The linguistic and cultural aspect of the new vocabulary of the coronavirus pandemic

Abstract

The article studies the linguocultural aspect of the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic neologisms. The similarities and differences between the English and Russian vocabulary of the coronavirus pandemic, generated by the specifics of the cultural code of intercultural communication participants, are analyzed. The relevance of the study is ensured by the continuous expansion of the coronavirus pandemic vocabulary, the permanent interest of linguists in the most popular part of the neological discourse of the English and Russian languages, the need for a scientific interpretation of collective experience reflected in the coronavirus pandemic vocabulary. The objective of the article is a linguistic and cultural analysis of the English and Russian coronavirus pandemic vocabulary to identify the peculiarities of the mindset of these neologisms’ creators in the definitions and contextual field of the given examples. The material of the study is the lexical units used in the speech of the inhabitants of the English-speaking (Great Britain, Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia, India, South Africa) and the Russian-speaking areas recorded on the Internet. The fundamental research method is linguoculturological analysis supplemented by stylistic, semantic-axiological, comparative and componential analyzes. The role of the borrowing factor in compiling the corpus of the coronavirus pandemic vocabulary is also investigated. The regional specifics of lexical units that reflect the consequences of the spread of the disease is revealed. In particular, the article considers the specificity of the reflection of the emergence of new values on the stylistic layer of these neologisms in both Russian and English speeches.