Children of migrant cotton field workers from Oklahoma (Source: Library of Congress) I’ve just come across a fascinating article about the schooling of migrant children during the Great Depression era…
In my own research, I have frequently run into difficulty in talking about a ‘native speaker’. What criteria must be met to be ‘native’? How can I, as a researcher,…
This tweet says: "CSU issues correction: its proposal was translated into German incorrectly" Germany is currently witnessing a delightful language ideological farce. It all started when the conservative Christian Social…
Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken (Source: quotesnpoems.com) It is not unusual for bilingual parents to experience a sense of bewilderment when it comes to language choice in the family.…
2012 workshop on 'Linguistic Diversity and Social Inclusion in Australia' at Macquarie University How does language intersect with social inclusion in contemporary Australia? Do social inclusion policies address linguistic diversity?…
Livia and her classmates at a crossroads the year before entering (or not) Gymnasium (Switzerland, 2004) Secondary education as a monolingual fork in the road Let me bust a prevalent…
The researcher wearing a Zhuang employee's work uniform at the Black Clothes Zhuang House in the Ethnic Minorities Village, Nanning, China, 2014 I was surprised, frankly, during my recent fieldwork…
Graduating students at Anadolu University (Source: Anadolu University) The process of internationalization of education has been a pivotal issue across the world, in particular with regards to the higher…
Linguistic diversity in Sydney (Source: Sydney Morning Herald) The media in Anglophone countries regularly engage in a bit of a bragfest about the linguistic diversity of their cities. In Sydney,…
Auburn parking ticket (left: quadrilingual on back; right: city logo on front) In Australia with its persistent monolingual mindset coming across any kind of official institutional multilingual communication always feels…
Yangshuo's West Street (Source: chinatravelca) Tourism has been found to be beneficial for minority language maintenance in a number of contexts from around the world. For instance, Anand Torrents Alcaraz…
Schneider, Britta. 2014. Salsa, Language and Transnationalism. Multilingual Matters. In my post on English in Berlin, I wondered what is required for a language to become ‘local’, and about the…
Many people would agree that English is the language of globalization. English is almost always adopted as the official language of international events, including the Olympic Games. It does not…
Excerpt from "The Haunted Lotus" by Australian-Hazara artist Khadim Ali (Source: Milani Gallery) An objection that is commonly raised against Esperanto and other auxiliary languages is that they are “invented.”…
Multilingual Hyderabad (Source: Wikimedia) It is by now widely known that bilingualism delays the onset of dementia. What is less widely known is the fact that this knowledge is almost…
An East Timorese girl speaking Bunak, Tetum, Fataluku and Portuguese (Source: Wikipedia) A response to Alexandra Grey, "We do aid, not English" In my experience English is often promoted by…