Language biographies and multilingual language use: A sociolinguistic study of young refugees from Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan living in Germany

Abstract This paper describes the individual experiences with migration-related multilingualism of young refugees from Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan living in Germany. Young are a social group particular linguistic interest because their late L2 learning takes place limited family background maintenance heritage language culture. These interview excerpts connected to current dissertation project titled “Sprachbiographien: Das Beispiel junger Geflüchteter aus Syrien, Iran und Afghanistan” (“Language Biographies: The example Afghanistan”). nonrepresentative corpus study comprises 21 biographical interviews female male between 17 27 years. Specific guidelines were adhered obtain insights into participants’ languages cultural identities special focus on strategies multilingual performances. aim this article is show how refugees’ biographies influenced by use, based selected samples survey.