Dynamic encounters between asylum applicants and the multilingual society of Luxembourg - linguistic repertoires built with truncated competences?

Our contribution aims at investigating the communication challenges brought by a rather abrupt and recent change in Luxembourg’s refugee intake patterns, reflected in the increased number and shifted geographic origin of international protection applicants. We have adopted a border studies approach to explore the new linguistic and social reality, which emerges through continuous interactions between the diverse, mobile and multilingual society of Luxembourg, on one hand, and on the other hand, the linguistic and cultural repertoires that recently arrived asylum seekers – mostly Syrians, Iraqis and Afghanis – bring to this context. We argue that theoretical and applied knowledge generated by previous research on multilingualism in cross-border regions is transferable to this new field of inquiry.