Emotional Expressiveness and Pragmatic Characteristics of Phraseological Lacunae in English and Uzbek

This article examines the manifestation of emotional expressiveness and the pragmatic characteristics of phraseological lacunae in English and Uzbek, focusing on the challenges that arise when emotionally marked phraseological expressions lack direct equivalents across the two languages. Phraseological lacunae are understood as gaps in conventional phraseological correspondence in which an expression in one language has no established counterpart in another language that adequately preserves its semantic meaning, emotional intensity, evaluative colouring, figurative imagery, and communicative function. The study investigates the relationship between expressive meaning, cultural conceptualization, speaker intention, social interaction, and intercultural communication. Particular attention is paid to the expression of positive and negative emotions, intensification, irony, humour, criticism, interpersonal solidarity, and evaluative attitudes. The research employs a comparative-descriptive approach, combining semantic and pragmatic analysis with the examination of illustrative English and Uzbek expressions. The proposed analytical framework distinguishes semantic, emotional-evaluative, stylistic, and pragmatic dimensions of phraseological non-equivalence. The analysis demonstrates that the loss of an established idiomatic equivalent may affect not only the transfer of information but also the emotional force and interpersonal effect of an utterance. It further suggests that phraseological lacunarity should be investigated as a context-sensitive phenomenon influenced by cultural conventions, speaker relationships, communicative intentions, and changing linguistic practices. The article contributes to contrastive linguistics, phraseology, pragmatics, translation studies, and intercultural communication by offering a framework for identifying and describing the expressive and pragmatic consequences of phraseological non-equivalence.