New words and meanings in the Russian language of the 21st century (based on the language unit “fake”)

The functional peculiarities of the language unit “fake” in media texts of various directions for the period from 2014 to 2022 are considered. Attention is paid to the studies devoted to analyzing the phenomenon of “fake” as a linguistic and non-linguistic concept for a comprehensive understanding of the specifics of the unit under study. The novelty of the research is seen in an attempt to systematically and comprehensively analyze the language unit “fake”, which is actively functioning in modern media of various types. The relevance of the research is due to the wide popularity of the concept of “fake”, its fixation in the linguistic worldview of representatives of different cultural traditions, which determines the expansion of the semantic-pragmatic, derivational and metaphorical potential of the nominating unit in the texts of the media. Definitions of the phenomenon of “fake” as an object of linguistic and interdisciplinary research are given. The research results prove that the language unit “fake” in the texts of Russian-language media acquires additional semantics and changes its connotative background due to political events and pragmatic attitudes of the author of the media text.