Dynamic Processes in the Russian Language of the Coronavirus Era

Abstract

This article considers the active processes occurring in the Russian language during the coronavirus pandemic. Specific changes in the vocabulary are described, new phenomena in lexical semantics in various spheres of communication are identified. Primary attention is given to the changes in the active vocabulary of the literary language, the sources of new words, and the assimilation of foreign borrowings that are highly relevant for communication in this period. According to the author, the most important processes taking place in the Russian language include intellectualization of the common literary language, i.e. the introduction of highly specialized terms of medicine, virology, and immunotherapy (saturation, contagiousness, antibodies, etc.); activation of a number of words due to the current events (regime, quarantine, vaccine, etc.) and expansion of their collocations; active derivational processes in the course of assimilation of loan words (covid, coronavirus, pandemic, etc.) and adaptation of existing words to the new reality (remote working, distance learning, etc.); actualization of individual lexical and grammatical categories of words (substantivized adjectives and nouns ending in -tion); dynamic processes in lexical semantics (semantic neologisms, enantiosemy); formation of multicomponent synonym sets and variants of nomination (covid, coronavirus, new coronavirus infection, etc.); widespread use of figurative names (red zone, peak in morbidity, immune response, viral load, second wave, etc.). Concrete examples show that the new reality has expanded the range of social practices, whose language reflects the values and pragmatic attitudes characteristic of the current moment.