Language Learning and Forced Migration

Edited by Marte Monsen, Guri Bordal Steien

Publication date:

12 September 2022

Publisher

Multilingual Matters

Dimensions:

234x156mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781800412255

This pioneering piece of research on the situated study of language issues in the context of forced migration provides interdisciplinary insights into language as learned, used and lived by 12 Congolese refugees in Norway. It offers an innovative contribution to the field of SLA by bringing together structural, cognitive, social and critical approaches to data collected among the same individuals, these individuals being underrepresented within the field of SLA research as both refugees and learners whose experiences with language stem from the Global South. Their histories of mobility and their learning contexts are rarely reflected in theories and concepts from the Global North and this book thus makes a much-needed contribution to the field.

Contributors
Acknowledgements
Foreword

Chapter 1. Guri Bordal Steien and Marte Monsen: Introduction: Language Learning and Forced Migration

Part 1: Emic Perspectives and Learning Contexts

Chapter 2. Marte Monsen and Guri Bordal Steien: Women, Children, Dogs, Flowers and Men: Constructions of Norway and Investment in Norwegian Language Learning

Chapter 3: Guri Bordal Steien: 'In Uganda, We Collected Them in the Streets': On (the Absence of) the Street as a Language Learning Space

Chapter 4. Verónica Pájaro: Scripts and Texts as Technologies of Refugee Governmentality in the Norwegian Introduction Programme

Chapter 5. Marte Monsen and Marianne Eek: 'Because I Was the Only One Who Dared': Approaches to Multilingual Repertoires in Adult Language Training

Chapter 6. Marte Monsen: Resettling Literacies: The Case of Sarah and Simon

Part 2: Language Practices, Knowledge and Learning

Chapter 7. Ida Syvertsen: Syllable Structures in English Speech Produced by Multilingual Speakers with Histories of Mobility

Chapter 8. Sylvi Rørvik: Word Order in Additional Language English Spoken by Multilinguals

Chapter 9. Gunhild Tveit Randen: 'The Sound of Asking a Question': Metalanguage and Crosslinguistic Awareness in Adults Learning Norwegian as an Additional Language

Chapter 10. Bård Uri Jensen: Syntactic Complexity in Early Adult Additional Language Norwegian

Chapter 11. Marte Nordanger: A Year Goes By: A Longitudinal Study of Verb–Locative Constructions in Additional Language Norwegian

Chapter 12. Paulina Horbowicz: Pragmatic Development in Four Congolese Refugees’ Norwegian: Response to Topic Initial Elicitors and Topic Proffers

Chapter 13. Guri Bordal Steien and Marte Monsen: Conclusion: Towards a Research Agenda on Language Learning and Forced Migration

Index

This book is a fascinating linguistic, pragmatic, and ethnographic exploration of multilingualism and additional language (AL) learning among refugees relocated to Norway. Particularly compelling are its insights into why AL learning can be difficult for multilinguals living in the AL environment and receiving regular language instruction, even when the AL is similar to languages they already know.