Terms creation in the Russian-language discourse on “Digit”

The article considers the process of Digital Society terminology formation in the Russian language of the 21st century. The research sources were the scientific texts, official government documents, media discourse. In total, over 300 units of various terminology degree were analyzed. The aim of the article is to identify means of forming the terminology of the Digital Society; to identify the special process features and the concomitant linguistic processes: key terms semantics development, their meaning
ideologization in media, the multiple naming of the same referent and its causes, the competition of term variants. The study was carried out within the functional sociolinguistics framework. The main approach is structural and descriptive. As a result, it established the general tendency of meaning change in the key terms and term elements – from technicism to socio-political vocabulary. “Цифровой” (tsifrovoj – digital), “цифра” (tsifra – digit), “цифровые технологии” (digital technologies), “цифровизация”
(tsifrovizatsiya – digitalization) in the broad context of social life are understood as peculiar ideologems. In the context of actualized discourse on “digit”, the structure of term elements expands due to informal variants of the term, arising mainly in the media sphere: “цифра” (tsifra – digit) as digital technology, “биометрия” (biometriya – biometry) as biometric data, “цифро-” (tsifro- – digital-) is a clipped form to “tsifrovoj” (digital). Different ways of learning foreign language units in the Russian language stimulate
the process of term creation. It leads to the doublets and variation: “дигитальный” (digitalnyj) for “tsifrovoj” (digital), “диджитал-” (didzhital-)/“дигитал-” (digital-). Most terminologized combinations, considered as terms, are mainly created with the help of one term element “цифровой” (tsifrovoj). Direct borrowings “дигитальный” (digitalnyi), “диджитал” (didzhital), “дигитализация” (digitalizatsiya) refer to specific professional fields. During the term creation, synonymous relations arise due to the semantics development of one of the doublets; due to renaming under the impact of a trend: “цифровое правительство” (tsifrovoe pravitel’stvo – digital government) instead of “электронное правительство” (elektronnoe pravitel’stvo – e-government); due to unequal  translation of the terminological nomination from a foreign language: “карта болельщика” (karta bolel’shchika – fan card) instead of “паспорт болельщика” (pasport bolel’shchika – fan ID). The paper notes terms that were inaccurate and incorrect for the addressee: “цифровая личность” (tsifrovaya lichnost’ – digital identity), “цифровой портрет” (tsifrovoj portret – digital profile), “цифровой след” (tsifrovoj sled – digital footprint) as designations for the collection of personal data without the user's consent. Difficulties in verbalizing the concepts of the Digital Society are caused by ambiguously defined information about the dangers and risks of digitalization.