Language Choice Among the Youth of Kazakhstan: English as a Self-Representation of Prestige

Abstract

Due to its popularity in the world, the scope of English functioning is changing nowadays. In Kazakhstan, English is the most taught foreign language in the educational system of Kazakhstan and the world. It is an education discipline as well as the medium of instruction both at secondary and tertiary schools which is supported at the state level. Being in the Expanding circle, English in Kazakhstan is perceived as a language of developed world and prestige. It is clearly observable among the young people. Based on sociolinguistic and discourse-analytic approach, the paper focuses on the analysis of students' speech. By examining daily conversations and social networks of students, the present paper demonstrates that the use of English in Kazakhstan's linguistic landscape serves as a means of constructing identity and communality. The results demonstrate that English is perceived as a language of developed countries, developed economies, therefore, prestige.

The Trend of Language Use among Netizens in Instagram laslisuroboyor Account

“…English functions as native, second, foreign language and also language as lingua franca is also growing [8]. In other words, English is also defined as expanding language because English has become a foreign language in many countries as well as in Indonesia [2]. Likewise, [9] English has become an international language due to the increasing numbers of countries in the world which make English has become as a special role, an official language, and a foreign language [9].…”

“…Despite the fact that English is popular language, English is also perceived as a language of developed western countries. English spreads easily all around the world through media such as television programs, popular music, movies and so on [2]. In addition, the wider space for using English in practice of interactive communication is through social media like e-mail, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and so the like.…”

“…The Javanese language is valued low language compare with English even though nobody uses English in daily communication. English is viewed as more prestigious due to the position as the international language [9] [2].…”

“…Many researches have been done to reveal the use of English by non-native speakers, among others are the use of language among youth in Kazakhstan [2]; language choice, code switching, and code mixing in Biase [3]; and identity and language choice in South African [4]. The findings generally show that non-native speakers use English language more than their own native language.…”

Understanding English Speaking Practice in Public Schools in Kazakhstan: A Case Study in Almaty

“…In Kazakhstani (KZ, henceforth) EFL context, previous studies predominantly focused on the role of the English language in relation to the country's trilingual education (Akynova et al 2014;Jantassova 2015;Yeskeldiyeva & Tazhibayeva 2015;Tussupbekova & Enders 2016;Prilipko 2017). The speaking aspect was only addressed in Suleimenova's (2013) and Tleuov's (2016) studies with the former analysing the factors associated with speaking anxiety among high school students, while the latter examining teachers' beliefs and practices in teaching speaking.…”