Based on the bilingualism literature, the author's recent experiences in Austrian German, and a discourse analysis perspective, a way of looking at biculturalism is hammered together to enable an understanding of how adult L2 acquisition proceeds in more and less cultural ways. (Bilingualism, biculturalism, discourse, ethnography, Whorf)

Dyirbal was probably originally spoken by about 5,000 people across its 10 dialects. In 1963, the northern dialects had just a few speakers (now all dead save one), but two southern dialects had formed a language community with several score speakers, including a number of children. Over the past quarter-century, younger people have switched to English, while among the older ones a new “merged dialect” has developed. The social situations and attitudes of speakers are described, in addition to changing language identifications. The writer has seen Dyirbal contract in lexical and grammatical complexity as it has moved toward an inevitable extinction. (Sociolinguistics, language death, Australian Aboriginal languages, field methods)

This article reports on one aspect of an ongoing study of language contact in the American deaf community. A kind of signing that results from the contact between American Sign Language (ASL) and English exhibits features of both languages. The ultimate goal of the study is a linguistic description of contact signing and a reexamination of claims that it is a pidgin. Ten dyads and two triads of native ASL signers (6 white dyads, 4 black dyads, 2 black triads) were videotaped with a deaf interviewer, a hearing interviewer, and alone with each other. The different interview situations induced switching between ASL and contact signing. This article (1) reviews the pattern of language use during the interviews with the white dyads and describes the judgments of selected videotaped segments by 10 native signers; (2) examines the role of demographic information in judgments. For each segment, half of the judges were given one set of demographic information, and the other half were given another set. Indications are that this information does affect judgment, even though the linguistic forms viewed were identical. (American Sign Language, language contact, language judgments, deaf community)

This article reports on the application of the concept of social network to the process of language usage among Yoruba-speaking city dwellers in Ile-Ife, Southwestern Nigeria. The study, modeled on L. Milroy (1980), focuses mainly on phonetic/phonological variation within Common Spoken Yoruba (CmSpY). The analysis of the data gathered mainly within face-to-face interviews shows that, whereas we can claim that there is stratification within CmSpY on the basis of sociodemographic factors, the variable of social network manifests a powerful influence on variation in Yoruba language usage and potential change within CmSpY in Ile-Ife. (Linguistic variation, social networks, linguistic focusing)

The present study concerns itself mainly with Shakespeare's use of thou forms to individual ghosts, witches, and spirits. All of Shakespeare's 37 plays were examined; 10 were systematically searched for stretches of discourse that occur between human beings and supernatural beings. The proposition is advanced that there is a role-governed rule in the use of this pronoun to individual supernatural beings. The illustrations, statistical results, discussion, and citations from other sources support the proposition forcefully; unique exceptions are taken into consideration. Instances that indicate the possibility of a reciprocal use from and between such beings are given as well, together with possible reasons for the usage. (Pronouns of address, Shakespearean studies, supernatural beings)