Cognitive Frame Modelling of Euphemistic Designations of Virginity in Uzbek Linguoculture, Late 20th – Early 21st Centuries

Introduction. The verbalization of virginity in Uzbek linguoculture at the turn of the 21st century is regulated by taboo, ritual practices, and institutional norms. Therefore, direct nominations are systematically replaced by euphemistic formulations that redistribute responsibility and the degree of public ‘visibility’ of the intimate. Goals. The article seeks to reconstruct the cognitive–frame organization of euphemistic nominations of virginity and to describe register- and pragmatics-based dynamics across four interrelated frames. Materials and methods. The study is based on a lexicographically mediated corpus compiled from a concise Uzbek euphemistic dictionary. On this basis, 149 euphemistic nominations pertaining to the sphere of maidenhood have been selected and normalized. Methodologically, the analysis relies on a cognitive–frame approach that models euphemistic nomination through event–role configurations and captures meaning re-profiling in the shift from direct to secondary naming. The interpretation further draws on Conceptual Metaphor and Metonymy Theory and pragmatic–discourse analysis, which accounts for the register sensitivity of euphemisms and their communicative orientations toward neutralization, normalization, juridification, and stigmatization. Results. The obtained data reveal a systematic shift in source domains along the event trajectory asfollows: the pre-event status is sacralized through botanical and protective imagery; the feature is reprofiled as value and resource via object- and packaging-based metaphoricity; the loss of status is construed as boundary rupture in veil- and fabric-based as well as procedural formulas; and post-event nominations range from neutralizing normalization to stigmatizing labeling. A recurrent cognitive nexus is the semiotics of boundary and its violation, while the key discourse effect is the dynamics of agency, whereby responsibility may be explicitly attributed to the perpetrator, blurred through proceduralization, or transferred onto the status bearer through collective sanction. Conclusions. Euphemization is conceptualized as an operational frame dynamic that integrates tropes, registers, and deontic regimes into a single model of managing public sensitivity. The four-frame model captures transitions between sacralization, neutralization, legal fixation, and stigmatization — and demonstrates how shifts in responsibility intensify traumatic and reputational pressure. The findings are applicable to comparative linguocultural research and to evaluating the ecological quality of public communication, while further validation of the model requires expanding the source base.

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