Cultural Migrants and Optimal Language Acquisition

Edited by Fanny Forsberg Lundell, Prof. Inge Bartning

Publication date:

04 August 2015

Publisher

Multilingual Matters

Dimensions:

234x156mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781783094035

This volume investigates cultural migrants: people who, from their own free will, move to another country because of their interest in the target language and culture. Chapters include studies on cultural migrants acquiring French, Italian, Spanish and English and consider linguistic, psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic aspects of language acquisition. Cultural migrants have social and psychological advantages when acquiring a second language as adults, and the study of their linguistic knowledge and production increases our understanding of the possibilities and limits of L2 ultimate attainment. The work thus fills a gap in our understanding of high-level proficiency and will be of interest to researchers working in the field of SLA, as well as to social scientists studying the relationship between language, culture and integration.

Fanny Forsberg Lundell and Inge Bartning: Introduction: Cultural Migrants – Introducing a New Concept in SLA Research
FOCUS ON CULTURAL MIGRANTS
1. Anna Gudmundson and Camilla Bardel: Beyond Nativelike? The Lexical Profile of a Cultural Migrant in Italy
2. Fanny Forsberg Lundell and Inge Bartning: Successful Profiles in High-Level L2 French: C’est un choix de vie
3. Amanda Edmonds and Catherine Guesle-Coquelet: Reported Use and Perception of tu and vous among Less Integrated and Highly Integrated Anglophone Cultural Migrants in France
4. Britt Erman and Margareta Lewis: L2 English Vocabulary in a Long-Residency Swedish Group Compared to a Group of English Native Speakers
CULTURE AS A DECISIVE FACTOR IN L2 ATTAINMENT
5. Chloe Diskin and Vera Regan: Migratory Experience and Second Language Acquisition among Polish and Chinese Migrants in Dublin, Ireland
6. Kate Hammer and Jean-Marc Dewaele: Acculturation as the Key to the Ultimate Attainment? The Case of Polish-English Bilinguals in the UK
7. Gisela Granena: The Role of Sociopsychological Factors in Long-term L2 Achievement of L1 Chinese Learners of L2 Spanish
8. Fanny Forsberg Lundell and Inge Bartning: Concluding Chapter: What Can SLA Learn From Cultural Migrants?

This volume introduces us to a new concept - the ‘cultural migrant’ - in order to investigate linguistic variation and long-term attainment among L2 users with a genuine desire to integrate into a new culture. The editors and contributors succeed in enlivening and complicating the age debate through a holistic view of the individual, and a renewed emphasis on acculturation, both needed to decisively move critical period research forward.