SEMANTIC AND CULTURAL REPRESENTATION OF GENDER STEREOTYPES IN UZBEK AND ENGLISH PHRASEOLOGY

This research explores the semantic and cultural representation of gender stereotypes in Uzbek and English phraseology. Phraseological units, including proverbs, sayings, idioms, and fixed expressions, serve as linguistic repositories of collective worldview and cultural values. The study investigates how women and men are stereotypically portrayed in both languages, identifying universal gender biases as well as culture-specific features. Using descriptive and contrastive analysis methods, the research examines phraseological units from standard Uzbek and English dictionaries. The findings reveal that both languages share stereotypes of women as talkative, emotional, and domestic, while men are depicted as strong, silent, and authoritative. However, Uzbek phraseology exhibits a stronger honer-based, religiously colored, and patriarchal framing, whereas English phraseology shows greater lexical variation and has undergone partial de-stereotyping under feminist influence. The study contributes to gender linguistics, contrastive phraseology, and intercultural communication by demonstrating how language both mirrors and perpetuates gender ideologies.