Cultural Migrants and Optimal Language Acquisition

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 is Associate Professor of French at Stockholm University. Besides publishing extensively on formulaic language in French and Spanish as L2s 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 and social perspectives on high-level L2 attainment in different migratory contexts.

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 two last 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.