Language Revitalization: Challenges for Kazakh in Higher Education
Kucherbayeva D. Smagulova J.
August 2023SAGE Publications Inc.
Journal of Eurasian Studies
2023#14Issue 2166 - 178 pp.
This paper is an initial attempt to evaluate the challenges of promoting a new national language as a medium of instruction (MOI) in a post-socialist higher education (HE) context. In the case of Kazakhstan, the choice of MOI is perceived as a key tool to strengthen national identity and resist domination of Russian; in higher education sector language policies are constructed to foster cultural independence which translates into establishing Kazakh as a full-fledged medium of academia. Drawing on the historical-structural approach (Tollefson, 1991, 2013), we analyze the ideologies and practices of university students studying in Kazakh. Findings from audio-recorded interviews suggest that implementing Kazakh-medium instruction policies face numerous pragmatic and ideological challenges, such as a dearth of teaching and learning resources in Kazakh and lack of Kazakh-speaking faculty. This study contributes to scholarship on language revitalization in the context of tertiary education.
economic domains , higher education , Kazakh , language revitalization , medium of instruction
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Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
College of Humanities and Education, KIMEP University, Almaty, Kazakhstan
Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages
College of Humanities and Education
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