This book looks at the essential dynamics of language contact and linguistic assimilation from a current sociolinguistic perspective by focusing on the English of second generation Puerto Rican teen-agers in New York City. General sociolinguistic principles are extrapolated from the author's detailed investigation of several linguistic variables (th, syllable-final alveolar stops, negation) within the context of three competing influences on the subjects' speech: the standard English of mainstream society, the Puerto Rican Spanish spoken at home, and the vernacular Black English of the surrounding indigenous community. (AG)