This is a paradigmatic study of intranational and international language contact in the South-West of the German-speaking area: speakers of Badisch in Wurttemberg and of Eastern Swiss in the canton of Berne, Germans in German-speaking Switzerland and Swiss in the South-West of the Federal Republic. As there are no immediate barriers involved in terms of the language system, the study points up differences between intra- and inter-cultural communication; it transpires that the conflict potential operative in the language contacts studied stem from differences in communication culture and...