Exploring Identity Across Language and Culture : The Psychological, Emotional, Linguistic, and Cultural Changes Following Migration

This book explores the ways in which migrants’ experience in today’s multilingual and multicultural society informs language use and processing, behavioural patterns, and perceptions of self-identity.

Drawing on survey data from hundreds of Italian migrants living in English- speaking countries, in conjunction with more focused interviews, this volume unpacks reciprocal influences between linguistic, cultural, and psychological variables to shed light on how migrants emotionally engage with the local and heritage dimensions across public and private spaces. Visualising the impact of a constant shifting of linguistic and cultural practices can enhance our understanding of migration experiences, foreign language acquisition, language processing and socialisation, inclusion, integration, social dynamics, acculturation tendencies, and cross-cultural communication patterns.

Overall, this book appeals to students and scholars interested in gaining nuanced insights into the linguistic, cultural, and psychological underpinnings of migration experiences in such disciplines as sociolinguistics, cultural studies, and social psychology.

Alex Panicacci is a British Academy Postdoctoral Researcher at Queen Mary University of London’s Linguistic Department and University of Washington’s Psychology Department. She has authored works in the areas of multilingualism, affective socialisation, acculturation, emotion, and personality with a fundamental focus on identity practices and linguistic, cultural, and racial diversity.