In recent decades, a growing body of scholarship has recognised the inappropriateness of conceptualising and representing communicative practices in terms of essentialized codes where different named language-varieties and modalities mutually exclude one another. At the same time, making visible complex practices has resulted in methodologies and…

Examines the characteristics of diglossia and applies them to the current sign language situation in the United States. Concludes diglossia does not exist and argues that what is really happening is code switching between languages and style shifting within a language. (EKN)