The article discusses the role of associative thinking in the language of the external world, the associative relationship of language units, the issue of associative study of language units in Uzbek linguistics, the associative features of national-cultural units in the Uzbek language. The results of the associative experiment conducted in the Uzbek language were analyzed, and the national-cultural symbol of the language units and the reflection of this symbol in the associative units were commented on. The article also discusses issues such as the fact that the meaning of associations changes over the years, the scale of verbal associations varies among linguists, and the role of associations as a basic unit in text formation.