Lluís Català-Oltra; Rodolfo Martínez-Gras; Clemente Penalva-Verdú
Abstract
Within a context of an intense internationalization process, the creation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), as well as the proliferation of rhetoric aligned with multilingualism, has, in practice, favored mainly the growth of English in tertiary education to the detriment of other European ...
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Within a context of an intense internationalization process, the creation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), as well as the proliferation of rhetoric aligned with multilingualism, has, in practice, favored mainly the growth of English in tertiary education to the detriment of other European languages. This research focuses on electronic means at European universities in multilingual settings, quantifying the use of languages in a population of 88 universities by means of content analysis. The results show the poor presence of minority languages (ML), except for Spanish universities, and the limited implementation of English. Among the potential explanatory variables, the geographic area is the variable that is most strongly associated with the use of languages, although others, such as the Regional Authority Index (RAI), the vital status of minority languages, or the legal recognition of the minority language, are also significantly related to the use of a minority language.
Baktygul Zh. Kurmanova; Assel Utegenova; Indira S. Sultaniyazova; Gabit K. Khassanov; Natalya A. Almagambetova; Sandugash Kh. Abdigazi
Abstract
The study was based on a qualitative analysis of 125 minutes of audio recordings of multilingual speech in students' natural conversations in two towns in the Western region of Kazakhstan and was supplemented by 30 semi-structured interviews with representatives of the students' microcommunity. It focused ...
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The study was based on a qualitative analysis of 125 minutes of audio recordings of multilingual speech in students' natural conversations in two towns in the Western region of Kazakhstan and was supplemented by 30 semi-structured interviews with representatives of the students' microcommunity. It focused on particular ways in which youths creatively mix Kazakh, Russian, and English in their everyday conversations. We explored specific translingual practices involving grammatical fusion that allows language alternation for a variety of reasons, including referential and expressive use, as well as structural parallelism. We identified three main types of translingual practices in our corpus: combinations of Russian stems and Kazakh affixes, English stems and Kazakh affixes, and Kazakh stems and Russian affixes. We also showed the meaning-making potential of Russian and English as languages of prestige and familiarity. Overall, we provided an account of the current language situation that enabled a better understanding of multilingualism and multilingual practices in an economically significant region of Kazakhstan.