«Native among foreigners, foreign among natives»: on the issue of linguistic identity

Abstract

The article regards the problem of the linguistic identity of Kazakh youth from interethnic Kazakh-Russian families. A survey of respondents aged 18–21 shows the difficulties in linguistic self-determination of the individual. Nevertheless, a significant part of respondents identifies themselves with the linguistic correlation of the father due to the traditional dominant role of the father in the Kazakh family, a slightly smaller number of respondents chooses the nationality of the mother. Anthropological characteristics and language are important factors in choosing ethnic identity. Most students from multi-ethnic families are bilingual, they are equally fluent in two languages. The study highlights the types of relationship between linguistic and ethnic identity of bilingual personality. The correlation between linguistic and ethnic identity is identical in 56/62.9 % of respondents, not coinciding in 33/37 % of respondents.