New social vocabulary of the last decade: A contrastive analysis of media vocabulary (based on Russian, Slovak, and Czech languages)

The article analyzes the lexical units of English origin associated with social movements and ideological trends of the last decade. It outlines the sociocultural context that prompted the emergence of these borrowings and their derivatives. The pathways of integration of the term woke into Slovak, Czech, and Russian are traced, with particular attention to its adaptation and the functioning of verbal derivatives in these Slavic languages. The semantic potential of new compound names of woke culture, kultúra prebudenia (Slovak), kultura probuzení (Czech), культура вовлечённости (Russian) is analysed. The analysis addresses both the graphic representation of these neologisms (e.g., woke culture, woke-культура, воук-культура) and, importantly, the semantic shifts observed in their usage across languages. For instance, woke has evolved from its original meaning of ‘awake’ to convey notions such as культура вовлеченности (‘culture of involvement’), политкорректная культура (‘politically correct culture’), культура заинтересованности (‘culture of awareness) and finally - информированный, актуальный (‘informed’, ‘topical’). The productivity of these borrowings is underscored by numerous derivatives, such as Russian воук, вокизм, воукизм, антивоукер; Czech wokizmus/wokeizmus, woker/wokeři; and Slovak wokizmus/wokeizmus, wokeri. Stylistic shifts are also relevant in the assimilation process: the initially stylistically neutral woke (in English orthography) acquired negative connotations as it came to label people concerned with identity politics and decolonial movement, at times functioning as a pejorative. It has been revealed that in Russian, вокер can be interpreted in an entirely different context - as an anthroponym or a term related to cooking in a wok. Further sociolinguistic shifts are reflected in the prominence of the term Cancel culture, which appears in media discourses translated into Slovak as kultúra (z)rušenia, into Czech as kultura rušení, and into Russian as культура отмены or культура исключения. Another prominent theme driving lexical innovation is discourse around sexual and gender minorities, exemplified by the widespread use of abbreviations such as LGBT and newer formulations like LGBTIQA+, as well as terms including transgender, transrodový muž/žena (Slovak/Czech), and transrodoví ľudia. In conclusion, the analysis demonstrates that the active processes of borrowing and rapid adaptation of neologisms in Slovak, Czech, and Russian are strongly influenced by the sociocultural environment, prevailing ideological trends, and ongoing discussions within digital and mass media spaces.

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