The “Ugly Duckling” Phenomenon: Language Choice in a Bilingual Kazakh Family (to the Problem Statement)
Феномен «гадкого утенка»: выбор языка в билингвальной казахской семье (к постановке проблемы)
Suleimenova E.D. Tuimebaev Z.K. Aimagambetova M.V.
2024Siberian Federal University
Journal of Siberian Federal University - Humanities and Social Sciences
2024#17Issue 1197 - 208 pp.
Early Kazakh-Russian bilingualism in Kazakhstan originates from bilingual parents, is formed wherever both languages function. Parents, integrating a child into society, expect his involvement in the family’s linguistic behavior. However, the phenomenon of the “Ugly Duckling” is sometimes observed when the child does not follow family language practices. It is presented partially structured language biographies of four bilingual children with an unexpected choice of Kazakh or Russian as the dominant language. Language biographies were obtained through a specifically overt observation of the child’s language development. Informants sought to make the language preferences of three children the same with the family, in one case to change it radically. Three cases of child’s preference for the Russian language were observed in families with the stable dominant Kazakh language. A rare case of changing of dominant language and formation of Kazakh-Russian-English multilingualism is described. All cases of child breaking the family language tradition have not received a single explanation, but have revealed a number of positional issues requiring interdisciplinary analysis on the domains of language dominance of bilingual children and the factors determining the language development of a bilingual child. The latter in the first three cases include factors unaccounted for by the informants: communication in computer games, video hosting, TV programs, emotional impact of language contacts with adults, influence of diglossia, children’s language conflicts, etc.
child bilingualism , dominant language , Kazakh , Russian
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Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan
Al-Farabi Kazakh National University
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