[en] The use of surface waves in studying the spatial variation of texture within austenitic weld metal is outlined. Rotated surface acoustic wave velocities have been measured and compared with X-ray pole figures for several different weld structures and for cast material. Pole figures obtained from an austenitic butt weld reveal that it processes a strong <200> preferred orientation with the [200] axis parallel to the columnar grain axis, but with isotropic behaviour around this axis. Macroscopically, the weld thus processes a special orthotropic structure. Rotated surface wave velocity measurements about the [200] axis show no directional dependence. On the two other planes, mutually perpendicular to the (200) plane and to each other, the surface wave velocity is directionally dependent in a manner which agrees qualitatively with theoretical calculations from a special orthotropic model. Further correlation was obtained from measurements on a cast austenitic ingot. (author)