Abstract:
The purpose of this literature review is to synthesise a range of research and debate relating to immigration, the social view of the language, sociocultural integration and the widespread uptake of digital technologies. Global migration has increased in recent years for various purposes, for example, education or professional advancement. Adult immigrants’ integration into the host society plays an important role in an individual’s well-being, economic productivity and social stability, and to that end learning the local language and improving proficiency are required. The focus of thisliterature review isthat the immigrants’ communities are unevenly distributed across the globe and in the case of this review are living in an intercultural space consisting of diverse cultures, languages and registers of the local language. At each point of social contact, adult immigrants need to make a particular set of local language choices to achieve their social purposes in their new community. Acquiring acceptable levels of competency in the local language will help the adult immigrants feel comfortable and satisfied. In this review, language proficiency is considered highly contextual and will be contingent upon individuals and their unique social circumstances. Smart mobile technologies have the potential to help immigrants by analysing their own second/foreign language production and assist with further language learning. This paper is to review findings in the literature on the social aspirations of adult immigrants who are relatively new arrivals in a host country, the specific local language registers that adult immigrants desire to be competent in order to achieve their specific social aspirations, and the efficacy of specific uses of digital technologies to facilitate adult immigrants increased language competence. This review will help experts who are engaged with research-based projects aimed at supporting people to help adult immigrants or newly arrived adult immigrants. The implications of this review will help educators, and second/foreign language education providers make learning more relevant to adult learners’ lives and language needs based on their individual aspirations. Moreover, the implications will provide support providers with insights concerning which groups or types of second/foreign language adult learners, according to their aspirations, would be more likely to benefit from digital technologies, and which type of digital technologies should be targeted to improve second/foreign language proficiency.