Authors

Discussion

Slavonic languages are nowadays heavily influenced by the widespread presence of English in global electronic media. Consequently, due to this specific language-contact situation, Slavonic languages have been experiencing a rapid and constantly increasing influx of direct English borrowings into their lexical system. These borrowings, in turn, exhibit varying degrees of orthographic, phonological, morphological, and semantic adaptation to the recipient languages. As a result, the processes of formation of new words on the basis of loanwords of English origin have intensified considerably (Radčenko, 2018; Zoričić, 2023; Zoričić & Radčenko, 2020).

Similarly, as is well established, Slavonic languages possess a notably rich and complex system of evaluative affixes used to indicate deviations from a default or neutral value (Grandi & Körtvélyessy, 2015, p. 3; Gaeta, 2015, p. 130; Štekauer, 201, p. 59). Their pragmatic versatility is particularly evident in computer-mediated communication, where speakers typically employ them to express diminutive, augmentative, pejorative, etc. meaning (Körtvélyessy, 2015, p. 61; Štekauer, 2015, p. 43).

The aim of the present paper is therefore to determine the extent to which the speakers of two Slavonic languages – Russian (an East Slavonic language) and Croatian (a South Slavonic language) – demonstrate their linguistic creativity particularly in non-standard online communication (such as in chatrooms, blogs, and comment sections) by adding Russian and Croatian evaluative affixes to loanwords of English origin. The analysis reveals that in language use in computer-mediated communication both Russian and Croatian show numerous instances of evaluative derivatives coined on the basis of Anglicisms, mainly expressing pejoration, but also diminutivisation, augmentivisation, etc.