Professional Communication in the Republic of Kazakhstan in Conditions of Diglossia and Bilingualism

Abstract

This article analyses the sociocultural aspects of bilingualism and presents a specific case study of educational professional bilingualism in the Republic of Kazakhstan. In post-Soviet space, bilingualism/diglossia is functional rather than social, it is professionally conditioned and aimed at the conceptual-terminological and discourse-patterns mediation between the macro-mediator language and the national state language. Bilingualism is inevitable in multiethnic societies. Despite the complexity and additional stress associated with the need to learn 2–3 languages in a multiethnic society, bilingualism needs to be tolerated as a natural necessity. But in countries where the languages and cultures of ethnic minorities are not given due attention, bilingualism often spells semilingualism: L1 is hardly formally taught, and L2 is not fully acquired because of insufficient training. The alternative, common in the post-Soviet space, is the finely orchestrated linguistic education in both languages – a two-stage process, when macro-mediator L2 is taught as a subject in junior grades, and later instruction is conducted in it along with titular regional languages, as well as the inclusion of all languages in high domains of communication. It is also vital that such bilingualism be endoglossic, so that the original languages of those territories in which they existed for hundreds of years are studied, including the macro-mediator language. The objective laws of linguistic development in this process should be combined with guided targeted measures to ensure it. If a state language is not to date sophisticated enough to serve academic and official discourses, its quality, status, and weight should gradually change with the assistance of an endoglossic macro-mediator language.