NATIONAL IDENTITY IN DIGITAL SPACE: THE LINGUISTIC CONSTRUCTION OF CULTURAL IDENTITY IN SOCIAL MEDIA DISCOURSE

Abstract

This study aims to study the linguistic construction of national identity in the discourse of social networks in the Uzbek segment (Instagram, Telegram and TikTok). In the context of digital globalization, social networks are emerging not only as a space for the formation, negotiation and expression of cultural and national identity, but also as an important platform for the emergence of interactive discourse through language tools. The aim of the study is to determine the linguistic and pragmatic mechanisms through which national identity is constructed in online comments. The study was conducted based on a qualitative approach, in which the methods of discourse analysis, linguopragmatic analysis and content analysis were used in an integrative manner. A corpus of 600 public comments was formed for the study and identity markers and their communicative functions were analyzed.

The results of the analysis showed that in digital discourse, national identity is constructed not only through lexical markers such as ethnonyms or cultural realities, but also through evaluative expressions, collective pronouns, code-switching, hashtags and emojis. The results confirm that the construction of digital identity is collective, hybrid and multimodal in nature. While code-switching reflects the integration of global and local elements, visual-linguistic tools strengthen symbolic solidarity. The study shows that national identity in social networks is not a static linguistic category, but a dynamic and interactive construct. This study contributes to sociolinguistics and digital discourse research, as it provides an empirical basis for the mechanisms of identity construction in multilingual online environments.