CONCEPTUAL SIMILARITIES OF THE FAMILY IN UZBEK AND ENGLISH CULTURES

The article is devoted to the comparative study of the concept of family in Uzbek and English linguocultures. Unlike most works in this field, which concentrate on the differences between a collectivist, extended-family-oriented society and an individualist, nuclear-family-oriented one, the present paper focuses on the common conceptual core shared by the two cultures. The material of the research includes kinship terminology, proverbs and set expressions, as well as data from ethnographic and linguocultural studies; the methods applied are comparative, descriptive and conceptual analysis. The author shows that, despite the well-known difference in the volume of the concepts oila and family and in the degree of detail of kinship terms, both cultures interpret the family as the basic unit of society, as the primary source of moral upbringing and as a system of mutual obligations. Both languages use kinship terms as a model of warm social relations towards non-relatives and apply the word family metaphorically to non-kin communities. The paper also traces tendencies of partial convergence caused by urbanisation, migration and economic factors. The results may be of practical use in teaching English in Uzbekistan and in intercultural communication.