The role of language in the integration of repatriated students in Kazakhstan After gaining independence from the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan initiated an ethnic migration policy to invite ethnic Kazakhs to return to their historical homeland. This study investigates the role of language in the integration of ethnic Kazakh students repatriated from China in Nur-Sultan and Almaty. This study used a qualitative research design using semi-structured interviews, and the sample included only ethnic Kazakh students who returned from China to Kazakhstan, there were 10 of them.
This study can enable educational staff to better understand the multilingual skills of ethnic Kazakh students repatriated from China studying in Nur-Sultan and Almaty, and it can draw the attention of policymakers to the unique situation of repatriated students from China to provide them with relevant support.
Introduction
According to the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Population of the Republic of Kazakhstan (2017), since independence, more than 1 million ethnic Kazakhs have returned to their historical homeland and were granted the status of oralman. Despite the fact that ethnic Kazakh returnees are increasing the population (Oka, 2013), they face linguistic, cultural and social integration challenges after returning to their home countries (Amangul, 2013). Oka (2013) also claims that a negative attitude has emerged among locals, who view these ethnic Kazakh migrants as 'the other' and 'inauthentic'.
Not much emphasis has been placed on repatriated students in Nur-Sultan and Almaty, despite the fact that many scholars (Amangul, 2013; Bokayev, 2013; Bonnenfant, 2012; Cerny 2013; Kalysh & Egamberdiyev, 2014; Toktau, 2017777 ) the integration challenges of the repatriates from China.
Literature Review
First, the Kazakh language is “the language of state administration, legislation, judicial proceedings and paperwork operating in all areas of public relations throughout the territory of the state” (Basic Legislative Acts on Languages in the Republic of Kazakhstan 2007, p. 5). The Russian language spread among Kazakhstanis under the influence of the Soviet Union, leading to the Russification of Kazakhstan. The Russian language is being pushed out of the public state, economic life, culture and media to increase the status, prestige and use of the Kazakh language (Kusheeva & Sagatov, 2017).
Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan, proficiency in English, as well as the Kazakh and Russian languages, has become one of the priorities of state policy. To summarize, it has been shown that the role of the Russian language in Kazakhstan is significant, as well as the Kazakh language. Language attitudes, as a conceptual tool, were created by researchers in the second half of the 20th century (Kroskrity, 2016).
The behavioral component, the third type, refers to the results of behavioral decisions regarding languages (Garrett, Coupland, Williams, 2003). For example, it can be seen in the use of a language(s) and students' positive or negative attitudes towards learning that/their language(s). However, language translation and code-switching are a common practice among Kazakh speakers.
In light of the purpose of this article to explore the integration of ethnic Kazakh repatriated students from China into Kazakh society, social integration within national and international matters is described in this section. In the Kazakh context, based on the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Population Migration (1997), integration indicates a sustainable mutual relationship between newly arrived people and the society that accepts them.
Methodology
After all these steps, a precise description regarding the research purpose, questions, design, methods, anonymity and confidentiality procedures, risks and benefits of the study was provided. After receiving NUGSE Research approval, I contacted the study participants and arranged a time and place to conduct the interviews and began collecting data. Based on the purpose of the study to examine the role of language in the integration of ethnic Kazakh students repatriated from China, the.
Each interview began with an explanation of the study and an introduction to the informed consent form (see Appendix B). With the permission of the participants, the answers of the respondents were recorded on the researcher's electronic device, as it allowed the researcher to play it multiple times. Nevertheless, the audio recording cannot capture some details, such as the facial expressions of the participants (Bogdan and Biklen, 1998).
Once the data was collected, I began the analysis of the qualitative data from ten face-to-face interviews. It is important to start the analysis of the data during the week of interviewing in order not to forget or neglect important details that are still fresh in the researcher's mind and to be able to manage a considerable amount of data more. This strategy is applied when one of the colleagues, in the researcher's case, one of the GSE students read some transcripts and findings section and commented based on the consistency of the findings with the words of the participants.
To summarize, this study followed all necessary steps to address ethical issues: the researcher obtained approval to conduct an interview from the GSE Research Committee, participants were provided with Consent Forms, and participant confidentiality and anonymity were ensured. The purpose of this chapter was to provide an overview of the methods used in this study.
Findings
However, the language background of ten participants shows that they have different levels of Kazakh language depending on their educational background and the time spent in Kazakhstan. It shows that they adapt to the local Kazakh society by adopting some complicated features of the local dialect. A large proportion of participants (7 out of 10) still emphasized the strong preference of Chinese language in their repertoire, even though they moved to Kazakhstan more than three years ago.
However, one of the participants says that she does not add any Russian words, she even speaks Kazakh with a Chinese accent, as she used to back in China. One of the participants also recommended repatriated ethnic Kazakhs not only to gather with people from the same background, but also to be open and. For example, the vast majority of people who speak the Kazakh language live in the southern and western parts of Kazakhstan, but less than 50% of the northern and eastern Kazakh population are fluent in Kazakh (Smagulova, 2006).
I studied in the ninth grade in Almaty; When I was there, the students spoke more Kazakh than Russian, but in Astana most students speak Russian. There are still many problems with the Russian language and most of the participants from Almaty still have problems with the Russian language. Furthermore, all participants depicted their friends and peers as their main helpers in language learning.
The majority of participants claim that it is difficult to adapt to Kazakh society due to their low Russian proficiency. To summarize, this chapter presented an analysis of the data and findings of the research study based on answers to questions provided by the participants.
Discussion
Thus, this finding revealed the ethics of Kazakh repatriated students' knowledge of Kazakh and linguistic background in general. Based on her study (Shanatibieke, 2016), students who "attend Han Chinese schools from elementary to high school level and take the university entrance exam through the Chinese language" (p.14) are called Minkaohan, while students "who attend Kazakh schools and take the university entrance exam in the Kazakh language" (p. 14) is called Minkaomin. Today, however, minority languages are included as subjects in bilingual schools in China where the medium of instruction is Mandarin Chinese (Dwyer, 2005 as cited in Toktau, 2017).
In this study, seven participants attended Han-Majority schools where Mandarin Chinese was the medium of instruction, while three participants had Kazakh language and literature as subjects. Before coming to Kazakhstan, none of them could read or write in Kazakh using the Cyrillic script or heard any dialects of the Kazakh language before. This finding is supported by Kuşçu (2014) who stated that it is difficult to use the language as the different scripts are used in the host countries.
Today, the Cyrillic script is used, which was introduced in the 1800s and adapted by the Soviet Union in the 1940s. To summarize, repatriated ethnic Kazakh students experienced difficulties in understanding dialects and adapting to writing in the Kazakh context, which was also reported by Dukenova's (2019) participants.
Similar to the description of this component, the ethnic Kazakh repatriated students in my study had negative attitudes toward the use of the Russian language. Similarly, the majority of ethnic Kazakh repatriated students in my study had a positive attitude towards the Russian language, because it is good to learn additional languages, but at the same time they had a negative attitude towards the use of this language . The participants of the study by Kalysh & Egamberdiyev (2014) showed a positive attitude towards studying the Russian language, as it promotes good work.
To summarize, this chapter discussed the findings of the study in relation to the literature on the topic of the role of language in the integration of ethnic Kazakh students repatriated from China. In the next chapter, a summary of the main findings as well as recommendations, limitations and implications for future research will be presented. The previous chapter was devoted to discussing the main findings of this qualitative study based on data from ten semi-structured interviews conducted with ethnic Kazakh students repatriated from China in Almaty and Nur-Sultan.
In addition, implications of the study's findings and limitations will be provided, as well as recommendations for further research. Firstly, regarding the affective component, it was revealed that repatriated students have negative attitudes towards the use of the Russian language and adaptation to this language. Finally, based on the findings, the participants reported that some words are easier to pronounce in the Russian language.
First, the main limitation of this study is the limited time allowed for the dissertation fieldwork, which did not allow the researcher to include more participants in the study for a more diverse study. Some problems with the repatriation and adjustment of representatives of the Kazakh diaspora of Central Asia in the historical homeland. The Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan “On the Migration of the Population” of December 13, 1997, http://www.zakon.kz/.
The language of the interview Kazakh or English will depend on the choice of the participants.
