THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONTEMPORARY RUSSIAN LANGUAGE

Abstract

Social media has become one of the most productive environments for linguistic innovation. This article examines how digital communication influences the contemporary Russian language, with particular attention to lexical borrowing, neologisation, word formation, semantic change, language economy, graphic variation, and multimodality. The study applies descriptive, contextual, and comparative methods to representative examples of Russian-language online discourse and interprets them in relation to current research on computer-mediated communication. The analysis shows that social media does not merely introduce isolated fashionable words. It activates systematic processes at several levels of language: English lexical items are phonologically and grammatically adapted; borrowed stems become bases for Russian derivation; familiar words acquire digital meanings; abbreviated spelling, hashtags, emoji, and other visual signs perform pragmatic functions; and code-switching helps users express identity and group affiliation. At the same time, informal digital conventions may create difficulties when they are transferred into academic or professional writing. It is therefore more accurate to view social-media language not as a direct threat to Russian, but as a rapidly developing functional register whose influence depends on communicative context, audience, and users’ linguistic competence.