Cultural Migrants and Optimal Language Acquisition

by Lundell, Fanny Forsberg; Bartning, Inge

• ISBN13: 9781783094028
• ISBN10: 1783094028
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2015-08-04
• Publisher: Multilingual Matters

Summary

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.

Author Biography

Fanny Forsberg Lundell is Associate Professor of French Linguistics at Stockholm University. Besides publishing extensively on formulaic language in French and Spanish as second languages, with a particular focus on high-level proficiency, she also works on pragmatics, conversation analysis and spoken language in general. Recently, her work includes psychological perspectives on high-level L2 attainment.Inge Bartning is Professor Emerita of French at Stockholm University. She has taught and published in the domain of French syntax, semantics and pragmatics. In the last two decades her main interest has been in French L2 acquisition, in particular the domain of developmental stages, advanced learners and ultimate attainment of morphosyntax, discourse and information structure.

Table of Contents

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?