Sociolinguistic Conditionality of Yakut Language Functioning in Field of School Education: Origins of Incipient Crisis

Abstract

The results of a sociolinguistic analysis of factors that reduce the language competence of Sakha schoolchildren in a broad extralinguistic context based on field data representing the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the research object is presented in the article. Attention is paid to the functioning of the Yakut language in the field of education, which is undergoing various transformations depending on the course of the state educational policy, the socio-economic state of the region and the processes of globalization, the consequences of which form risks for the ethnocultural component of communities in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation with non-dominant languages. It is argued that the language policy in the field of education, which implements “de jure” bilingual, polylingual models, in the implementation of which the formal approach prevails, actually minimizes the presence of the Yakut language in the education system due to insufficient consideration of linguistic attitudes and the real needs of the Sakha ethnic community. It is noted that the conditions of active contact bilingualism in the regions of the Russian Federation, a variety of ambiguous extralinguistic factors predetermine the strengthening of institutional support, state protectionism in the field of optimal linguistic support of training and educational processes. It is proved that taking into account the experience of research on family, civil language policy can help in obtaining an optimal solution to the problems of language reproduction on regional material.

Keywords

• yakut language
• language situation
• language competence
• language policy
• language of instruction
• language of study