This Ph. D. dissertation portrays the linguistic situation of the Channel Islands from a diachronic point of view: the language contact between English and Norman French and the process of anglicization of the islands during the 19th and 20th centuries. The main concern of the study is an examination of the variety of English spoken in Guernsey on the basis of interviews with 40 selected informants. The analysis includes grammatical, phonological and lexical features and discusses the influence of other varieties of English and of the local Norman French dialect (Guernesiais).
