Perceptions of the “Rukhani Zhangyru” Program in Public Discourse

This article presents a comprehensive cognitive-discursive analysis of public speeches delivered by state officials of the Republic of Kazakhstan on the implementation of the Rukhani Zhangyru (“Spiritual Revival”) Programme. The factual material comprises texts and fragments of public speeches by government representatives of various ranks, as well as reports on the implementation of scientific, social, and cultural projects covering the period from 2017 to 2025, including the keynote addresses of President K.-Zh. Tokayev at the National Kurultai sessions of 2023, 2024, and 2025. The study employs a multifaceted methodological framework encompassing semantic and verbal-semantic analysis, cognitive, discursive, interactional, and comparative methods, as well as SEO analysis of key lexical items and phrases in a diachronic perspective. The analysis identifies two dominant concepts structuring the public discourse under examination “evaluation” and “continuity” which are verbalized through a diverse range of semantic and syntactic devices: passive constructions, verbs with prospective semantics, deverbal nouns, and abstract vocabulary of moral and ethical orientation. The study demonstrates that prospective semantics, permeating the presidential rhetoric, plays a pivotal role in constructing the strategic image of the country’s future. The diachronic SEO analysis of three keynote speeches traces the evolution of discursive priorities: from the actualization of historical memory and national identity in 2023–2024 to an emphasis on foreign policy positioning and developmental prospects in 2025. The findings confirm the high effectiveness of the verbalsemantic means employed in terms of their perlocutionary impact, substantiating the relevance of developing further recommendations for optimizing public political discourse in this domain.

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