered through distinct linguocultural frames, shaping both literary expression and reader interpretation.