Metaphors in Uzbek and English Political Discourse: A Linguocultural Perspective on the Speeches of Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Donald Trump

Political discourse is rich in metaphors, which function not as mere stylistic flourishes but as culturally embedded cognitive devices that shape political realities, legitimate authority, and unify collective identities. Within this framework metaphors as linguoculturemes activate culturally charged frames that incline audiences toward a preferred interpretation.
This study aims to identify, classify, and comparatively analyze metaphors as linguoculturemes in the official presidential speeches of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev and the President of the United States of America Donald Trump delivered during 2025. The specific tasks of this study are: (1) to identify the dominant metaphorical clusters in the speeches of both presidents; (2) to analyze these metaphors as linguoculturemes by tracing their cultural sources and the presuppositions they activate; and (3) to compare the structural organization, thematic focus, and discourse functions of the two metaphorical systems.
The study adopts a qualitative-interpretive methodology that integrates three complementary frameworks: Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Critical Metaphor Analysis and Linguocultural Analysis. Metaphorical expressions were identified using the Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP), grouped into cultureme-based clusters, and analyzed through contextual and intertextual methods. The corpus comprises six speeches in total – three by Sh.Mirziyoyev (approximately 20,000 words) and three by D.Trump (approximately 21,000 words).
The results reveal that Sh.Mirziyoyev’s metaphorical system is grounded in a multilayered cultureme structure drawing on Islamicspiritual, Turkic-nomadic, mahalla-communal, post-Soviet mobilisational, historical-dynastic and ecocultural strata, while D.Trump’s metaphors are rooted in American civil religion, frontier mythology and populist anti-institutionalism.
The study concludes that both leaders deploy metaphors as instruments of civilizational assertion and political legitimation, yet the cultural reservoirs they draw upon are fundamentally divergent; linguocultureme analysis of presidential discourse provides access to the deepest levels of political meaning.