This is the second volume of the Research Topic "Culture and Second Language (L2) Learning in Migrants." The first volume can be found
here.
Many individuals who migrate (e.g., migrant workers, refugees, and international students) have little or no exposure to the host country’s culture and language. This is especially true of people from developing countries who migrate to developed countries or regions such as Canada, the United States, and Europe. Upon arriving in the new country, people face a whole host of challenges, including linguistic and cultural barriers (e.g., a lack of English language skills may lead to a low level of confidence in cultural immersion). In addition, many individuals who learn the relevant second language in their country of origin before they emigrate learn it from classes, without the benefit of daily communication. Against this background, how can one succeed when one does not know how to speak effectively with other people on a daily basis?
Most research has focused on the fact that language proficiencies in the host society play a key role in most accounts of developmental, cognitive, and linguistic factors. However, there has been surprisingly little research examining the impact of culture on language learning in the host society. For example, learning the host language varies among individuals with different levels of acculturation. The issues are, do sociocultural factors such as acculturation, cultural learning in, and cultural orientation of the values of a host country have an impact on immigrants’ second language proficiency beyond cognitive-linguistic variables traditionally used in the literature?
In an attempt to investigate these questions, this Research Topic examines theories of, and research about socio-cultural factors in relation to migrants’ second language learning. There are many similarities between learning a language and learning a culture. A very appropriate proxy for how familiar a person is with culture is that person's skill with the language, i.e., how the person communicates verbally and in writing. Hence, one possible explanation for the relationship between language learning and culture is that it is easier for the immigrants to adapt to the host culture once they have a good grasp of the host society’s language. Understanding the patterns of language learning and cultural engagement in immigrants will lead to the development of improved programs to assist recent immigrants in becoming more successful learners.
We welcome papers that:
• examine cultural factors (including acculturation strategy, the culture of origin, length of residency, distance from mother tongue to L2, previous experience on host counties, age of L2 and host cultural acquisition) and the influence of culture on second language learning in addition to cognitive-linguistic factors (e.g., vocabulary, decoding, and reading comprehension);
• explore viewpoints and experiences of underrepresented populations (immigrants and international students) to better understand cultural influences on second language learning;
• investigate the relationships among second language proficiency, socio-cultural, and psychological outcomes such as language confidence, cultural immersion, and self-esteem.
We would like to highlight the importance of cultural and linguistic measurements from all manuscripts, either via quantitative approaches or deeper qualitative observations, or via empirical studies that use a mixed-methods approach that employs qualitative methodologies to enrich the meaning of the quantitative data.
