Navigating Linguistic Boundaries: Code-Switching and Identity Performance at Green Bazar
Written for Anthropology M150: Language and Culture at UCLA, Spring 2025. Final research proposal. This is a practice research proposal on a theoretical research project.
Community and Project Background
This research project will examine the sociolinguistic dynamics at Green Bazar, a major public market in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The study will focus on interactions between sellers and customers, analyzing how language choice influences commercial transactions and social relationships in this multilingual setting. Most people at the bazar, and Almaty as a whole, communicate in either Russian or Kazakh or a mixture of both. However, language use is not neutral as some Kazakh speakers side with nationalist language ideologies that associate Kazakh language proficiency with authentic ethnic identity. These beliefs manifest in the form of viewing Russian-speaking Kazakhs as less legitimate and trustworthy. Furthermore, these beliefs can influence how sellers and customers interact, shaping perceptions of credibility, politeness, and belonging. In this setting language choice acts as a marker of social identity.
Sellers often switch languages mid-conversation, tailoring their speech to the perceived background or preferences of a customer. Buyers, too, may strategically choose Kazakh or Russian to position themselves socially or politically. Through ethnographic fieldwork—including participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and analysis of recorded conversations—this study will investigate how language practices reinforce or disrupt social boundaries. For those unfamiliar with Kazakhstan, it's essential to understand the historical backdrop: a complex linguistic legacy shaped by decades of Soviet Russian dominance, followed by post-independence efforts to revitalize Kazakh as the national language. These historical and political tensions are not abstract—they play out daily in places like Green Bazar. In this way, the market becomes a microcosm of the nation's sociolinguistic struggles. By examining the nuanced, on-the-ground realities of multilingual interaction, this project aims to contribute to ongoing conversations in linguistic anthropology about how everyday speech reflects, and sometimes resists, broader forces of power, identity, and ideology.
Research Questions
To understand these dynamics this research will explore three main interconnected questions about language use, identity and power dynamics through observing market interactions. First, I ask: how do Russian-speaking Kazakh customers navigate stigmatization when interacting with nationalist Kazakh-speaking sellers? As a subsidiary question, I will investigate what role linguistic accommodation plays in the bargaining process, examining how language adjustments might affect pricing and transaction outcomes. Second, I will explore how sellers strategically style-shift between Kazakh and Russian to establish rapport with different customers, paying particular attention to the extent to which sellers' perception of customers' socioeconomic status might affect their language choices during transactions. Third, this research will examine how linguistic practices at Green Bazar reflect the broader national language ideologies employed by government institutions where Kazakh revitalization is promoted, considering whether everyday marketplace interactions reinforce or resist imposed language ideologies. By investigating these questions through fieldwork at Green Bazar, this project aims to contribute to our understanding of how language choice operates as both a social tool and ideological marker in post-Soviet Kazakhstan, where everyday commercial interactions become sites for negotiating ethnic identity, national belonging, and socioeconomic position.
Research Methods
To study sociolinguistic dynamics at Green Bazar in Almaty, Kazakhstan, ethnographic fieldwork with participant observation over the course of three months will be the primary method. During this time, I will develop sustained relationships with 8-10 key vendors from diverse linguistic backgrounds, consistently visiting and sitting at their stalls at different times of the day and week to capture varying interactional dynamics. This longitudinal approach will enable me to discern the patterns in language adjustments vendors make relative to customer demographics, socioeconomic indicators, and the rhythms of market activities. Particular attention will be given to interactions between Russian-speaking Kazakh customers and Kazakh-speaking sellers, emphasizing detailed documentation of linguistic accommodations, bargaining processes, and style-shifting correlating explicitly with perceived customer status.
Secondly, I will conduct open-ended interviews with 10-15 sellers and 10-15 customers, carefully selected to represent varied linguistic, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. These interviews will intentionally explore and elicit narratives about personal language ideologies, encounters with linguistic stigmatization, and conscious strategies employed when switching between Kazakh and Russian in diverse marketplace scenarios. Audio-recorded with explicit consent, these dialogues will provide qualitative data, later transcribed for discourse analysis.
Complementing these approaches, conversational analysis will serve as a third method, capturing bursts of dynamic and spontaneous market interactions through recordings (again, with participant consent) of 30-40 naturally occurring exchanges. These recorded interactions will be examined for instances of rapid style-shifting, deliberate code-switching, linguistic accommodation strategies, and the negotiation of meaning and identity. Detailed transcription will allow examination of conversational structures, turn-taking, strategic pauses, prosodic variations, and repair mechanisms employed during language switches.
Throughout this fieldwork, I will maintain a detailed field notebook, capturing spontaneous notes on non-verbal communication, including gestures, posture shifts, and facial expressions accompanying verbal interactions, thus deepening the multimodal analysis of marketplace communication. This ethnographic journaling will enhance understanding of how non-verbal cues function integratively with linguistic choices.
Finally, archival research will contextualize observational and conversational findings within broader socio-political dynamics. I will thoroughly review government policies on language revitalization, national language legislation, and media narratives surrounding linguistic debates in Kazakhstan. This archival exploration will enable a richer analysis connecting micro-level marketplace interactions to macro-level national language politics, offering deeper insight into how post-Soviet sociolinguistic practices are shaped and reshaped in contemporary Kazakhstan.
Literature Review
My preliminary research guided by my personal experience on language practices in Almaty, Kazakhstan, particularly in public spaces like the Green Bazar, indicate that the spectrum of language choices between Kazakh and Russian serve as markers of identity and social positioning, prompting me to draw on scholarly literature that examines language policy in Kazakhstan in comparison to the broader world, negotiation of Kazakh identity in linguistic performance in the form of aitys, and code-mixing patterns among Turkic-Russian bilinguals.
The 2023 article "Language Policy in Kazakhstan in the Context of World Practice" by Yedgina et al. (2023), published in the Journal of Nationalism, Memory & Language Politics, provides an analysis of the development and current state of language policy in Kazakhstan within the context of post-Soviet nations and global practices. The authors employ comparative historical methods, analyzing conceptual frameworks and drawing on population census data and scholarly literature to trace the evolution of linguistic dynamics in the country. Their key finding is that Kazakhstan's language policy strategically navigates Soviet Russification's legacy by promoting Kazakh-Russian bilingualism while expanding Kazakh language spheres, maintaining civil peace, and protecting linguistic rights of diverse ethnic groups. This article is directly relevant to my research at Green Bazar in Almaty as it provides essential context for understanding how national language ideologies influence micro-level interactions. The author's discussion of the planned Latin alphabet shift from Cyrillic for Kazakh, Russian's official status as an interethnic communication language, and the goal of balanced bilingualism offers crucial background for interpreting the language choices and potential linguistic stigmatization I expect to observe in marketplace encounters between sellers and customers.
Eva-Marie Dubuisson's (2010) article, "Confrontation in and through the Nation in Kazakh Aitys Poetry," published in the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, investigates the role of aitys, a genre of Kazakh improvisational oral poetry, as a significant site for sociopolitical critique within post-Soviet Kazakhstan's restrictive media environment. Drawing on analysis of televised aitys performances where poets (akhyndar) engage in verbal duels before audiences and juries, Dubuisson examines how these poets articulate critiques of contemporary leaders of Kazakhstan on issues including greed, Russification, and governmental impotence. Her methods involve analyzing the dialogic nature of these poetic exchanges, the folklorization processes that legitimize aitys as "authentic Kazakh culture," and the complex dynamics of cultural sponsorship by political elites. Dubuisson's key finding is that aitys provides a protected space for voicing dissent due to its cultural standing, elite sponsorship, and a performance structure that diffuses accountability by allowing poets to speak as "the people" (halykh). This article is particularly relevant to my research at Green Bazar as it offers a compelling case study where language performance becomes a means of negotiating national identity and social critique. Dubuisson's analysis of how "authentic Kazakh culture" is invoked and how language is strategically used to navigate authority will inform my examination of similar themes in marketplace interactions, especially regarding nationalist language ideologies and the performance of ethnic and national identities within Kazakhstan.
Jenanne K. Ferguson's (2016) article, "Code-Mixing among Sakha-Russian Bilinguals in Yakutsk: A Spectrum of Features and Shifting Indexical Fields," published in the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, explores language mixing practices among Sakha-Russian bilinguals in Yakutsk, the urban capital of Russia's Sakha Republic. Through ethnographic fieldwork including participant observation, semi-formal interviews, and analysis of recorded speech and written Sakha texts, Ferguson investigates how Russian words are "copied" into Sakha and how speakers perceive and use these mixed forms. She finds that bilinguals navigate a spectrum of linguistic features from "more Sakha" to "more Russian," with many choices involving "bivalency" (features that could belong to either language), embedded in local language ideologies of purism and authenticity. Ferguson argues that a syncretic urban Sakha speech style with specific code-mixing patterns is undergoing enregisterment, reflecting shifting indexical fields as Yakutsk's Sakha-speaking population grows and urban language norms evolve. This article is highly relevant to my research on Kazakh-Russian interactions at Green Bazar because it provides a robust theoretical framework for understanding code-mixing and bilingual practices in a post-Soviet Turkic-Russian contact setting. Ferguson's concepts of "spectrum of features," "bivalency," and "shifting indexical fields" offer valuable analytical tools for examining how market participants use and interpret mixed language, and how these practices relate to identity construction and the negotiation of "Kazakhness" versus "Russianness" in everyday commercial interactions.
These scholarly works provide complementary frameworks for analyzing language dynamics at Green Bazar in Almaty: national policy contexts (Yedgina et al., 2023), linguistic performance as identity negotiation (Dubuisson, 2010), and code-mixing practices in Turkic-Russian bilingual settings (Ferguson, 2016). Together, they situate my ethnographic study within broader conversations about how language mediates identity, power, and social positioning in post-Soviet Kazakhstan.
Possible Contributions
This research will provide a crucial ethnographic account of how national language policies and prevailing language ideologies are enacted, interpreted, and potentially contested within everyday interactions at Almaty's large multilingual marketplace. The project contributes significantly to linguistic anthropology by offering detailed analysis of how language choices between Kazakh and Russian construct and index multifaceted ethnic, national, and socioeconomic identities. Drawing on theoretical frameworks of code-mixing, bilingual practices, and socially meaningful linguistic styles in Turkic-Russian contact zones, the study investigates how specific linguistic practices function as tools for social navigation, mechanisms of inclusion or exclusion, and means of establishing rapport or asserting distinctions. The research offers valuable insights for sociocultural anthropology, particularly regarding post-Soviet societal transformations, urban public space ethnography, and how commercial settings become critical sites for expressing and negotiating cultural values and social hierarchies.
Beyond academia, this project aims for broad impacts. It provides the Almaty community with a nuanced reflection of their daily linguistic experiences, potentially fostering meaningful dialogue on multilingualism and intercultural communication within this diverse urban setting. For research participants, the project offers a valuable platform to share their experiences and perspectives on language use, with explicit consent for receiving copies of interview transcripts or recordings (if they agree to be recorded) as direct benefits. This research will enhance understanding of language dynamics throughout Central Asia, offering valuable ethnographic data for scholars and practitioners involved in community development, education, and intercultural communication initiatives across the region.
This work would enable comparative studies of sociolinguistic dynamics in other Kazakhstani cities or post-Soviet contexts. A longitudinal study could track language practice evolution in relation to ongoing reforms like Kazakhstan's planned Latin script adoption. Furthermore, a dedicated study could investigate intergenerational linguistic variation within the market, analyzing how younger and older participants' language choices and ideologies differ.
Proposed Budget and Timeline
Budget summary
| Category | Purpose | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Salaries, wages, honoraria, stipends and benefits | Kazakh-Russian research assistant/translator and transcription (345 hrs @ $8/hr); participant stipends (40 people @ $15 each); vendor compensation (12 vendors @ $250 each); community consultant honorarium ($250) | $6,610.00 |
| Equipment | Video-capable DSLR camera ($400); digital audio recorder ($200); external microphone ($100); memory cards and external hard drive ($125) | $825.00 |
| Travel | Round-trip flight Los Angeles–Almaty ($1,350); travel insurance ($150); local transportation in Almaty for 3 months ($185) | $1,685.00 |
| Materials & Supplies | Field notebooks and supplies, business cards, printing/photocopying, participant information materials in Kazakh/Russian | $120.00 |
| Publication Costs | Conference presentation registration; professional translation of research summary into Kazakh for the community; open access publication fee | $500.00 |
| Indirect Costs | N/A | — |
| Other | Cloud storage; community feedback session; contingency fund | $260.00 |
| Total requested | $10,000.00 |
Project timeline (Grant Period: Summer 2026, June–August)
Pre-Summer Preparation (April–May 2026): Recruit and coordinate with a bilingual research assistant in Almaty; complete IRB approval and purchase equipment; establish contact with community consultant.
Week 1 (Early June): Arrival and Setup. Travel to Almaty and meet with research assistant and community consultant; conduct equipment testing and initial Green Bazar screening; begin establishing vendor relationships and negotiate observation agreements.
Weeks 2-9 (Mid-June through July): Intensive Data Collection. Daily participant observation with translator (8 weeks, 4-5 hours daily); complete 40 interviews (20 sellers, 20 customers) across diverse linguistic backgrounds; record 50+ naturally occurring marketplace interactions; document code-switching patterns and nationalist language ideologies; begin ongoing transcription work with research assistant.
Weeks 10-12 (August): Analysis and Community Engagement. Complete comprehensive transcription of all recorded materials with research assistant; conduct preliminary analysis using ELAN software; host community feedback session in both languages; member-checking with key participants and vendors.
Post-Summer (Fall 2026): Submit conference presentation proposal using preliminary findings; complete professional translation of research summary for community distribution; begin formal analysis and academic writing process.
References
Yedgina, G., Dzhumabekov, D., Zuyeva, L., Dosova, B., & Kozina, V. (2023). Language policy in Kazakhstan in the context of world practice. Journal of Nationalism, Memory & Language Politics, 17(1), 76-96.
Dubuisson, E. M. (2010). Confrontation in and through the nation in Kazakh aitys poetry. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 20(1), 101-115.
Ferguson, J. K. (2016). Code-mixing among Sakha-Russian bilinguals in Yakutsk: A spectrum of features and shifting indexical fields. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 26(2), 141-161.