This collection of thirteen papers from the Seventh Colloquium on Hispanic Linguistics (1980) is the fourth published by Georgetown University. As in the three previous volumes, the reports in this one represent slightly over half of those presented. Unlike previous published proceedings, the present one deals with aspects of a single theme. Interesting hypotheses are forwarded concerning the relationship between social factors and history of Spanish language acquisition, bilingualism, and Spanish and Portuguese phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon.