The Temporality of the Official Discourse of the Russian government (2012-2022): grammatical vs semantic dimension

The article examines the phenomenon of temporality of political discourse, which is understood as a specific configuration of grammatical and semantic markers of referring to the past, present and future. The object of the study is the official political discourse of the Russian government in the period 2012-2022. The subject of the study is the patterns of the use of time markers in the official discourse of state power. The empirical basis of the research is the messages of the President of the Russian Federation to the Federal Assembly, as well as solemn speeches dedicated to the celebration of Victory Day, National Unity Day and New Year. Special attention is paid in the article to the connection of the temporal characteristics of discourse with the historical policy of state power. The research methodology is based on an interdisciplinary synthesis of linguistic and semiotic approaches. The measurement of temporality in the discourse of power is carried out at three levels: grammatical (the ratio of the tense forms of verbs), lexical (symbolic words referring to the past and future), semantic (semantic content of images of the past and future). Variations of quantitative and qualitative content analysis are applied at each level. The main conclusions of the study include the following provisions. Firstly, the official discourse of the Russian government in the period 2012-2022 is timeless and fixated on reproducing the present. Secondly, the key tool for this reproduction should be considered stretching the time continuum of the present from the recent past as a measurable actual result of government activities to the near future, known from already formed work and budgeting plans. Thirdly, despite the dominance of references to the future at the grammatical level, the past is semantically more significant and structured. Fourthly, the main reference historical period for the discourse of power is the post-war Soviet period, which corresponds to the current public demand. The novelty of the research lies in the application of an approach to the phenomenon of temporality, which allows us to take into account not only the manifestations of historical politics, but also to identify its correspondence to temporal orientation at the grammatical and lexical level. The study differentiates the natural orientation in time from the mythologized study of the past, placing it in a continuum of understanding the development of society by the Russian government.

temporality, official discourse, the president, The symbol word, the temporal form of the verb, The word marker, historical politics, symbolic politics, the past, future