Functions and semantics of foreign language beauty vocabulary in the modern Russian language

Abstract

The authors examine the main principles of the vocabulary of the semantic field “Cosmetics and cosmetic products” formation and development in the modern Russian language. The purpose of this study is to describe the functional status and semantic parameters of lexical units of foreign origin in comparison with their prototypes. The relevance of the work is dual: extralinguistic space transformation, the deepening of knowledge about it and the complication of the knowledge structure means the evolution of language systems, where the vocabulary demonstrates the most sensitive reactions and, therefore, higher dynamics. The material of the work included the data form advertising texts and audiovisual documents published in specialized magazines (articles and reviews), as well as users’ comments at beauty forums. The authors followed the system-synergetic model of foreign lexemes in the Russian language compared with their prototypes in the source language. The concept of language contacts is clarified and the main approaches to the typology of foreign vocabulary are provided. The authors establish the most significant differential semes that categorize the vocabulary of the sphere under study and clarify its etymological composition. The types of variability of foreign language units in the beauty vocabulary are described in detail and the wide distribution of these particular variants are explained. Based on a detailed structural analysis of lexical units, the authors draw conclusions about the productivity of some morphological ways of forming new words, such as suffixation and composition. The study also reveals the increasing frequency of the so-called phraseological (or combinability) calquing. A comparative component analysis of the meaning of a foreign word in Russian and its prototype identified ascending trends in semantics within the framework of the studied layer: the functioning of semantic rows where logical-hierarchical paradigms are built.

Keywords

• russian language
• language contacts
• borrowing
• foreign vocabulary
• calque
• synonym
• hyponym
• hypernym