From Migrant to Heritage Languages: Transgenerational Language Change in Diasporic Communities
A special issue of Languages (ISSN 2226-471X).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 July 2025 | Viewed by 629
Special Issue Editors
Interests: language contact and multilingualism; migrant and heritage languages studies; field work and corpus linguistics; language change and archaic language structures; sociolinguistics and variationist linguistics; syntax of causative constructions
Interests: Africa and issues of general linguistic theory; languages in contact; language variation and change; language evolution
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The Special Issue focuses on language evolution in migrant diasporic communities across generations. Although migrant vs heritage languages have been intensively described during the last few decades, this research topic has been studied in detail. This Special Issue plans to fill this gap. The continuum of migrant vs heritage languages is a well-represented social and linguistic phenomenon worldwide, cf. Russian, Polish, Turkish, and Arabic in Germany, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese in the USA, and a multifaceted tapestry of migrant languages in Israel. Thereby, this diasporic continuum represents diverse contact combinations of typologically different languages that undergo transgenerational evolution. Within the proposed Special Issue, we aim to discuss transgenerational language shifts and changes in migrant vs heritage languages across the world. In addition, we want to address the processes of migrant languages’ evolution in a broader context of contact-induced language change (e.g., minority languages, historical dialects, pidgins and creoles). Thereby, we aspire to bridge the gap between different theoretical frameworks dealing with language change in multilingual settings, e.g., linguistic typology, studies on pidgin and creole languages, and theory of language evolution in general. Furthermore, we want to contribute to the (hardly represented) comparative research of migrant vs heritage languages.
We request, prior to submitting a manuscript, that the interested authors first submit a proposed title and an abstract of 250–300 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editors, Dr. Vladislava Warditz ([email protected]), Prof. Dr. Bernd Heine ([email protected]), and Prof. Dr. Paul Widmer ([email protected]) by December 15, 2024. Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purpose of ensuring their proper fit within the purview of the Special Issue. Notification of abstract acceptance will be given by January 15, 2025. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.
Dr. Vladislava Warditz
Prof. Dr. Bernd Heine
Prof. Dr. Paul Widmer
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- language evolution
- multilingualism
- language contact
- transgenerational language shift and language change
- migrant heritage languages
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