Linguocultural aspects of neologisms and borrowings as a reflection of technological transformation and globalization in contemporary Russian society

amid intensive technological transformation and globalization, the Russian language is undergoing an active process of borrowing and neologization, which poses to researchers the challenge of a comprehensive analysis of these phenomena as markers of profound sociocultural shifts. The aim of this article is to identify the linguocultural aspects of lexical innovations, analyze their thematic structure, diffusion dynamics, mechanisms of semantic adaptation, and social perception in modern Russian society. An interdisciplinary approach was applied, including a corpus analysis of texts from online media and social networks (approximately 2 million word occurrences), content analysis, and sociolinguistic analysis. Based on a sample of 500 lexical units, their thematic distribution and source languages were examined. The usage dynamics of 20 key neologisms were tracked across three time slices (2015, 2020, and 2025) with the calculation of the index of frequency (IPM). The degree of semantic adaptation was measured using the introduced “Semantic Divergence Index” (SDI). Results showed the absolute dominance of Anglicisms (over 90 %) in key domains such as IT (41.38 % of all neologisms) and business and finance (28.16 %). Dynamic analysis revealed an exponential increase in frequency for lexemes reflecting fundamental social shifts (“remote work,” “to stream”) and a wave-like pattern for words related to short-term trends (“hype,” “blockchain”). Sociolinguistic analysis confirmed a pronounced generational gap in the use and perception of the new lexicon. Lexemes moving from specialized fields into general use undergo the greatest semantic transformation (SDI up to 0.83 for the word “toxic”). It is concluded that the borrowing process is a systemic reflection of globalization and is mediated by complex mechanisms of social and semantic adaptation. Language does not merely passively absorb new vocabulary but actively transforms it, embedding it into its own cultural code. The main factors determining a neologism’s fate are its connection to long-term social trends, the age of its speakers, and the semantic plasticity of the lexeme itself.

neologisms, borrowings, linguoculturology, globalization, corpus analysis