Call for Papers: Developing New Languages in Migration Contexts

14. 5. 2025

The conference "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”.

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.