Gastronomic Italianisms in Modern Russian Language (Synchronic and Diachronic Aspects)

The article examines the gastronomic vocabulary of Italian origin in the modern Russian language, clears out the linguistic, social and psychological factors that determined its introduction in different historical periods. Three lexical-semantic groups are distinguished basing on definition dictionaries and cookery-books: the names of food-stuffs, drinks and dishes, the etymology of the lexical units included in them is considered, the history of their origin is given, and a cultural commentary is provided in order to clarify the meaning of these words. Gastronomic Italianisms derived from proper names are of great interest. Special attention is paid to the words pasta and pizza. As the study shows, gastronomic Italianisms are actively used in the language of Russian fiction and modern advertising. The study of the functions performed by these words in texts of different stylistic slant allows us to better understand the mechanism of adaptation of such words in the modern Russian language.