This thesis examines evidence for language contact between Oscan and Greek in the corpus of Oscan inscriptions from Lucania, Bruttium and Messana. These inscriptions were written in an adapted form of the Greek alphabet from around the fourth to first century BC, with a few of the latest texts written in the Latin alphabet; as a group, these texts are referred to as ‘South Oscan’. The work draws on modern sociolinguistic theory of bilingualism and language contact alongside previous scholarship on ancient linguistics, epigraphy and archaeology. It also suggests a series of general principles for dealing with small epigraphic corpora from a sociolinguistic viewpoint. After laying out these frameworks, this work gives an introduction to the sites of the region and past scholarship on language contact in this corpus. The main body of the thesis deals with the corpus of texts from a number of complementary angles. Firstly, the adaptation of the South Oscan alphabet from the Greek alphabet is explored in detail. In particular, the development of various signs for /f/ and the use of ‘extra’ Greek characters like chi, theta and phi are investigated as evidence of ongoing contact between the languages. The rest of the thesis deals with the corpus by genre or inscription type: this includes dedications, curse tablets, legal texts, official texts (including coin legends) and funerary texts. While some types of text, such as curse tablets, show pronounced influence and borrowing from Greek, other genres such as legal or official texts show far fewer contact phenomena, even within the same community. In other instances, language contact appears to have resulted in regional linguistic developments: for example, some of the formulae used in South Oscan dedicatory and funerary texts appear to be creative adaptations arising from a combination of influences from both Oscan and Greek, without fully adopting existing models from either language. This thesis therefore stresses that communities developed norms about the appropriateness of borrowing from Greek in various kinds of texts. In many instances, linguistic and epigraphic borrowing from Greek in written texts seems to be determined by individual choice and variation within these community norms, rather than the result of incompetence.

This thesis will deal with the project to support German Language in the Czech Republic known as "Šprechtíme". In the context of Czech language policy of the past two decades the author focuses first on the questions related to the creation, formation and promotion of the project. The author also aims to determine whether the project got into the subconscious of the Czech public (Prague and the border region) and whether it fulfilled the expectations of its creators. In this thesis both methods of qualitative and quantitative research (Interview, written questionnaires) will be used. Key words: German, sociolinguistic, multilingualism, language policy, "Šprechtíme", quantitative research, qualitative research

(anglicky): This diploma thesis describes the bilingualism of immigrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and Serbia living in Czechia. Immigrant bilingualism is examined from a social, cultural and linguistic point of view. The thesis consists of three chapters. The first chapter describes migration from a theoretical and historical point of view. This chapter describes the migration waves from the area of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and Serbia in Czechia. The second chapter focuses on the description of the selected research methodology, and also on the description of individual parts of research planning, i.e. it describes the purpose of the research, criteria for selecting research questions and criteria for selecting respondents, as well as selecting research site and research material. The third chapter focuses on the research itself. The first part of this chapter briefly describes the basic concepts related to bilingualism and language adaptation. The second part of the third chapter focuses on the description of the course and analysis of the research results in terms of social, cultural and linguistic adaptation of individuals.

Lo studio esamina la variazione lessicale regionale in forma scritta nell’inglese standard in California. Attraverso ricerche in rete limitate a 336 siti di giornali online con sede in 270 città in California, vengono raccolti i valori di 45 variabili continue di alternanze lessicali e quindi calcolati come proporzioni. Tecniche statistiche di autocorrelazione spaziale globale e locale analizzano i valori. I risultati delle analisi, riportati in 90 mappe, confermano la distribuzione regionale delle variabili in California. Le 45 variabili lessicali sono poi esaminate con tecniche statistiche multivariate per individuare le relazioni linguistiche tra le città della California esaminate. L’analisi fattoriale, che rappresenta il 50,5% della variazione nei dati, evidenzia tre aree nella distribuzione regionale lessicale: nord/sud, urbano/rurale, e aree centrali e basso meridionali/aree alto meridionali e del nord. L’analisi dei cluster gerarchica distingue inoltre sei regioni dialettali principali in California: quella del Nord, quella di Sacramento-Santa Cruz, quella della San Francisco Bay Area, quella centrale, quella alto meridionale, e quella basso meridionale. Cinque mappe multivariate sono fornite nella tesi. La spiegazione dei risultati si basa sia su modelli di insediamento storico che su una spiegazione socio-culturale, che si riflettono nel linguaggio in California. / The study examines regional lexical variation in written Standard California English. The values​of 45 continuous lexical alternation variables are gathered through site-restricted web searches in 336 online newspaper websites based in 270 locations in California and then calculated as proportions. Statistical techniques analyze global and local spatial autocorrelation values. The results of the analysis, reported in 90 maps, confirm the regional distribution of the variables in California. The 45 lexical variables are then analyzed with multivariate techniques to identify the linguistic relations between the surveyed California cities. Factor analysis, which accounts for 50.5% of the variation in the data, highlights three areas in the regional lexical distribution: north/south, urban/rural, central and lower southern/upper southern and northern areas. The hierarchical cluster analysis also distinguishes six major dialect regions in California: the North dialect region, the Sacramento-Santa Cruz dialect region, the San Francisco Bay Area dialect region, the Central dialect region, the Upper Southerns dialect region, and the Lower Southern dialect region. Five multivariate maps are provided in the thesis. The explanation of the results is based both on historical settlement patterns and on a socio-cultural explanation, which are reflected in the language in California.