“YANGI AVLOD ILMIY TADQIQOTLARI” respublika ilmiy-amaliy konferensiyasi
WHAT SURVIVES THE SCREEN: CHILDREN'S VERBAL GAME FOLKLORE IN THE DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT ACROSS UZBEK, RUSSIAN AND ENGLISH TRADITIONS
PhD Candidate, Fergana State University, Fergana, Republic of Uzbekistan
This article examines what is preserved and what is lost when children's verbal game folklore migrates from live social practice into digital environments. Drawing on a corpus of approximately 1,500 folkloric texts and a sociolinguistic survey of approximately 300 native speakers across Uzbek, Russian and English linguistic communities, the study identifies a fundamental asymmetry in digital transformation: rhythmic-formulaic structures and role-assignment mechanisms survive digital mediation with considerable fidelity, while embodied performance, ritual closing formulae and word- movement syncretism are systematically lost. Survey data reveal that internet-based transmission is highest in the English-speaking context (14%) and minimal in the Uzbek context (2%), corresponding to the widest memory-to-use gap in the English group (35 percentage points) and the narrowest in the Uzbek group (24 percentage points). The article proposes a selective preservation model and draws implications for cultural heritage policy.