In this article the way bilinguals handle differing semantic categories in their two languages will be investigated. Drawing on bilingual data from multilingual speakers of Romansh as well as from speakers of (Swiss) German, the tensions that emerge from "conflicting habits" in the two languages are analyzed in the semantic domain of…

This article addresses the relationships between media, media use and language retention. In pursuing this aim, we explore the utility of ethnolinguistic vitality (EV) as a fruitful conceptual tool. The extant research on the relationship between the media and language retention and development provides an encouragement to pursue in more detail…

This paper derives from an ethnographically oriented study of the emergence of English in innovative disciplinary speech events at a French-German bilingual university in Switzerland. From the outside viewed as dissent from the university's brand bilingualism, the use of English as a lingua franca enabled the multilingual "agents of…

In the light of current morphological theory, this paper examines analogical leveling of long/short vowel oppositions in certain inflectional and derivational alternations in a number of modern Swiss German dialects. The regular occurrence of leveling is shown to depend on the extent to which the alternation in question is "perceptually…

Describes the procedures followed in obtaining samples of spoken French in five different dialectal areas of the Vaud Canton. Analyses these samples for certain vocalic and consonantal features and classifies the data along a rigidity-flexibility scale correlated with individual hesitation and group fluctuation. (MES)

This article examines research done in Switzerland on languages in contact, and concludes that the limited amount of such research is due to the fact that the various languages spoken in Switzerland are spoken in adjacent areas in which bilingualism is rare. (Text is in French.) (CDSH/CLK)

PACEFI is a working committee at the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland. (DS)

Describes a set of questionnaires administered to 400 French speakers in France and Switzerland to study variation in the position of the adjective in a noun phrase. The first objective was to separate rigidly structured contexts from those affected by fluctuations, the second was to detect regularities and hesitations in individual behavior. (MES)

This article provides an inventory of works in applied linguistics published in Switzerland during the last fifteen years, and concludes that the limited amount of research in the field is due to the secondary position allotted to general linguistics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics and applied linguistics in Swiss universities. (Text is in…

An investigation was conducted by students in a linguistics seminar which had two parts, a matched-guise questionnaire and a semantic differential questionnaire. The content and results of the latter are presented here. The objective of this part of the study was to determine what attitudes French-speaking Swiss students had toward languages they…

Reported is a method for the analysis of qualitative data, based on the linguistic device of systemic networks used to represent a structure of possibilities. Some initial applications are described, and work in progress, including a computing system, is outlined. (Author/HM)

Analyzes the results of a study undertaken in Switzerland, which was designed to determine the degree of integration of non-Italian children in Italian-language nursery schools in the German part of Switzerland. Attempts to synthesize the ethnic and lingusitic elements of the study are made. (CFM)

A response to an argument that Canadian language policy prevents the self-defense of minority languages through exclusive territorial control (LaPonce, 1984) addresses the relative neglect of research concerning language and territoriality in the European context and contrasts the contemporary multilingual situations in Spain and Switzerland to…

A study of national identity and social integration in two multilingual societies, Canada and Switzerland, examines the relations between Quebec and anglophone Canada and between French and German Switzerland. First, the historical setting for the emergence of multilingualism is outlined for both countries, and the demography of the major language…