Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This article explores how national mentality and cultural memory are expressed through nostalgic lexical units in English and Uzbek. Nostalgia reflects not only an individual’s longing for the past but also collective representations associated with a community’s values, traditions, lifestyle, and historical experience. The study examines Uzbek lexical items such as hovli (courtyard/home compound), mahalla (neighbourhood community), dasturxon (traditional tablecloth and shared meal setting), and choyxona (teahouse), alongside English expressions such as childhood home, old neighbourhood, family dinners, school days, and homecoming. Using descriptive, contextual, semantic, and comparative methods, the article discusses how nostalgic vocabulary activates cultural memory, reinforces identity, and transmits experience across generations. The findings suggest that nostalgia should be interpreted as an interaction between universal human emotions and culturally shaped meanings rather than as an identical phenomenon across all communities.
Author: Rushana Xayitova Ximoyiddin qizi
Institution: Denau Institute of Entrepreneurship and Pedagogy
Language: English
Topic: Language and Culture
Subfield: Linguistics and Language
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W7224187244