Language Policy in University Education: the Case of Khakassia and Tyva
The paper deals with interface of macro- and micro-language policies in the language education of the southern Siberian republics of Tuvan and Khakassia, which includes Russian, foreign languages and indigenous languages, Tuvan and Khakass, which have the status of republican official languages. A comparative study of non-linguistic educational programs at various levels in Khakass State University and Tuva State University made it possible to evaluate the linguistic “weight” of undergraduate curricula and reveal a more obvious linguistic orientation in Tuvan State University. The undisputed leader among the foreign languages studied at two universities is English, German is the second. Sociolinguistic surveys of students of different ethnicity allowed establishing the levels of self-assessment of their language competence in foreign and native languages. Almost a third of respondents rate the quality of foreign language skills as unsatisfactory, which is associated with low level of school language education and minimal prospects for studying and working abroad. Self-assessment of the level of proficiency in ethnic languages is significantly higher - with only 18 % of Khakass respondents not speaking their native language. However, the Tuvinian and Khakass languages included in the Atlas of Endangered Languages of UNESCO are practically not represented in the programs of university non-linguistic education. The introduction of mandatory USE in Russian and foreign languages, became a new challenge and threat to republican state languages and strengthens the role of micro-language planning and its agents at different levels.