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One of the external signs of this tendency toward Americanization and rapid integration into American society (and hence language shift) is the changing of first and last names (Filipovic 1986a). A very important factor in this process is the integrative motivation of the CA's, who seek to join the milieu in which they live and its culture to the furthest possible extent. The result is complete acculturation, which is responsible for full language shift and loss of the native dialect. We have compared this between CA's who live with larger groups of various nationalities and those who live in smaller or larger groups of their countrymen.

Study of the sociology of Croatian Americans lets me determine the degree of bilingualism and the kind and extent of AE influence on their speech. For any research of this kind, it is necessary and recommendable 1) to determine the areas and communities of CA's whose dialects we want to record and describe; 2) to establish the psychology and sociology of the language contact occurring in their bilingual situation; 3) to observe the struggle to maintain the dialects; and 4) to develop a method of field work based on the concept of bilingual dialect.

Their foremen, if they were Americans, learned the Croatian words they needed to communicate with the workers. , their Gorski Kotar dialects) and there was no need to learn English. , the immigrants lived in compact, sometimes isolated, groups and went on speaking their dialects. 3 In Hoboken, every Sunday from September through June, a large number of Croatian families spend the evening at a get-together at their club where the Susak dialect is spoken, Susak dialect songs are sung and Croatian folk dances are danced.