Diachronic model of the word “official” in the Russian language: semantic features and vectors of development

The relevance of this article is determined by the demand for the stereotype of a civil servant in Russian public communication and the need for its regular research in order to form an objective public opinion and determine the dynamics of social processes. The purpose of the research was to identify and describe the changes in terms of the content of the language sign “official” in the Russian language in Pre-Soviet, Soviet and modern periods. The methods of synchronous, diachronic, component, lexicographic and contextual analysis are used in the paper. The study was carried out on the material of lexicographic sources and modern mass media discourse on government administration. For the first time, the main vectors for developing semantics of the key lexical unit of the administrative language in the modern period were identified and described. The changes were caused by the destruction of ideologized subject-conceptual semes of the Soviet era; by the expansion of paradigmatic and syntagmatic ties, reflecting the disappearance of geo-conditioned characteristics and consolidating the features of the hierarchy of the modern management, as well as by the actualization and unification of the verbal sign. It is concluded that, in terms of the semantics of the studied verbal signs, there is a traditionally stable pejorative-evaluative emotiveness due to the sociocultural context which is reflected in associative characteristics - stimuli indicating human weaknesses associated primarily with violated moral and ethical norms. The prospects of the research are seen in continuing the synchronous-diachronic study of the most important for the modern Russian language verbal signs “official”, “manager”, “bureaucrat”, “functionary” in the lexical-semantic field “bureaucracy”, which is actively developing, and in using the proposed methods of analysis to study other subsystems of the Russian language.