Бұл зерттеу ұзақ және тынымсыз еңбектің жемісі, мен ризашылығымды білдіргім келетін адамдардың сенімі мен қолдауынсыз мүмкін болмас еді. Бұл зерттеу Бурдьенің өткен оқиғалар белгілі бір таңдау жасауға әкелетін қазіргі жағдайларға әсер ететін «әдет» тұжырымдамасына негізделген (Бурдье, 1991). Сонымен, сұхбатқа негізделген бұл сапалы зерттеу 18-25 жас аралығындағы қазақ жастарының қазақ және орыс тілдерін таңдауын зерттейді және келесі зерттеу сұрақтарына жауап беруге бағытталған: 1) Қазақ жастарының әртүрлі салалардағы тіл таңдау заңдылықтары қандай?
Зерттеудің мақсатты тобы Қазақстанның төрт түрлі аймағынан: қазақ және орыс тілдерінде білім алған Батыс, Шығыс, Оңтүстік және Солтүстіктегі 18 бен 25 жас аралығындағы сегіз этникалық қазақ болды. Зерттеудің мақсатты тобы Қазақстанның төрт түрлі аймағынан: Батыс, Шығыс, Оңтүстік және Солтүстіктегі қазақ және орыс тілдерінде білім алған 18 бен 25 жас аралығындағы сегіз этникалық қазақ жастары болды.
Introduction
As mentioned before, many studies have revealed the predominant use of Russian by people in Kazakhstan. Since 1995, the two official languages Kazakh and Russian are considered equal in status; however, in practice, we witness the dominance of the Russian language in our society. As far as I know, there seems to be a gap in the literature regarding population sampling.
These findings are likely to highlight both the perceived and actual vitality of the Kazakh language relative to the Russian language. The dissertation consists of the following chapters: introduction, literature review, methodology, findings, discussion and conclusion.
Literature Review
According to the first Constitution of 1993, the Kazakh language was declared the state language of the country and the Russian language as the language of inter-ethnic communication (Kazaqstan tarihy, 2017). In the context of Kazakhstan's language policy, the language of the majority of the population is not placed at the top of the hierarchy, but is equated with the other two languages. This concern can also be observed in the context of Kazakhstan, where the Russian language is associated with higher prestige as a result of historical events.
The results of the study revealed that people make decisions about the domain in which language is used. Finally, Bourdieu's (1991) habitus was defined and used as a conceptual framework to analyze the study's data.
Methodology
The study's qualitative approach was based on interviews, which are the most commonly used data collection tool for qualitative research (Saldana, 2011; Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). Overall, there were eight ethnic Kazakhs, two from each of the four regions: West, East, North and South. To recruit the participants, the researcher used social networking sites such as Instagram recruitment letters.
In other words, the probes can simply be in the form of the follow-up 'why'. The study was conducted among the youth belonging to different parts of the country, therefore it was not realistic to interview them face to face. In the initial stage of the data collection procedure, it was essential to obtain permission to conduct a study from the NUGSE Research Committee by submitting the Research Application Form.
Furthermore, the potential themes were reviewed with a supervisor to finalize themes and agree on their relevance to answering the study's research questions. At the beginning of each interview, the researcher explained the purpose, benefits and risks of the study. In order to provide participants with anonymity and full confidentiality, pseudonyms were used during data collection and data analysis.
In particular, the potential risks of the study were very minimal due to maintaining complete confidentiality of all information that could lead to the identification of the participants. The research participants are people who come from different parts of the country, so they were interviewed via the ZOOM online platform and WhatsApp calls. This chapter contains all the required details about the methodology of the study on the language choices of ethnic Kazakh youth between the Kazakh and Russian languages.
Findings
From the thematic analysis, the four main themes emerged: the preference of the Russian language in communication, bilingual. Based on the results, most of the respondents usually adapt their language to Russian because they have predominantly Russian-speaking friends and peers. Another reason why the participants prefer Russian is the low level of the Kazakh language skills which creates some uncertainty.
Smagulova (2021) described the current state of Kazakh and Russian as follows: “Kazakh is a state language and it is the language of a majority of the population. Another finding was related to the respondents' preference of the Russian and English content in the media. All the respondents supported the idea that there is much less quality content in the Kazakh language compared to Russian and English.
This section provides an overview of the factors that influence Kazakh youth to choose between the Kazakh and Russian languages. It seems to me that this is interconnected because the dominance of the Kazakh language plays a role. Well, I don't know why knowledge of the Kazakh language is not particularly valued in the labor market" (December 29, 2020).
Some respondents emphasized that the Kazakh language is still considered a representation of lower status. As indicated by the majority of respondents, their Kazakh language proficiency level is lower compared to Russian language. However, in terms of regional differences, Kazakh is more used in the western and southern regions.
Discussion
The dominance of the Russian language in many areas of our daily lives proves the existence of its symbolic power. Therefore, the current conditions in which the Kazakh language is limited to family use developed due to the historical events of the Soviet era, when Kazakh was suppressed. Most respondents stated that there are regional differences in people's language use, which is considered one of the factors determining language choice.
This is true for some respondents because their language choice and usage patterns have changed accordingly as they moved from a Kazakh-speaking region or city to a Russian-speaking region or city. Moreover, it is usually the Russian language that dominates in the most populated and larger regions of the country. Currently, in the national marketplace, we are witnessing the increasing symbolic power of the English language.
According to the results of this study, English and Russian are at the top of the hierarchy, while Kazakh is at the bottom. While the language shift can be considered a "voluntary" or a "rational choice"; in the case of this finding, it is considered a result of the historical events where the Russian language was more valued while the Kazakh language was less sought after. So it is clear that there is a sign of the language shift to English language as a result of the processes of internationalization and globalization.
In other words, knowledge and use of the Kazakh language should be required in society, especially in workplaces. This chapter has attempted to discuss the main findings of the study in relation to the existing literature and theoretical framework. The discussion of the findings has shown that Bourdieu's concepts such as habitus and symbolic power are useful in explaining the language choice of young people in our national context.
Conclusion
Therefore, this study attempted to find out the current state of language choice patterns in various fields, especially the choice of young people. Another pattern of language choice is related to the contraction of the Kazakh language in various areas. While Russian is used in most domains, Kazakh is restricted to the family domain only.
First, the findings of this study cannot be generalized to a particular part of the country or to the entire population as it is a small-scale study. With only two representatives of ethnic Kazakh youth from each part of the country, their language choice patterns cannot represent their region of birth or the region. I assume that using observations or an ethnographic account of the people's languages would have provided further insights into their language choices, and the factors that shape these choices.
The topic of language choice certainly needs to be further studied in the national context, as it concerns language status and language use. Therefore, it is suggested that in order to identify the language choice patterns of ethnic Kazakh youth and the factors that determine them, a larger number of populations can be approached. Furthermore, the methodological basis of the study, triangulation, which “uses more than one method or data source” (Bryman, 2012, p. 392), can be used to collect richer data.
Based on the main findings and conclusions of the study, some recommendations can be made to key stakeholders, such as language policy developers and education policy makers. Therefore, it is suggested that measures can be taken in this direction to improve the prestige of the Kazakh language. National composition, beliefs and languages in the Republic of Kazakhstan: results of the 2009 national census of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
DESCRIPTION: We invite you to participate in a research study on the language choices of Kazakh youth between the Kazakh and Russian languages. We will agree on the date of the interview with each participant individually according to his wishes.
