Vectors of Vocabulary Dynamics in the Russian and Ossetian Languages

The topic of this article is lexical transformations as peculiar markers of the dynamics of modern language systems. However, in the context of the erasure of national differences, scholarly attention is focused on the process of regionalization, the relevance of which is ensured by its important role in intercultural communication: as a mechanism for the formation of national identity, regionalization is a kind of reaction to the negative challenges of globalization. The article aims to consider various manifestations of the dictionary updating process and compare modern Russian and Ossetian vocabulary in this respect. Russian explanatory dictionaries and translated Ossetian-Russian dictionaries were used as research material; information from a linguistic survey of a particular population group is undoubtedly relevant. The observations on the following vectors of the mentioned dynamics are presented: Neologization and internationalization of vocabulary; democratization and liberalization of vocabulary; the return of obsolete lexemes into active word use; and characteristic shifts in the structure of conceptual content motivated by the updating of denotations. The peculiarities of vocabulary changes in the Russian and Ossetian lexical systems are presented based on relevant observations. It is argued that within the processes of neologization and internationalization, the nature of the dynamics in these languages is generally identical, although the innovations in Ossetian vocabulary are more often two-dimensional (formal-semantic) in nature and “their occurrence is due to the resources of both Russian and, to a lesser extent, the Ossetian language itself...” (1, p. 730). Functional shifts manifest themselves in accordance with two multidirectional vectors: on the one hand, the influence of globalization and, on the other, the process of regionalization, which allows for a kind of preservation of ethnic identity. While the Russian linguistic taste is very hostile to the intensive liberalization and even criminalization of the modern lexical stock, the modern Ossetian language, on the contrary, shows the traditional norms of linguistic activity: the historically formed way of life, which is largely relevant for the modern speakers of the Ossetian language, largely motivates the patterns of behavior, including the patterns of linguistic taste.

dynamics of language, language process, neolexemes, neologization, democratization of language, liberalization of language, actualization of lexemes