Abstract
This study examines children’s language use in spontaneous playground interaction in Kazakhstan, focusing on how language choice varies across play activities and how these practices relate to family language orientations. The study uses non-participant observation and audio recordings of nine playgroup sessions involving 23 children aged 4–9, complemented by caregiver questionnaires. The analysis follows an interactional approach and uses qualitative coding in MAXQDA. The findings show variability in language use across the observed play sessions and communicative functions. In cooperative and structured play, Kazakh accounted for the largest proportion of coded utterances in both observed sessions, whereas competitive and physically oriented play showed a more variable distribution of Kazakh, Russian, and mixed-language utterances. At the utterance level, the strongest co-occurrence patterns for Kazakh were observed with agreement, initiation, and negotiation, whereas Russian showed stronger co-occurrence with accusation, claim, and protest. Comparison with caregiver reports shows partial correspondence between reported family language practices and observed playground language use, suggesting that peer language practices are not simply direct reflections of family language orientations. From a language policy perspective, the study shows that playgrounds constitute an important site where state and family language policy are enacted and negotiated in everyday practice. By focusing on children’s agency in informal peer settings, the study contributes to research on family language policy, language socialization, and language policy “from below”.