In recent decades, a growing body of scholarship has recognised the inappropriateness of conceptualising and representing communicative practices in terms of essentialized codes where different named language-varieties and modalities mutually exclude one another. At the same time, making visible complex practices has resulted in methodologies and…

This paper presents a critical examination of key concepts in the study of (signed and spoken) language and multimodality. It shows how shifts in conceptual understandings of language use, moving from bilingualism to multilingualism and (trans)languaging, have resulted in the revitalisation of the concept of language repertoires. We discuss key…

Examines the characteristics of diglossia and applies them to the current sign language situation in the United States. Concludes diglossia does not exist and argues that what is really happening is code switching between languages and style shifting within a language. (EKN)