ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a holistic view of migrants’ experiences across languages and cultures. The focus throughout will be on connecting theoretical stances from different disciplines to previous and current findings to foster a profound understanding of the complex phenomena at play. The central outcome of this book is that migrants’ linguistic practices, cultural attitudes, and personality profile are mutually connected. High levels of affective socialisation and perceived dominance of a language determine a stronger identification with the relevant cultural scenario. Similarly, migrants’ cultural orientation towards the heritage or the host cultures impacts their habits in terms of language use in emotional and cognitive domains. In this process, no cross-relationship between the heritage and host dimensions emerged, proving that languages and cultures coexist in migrants’ psyches. Personality differently relates to the heritage and host dimensions too. Migrants showing low scores on Flexibility and Emotional Stability tend to maintain heritage practices and this process makes them progressively less flexible and less able to control their emotional reactions. Likewise, participants showing high scores on Cultural Empathy, Social Initiative, and Openmindedness are keen to develop mainstream practices and, in doing so, enhance their socio-cultural competences and unprejudiced attitude even more.
