Both necessary and irrelevant: political economy and linguistic injustice of English in higher education in Kazakhstan

IF 1.1 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS

International Journal of the Sociology of Language Pub Date : 2022-08-31 DOI:10.1515/ijsl-2021-0074

Bridget A. Goodman, A. Kambatyrova

{"title":"Both necessary and irrelevant: political economy and linguistic injustice of English in higher education in Kazakhstan","authors":"Bridget A. Goodman, A. Kambatyrova","doi":"10.1515/ijsl-2021-0074","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Since the early 2000s, the government of Kazakhstan has been promoting educational reforms in higher education including introducing English-medium instruction (EMI), trilingual education (education in Kazakh, Russian, and English), and requirements of students and faculty to publish in impact factor. Within this context, the purpose of this paper is to use the lenses of political economy and linguistic justice to interpret interview data from students, faculty, and administrators of six Kazakhstani universities implementing trilingual education. These data show that some stakeholders believe English is the language of science, and it is therefore necessary to read, study, and publish in English. Competing voices argue that privileging English will lead to a loss of knowledge from local scholars who are not proficient in English. The data indicate that stakeholders believe the pursuit of EMI and English academic publishing may achieve the goals of global competitiveness and economic development under a political lens, but at a cost to the linguistic justice of languages other than English and speakers of those languages.","PeriodicalId":52428,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","volume":"2022 1","pages":"77 - 94"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2022-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2021-0074","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 2

Abstract

Abstract Since the early 2000s, the government of Kazakhstan has been promoting educational reforms in higher education including introducing English-medium instruction (EMI), trilingual education (education in Kazakh, Russian, and English), and requirements of students and faculty to publish in impact factor. Within this context, the purpose of this paper is to use the lenses of political economy and linguistic justice to interpret interview data from students, faculty, and administrators of six Kazakhstani universities implementing trilingual education. These data show that some stakeholders believe English is the language of science, and it is therefore necessary to read, study, and publish in English. Competing voices argue that privileging English will lead to a loss of knowledge from local scholars who are not proficient in English. The data indicate that stakeholders believe the pursuit of EMI and English academic publishing may achieve the goals of global competitiveness and economic development under a political lens, but at a cost to the linguistic justice of languages other than English and speakers of those languages.

查看原文本刊更多论文

必要与无关:哈萨克斯坦高等教育中英语的政治经济与语言不公

自21世纪初以来，哈萨克斯坦政府一直在推动高等教育改革，包括引入英语教学(EMI)，三语教育(哈萨克语、俄语和英语教育)，以及要求学生和教师在影响因子中发表论文。在此背景下，本文的目的是使用政治经济学和语言正义的镜头来解释来自六所实施三语教育的哈萨克斯坦大学的学生，教师和管理人员的访谈数据。这些数据表明，一些利益相关者认为英语是科学语言，因此有必要用英语阅读、学习和发表。有观点认为，如果给予英语特权，会导致英语水平不高的本土学者的知识流失。数据表明，利益相关者认为，从政治角度来看，对EMI和英语学术出版的追求可能会实现全球竞争力和经济发展的目标，但代价是英语以外的语言和这些语言的使用者的语言公正。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

International Journal of the Sociology of Language Arts and Humanities-Language and Linguistics

CiteScore

2.30

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： The International Journal of the Sociology of Language (IJSL) is dedicated to the development of the sociology of language as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches – theoretical and empirical – supplement and complement each other, contributing thereby to the growth of language-related knowledge, applications, values and sensitivities. Five of the journal''s annual issues are topically focused, all of the articles in such issues being commissioned in advance, after acceptance of proposals. One annual issue is reserved for single articles on the sociology of language. Selected issues throughout the year also feature a contribution on small languages and small language communities.