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BUSINESS DISCOURSE IN ENGLISH AND UZBEK PRINT
PUBLICATIONS
Rakhmatov Islombek Qo‘ldosh oʻgʻli
Teacher, Department of Languages,
University of Science and Technology
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15362746
Annotation:
The article compares how business discourse is realised in
contemporary English language and Uzbek language print publications. Using a
corpus of forty articles (twenty from leading British and U S business
newspapers and magazines, twenty from major Uzbek newspapers and
periodicals, all 2023–2024), the study undertakes (i) a qualitative discourse
pragmatic reading of genre, stance and interpersonal positioning, and (ii) a
quantitative mapping of key business terms, loan word density and
metadiscoursal markers. Results indicate that English texts display a condensed,
data driven argumentative style reliant on acronyms and nominal groups,
whereas Uzbek texts mix formal register with persuasive rhetoric and a
markedly higher proportion of unassimilated English loanwords.
Sociolinguistically, loans are linked to prestige and global orientation, yet they
co-exist with indigenous neologisms promoted by language policy initiatives.
Findings contribute to cross linguistic business communication studies and have
implications for translators and journalism educators.
Keywords:
business terminology; print media; English; Uzbek language;
borrowings; sociolinguistics; business language; comparative research
Introduction
Business journalism mediates specialised economic knowledge to a broad
readership and therefore provides a revealing window on language contact and
ideology (Yu & Zheng, 2022). English, the dominant lingua franca of
international finance, exports a dense terminological toolkit that many other
languages selectively borrow (Asilova, Shirinova & Iskandarova, 2023). Uzbek,
undergoing rapid market reforms and digitalisation since the mid-2010s, has
experienced an unprecedented influx of English business terms
(Yuldasheva, 2024). Previous studies have catalogued lexical borrowings
(Qodirov, 2024) and compiled equivalence glossaries (Barkhudarov, 2023), yet
few have examined how such lexis functions inside authentic journalistic
discourse – or compared the discursive architecture of English and Uzbek
business articles. The present paper addresses this lacuna through an
IMRAD-based comparative analysis.
Literature Review
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Research on English business discourse depicts it as information-dense,
acronym-heavy and intertextually linked to stock-market genres (Breeze, 2015).
Critical Discourse Analyses emphasise an ethos of authority built through
evidential statistics and hedged prognoses (Yu & Zheng, 2022). By contrast,
Uzbek scholarship concentrates on lexical import. Asilova et al. (2023) trace
economic terminology sources from Russian intermediary loans of the Soviet era
to direct English borrowings after 2017. Makhmudova (2023) shows that 68 %
of new financial terms in Uzbek press headlines between 2021–2022 were
English-origin nouns (startup, fintech, IPO). Comparative work is sparse:
Barkhudarov (2023) notes morpho-syntactic compression in English (e.g.
post-pandemic recovery hopes fade) versus analytic phrasal constructions in
Uzbek; Kamolova (2022) observes that Uzbek writers compensate for acronyms
(GDP)
with
explanatory
appositives
(yalpi
ichki
mahsulot).
Communication-strategy studies (Scholarexpress, 2024) add a pragmatic
dimension: Uzbek articles incorporate respectful address forms and evaluative
adjectives more frequently than their English counterparts, reflecting divergent
audience expectations. Together, these strands suggest that lexical borrowing
interacts with genre-specific rhetorical choices – an interaction this study tests
empirically.
Methodology
Corpus design
A balanced corpus of forty print-media texts was assembled.
English set – twenty articles (≈ 28 000 words) from The Financial Times, The
Economist, The Guardian-Business (Jan 2023–Dec 2024).
Uzbek set – twenty articles (≈ 30 500 words) from Yangi O‘zbekiston,
Daryo.uz (print supplement), Iqtisodiy Xabarlar magazine (same period). Topic
keywords “investment, entrepreneurship, market, finance” guided selection to
maximise thematic comparability.
Analytic procedures
1.
Term extraction
with AntConc: frequency lists filtered for economic
lemmas; loanwords tagged manually as EN-origin, RU-origin, or native.
2.
Discourse profiling
: following Hyland’s (2005) metadiscourse model,
occurrences of interactional resources (hedges, boosters, attitude markers) and
engagement features (pronouns, questions) were annotated.
3.
Pragmatic moves
: paragraph-level coding identified typical
macro-moves (problem, evidence, forecast, recommendation)
after
Breeze (2015).
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Inter-coder reliability on 10 % of data reached κ = 0.82. Chi-square tests
(p < .05) determined significance of distributional differences.
Results
Lexical borrowing
English articles unsurprisingly contained no Uzbek items; 7 % of tokens
were global French/Latin loans (entrepreneur, portfolio) considered
naturalised. Uzbek texts exhibited 41 % English loans and 12 % Russian
remnants, leaving 47 % native or calqued terms. High-frequency imports
included startup (f = 127), outsourcing (83), benchmark (57). At headline level,
68 % of Uzbek titles featured at least one English word, often in roman script
even inside Cyrillic paragraphs.
Metadiscourse density
Table 1 shows mean frequencies per 1 000 words. English pieces used twice
as many hedges (e.g. likely, may) and evidentials (data show), projecting caution.
Uzbek pieces relied more on boosters (undoubtedly, muhim ahamiyatga ega)
and attitude markers expressing positive appraisal. Engagement devices
diverged: English sprinkled second-person imperatives in advice columns
(consider diversifying), whereas Uzbek used inclusive biz(we) to invoke national
economic goals.
Category
English
Uzbek
Hedges
5.8
2.9
Boosters
2.1
4.7
Attitude markers
1.4
3.6
Engagement pronouns 0.9
2.5
Macro-move structure
Both corpora shared a four-move pattern:
situation → problem → evidence → projection. However, Uzbek articles
expanded the projection move with policy recommendations and quotes from
officials – absent in English pieces, which preferred market-based prescriptions.
Average sentence length differed (EN = 28 words; UZ = 19), with English
employing stacked noun groups (post-merger efficiency savings plan), versus
syntactically linear explanations in Uzbek.
Discussion
Findings confirm that linguistic borrowing alone does not equate discursive
convergence. Despite heavy import of English lexis, Uzbek business reportage
retains rhetorical traits tied to cultural norms: respectful tone, collectivist
pronouns, and explicit normative stances (Asilova et al., 2023). The prestige
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motive (Qodirov, 2024) explains retention of unassimilated spellings, while state
language policy campaigns foster occasional indigenous alternatives, creating a
hybrid lexicon. From a genre perspective, English outlets privilege reader
autonomy through dense data and limited exhortation, a style conditioned by
Western journalistic conventions and audience financial literacy (Breeze, 2015).
Uzbek outlets, addressing a transforming economy, combine information with
guidance and patriotic framing, echoing the “development journalism” model in
emerging markets (Scholarexpress, 2024). Translators must therefore manage
not only terminology, but also metadiscourse alignment to maintain functional
equivalence.
Conclusion
Comparative analysis reveals that Uzbek print business discourse imports
English terminology extensively yet mobilises it within national communicative
norms. The resulting text type is linguistically heterogeneous but pragmatically
coherent for its audience. Future research might expand to digital-only
platforms or multimodal business communication (charts, infographics) to see
whether similar patterns persist.
References:
1.
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terminology of the Uzbek language: Sources and methods of development. E3S
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Barkhudarov, M. E. (2023). Comparative study of business terminologies
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Breeze, R. (2015). Corporate discourse. Bloomsbury.
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Kamolova, D. K. (2022). Comparative analysis of business and
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Makhmudova, Z. (2023). English economic loanwords in Uzbek press
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International scientific-online conference
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