Shchetinina A.V. Phraseological Neologisms as Linguistic Units with a Borderline Status: Towards the Question of Lexicography
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15688/jvolsu2.2026.1.14
Anna V. Shchetinina
Candidate of Sciences (Philology), Associate Professor, Department of Mass Communication Languages, Ural Federal University named after the First President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin, Yekaterinburg, Russia
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9085-8697
Abstract. The relevance of the study is determined by the intensive development of neography and the debates of recent decades regarding the lexicography of new words and phraseological units. The article defines an approach to the inclusion of new language units of the thematic group "Society," that were created on the basis of the language own resources, in the lexicographic publication "Explanatory Dictionary of Russian Neologisms." The paper aims to introduce a methodology for identifying new expressions, which consist of Russian words or loanwords borrowed long ago, and confirming their status as phraseological units that can be recorded in explanatory dictionaries. The author refers to neologisms, including idiomatic expressions, that are not registered in normative dictionaries as linguistic units with borderline status. It demonstrates how, through content analysis using the search engine "Yandex," the "Yandex. Word Selection" service, Google Ngram Viewer, as well as newspaper texts from electronic publications and blog content, grounds for including phraseological neologisms into the dictionary of new Russian vocabulary have been identified. It is noted that one of the problematic areas in selecting idioms and their dictionary description is the recording of calques (loan translations). Using the expression "comfort zone" as an example, the methodology for determining the grounds for its inclusion in the dictionary is demonstrated. It has been established that this expression was borrowed from English twice: in the early 20th century in a climatic sense and in the 21st century in the psychological one. As a new expression in the domain of psychology, "comfort zone" aligns with the developed principles for including phrases in the dictionary of Russian neologisms: it possesses imagery, novelty, and frequency of use. New meanings are actualized in contexts, which enables compiling a definition that differs from the source dictionary entry.
Key words: social vocabulary, borrowing, calque, methods of identifying phraseological neologisms, borderline status.
Citation. Shchetinina A.V. Phraseological Neologisms as Linguistic Units with a Borderline Status: Towards the Question of Lexicography. Vestnik Volgogradskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Seriya 2. Yazykoznanie [Science Journal of Volgograd State University. Linguistics], 2026, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 190-202. (in Russian). DOI: https://doi.org/10.15688/jvolsu2.2026.1.14
 14_Shchetinina.pdfURL: https://l.jvolsu.com/index.php/en/component/attachments/download/3226 | 6 Downloads |