36.1468, Confs: Developing New Languages in Migration Contexts (Czech Republic)

Thu May 8 19:05:01 UTC 2025

LINGUIST List: Vol-36-1468. Thu May 08 2025. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 36.1468, Confs: Developing New Languages in Migration Contexts (Czech Republic)

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Date: 06-May-2025
From: Egle Mocciaro [egle.mocciaro at mail.muni.cz]
Subject: Developing New Languages in Migration Contexts

Developing New Languages in Migration Contexts
Theme: Second Language Acquisition, Migrations

Date: 30-Sep-2025 - 01-Oct-2025
Location: Brno, Czech Republic
Contact: Egle Mocciaro
Contact Email: egle.mocciaro at mail.muni.cz

Linguistic Field(s): Discipline of Linguistics; Language Acquisition

Submission Deadline: 15-Jun-2025

"Developing new languages in migration contexts” will take place from
September 30 to October 1, 2025, at Masaryk  University (Czech
Republic), under the framework of OP JAK “LangInLife”
(https://www.muni.cz/en/research/projects/73477).
The conference is intended to contribute to filling a gap in Second
Language Acquisition, where research on adult immigrants developing
additional languages is currently underrepresented (see Mocciaro &
Young-Scholten 2025). After a fundamental research season in the
1970-90s (Becker et al. 1977; Clahsen et al. 1983; Bernini & Giacalone
Ramat 1990; Klein & Perdue 1992), scholars have in fact focused on
other types of learners or, when working with migrants, have mostly
ignored the specific learning conditions that occur in a migration
context (see Forsberg Lundell & Beaulieu 2022). As repeatedly pointed
out by several scholars in the last two decades (see Andringa 2022;
Bigelow & Tarone 2004; Henrich et al. 2010; Plonsky, 2023), this gap
poses serious problems of sample representativeness and
generalisability of research findings, as the vast majority of those
who develop new languages as adults do so as part of a migration
experience.
There is now an urgent need to promote a transdisciplinary approach to
the study of Second Language Acquisition, narrowing the gap with
sister disciplines by explicitly including in the research variables
hitherto neglected or only summarily observed. These include variables
related to the learners’ sociolinguistic background (also in the light
of the social turn invoked e.g. by Block 2003; Douglas Fir Group 2016;
Ortega 2019), which has only in recent years begun to attract the
attention of scholars (see Young-Scholten et al. 2019). Typological
issues are equally crucial, as recent changes in the geography of
migrations have mobilised a range of source and target languages that
differs from the narrow inventory represented in past studies.
Therefore, a more careful consideration of the starting and ending
point of the acquisition path, their structural properties and
typological distance is essential (see Benazzo et al. 2023).
Another critical point concerns the methodologies used to construct
the acquisitional datum. In recent years, a clear divide has emerged
in the forms of data collection: while Second Language Acquisition
research tends to employ almost exclusively experimental data, the
focus on the naturalistic or communicative data (which characterised
SLA studies in previous decades) has become the preserve of
sociological or sociolinguistic approaches. Combining different data
sources and methodologies could shed new light on how new languages
emerge and are used by adults.
We encourage the submission of abstracts (for oral or poster
presentations) that address (old or new) topics directly related to
Second Language Acquisition, but explicitly taking into account the
specific learning conditions characterising adult immigrants’
acquisition paths. This may include the role of one or more of the
following conditions in the development of additional languages:
tutored or untutored learning; amount and type of target language
interaction and social participation; learners' educational background
(e.g. high or low education); learners' literacy (early or late)
(so-called LESLLA learners); learners' multilingual repertoires;
learners’ communicative practices; methods and tools for data
collection; properties and typological distance of source and target
language.
Please send abstracts (300 to 500 words, examples and references
excluded) to egle.mocciaro at mail.muni.cz.
Abstracts must be anonymous. An indication of whether you are
proposing a poster or an oral presentation is required.
Acceptance will be notified by 15 July 2025.
Andringa, S. & Godfroid, A. 2020. Sampling bias and the problem of
generalizability in applied linguistics. Annual Review of Applied
Linguistics 40: 134–142.
Becker, A. et al. 1977. Heidelberger Forschungsprojekt ‘Pidgin-Deutsch
Spanischer Und Italienischer Arbeiter in Der Bundesrepublik’: Die
Ungesteuerte Erlernung Des Deutschen Durch Spanische Und Italienische
Arbeiter; Eine Soziolinguistische Untersuchung. Osnabrück: Universität
Osnabrück.
Benazzo, S., Dimroth, C., & Andorno, C. 2023. Back to the Basic
Variety: Does it emerge only with specific learner profiles,
environments and languages? In C. Granget, I. Repiso & G. Fon Sing
(Eds), Language, creoles, varieties: From emergence to transmission,
29–70. Berlin: Language Science Press.
Bernini, G. & Giacalone Ramat, A. (a cura di). 1990. La temporalità
nell’acquisizione di lingue seconde. Milano: FrancoAngeli.
Bigelow, M., & Tarone, E. 2004. The role of literacy level in second
language acquisition: Doesn’t who we study determine what we know?
TESOL Quarterly 38(4): 689–700.
Block, D. 2003. The social turn in second language acquisition.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Clahsen, H., Meisel, J., & Pienemann, M. 1983. Deutsch als
Zweitsprache: Der Spracherwerb ausländischer Arbeiter. Tübingen: Narr.
Douglas Fir Group. 2016. A transdisciplinary framework for SLA in a
multilingual world. The Modern Language Journal 100: 19–47.
Forsberg Lundell, F., & Beaulieu, S. (Eds) 2022. Second Language
Acquisition in Different Migration Contexts. Languages 7-8.
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. 2010. The weirdest people
in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2-3) 61–83.
Klein, W., & Perdue, C. 1992. Utterance structure: Developing grammar
again. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Mocciaro, E., & Young-Scholten, M. 2025. Literacy and L2 Adults’
Acquisition of L2 Linguistic Morphosyntax. In J. Herschensohn et al.
(Eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, 2nd
Edition. Cambridge: CUP.
Ortega, L. 2019. SLA and the study of equitable multilingualism. The
Modern Language Journal 103: 23–38.
Plonsky, L. 2023. Sampling and Generalizability in Lx Research: A
Second-Order Synthesis. Languages, 8(1), 75.
Young-Scholten, M., Naeb, R., & Sosiński, M. (Eds) 2019. Immigrant and
Refugee Languages. Languages 4(3-4).

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