Semantic field analysis of railway terminology in English and Uzbek: a comparative lexicological study

Abstract

The rapid globalization of railway transport has increased the need for accurate bilingual terminology in engineering, logistics, passenger service, and technical translation. This paper presents a comparative lexicological study of railway terminology in English and Uzbek through the framework of semantic field theory. The study organizes approximately 300 railway terms into seven semantic fields: infrastructure, rolling stock, signaling, passenger service, freight transport, safety, and station terminology. It then compares the lexical-semantic structure of these fields in order to identify dominant conceptual areas, types of equivalence, lexical gaps, and major patterns of term formation in Uzbek. The analysis shows that English railway terminology is highly lexicalized, especially in infrastructure, signaling, and safety, while Uzbek terminology has a hybrid structure shaped by native Turkic word formation, Russian borrowings, international terms, and descriptive translations. The findings are relevant for translators, terminology planners, technical writers, and researchers working with English–Uzbek transport vocabulary.