Second Language Acquisition in Different Migration Contexts

Dear Colleagues,

Global mobility has become a natural and inevitable feature in the world today. Rapidly increasing mobility also constitutes one of the current societal challenges and scholars from the fields of Humanities and Social Sciences can contribute considerably to our understanding of this phenomenon, suggesting possible ways forward for both multicultural societies and traditionally culturally homogenous communities which have seen their ethno- cultural landscape swiftly transformed.  Speaking of mobility, one tends to think of migration that occurs due to economic and political reasons. It is also a much broader reality, with many people choosing to move to another country for various reasons, be they professional, emotional or lifestyle-oriented. Increased mobility, under forced circumstances or by choice, opens up a magnitude of new research avenues for SLA research. To date, SLA research has largely relied on population samples recruited from post-secondary institutions to draw conclusions about the capacity for adults to learn additional languages (Plonsky, 2017; Ortega, 2019), but it has also dealt with the migration context in, principally, two different ways. It has, on the one hand, studied learners in migratory contexts for a long time, without considering the specificities of the migratory context, such as the studies by DeKeyser (2000) or Abrahamsson & Hyltenstam (2009), just to mention a few examples of cognitively oriented SLA which has not taken the social context into account. On the other hand, SLA and migration has been studied from the perspective of critical sociolinguistics, where issues such as inequalities and power asymmetries have been explored (see e.g. Norton , 2014 and Duchêne, Moyer and Roberts, 2013). We can thus observe a clear gap, where there is need for more research actually taking the social context into account, but also doing it from different theoretical and ideological perspectives and not the least, examining different types of migration populations in different contexts. In line with the proposals of the Douglas Fir Group (2016), we assume that language learning will be dependent on cognitive, social, affective as well as ideological factors, hence the need to study different socio-cultural and socio-political contexts. The aim of the present Special Issue is thus to gather researchers working with different populations, beginners or high—proficient speakers, low-literate or highly educated, in different migratory contexts in different parts of the world, to offer new insights into the diversities of both language learning experience and migratory experience.

Tentative completion schedule:

• Abstract submission deadline: 15 June 2021
• Notification of abstract acceptance: 15 July 2021
• Full manuscript deadline: 15 January 2022

References:

Abrahamsson, N and Hyltenstam, K (2009) Age of L2 acquisition and degree of nativelikeness – listener perception vs linguistic scrutiny. Language Learning 58(3): 249-306. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2009.00507.x

DeKeyser, RM (2000) The robustness of critical period effects in second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 22(4): 499-533. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263100004022

Duchêne, A., Moyer, M. and Roberts, C. (eds.) (2013). Language, migration and social inequalities: A critical sociolinguistics perspective on institutions and work. Bristol: Multilingual Matters

Douglas Fir Group (2016). A transdisciplinary framework for SLA in a multilingual world. The Modern Language Journal 100 (Supplement 2016): 19-47. https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12301

Ortega, L (2019) SLA and the Study of Equitable Multilingualism. The Modern Language Journal 103: 23-38. https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12525

Plonsky, L. (2017) Quantitative research methods. In S. Loewen et M. Sato (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Instructed Second Language Acquisition. London: Routledge, pp. 505-521

Norton, B. (2014) Idnetity and poststructuralist theory in SLA. In Multiple perspectives on the self in SLA. Edited bt Sarah Mercer and Marion Williams. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, pp. 59-74.

Peyton, J.K. and Young-Scholten, M. (2020) Teaching Adult Immigrants with Limited Formal Education: Theory, Research, and Practice. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Prof. Fanny Forsberg Lundell
Dr. Suzie Beaulieu
Guest Editors

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