Carnivalisation in the Vocabulary of Modern Russian and Chinese Languages

Abstract

The article is devoted to carnivalization in the vocabulary of the modern Russian and Chinese languages. The study uses the extracts from the contexts of corpora and live media speech in China and Russia as the material. The paper scrutinizes the active use of Russian and Chinese buzzwords, which is viewed as carnivalization in modern vocabulary. The author examines in detail the following aspects of carnivalization in the lexicon of modern Russian and Chinese: widespread use of borrowed words (internal and external), semantic reinterpretation of literary words in new meanings and creation of numerous occasionalisms through language games. The article pays particular attention to the study of the results of carnivalization in modern Russian and Chinese. One can say, that the abuze of buzzwords can also be risky for one’s image. The results of the analysis allow us to draw some particular conclusions that may interest readers in our study: the carnivalization of vocabulary is closely related to the culture of comicality; in the modern language, buzzwords are rapidly activated, the lexical carnival surely becomes universal and manifests itself not only in Russian, but also in Chinese. On the one hand, the speakers, who use carnivalization, express themselves to a sufficient extent with buzzwords, overcoming banality and social isolation, on the other hand, they cause immense misunderstanding and create alienation between different social groups. The author’s contribution to the study is the extraction of examples for analysis from the texts of linguistic corpora and media in Russian and Chinese. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that the article analyzes carnivalization in vocabulary for the first time, taking into account the language fashion, using examples of modern Russian and Chinese languages. The article may be interesting to specialists in theoretical, applied and comparative linguistics.