Neofeminatives as a Tool of Language Play in Internet Communication

This article examines the structural, semantic, functional, and pragmatic features of medial neofeminatives – newly coined words denoting women by profession or social role, formed from masculine nouns using recognizable feminine suffi xes. The material was sourced from open social networks (VKontakte, Instagram, Twitter, Telegram) and blogs.
The study demonstrates that neofeminatives serve not only a nominative function but also a communicative-pragmatic role – acting as a means of self-irony, a demonstration of social and gender consciousness, and a tool for language play. The theoretical framework of the article draws on M.M. Bakhtin’s concept of carnivalesque, L. Wittgenstein’s notion of language games, and E.S. Kubryakova’s ideas on the cognitive nature of word formation. Examples from social networks show that in informal settings, these derivatives
become objects of refl ection and irony, while feminine forms serve as a way to «rethink» the boundaries of linguistic usage. Consequently, neofeminatives emerge as indicators of social change and a mirror of new communicative ethics in digital space.