Using Conversation Analysis to Interpret Ukrainian University Students’ Answers to Language Policy Questions in Ethnographic Interviews

• In Event: Ethnographic Research in Multilingual Contexts: Microlevel Perspectives on Macrolevel Policies

Abstract

This presentation stems from a year-long ethnographic case study of a private university in a predominantly Russian-speaking city in eastern Ukraine – a university that is increasingly using English as a medium of instruction. The post-Soviet Ukrainian government has, in theory, promoted the use of the national language, Ukrainian, since 1989. In practice, however, Ukrainian use often yields to Russian, the former language of power—especially in contexts with a high ethnic Russian and Russophone Ukrainian presence. This study was designed to examine the relationship between the use of English as a medium of instruction at this university, national language policy, and local language norms.
Observations of English-medium, Russian-medium, and Ukrainian medium classes and university events were conducted drawing primarily on the framework of the ecology of language (Haugen, 1972; see also Creese & Martin, 2008; Edwards, 2008; Hornberger, 2003; Pennycook, 2004; Phillipson & Skutnabb-Kangas, 1996). The study was also informed by research on language ideologies (Blackledge, 2008; Kroskrity, 2004; Woolard & Schieffelin, 1994), theories of language planning and policy (Cooper, 1989; Hornberger, 2006; Hornberger & Johnson, 2007; King, 2001; Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997; Ricento & Hornberger, 1996), and bilingual and multilingual education. Semistructured interviews were conducted with half of the students and four of the teachers from three of the focal groups of students observed. Interviewees were asked a series of questions about policy: “What is the state language of Ukraine?”, “Is that also the language of higher education?”, and, if the answer to this second question was “yes”, “So how is it possible for you to take classes in English?”
The third question and its variations elicited a range of responses which, when understood in terms of what speakers were orienting to in the original question (see Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974), could then be sorted into four themes: 1) it’s a special program for foreign languages; 2) it’s the university’s choice; 3) studying in English is not difficult for me, and 4) I don’t know what the regulations are. Additionally, interviewees commented on the Ukrainian government in ways that underscored findings in the classroom that language-in-education policy is only partially controlled by national or international governing bodies. Individual choice plays a more critical role. These findings imply that understanding individual orientations to policy as seen through student answers to research questions, regardless of whether those answers fit the intended response, facilitates understanding of how language policy is developed and implemented at multiple levels of society.

Author

• Bridget Goodman, Nazarbayev University