Tag Archives: Monolingualism

Welcome-to-the-US Linguistic extremism

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Christof Demont-Heinrich

I know some people think what I am doing with my daughters – speaking German to them one-hundred percent of  the time even though German is a second language for me – is “extreme”. Since the very beginning, I’ve been … Continue reading →

Posted in Language learning, gender & identity, Multilingual families | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

German-English vs. Spanish-English German-English vs. Spanish-English

Posted on January 21, 2012 by Christof Demont-Heinrich

I have frequently wondered how my experiences speaking German in public with my two daughters, 7, and 5, whom my wife and I are raising as English-German bilinguals in the United States, would be different if we were raising them … Continue reading →

Posted in Multilingual families | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

English-or-Persian English or Persian?

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Ingrid Piller

“What is the meaning of the choice of English in the slogan on this car?” That was one of the questions I asked the participants in the 2nd Language-on-the-Move Workshop I taught at the University of Isfahan. I had come … Continue reading →

Posted in Language & globalization | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Language costs Language costs

Posted on November 25, 2011 by Ingrid Piller

USD 254,000: that is the cost of raising two children bilingually in English and German in Denver, Colorado. That’s a lot of money, and inspired me to do some number-crunching of my own. To begin with, it’s a reminder that … Continue reading →

Posted in Language & consumerism | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

COIS-front Cost of monolingualism: $254,000

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Christof Demont-Heinrich

American society places little value on meaningful multilingualism for young people, or for adults for that matter. Nowhere is this lack of valuation more apparent than in the U.S. public education, which, with few exceptions, fails to even begin to … Continue reading →

Posted in Multilingual families | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments