On the Pacific coast of Ecuador, there is a population of Blacks who are the descendants of various slave and freeman migrations There are myths among the citizens that the speakers in the most remote regions of this area speak "backward", i.e. use a very distinct variety of Spanish. My thesis examines the nature of the non-standard features of this dialect.

The Korean language comprises a complex system of honorific and non-honorific speech styles which indicate varying grades of politeness and social relationships between speakers and their addressees. This paper examines how these speech styles are used to encode pragmatic meaning and contextual information in translations of English language film dialogue into Korean subtitles.

Rapanui (also known as Easter Island) is located in the eastern part of the South Pacific. Originally settled by Polynesian peoples around 400 A.D., the island was annexed as a colony of Chile in 1888. The increasing integration of Rapanui into the global arena and into mainstream Chilean society is creating a language shift in the island community - from the indigenous Polynesian language (Rapanui), to the colonial language (Spanish). This paper examines the characteristics and causes of this language shift, and the differences in language use between teenagers and adults on the island, as well as the islanders' views on the future of their unique language.