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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 562

Part of Session 129: Multilingualism and emotions in urban settings (Other abstracts in this session)

Schooling in Kazakh: “Shut up and other words for reprimanding”

Authors: Smagulova, Juldyz
Submitted by: Smagulova, Juldyz (KIMEP, Kazakhstan)

This paper describes views of parents, Russian-speaking urban Kazakhs, on schooling children in Kazakh. It is based on descriptions of spontaneous metalinguistic commentary that emerged in child-adult talk and post-observation interviews.

Parents’ explicit reflections and meta-commentary reveal contradictions in views. On one hand, adults reason that Kazakh might be needed for future social mobility. (Surprisingly, for most observed and interviewed parents the role of Kazakh as a marker of their ethnic identity is less important than its instrumental value). On the other hand, adults’ comments systematically re-produce ideology of supremacy of Russian and Russian-speakers. Among the motifs against schooling in Kazakh, one theme comes out quite prominently: a perceived cultural difference between Russian-speakers and Kazakh-speakers. The negative image of Kazakh-school teachers is common among education savvy, western-oriented middle class Russified urban parents who believe that teachers in Kazakh-medium schools who are typically new to urban life (most Kazakh-language school teachers come from rural areas; as a rule, they come to the city to study at the university at age 18 and then stay) lack professionalism, have poor education and are uncultured in comparison to Russian-speaking urbanites.

The analysis of interactions reveals the way the tension between parents and teachers, as members of different social groups, surfaces in the everyday talk in the form of metalinguistic commentary. Examination of metalinguistic commentary shows that only certain aspects of the second language acquisition process are foregrounded in this metalinguistic activity. Ignoring progress in children’s acquisition of Kazakh, the adults appear to selectively focus on a particular lexical set of words dealing with discipline. Adults perceive Kazakh that children learn first in schools as limited to rather rude directives such as ‘shut up’ or ‘stand up’ they believe kids constantly hear from their teachers. By doing so, parents systematically construct teachers as rude, uneducated, and uncultured and thus re-produce a negative image of Kazakh schools and teachers. Emergence of this selective metalinguistic activity signals about deeper social issues of class and status shaping the processes of Kazakh revival in urban areas.