MIGRATION THROUGH A LINGUISTIC EDUCATION PROCESS

Abstract

The article is the author’s take on the psychological and linguistic side of a migration process. Migration is always stressful, the process of social adaptation is directly related to linguistic and psycholinguistic adaptation. The language factor has become a defining feature of those who migrate to America. Migration is a typical example of how the natural bilingualism functions. A characteristic feature of American attitude to migrants is the manifestation of their positive assessment through a negative description of opposite phenomena: nationalism, especially private nationalism of politicians, and terrorism, extremism, which is proved by the examples taken from the today-American media (The New York Times and Washington Post papers). The linguistic status of migrants may be described as that of people with a multilingual and multicultural identity, living under legal and social constraints, contradictions and very often also facing economic problems. It is a generally accepted view that the ability to speak the language of the receiving society usually plays an important part in the process of integration, because it is a precondition for assimilation. However, it is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition. It seems to be obvious that questions of language therefore can neither be observed and analysed nor be treated in isolation, because all these dimensions and factors are interrelated. The authors conclude that the migration process is both lingual and psychological problem of acculturation of migrants, which occurs in contact with a foreign culture and language.