THE USE OF IRONY AND HYPERBOLE IN CREATING HUMOR IN ENGLISH AND UZBEK ANECDOTES

Abstract

This article examines the linguistic and stylistic mechanisms of irony and hyperbole as principal means of generating humor in English and Uzbek anecdotes. The study compares how these two devices function within the humorous discourse of the two languages, focusing on their structural, semantic, and pragmatic characteristics. Drawing on selected examples from English and Uzbek jokes, the article demonstrates that although irony and hyperbole serve a universal comic function, their realization is shaped by culture-specific values, worldview, and communicative traditions. The findings reveal both shared cognitive mechanisms of humor and language-specific patterns of exaggeration and incongruity. The article concludes that a contrastive approach to irony and hyperbole offers valuable insight into the cultural pragmatics of humor and can be useful for translation studies, cross-cultural communication, and the teaching of English as a foreign language.