FUNCTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ONOMASTICONS IN ENGLISH AND UZBEK LITERARY PROSE: A CONTEXTUAL COMPARATIVE STUDY

Abstract

The article examines literary onomasticons as interconnected systems of reference, characterization, social address and spatial meaning. It compares John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress and Charles Dickens’s Hard Times with Abdulla Qodiriy’s O‘tkan kunlar and Mehrobdan chayon. Rather than treating twenty-eight illustrative correspondences as lexical equivalents, the study follows the development of selected names across character relationships, recurrent scenes and ideological conflicts. Close reading indicates that Bunyan’s overtly interpretable allegorical designations often anticipate a moral position, whereas Qodiriy’s conventional anthroponyms typically become evaluative through social interaction, titles and plot. Dickens occupies an intermediate position: suggestive surnames acquire force through satire, repeated speech and institutional control over forms of address. Personal and geographical names work together to direct readers toward the ethical stakes of each narrative. The study distinguishes name form from contextual function and identifies the limits of a direct English–Uzbek semantic transfer. Its findings are qualitative and confined to four purposefully selected literary works.