Juldyz Smagulova

The survey results presented in this paper provide evidence that economic inequality in Kazakhstan runs along the ethnic and language boundaries. Proficiency in Russian provides economic advantages while proficiency in Kazakh only seems to act as a economic penalty. However, access to a standard prestige-bearing variety of Russian is restricted-Russian is evidently a new "bourgeois resource" (Blommaert 2003). This phenomenon highlights the problem of current language policy-promotion of Kazakh a language of education perpetuates pre-existing social equality in modern Kazakhstan society.

ABSTRACT The last third of the twentieth century witnessed a surge in ‘ethnic revival’, with renewed emphasis on language. The post-Soviet Central Asian republics were not an exception to this tendency. During the Soviet era, citizens of the USSR were very conscious of belonging to a particular ethnicity that was registered as a permanent classification in their official documents. At the same time, the central government attempted to cultivate a single integrative ‘Soviet identity’; the Russian language was the linguistic glue that was supposed to bind all ethnic groups together. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the former republic faced the problem of state/national identification and language became the single most important instrument in defining new independent states and nations. One of the greatest challenges to the countries’ leaders in the coming decades will be to consolidate new nations while satisfying the conflicting interests of different ethnic groups, complying with international requirements on minorities’ rights, all within the larger context of international, regional and global forces. This article aims to shed some light on the nature of language conflict in Kazakhstan and the stabilizing factors that have prevented open ethnic and language conflict. It underlines some of the challenges to language planning efforts, allowing a better understanding of the dynamics of Kazakh, Russian and other languages in Kazakhstan.

Naming practices not only reveal ideological contestation in a particular community, but also contribute to the discursive construction of a new social reality. However, the transformative role of naming practices as a semiotic resource for reimagining language hierarchy has been overlooked. This socio-onomastics study aims to explore shifting ideological premises and semiotic mechanisms of normalizing a new language hierarchy in post-Soviet urban space. In doing so, the study diachronically examines naming practices of choosing and using event names, which are more fluid and often short-lived in comparison to other names such as toponyms, anthroponyms or brand names. The study analyses 1246 unique event names mentioned in a local Russian-language newspaper Вечерний Алматы (Vechernii Almaty) over the period of time from 1989 to 2019. The results show a decrease in the use of Russian for name production. Further examination reveals a steady increase in non-integrated event names in K...

By focusing predominantly on discourse production and language management, language policy research de-emphasizes the material sources of inequality. The paper argues that language management, often restricted by ritualistic and symbolic gestures, cannot rectify historically formed relations of power and calls for critical examination of both sociolinguistic and socio-economic consequences of language reforms.

This paper draws attention to the key role of a caregiver’s bilingual language practices in the process of language shift. It argues that certain multilingual practices actually discourage children’s multilingualism and devalue the language at the same time as they provide preverbal children with direct input. The analysis is based on data collected in Russophone urban families of ethnic Kazakhs. Drawing from work on registers and footing, the paper demonstrates that in these families the Kazakh language, while quantitatively prevailing in caregiver’s speech, systematically co-occurs with Baby Talk – a specific register directed to infants and toddlers in their preverbal stage. The metapragmatic typification of talking Kazakh to non-agentive objects-of-minding, and talking Russian to autonomous social agents, suggests that language practices envision expert members of the local community as Russian speaking. This ideology sustains the ongoing language shift to Russian despite famili...

The last century was marked by innumerable language conflicts based on the pursuit of native language rights and new identities. Hindi versus Urdu, Serbian versus Croatian, Spanish versus Catalan, French versus Arabic, English versus Spanish, French versus English, Russian versus the national languages of the former USSR: these are just a few examples of such conflicts. These situations display broad similarities, but they differ in the degree of conflict. Some of them are more latent in character whilst others are open, even violent, confrontations.

Twenty years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are still undergoing numerous transitions. This book examines various language issues in relation to current discussions about national identity, education, and changing notions of socio-cultural capital in Central Asia.

This paper analyzes language socialization practices in relation to revitalization of Kazakh and maintenance of Russianin urban bilingual families. It draws on audio data of self-recorded baby-directed talk. The analysis reveals that language practices re-produce the social order in which Russian is a more valuable and powerful linguistic resource than Kazakh. This implicit ideology of privileging Russian may explain how and why youngchildren in urban Kazakh families are turning out to be Russianspeaking despite quantitatively dominant input in Kazakh.

Aims and objectives: This paper describes the implicit ideologies that undergird a language revival context and addresses the semiotic processes through which ideological dominance is challenged. It demonstrates the role of everyday family interactions in the re-acquisition of a “native” language of one’s ethnic identity. Design/methodology/approach: The paper addresses the role of language ideology and family language practices in language revitalization. It is a mixed-methods study interpreting micro-level interactional data within the macro-level context documented by previously collected survey data. Data and analysis: The paper draws upon 15 hours of audio-recorded interactional data from one urban family of ethnic Kazakhs in which the children, who were brought up speaking Russian, are enrolled in a Kazakh-medium pre-school. This in-depth, micro-level interactional study is informed by a large-scale survey indicating that urban, Russian-speaking Kazakhs are undergoing dramatic...

This paper investigates the implicit ideologies undergirding language revival and the semiotic processes through which ideological dominance is challenged, examining these from the perspective of research on language ideology and language socialization. It analyses everyday interactions in families engaged in re-acquisition of a "native" language of their ethnic identity, focusing on 15 hours of audio-recorded interaction in an urban family of ethnic Kazakhs in which children brought up speaking Russian are enrolled in a Kazakh-medium pre-school. The paper combines the micro-analysis of interaction with findings from a large-scale survey indicating that urban Russian-speaking Kazakhs are undergoing dramatic changes in their language views, use and proficiency. This shift in the conceptualization of Kazakh – from a vernacular associated with low prestige and backwardness to the high prestige language of school – can be seen in the details of talk. In codeswitching in adult-child interaction, the re-imagining of Kazakh is accomplished through four mutually reinforcing metalanguaging practices: limiting Kazakh to pedagogic formats, constructing Kazakh as school talk, confining Kazakh to "prior text", and the co-occurrence of a shift to Kazakh with a shift to a meta-communicative frame. These findings expand our understanding of discursive processes through which the ideology of revival is created and sustained in day-to-day interactions. The study adds to current research in family language policy by providing empirical evidence for conceptualizing the family as a dynamic system in which language policies and identity choices are shaped by parental ideologies and by the broader social and cultural context of family life.

ABSTRACT This paper draws attention to the key role of a caregiver’s bilingual language practices in the process of language shift. It argues that certain multilingual practices actually discourage children’s multilingualism and devalue the language at the same time as they provide preverbal children with direct input. The analysis is based on data collected in Russophone urban families of ethnic Kazakhs. Drawing from work on registers and footing, the paper demonstrates that in these families the Kazakh language, while quantitatively prevailing in caregiver’s speech, systematically co-occurs with Baby Talk – a specific register directed to infants and toddlers in their preverbal stage. The metapragmatic typification of talking Kazakh to non-agentive objects-of-minding, and talking Russian to autonomous social agents, suggests that language practices envision expert members of the local community as Russian speaking. This ideology sustains the ongoing language shift to Russian despite families’ aspiration to raise Kazakh-Russian bilingual children.

In this volume, researchers in the fields of language in society, sociolinguistics, language politics, diaspora and identity studies explore the contacts between languages and cultures in the post-Soviet world. The book presents a range of perspectives on the ef fects of migration and of re-drawing of borders among groups and individuals for whom the Russian language has had an instrumental or symbolic prominence. How do recent geopolitical shifts impact on the policies and practices of newly independent states? How have communities and individuals come to redefine their own identities and core values? How does a cultural context in which the power relations between cultural and linguistic groups have been reversed or recalibrated affect the attitudes of each group? How does the potential for transnational identities impact on the interplay between diasporic and homeland communities? How does migration influence linguistic and parenting practices? This collection of fers answers to these and many other questions through case studies from eleven regions in Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East.

... Efforts Post-Independence 149 Juldyz Smagulova: Language Policies of Kazakhization and Their Influence on Language Attitudes and Use 166 Abdykadyr Orusbaev, Arto Mustajoki and Ekaterina Protassova: Multilingualism, Russian Language and Education in Kyrgyzstan ...

The paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of language policy in Kazakhstan in the context of the current sociolinguistic situation and historic, demographic, sociopolitical, and economic factors. Highlighting some of the challenges facing the official policy of kazakhization, this review allows for better understanding of the functioning of the two main languages of Kazakhstan, Kazakh and Russian. To assess the impact of kazakhization policies on language attitudes and use, the paper examines the results of a large-scale self-report survey conducted in Kazakhstan in 2005–2007.

The paper examines potential challenges for Kazakhstan's language education reform. It relies on data collected through literacy assessment of primary school students. Findings hints at systematic imbalance in educational opportunities, particularly access to literacy resources and opportunities to acquire literacy skills, between students of Kazakh and Russian-medium schools. The paper concludes with suggestions for policy and practice alternatives.