ETHICAL AND AESTHETIC FEATURES OF IRONY IN THE ANECDOTE "THE FAULT IS MINE"

This article offers a linguo-pragmatic analysis of the ethical and aesthetic properties of irony as manifested in the Nasriddin Afandi anecdote “The Fault Is Mine.” The study synthesizes established views within Uzbek linguistics on the nature of irony (J. Lapasov, E. Ibragimova, L. Jalolova, among others) with Grice’s conversational maxims and Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory. It is argued that the irony in the anecdote operates on two levels: ethically, it models self-directed accountability through admitting one’s own mistake; aesthetically, it produces a comic effect through the listener’s inferential engagement.