EVALUATIVE VOCABULARY IN DESCRIBING FEMALE CHARACTERS IN ENGLISH AND UZBEK DETECTIVE NARRATIVES

This article investigates evaluative vocabulary used to describe female characters in English and Uzbek detective narratives. Evaluative lexical units play a significant role in shaping the reader’s perception of female characters and constructing their social, moral, and psychological image. The study applies a comparative linguocultural approach to identify the dominant positive and negative evaluative markers in both literary traditions. The analysis demonstrates that English detective fiction often employs evaluative adjectives and descriptive expressions emphasizing independence, intelligence, emotional restraint, and attractiveness, while Uzbek detective narratives tend to use vocabulary highlighting modesty, moral purity, dignity, patience, and family-oriented identity. The research also reveals that negative evaluation in English texts is frequently associated with manipulation, danger, and mystery, whereas Uzbek texts mainly express negative evaluation through concepts of shame, dishonor, and social condemnation. The findings confirm that evaluative vocabulary functions as a culturally conditioned linguistic mechanism reflecting national values and gender stereotypes in detective discourse.