Tibetan migrants to France enter a nation strung between humanitarian ideals and ex-colonial concepts of assimilation. If a "successful" migrant is one who can effectively incorporate a new country's values into their own, then this work explores one of the main mechanisms by which this occurs, i.e., language internalisation and production. Increasing support for the social-constructionist theory of identity from the field of neurolinguistics shows that words pertaining to a given language help to categorise and strengthen key concepts in the brain. The continued use and consensual accord between speakers as to the correct nuances and specificities of a term in turn refine our mental lexicon(s) in an ever-shifting feedback loop. One way, therefore, to explore the mental frontiers being crossed by migrants is to pay attention to their word choice. Emotionally charged messages, either consciously or unconsciously sent out, are to be found in the code-mixing, lost words and linguistic compromises made by speakers in the moment. Emotions as understood from a multilingual context are thus a key component in our understanding of how integration works for migrants. Languages embody the specific value systems of a nation, so by using and internalising new words, we build a new habitus, slowly turning the unfamiliar into the unconscious and building a new identity along the way. Spontaneous eruptions of a new language during speech reveal this process in action, and analysis of the emotional load of such moments sheds light on the meeting of competing value systems which occurs inside the individual's brain. In this way speech can be considered a form of emotional praxis, and is an invaluable tool in humanising Tibetan migrants within a French immigration contest which is too often essentialised, politicised and polarised.
