The Impact of Kazakh Language Latinization (KLL) on People’s Attitudes Towards Students’ Learning in the State Language

Abstract

A script modification is considered as one of the essential aspects of language development. An analysis of script modification shows how language-in-education policy will be suited under the new alphabet and new changes that affect education process. These changes impact on people’s attitudes towards learning in a particular language. Since the Kazakh language alphabet and education in the state language are planned to fully switch to Latin script, there was an opportunity to examine how KLL impacts on people’s attitudes towards education in newly scripted state language. KLL has become one of the debated topics discussed in media, particularly, in online newspapers, due to different people’s reactions towards a new script. Hence, the current research, firstly, examined how KLL impacted on people’s attitudes towards students’ learning in LKL. Secondly, the study investigated the governmental readiness in providing education in LKL that reflected in people’s attitudes reflected in online newspapers. Specifically, since the research design is discourse analysis based on qualitative approach, the research sample included 77 articles from the online newspapers Egemen Kazakhstan, Zhas Alash, Vremya and Azattyk Radio within the period from 2017 to 2019. Discourse analysis of these articles of online newspapers revealed people’s positive, neutral, and negative attitudes towards students’ learning in LKL. Positive attitudes towards Latinized Kazakh language (LKL) are presented mostly in public-policy oriented Egemen Kazakhstan newspaper articles, while the negative attitudes and people’s critique to the national unpreparedness in implementing LKL in education are provided in more radical online newspapers’ articles and comments. However, through the analysis of media attitudes by basing its theoretical basis, the study identified that the share of positive and negative attitudes depended on genre, purpose, and content of newspapers. Thus, the results of the study imply the necessity of basing on people’s attitudes to develop and successfully implement LKL in education.