STRUCTURAL AND FUNCTIONAL TYPOLOGY OF ABBREVIATIONS IN ENGLISH AND UZBEK INTERNET TERMINOLOGY

Abstract

The rapid development of Internet technologies has profoundly transformed the mechanisms of terminological formation in global linguistic systems. Within this dynamic digital environment, abbreviation has evolved from a peripheral stylistic device into a structurally dominant and functionally indispensable mechanism of lexical compression. The present study investigates the structural typology, functional motivation, and cross-linguistic adaptation of abbreviations in English and Uzbek Internet terminology. The research is based on a corpus of 412 terminological units collected from technical documentation, academic publications, digital glossaries, and official Internet standards between 2010 and 2024. Through a multi-layer coding model, abbreviations were classified according to structural type, etymological origin, and functional role. Quantitative analysis demonstrates that initialisms and alphanumeric constructions dominate in English, whereas Uzbek terminology exhibits a strong tendency toward assimilated borrowing and phonetic adaptation. The findings confirm that abbreviation functions not only as a means of linguistic economy but also as a cognitive-nominative instrument ensuring conceptual stability and global interoperability. The study contributes to comparative terminology research and proposes recommendations for standardization in Uzbek academic discourse.