This volume presents a collection of the latest scholarly research on language, migration and identity. In a globalised world where migratory patterns are in constant flux, the traditional notion of the 'immigrant' has shifted to include more fluid perspectives of the migrant as a transnational and the language learner as a complex individual possessing a range of dynamic social and contextual identities. This book presents a variety of studies of transnational speakers and communities. It includes research conducted within both established and emerging methodological traditions and frameworks and explores a wide range of contexts and geographical locations, from the multilingual language classroom to the migrant experience, and from Ireland to Eritrea. This book was published with the generous support of the National University of Ireland Publications Scheme.

This volume explores the relationship between 'study abroad' and the acquisition of 'sociolinguistic competence' - the ability to communicate in socially appropriate ways. The volume looks at language development and use during study abroad in France by examining patterns of variation in the speech of advanced L2 speakers. Within a variationist paradigm, fine-grained empirical analyses of speech illuminate choices the L2 speaker makes in relation to their new identity, gender patterns, closeness or distance maintained in the social context in which they find themselves. Using both cross-sectional and longitudinal data, four variable features of contemporary spoken French are analysed in a large population of advanced Irish-English speakers of French. This close-up picture provides empirical evidence by which to evaluate the wide-spread assumption that Study Abroad is highly beneficial for second language learning.

This book presents six new studies on identity construction in the speech of older adolescents and young adults learning French. It takes a sociolinguistic approach to acquisition. First language sociolinguistic research has shown that identity construction is particularly intense during adolescence and young adulthood, and language use has been found to be an especially key resource in this dynamic construction. The contributors examine the language practices of L2, L3 and L4 speakers in multilingual and multicultural societies in Ireland, Canada, Belgium and France in order to demonstrate their use in identity construction. Several contexts of language acquisition for multilingual speakers are examined and compared, including formal and naturalistic settings for acquisition and learning. The book also investigates the speech of learners at upper-intermediate and advanced stages of acquisition of French to provide a holistic view of the way individuals use the language resources available to them to stake a claim to a new multilingual identity in their target language networks. The papers in this book combine qualitative and quantitative data on French speech and the context in which it occurs to provide detailed pictures of the co-construction of identity and complex speech patterns by multilingual speakers of French.