This study examines how language choice in epitaphs in Alsatian cemeteries mirrors language shifts in Alsace, a region in Eastern France that changed nationalities between France and Germany four times between 1870 and 1945. Language choice on tombstones was expected to be made according to the language of the ruling power, but the results show…

In conversations between immigrants and officials, problems of understanding are often noticeable. About 280 recordings realised at the Argentine Aliens' Department and at several public authorities in Germany show that knowledge divergences regarding linguistic, cultural and institutional knowledge result in (sometimes grave) difficulties of…

This article deals with language contact between a dominant standard language--German--and a lesser-used variety--Low German--in a situation in which the minoritised language is threatened by language shift and language loss. It analyses the application of Low German in forms of public language display and the self-presentation of the community in…

Presents a study of mixed language use within the frame of interactional sociolinguistics by looking at how adolescents of Turkish background living in Germany have developed their own patterns of bilingualism. Analyzes transcripts of Turkish-German mixed speech and shows that the switching and mixing oscillates between local sequential functions…