Profile
My research focuses on discursive identity construction, language policies and ideologies, multilingualism, and media discourse. Combining approaches from critical discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, memory studies, and visual culture, I examine how language both shapes and is shaped by the societies we live in.
Currently, I am working on a book that explores how the war in Ukraine influences language ideologies and national identity construction in Kazakhstan.
Before joining QMUL, I taught at various international institutions, including Moscow State University, Nazarbayev University, the University of Edinburgh, and Suleyman Demirel University. I have designed and taught modules at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels in areas such as Discourse, Culture, and Communication; Russian Language and Culture; Research Methods in Sociolinguistics; and Negotiating Identities. Additionally, I have co-supervised PhD students on topics including the construction of gendered stereotypes in media, bilingualism in Kazakhstan’s education, and the role of English in different social spheres across the post-Soviet region.
I am currently a member of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies; the Eurasian Regions Study Group within the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies; and the Linguistic Society of America.
Teaching
This semester I teach SML4006 Language and Culture and FLM6071/RUS6071 Contemporary Post-Soviet Documentary.
Publications
2025 Kamalova, Alina. It’s Your Fault: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Narratives Surrounding Gender-Based Violence in a Russian Talk Show. Language, Culture & Society [in press]
2025 Kamalova, Alina. Constructing the ideologies of globalisation and elitism: the analysis of English-written signs in Kazakhstani coffee shops. In International Journal of the Sociology of Language, Special Issue: The globalisation of English and the Turkic speaking countries of the Formner Soviet Union: attitudes, policy and implementation [in press]
2025 Kamalova, Alina. Speak Kazakh: Language ideologies in Kazakhstan's social media in times of Russian-Ukranian war. Journal of Sociolinguistics [in press]
2024 Kamalova, Alina. You are a murderer: critical discourse analysis of conversations around abortions in the Russian talk show. In Discourse & Society, 35 (2), pp. 194-222.
2022 Kamalova, Alina. Motherhood and child abandonment: narrative and critical discourse analysis of tabloid talk show communication. In Emergence, Vol. XII, pp. 56-74.
Dissemination
Conferences (for the last three years):
Speak Kazakh: Language ideologies in Kazakhstan’s social media in times of war, Flipping the Script: Language Policies in Flux Across Eurasia Conference, UC Berkeley, Jan, 24, 2025.
Signs of Change: English, Globalism and Neoliberalism in Kazakhstan's Coffee Shops, Plenary Session "Crossing Boundaries: Connections, Mobilities, and Infrastructures in Central Asia and the Caucasus Throughout the Centuries", ASIAC XVIII Annual Conference, Ca'Foscari University, Venice, Dec 9-11, 2024.
Language ideologies in Kazakhstan in times of geopolitical crisis - Roundtable "Multilingualism in the Urban Space: Language Policy and Diversity", 1st Eurasian Congress of Linguists, Dec, 11, 2024.
Mockery in Kazakhstan's Social Media as a tool of constructing language hierarchies, 4th Central Asia Language and Education Conference, KIMEP University, Almaty, 16-17 May, 2024.
How dare you – you’re a mother: familial identity constrcution in media discourse, 3rd International Conference on Sociolinguistics, Prague, Czech Republic, 24-26 August, 2022.
Negotiation of norms and identites in family conversations: corpus- assisted critical discourse analysis of the Russian talk show, Sociolinguistic Symposium 24, Ghent, Belgium, 13-16 July, 2022.
