Concept “freundschaft” (“friendship”) in virtual communication

The paper focuses on the influence of virtual communication on the German language, exemplified by linguistic and cultural concept “Freundschaft” (“Friendship”). The research aims to distinguish and systematize linguistic means that objectify the concepts “Freundschaft” and “Netzfreundschaft” in real and virtual communication, and to characterize their notional, image and value components. The peculiarities of German-language virtual communication are presented. It is shown that active use of social networks and messengers has led to the development of the new concept “Netzfreundschaft” (“Internet friendship”). Its notional component is explicated through the new meanings of lexical units Freund and Freundschaft . In order to nominate newphenomena, the lexemes and word-combinations ( entfreunden , Überfreundung , Freundschaft kündigen ) appear. They were not previously represented in the lexical and semantic system of the language or have gained new meanings under the influence of virtual communication. The image component of concept “Netzfreundschaft” is characterized by new metaphorical models, as compared to concept “Freundschaft”. The author concludes that verbalization of the processes of emergence, development and termination of friendship, regarded as virtual contact, is established to differ from concept “Freundschaft”; it is represented in the value component of concept “Netzfreundschaft”. The phenomenon described in the article is a vivid example of concept sphere evolution under the influence of network communication.