Issues of social differentiation of language and problems of code-switching

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of social differentiation of language, which arises from the connection of social linguistics with «language and society», the cause and essence of differentiation, its study, and its problems. Further, the existence of the Kazakh language as a national code, the peculiarities of differentiation, serving in different classes and groups of its speakers, its current differences from previous stages of development are analyzed and considered through the works of the founders of Kazakh linguists A. Baitursynov and K. Zhubanov, the researcher of the modern socio-linguistic situation of the Kazakh language B. Khasanuly. With the help of social institutions formed in Kazakh society in the past centuries, relations between people are brought to a certain order and standards, their behaviour and actions are regulated, cultural and political changes in the society of Tsarist Russia and the Soviet era have separated the people who speak the same language. The natural state of the Kazakh language is disrupted, unity and uniformity, and the weakening of the unifying function of society is described. The author concludes that one of the most urgent tasks of Kazakhstan's social linguistics is to study the factors influencing language differentiation and codeswitching, consider the nature of their influence on language processes and relationships, and identify the social conditionality of the functioning of the Kazakh language as a modern language.