Models Of Uzbek–Russian Bilingualism In Urban And Rural Communities Of Tashkent Region

Abstract

The article analyzes models of Uzbek–Russian bilingualism in both urban and rural communities within the Tashkent Region, which encompasses industrial towns, peri-urban settlements, and agriculturally focused villages. Although national-level studies frequently characterize Uzbekistan as sociolinguistically homogeneous, this research contends that intra-regional disparities in access to education, media, and mobility generate unique patterns of bilingual language use. The empirical foundation comprises a sociolinguistic survey of two hundred adult residents and forty-five semi-structured interviews executed in one urban center and two rural districts. Descriptive statistics and cluster analysis were used to look at quantitative data, and thematic coding was used to look at qualitative data. The results show that there are three common patterns of Uzbek–Russian bilingualism. The first type, which is mostly found in the industrial town, is balanced pragmatic bilingualism. In this type, speakers use both languages in different situations and connect Russian with broader professional and informational networks and Uzbek with national identity and local solidarity. The second, which is common in cities and suburbs, is Uzbek-dominant bilingualism with functional Russian, where Russian is mostly used for technical and institutional communication. The third, which is common in rural villages, is Uzbek-dominant bilingualism with limited Russian. This means that people in these villages don't use Russian very often and feel very strongly about Uzbek. The research illustrates that these models are influenced by the convergence of location, generation, educational pathways, and linguistic ideologies. It concludes that language policy and educational planning in Uzbekistan must consider intra-regional variation to foster equitable and sustainable bilingualism and the development of multilingualism.