DIGITAL LACUNAE AND COGNITIVE DIVERGENCE: HOW THE INTERNET IS RESHAPING LEXICAL GAPS ACROSS LANGUAGES

The emergence of digital communication technologies has introduced a paradox into the study of lacunae: while globalisation and the internet accelerate lexical borrowing and reduce certain cross-linguistic gaps, they simultaneously generate an entirely new stratum of language-specific lexical voids. This paper introduces the concept of the digital lacuna — a lexical or conceptual gap arising from the differential adoption, domestication, or cultural interpretation of internet-mediated practices and phenomena across speech communities. Drawing on comparative analysis of English, Russian, Uzbek, and Japanese digital lexicons, the study argues that digital lacunae constitute a theoretically significant sub-category of cultural lacunae that challenges existing typological frameworks and reveals previously undescribed mechanisms of cognitive divergence. The paper proposes a revised taxonomic model, discusses implications for intercultural digital communication, and calls for the integration of digital corpus methods into lacunology.