SOCIAL NORMS OF MEANING IN PUBLIC COMMUNICATION

Abstract

The article discusses sociopragmatics as a socially oriented branch of pragmatics and outlines its place in the broader pragmatic paradigm. Building on classic and recent work (Leech, Thomas, Eslami; Haugh, Kádár, & Terkourafi; Chang & Ren), sociopragmatics is defined as the study of how pragmatic meanings are shaped by social norms, roles and expectations in concrete speech communities. The subject and main tasks of sociopragmatics are described: modelling socially appropriate language use, identifying sociocultural patterns behind speech acts and politeness strategies, and analysing sociopragmatic failure in cross-cultural communication. Methodological approaches are characterised, including discourse and corpus analysis, experimental and survey techniques, and interdisciplinary links with sociolinguistics and political science. Special attention is paid to political discourse, where sociopragmatic choices are used to frame messages, negotiate power and manage public alignment. The article briefly reviews key scholars and directions in contemporary sociopragmatics, including recent work in Uzbek and regional journals, and argues that sociopragmatics provides a productive framework for systematic analysis of political communication in different cultural contexts.