THE DISCURSIVE SIGNIFICANCE OF ONOMASTIC TRANSFORMATION IN THE IDENTIFICATION OF LITERARY CHARACTERS

The article examines onomastic transformation in English and Uzbek literary discourse with particular reference to character
identification and its discursive-pragmatic functions. Onomastic transformation is interpreted as the use of different naming forms
– personal names, surnames, pseudonyms, nicknames, titles and status markers – for the same referent within literary discourse.
The study draws on anthroponymic material from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn, G‘afur G‘ulom’s Shum bola, Pirimqul Qodirov’s Yulduzli tunlar and Odil Yoqubov’s Ulug‘bek xazinasi. Contextual,
discourse-pragmatic, onomastic and comparative methods demonstrate that naming variants may remain referentially equivalent
while differing significantly in their pragmatic, social and evaluative functions. Changes in naming forms are shown to correlate
with social status, self-identification, interpersonal relations and narrative characterization