Ms. Tkachenko presented a talk prepared jointly with E. O. Borzenko, an assistant professor at the Department of Slavonic Philology, on the topic of “Functioning of Neologisms with the Root -bull- in Modern Russian”. They examined the etymology, microdiachrony, and semantics of neologisms like bullitʹ ‘to bully’, bulli ‘bully’, buller ‘idem’. Special attention was paid to how such neologisms are perceived in the Russian linguistic consciousness: partly with ironic examples (Moi kot menia bullit ‘My cat is bullying me’, etc.) and the neologisms babulling ‘granny bullying’ (from bulling ‘bullying’ + babulia ‘granny, old woman’) and babuller. The presentation wrapped up with a demonstration of a meme about the specifics of babulling.

The report provoked a heated discussion: the participants argued about the reasons for the ironic perception of neologisms, about the connection between the words bully and bull, and about the meaning of the Russian neologism ecobulling. Our student, Ms. Tkachenko, won a project competition held during the conference.