Articles | Open Access | https://doi.org/10.37547/ajps/Volume05Issue06-50

Cross-Linguistic Analysis of Presupposition in Christie’s Work

Yuldasheva Dilshoda Musayevna , Acting Associate Professor of the Department of Applied Sciences 1, Ph.D. (DSc) at Uzbek State University of World Languages (UzSUWL), Uzbekistan
Yusupova Shakhzoda Sharafiddinovna , Intern Lecturer, Department of English Philology, Samarkand State Institute of Foreign Languages, Uzbekistan
Yusupov Alisher Sharafiddinovich , PhD Researcher, Samarkand State Institute of Foreign Languages, Uzbekistan

Abstract

This paper focuses on the cross-linguistic analysis of presupposition in Agatha Christie’s detective stories, emphasizing their role in guiding readers’ understanding and framing the narrative context. Presupposition, a semantic-pragmatic phenomenon, involves implicitly stating information that is taken for granted by both the speaker and the addressee, thereby adding depth and complexity to character dialogue, suspects’ testimony, and plot progression. In Christie’s texts, presupposition contributes significantly to character relationships, suspicion, and eventual resolution of the mystery. This study applies a contrastive linguistic approach, comparing presupposition mechanisms in the original English texts and their Uzbek translations. Our main aim is to identify and describe linguistic signals, transformation strategies, and semantic effects related to presupposition across both languages. Furthermore, we investigate how these mechanisms influence the way the stories are perceived by readers in different linguistic and cultural contexts. The comparative analysis shows that while some presuppositions are directly preserved in translation, others are rendered more implicitly or are even reformulated due to linguistic, semantic, or cultural differences. This process may affect the degree of suspicion, dramatic tension, or eventual resolution of the plot. Our study contributes to a better understanding of the role of presupposition in literature and highlights the necessity for careful semantic-pragmatic consideration during translation, ensuring that the author’s intent is successfully conveyed across linguistic borders.

Keywords

Presupposition, Presuppositioncross-linguistic analysis

References

Beaver, D. I. (2010). Presupposition. In C. Maienborn, K. von Heusinger, & P. Portner (Eds.), Handbook of Semantics (pp. 537–566). De Gruyter Mouton.

Givón, T. (2015). Context as Other Minds: The Pragmatics of Social Interaction. John Benjamins.

Levinson, S. C. (2020). Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press.

Riemer, N. (2010). Introducing Semantics. Cambridge University Press.

Simons, M. (2010). “A Pragmatic View on Presupposition.” In C. Maienborn, K. von Heusinger, & P. Portner (Eds.), Handbook of Semantics (pp. 566–596). De Gruyter Mouton.

Saeed, J. I. (2016). Semantics. 4th ed. Wiley-Blackwell.

Yule, G. (2020). Pragmatics. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press.

Zhou, M. (2021). “The Translation of Presupposition in Literary Texts.” Open Access Library Journal, 8(10), 1–19.

Al-Seywi, S. (2021). “Pragmatic Presupposition in Agatha Christie’s Detective Stories.” International Journal of English Language and Literature Studies, 10(4), 289–304.

Bayer, J. (2022). “Managing Presupposition and Anaphoric Reference in Translation.” Across Languages and Cultures, 23(1), 133–154.

Article Statistics

Copyright License

Download Citations

How to Cite

Yuldasheva Dilshoda Musayevna, Yusupova Shakhzoda Sharafiddinovna, & Yusupov Alisher Sharafiddinovich. (2025). Cross-Linguistic Analysis of Presupposition in Christie’s Work. American Journal of Philological Sciences, 5(06), 186–189. https://doi.org/10.37547/ajps/Volume05Issue06-50