Vocabulary of the Coronavirus Pandemic as a Reflection of the Evolution of Society

Abstract

The article examines the vocabulary of the coronavirus pandemic as a reflection of the evolution of society. The relevance of the topic of the article is due to the continuous expansion of the lexical field reflecting the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the development of mankind. The aim of the study is to identify the specifics of the representation of the evolution of society in the language through a comprehensive analysis of the neologisms of the coronavirus pandemic. The study of the vocabulary of the coronavirus pandemic allows us to trace the vectors of socio-cultural transformations in both synchronic and diachronic aspects – the tasks of this work include both the analysis of the collision of opposing trends in the perception of the pandemic and the identification of changes in the perception of the “coronavirus era” by society. The research material is a sample of neologisms of the coronavirus pandemic recorded in the network space. The research methods were semantic, contextual, linguistic and axiological, sociological analyses, which allow considering both psycholinguistic and extralinguistic factors in creating the vocabulary of the coronavirus pandemic. The analysis of the vocabulary of the coronavirus pandemic revealed the multidimensionality of the impact of the pandemic on the development of society – the variability of the vocabulary of the coronavirus pandemic is explained by the significant evolutionary potential of the pandemic’s impact on most aspects of public and private life of mankind during the fight against the spread of coronavirus.