Pragmatic and Sociolinguistic Features of Hybrid Verbs in Instagram Youth Discourse

Abstract

The rise of hybrid verbs in Uzbek Instagram discourse reflects increasing language contact between English and Uzbek in digital youth culture. The study documents, categorizes, and examines the structural patterns and pragmatic functions of 50 naturally occurring hybrid verbal constructions from publicly accessible Uzbek-language Instagram content. A qualitative-descriptive corpus analysis was conducted, categorizing each item for morphological structure, social distribution, and communicative function. The analytical framework integrates Yus's internet pragmatics model, Satimova's neologism typology, and sociolinguistic identity theory. Three main structural patterns were identified: 1. English noun/verb stem + qilmoq, 2. English root + Uzbek -la verbalizer, 3. English idiom + Uzbek state verb. Each pattern serves distinct pragmatic functions including linguistic economy, identity signaling, semantic specialization, and multimodal meaning-making. The findings suggest that hybrid verbs are a grammatically principled and socially meaningful phenomenon driven by communicative efficiency and identity performance, with implications for contact linguistics and digital communication research in multilingual communities.