Language Policy of Kazakhstan in the Digital Era: Transformation of the Language Planning Paradigm

Abstract

The article examines the transformation of Kazakhstan's language policy under the influence of global digitalization. The authors analyze how the digital environment affects the status and role of language. At the center of the study is the concept of "digital linguistic sovereignty," defined as a nation's ability to ensure the functional competitiveness of its language in the era of artificial intelligence and Big Data. The methodological framework of the study is based on an interdisciplinary approach that combines critical discourse analysis (CDA) of official documents and media texts, institutional analysis of technological projects (such as the National Corpus of the Kazakh Language, the Coursera platform in Kazakh, the translation of university textbooks, etc.), and the study of expert discourses in new media. The research findings demonstrate how the state regulates language planning amid accelerating technological progress, shifting from a "protective model" toward digital modernization. It is established that the creation of mass digital content in academic and technical fields enhances the intellectual prestige of the Kazakh language among the youth. The authors conclude that the country's digital language policy will yield positive results if it transitions from a strategy of mere content translation to the active promotion of research and development (R&D) in the state language. The practical significance of the work lies in the potential application of the proposed analytical framework to study linguistic processes in other multilingual societies undergoing digital transformation.