Category Archives: Language & tourism

do you speak swiiss_front Do you speak Swiss?

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Ingrid Piller

A most amazing book has just landed on my desk: Do you speak Swiss, edited by Walter Haas, is the final report on a Swiss National Research Project devoted to Linguistic Diversity and Language Competence in Switzerland. Initiated by the … Continue reading →

Posted in Language & globalization, Language & tourism, Language learning, gender & identity, Language, migration & social justice | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Shop signs of hostess bars on Thaniya Road, Sala Daeng, Bangkok The dark side of intercultural communication

Posted on January 18, 2011 by Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江

At 11pm at a Japanese ramen restaurant in Thaniya, Bangkok, a group of five middle-aged Japanese men and five young Thai women were dining right next to my table. It’s the kind of sight that is very common, if not … Continue reading →

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IMG_0925 Persepolis

Posted on January 1, 2011 by Ingrid Piller

I visited Persepolis today. Persepolis proved to be a great way to end the year and to reflect on the passage of time. More unexpectedly, Persepolis also proved to be an occasion to reflect on linguistic diversity and languages in … Continue reading →

Posted in Language & tourism | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments

Isfahan University English in Iran

Posted on December 30, 2010 by Ingrid Piller

Even a casual observer of the linguistic landscape in Iran will have to conclude that Iranians have a collective fetish for English. Almost all public signage is bilingual in English and Persian, even in cases where it is hard to … Continue reading →

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Space challenged Tokyo, Japan: www.languageonthemove.org Tokyo: Elegantly Multilingual

Posted on October 15, 2010 by Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江

Tokyo is getting more and more linguistically diverse every time I go back there. During this trip, I was really amazed by how efficiently and elegantly Tokyo does multilingual signs, particularly on trains and at stations. And I wasn’t the … Continue reading →

Posted in Language & tourism, Recent Posts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments