Common Usage vs Codified Standard: Problems with the Codification of Anglicisms in the Contemporary Russian Language

This article focuses on the important problem of codification of the most recent borrowings of British and American English origins in the contemporary Russian language. Standardization of loanwords is a current issue of vital importance, as it has a global reach, which means that it affects not only the Russian language but many other national languages that are under the influence of the English language - the contemporary lingua franca. The codification of the lexis of foreign origin is examined based on material obtained from contemporary lifestyle maga-zines published in Russian. This type of press disseminates borrowed neologisms particularly intensively and, at the same time, creates the language use of the given discourse. The excerpted vocabulary items have been confronted with the lexis of the most recent Russian spelling dictionaries. The deliberations contained in this paper show a fragment of linguistic reality changing under the influence of ubiq-uitous English language, where common usage competes with the linguistic norm. The article shows the difficulties caused by lexical transfer of loanwords faced by specialists in prescriptive linguistics (e.g. a common problem of orthographic variation).