The movement of people and their languages on an unprecedented scale has been exerting increasing pressure on the model of the nation state and the ideal of socially and linguistically homogeneous societies. Sociolinguists analyzing recent changes in language policies and citizenship legislation have focused on the global-local interface, as well as issues of territoriality and group membership, thus connecting with cultural geographers and anthropologists who study the relationship between language and senses of place. Although frequently regarded as the domain of linguistics, language policies and practices are inseparable from issues of power and identity. Scholarly investigations have demonstrated the need to view the dynamics of language contact in relation to “external” linguistic dimensions that are central to the field of sociology, including social class, gender, and ethnicity, together with acts of compliance with or resistance to social and linguistic norms.

This paper deals with the role of the distinction between Germans from speech islands (the so-called Volksdeutsche) and Germans from Germany (the so-called Reichsdeutsche) in conceptualizing the German community in urban Canada. First, 64 interviews with members of this community were analyzed for stretches of talk in which that distinction was made relevant. Then, a subset of these was chosen for the analysis presented here. Our analysis of these six excerpts employs both conversation analysis and positioning theory in order to show how participants draw on various aspects of place, ethnicity, and time in constructing a German space in Canada and their own ethnic identities in connection with it.*

In the 19th and 20th centuries, eastern Wisconsin went from being heavily German speaking to almost entirely English speaking. The largest city, Milwaukee, is claimed to have experienced language shift more rapidly than the state's rural German communities. We examine this apparent asymmetry, comparing evidence for language shift in urban Milwaukee, the city of Watertown, and the small town of Lebanon, drawing on census data, reports on language of church services, and information on the German language press. Our findings show little asymmetry in rate of shift across the three communities, but evidence is consistent with a correlation between shift and Warren's Great Change.*

The rapid movement of people and information on a global scale has contributed to the renegotiation of ethnicity and group membership, especially as new networks have been formed across large geographical distances. The focus here is on Belgium, Wisconsin for two interrelated reasons: one of the largest concentrations of people of Luxembourgish descent in the United States is domiciled in that area; moreover, the grand opening celebration of the Luxembourg American Cultural Center took place there in 2010. Taking an ethnographically grounded geosemiotic approach, this paper provides an analysis of Luxembourgish linguistic and cultural heritage displays in Belgium, Wisconsin and explores how localized practices are being renegotiated in the context of augmented transatlantic cooperation.*

The study of relationships between language and place has a long tradition in the context of Germanic languages, from 19th century dialect geography to late 20th century contact linguistics. However, thecontemporary processes of migration, coupled with the emergence of new communication technologies and structural changes in the economies of states and regions, have created challenges for the study of linguistic practices and their place in the lives of individuals and socialgroups. The preceding papers in this volume take these challenges as an opportunity to reflect in new ways on past migrations. This concluding paper discusses the contributions they make to the study of language, migration, and place in relation to (speakers of) Germanic language varieties in North America and suggests ways in which they open up different spaces of representation.