The president of Kazakhstan launched a strategy of
multilingualism in the country, in spite of the fact that it could impact on
the Kazakh language usage in society. Within this program, the officials stress
the importance to use and cultivate the applying of the state language. This
essay demonstrates the analysis of factors that impede the state language settling.
Bridges (2014), strongly believes that Kazakh
society suffered a lot of political changes that influenced the state language
usage as well. Historically the Kazakh language faced lots
of challenges on the way of achieving the position of the state. According to
Kuzhabekova (2008), in 1991 the newly independent country had a variety of
ethnicities. So, the decision to keep Russian and Kazakh as languages of
communication was a beneficial strategy of the policy makers because it saved
the country from the conflicts that might appear in Kazakhstani society. Fierman (2011), provides a statistics of 1989
which delineates that less than 40% of the population were representatives of
Kazakh ethnicity. That is one of the obstacles that stopped the State language
to be properly used. The proclamation
of Kazakhstan as an independent country Bridges (2014), considers the
most successful part - is that the status of Kazakh language started to grow.
According to the author, the first years of independence were challenging
either for Kazakh speaking population both for Russian. Analyzing the article
of Bridges (2014), it could be assumed
that after the independence
people started to choose Kazakh medium schools in spite of the low quality of
education in comparison with Russian medium schools. The independence of the
Kazakhstan resulted the promotion of Kazakh language in all spheres of social
life.
The Socio-Communicative
factor reveals the process of
Kazakh language implementation the society. Fierman (2011), argues that even
Kazakh language is proclaimed to be the state and the first it is far from reality.
The author strongly believes that Russian language is regarded as easily
understood language in Kazakhstani society. The public signs and advertisements
in the streets are indicators of the continuation of Russian language
domination. Moreover, Kulzhanova (2012), reports that one of the issues in
society is that the status of Kazakh language is relatively low, and it is
still regarded as a language of “rural speakers” especially among the citizens
of urban areas. That is one of the factors that hinder the process of Kazakh language
acquisition.
The geographical factor shows the level of Kazakh language acquisition
in different parts of Kazakhstan. The statistics which is provided by Fierman
(2010) reveals that the south part of Kazakhstan has the highest percentage of
the parents’ preference to choose Kazakh medium schools for their children. In
the contrast to the lowest percentage in the Eastern part of Kazakhstan.
Fierman (2010), supplement the data with the claim that location influences the
state language usage. Bridges (2014), claims that the issue of Kazakh language
is also in discrepancy between rural and urban areas. The author claims that children
of rural areas are more likely to know Russian language worse, while children
of urban areas speak Russian more fluently, while Kazakh language acquisition
suffers.
The significant role plays the economical factor as the financial support plays a great role in
terms of the applying Kazakh language in all spheres of social life. Kulzhanova
(2012) states that the government made a huge investment to expand the
acquisition of Kazakh language. The author reports that the financial support
for the first stage is approximately 130 million USD and this expenditure is
considered to be enormous enough to make the policy work. Kuzhabekova (2008)
states that the government makes enormously big efforts both financially and
mentally to get people to speak Kazakh language, but these efforts are failing
now. However, the author points out that the efforts of the country are
valuable because people with high proficiency of Kazakh as well as Russian
languages are more beneficial both for immigrants and for Kazakhstani citizens.
Summing up, the expansion of Kazakh language
usage seems to be indispensable, regardless the fact that so many factors could
become an issue on the way of realizing the aims of the President. This essay
shows the critical analysis of various scholars investigating the issue of
Kazakh language acquisition.
References:
Bridges, D. (2014). “Educational Reform and
Internationalization. “The case of school reform in Kazakhstan” Cambridge
University Press
Kulzhanova, A. (2012). Language
Policy of Kazakhstan: An Analysis (Doctoral dissertation, Central
European University).
Kuzhabekova, A. (Ed.). (2008). Linguistic changes in
Post-Communist Eastern Europe and Eurasia: Language Policies in independent
Kazakhstan: The Kazakh- Russian Dilemma, NY: Columbia University Press
In Kazakhstan there are huge problems with Kazakh language. Despite that fact that populace of our country now willing to learn Kazakh, for some reasons it is almost impossible. First of all, the government’s program towards learning Kazakh failing due to the fact that the money that they provide for this issue are not spending well, which leads to the problem of bad management in Kazakhstan. Next, even if the person starts to learn Kazakh he may not find quality textbooks and other materials. Mostly, these textbooks teach grammar, but speaking in our country is more required. And the last issue, the most important for me, is that the methods of teaching Kazakh language are still not developed, this Soviet style cannot be applied anymore. The educational organizations have to modify them or come up with new techniques; otherwise, there will be no progress.
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