There is a paucity of research on the language contact between Kazakh and Russian, which is the phenomenon of bi(multilingual speakers) in Kazakhstan, so called “Shala-Kazakh”. The Kazakhstani scholar, Muhamedowa (2009) defines Shala- Kazakh as “insertion of single lexemes and grammar structure of one language variety into a syntactically independent construction of another variety between Kazakh, a Turkic language, and Russian, a Slavic language” (p.332). The definition of translanguaging by Garcia (2009), “translanguaging is the act performed by bilinguals of accessing different linguistic features or various modes of what are described as autonomous languages, in order to maximize communicative potential” (p. 140) allows considering Shala-Kazakh as translanguaging where people draw on both Kazakh and Russian to communicate, without seeing it as two separate languages. The present inquiry explored the practices, factors and attitudes towards Shala-Kazakh. The quantitative exploratory survey was utilised, where 90 participants were recruited by non-probability convenient sampling in the shopping malls in Kostanay, Almaty, and Astana.

The findings revealed that age, language of schooling, and residence are the major factors of translanguaging. The overwhelming majority of participants within the group 30-39 tend to translanguage more compared to other age groups. The graduates of Kazakh-medium schools are more likely to translanguage than Russian school graduates. Regarding the attitudes, the participants did not perceive Shala- Kazakh as a sign of non-patriotism and deterioration of language purity. However, a number of participants indicated that they faced discrimination on the ground of using Shala-Kazakh. Further research involving qualitative method will allow getting more in-depth perceptions of translanguaging in Kazakhstan at the professional and individual levels.


References

García, O. (2009). Education, multilingualism and translanguaging in the 21st century. In A. Mohanty, M. Panda, R. Phillipson and T. Skutnabb-Kangas (Eds). Multilingual Education for Social Justice: Globalising the local (pp. 128-145). New Delhi: Orient Blackswan.
Muhamedowa, R. (2009). The use of Russian conjunctions in the speech of bilingual Kazakhs. International Journal of Bilingualism, 13(3), 331-356. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1177/136700690934661