The Role of Language in the Integration of Repatriated Students in Kazakhstan

Abstract

After gaining independence from the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan launched an ethnic migration policy to invite ethnic Kazakhs to return to their historical homeland. Ethnic Kazakhs from non-CIS countries with limited knowledge of Russian have faced language, social, and cultural challenges throughout their migration. This study explores the role of language in the integration of ethnic Kazakh repatriated students from China in Nur-Sultan and Almaty. The rationale for choosing these two cities was based on the fact that the use of the Kazakh language varies significantly between them (Smagulova, 2006). Along with this research problem, the research questions to determine the ethnic Kazakh repatriated students’ language background, their attitudes towards the languages in their repertoire and their social integration were developed. This study employed a qualitative research design applying semi-structured interviews and the sample only included ethnic Kazakh students who had returned from China to Kazakhstan, of which there were 10. Ten ethnic Kazakh repatriated students were purposefully selected by snowball sampling. The major findings revealed that all participants cannot express their ideas fluently in Russian, but those participants from Nur-Sultan can communicate in Russian for basic purposes. For all participants, they know Kazakh at different levels based on their educational background and length of time spent living in Kazakhstan, the Chinese language remains dominant, and the majority claim that due to their low Russian proficiency it is difficult to adapt to Kazakhstani society. This study could enable educational staff to better understand the multilingual competences of ethnic Kazakh students repatriated from China studying in Nur-Sultan and Almaty, and it may draw the attention of policymakers to the unique situation of repatriated students from China to provide them with relevant support.