Sociolinguistic research focusing on variation includes qualitative and quantitative studies of Romance languages and Portuguese and Spanish lexically-based creoles. We also employ the methods of quantitative sociolinguistics in the contrastive study of Romance languages, such as Spanish and Portuguese, or areal varieties within one language. Quantitatively oriented sociolinguistics is also represented in research on L2 varieties of Romance languages, such as French in Sweden and France, Spanish in Sweden and Latin America and Portuguese in Sweden and Africa.

esearch on language contact aims to highlight factors that influence language change in intercultural and multilingual settings. This includes cases at all linguistic levels where variability, cross-linguistic influences and second language acquisition are central. Also pivotal is the research on linguistic integration of migrant people throughout Europe, as well as studies on language contact dynamics in multilingual or minority settings in the Romance world. Ethnolinguistic issues are represented by the study of Romance proverbs and the world’s writing systems.

Within Italian, the role of Italian in the eastern Mediterranean, as an intellectual language and a language of diplomacy and legal matters is studied, as well as the way in which the languages and dialects of Italy have influenced other languages in a historical perspective. Our research strengths also include the study of medieval vernaculars, focusing on contact-induced language change particularly in non-literary texts, and how these changes inform our understanding of broader concepts in linguistics.