Implicit pragmatic meanings in literary texts and translation transformations

Abstract

This article investigates the manifestation of implicit pragmatic meanings in Uzbek literary discourse and examines the transformation strategies employed during translation into English and Russian. Through rigorous analysis of canonical works by Abdulla Qodiriy, Abdulhamid Cho‘lpon, and Oybek, the study demonstrates how presuppositional content, implicatures, indirect speech acts, and culturally-embedded subtexts undergo systematic modification across linguistic boundaries. Employing relevance theory, speech act theory, and Gricean pragmatics as theoretical frameworks, the research identifies six primary transformation types: explicitation, implicitation, pragmatic compensation, cultural substitution, semantic shift, and deletion. Corpus analysis of 247 textual segments reveals that implicit meanings rooted in Islamic cultural codes, kinship hierarchies, and Soviet-era political subtexts prove most resistant to direct translation. The findings indicate that translators frequently sacrifice pragmatic fidelity for semantic transparency, resulting in a flattening of narrative complexity. This study contributes to translation studies by mapping the pragmatic losses inherent in cross-cultural literary transfer and proposes a taxonomy of transformation strategies calibrated to preserve authorial intent while maintaining target-language readability.