The challenges of providing equitable services in linguistically diverse societies A few years ago, emergency service provision to speakers of languages other than English in Australia came under scrutiny when…
Multilingua 33 (1&2), Special issue "Multilingualism at Work" I have recently taken over from Richard Watts as Editor-in-Chief of Multilingua and am delighted that the first issue of 2014 has just…
The National Institute of the English Language in Tehran has used the slogan "A new language is a new life" for more than 50 years I’m preparing my lecture on…
Losing their heritage language decreases the earning potential of 2nd-generation migrants In most countries of immigration, linguistic diversity is by and large ignored by policy makers. If there are language-related…
Are university rankings like an iron cage that leaves no option but to submit to its logic? “Using English is the sign of a great mind. Discuss.” Sounds like an…
"Speak English or Die!" Vilification on a Melbourne bus caught on camera About a year ago, a video of a language-related altercation on a Melbourne bus was widely reported in…
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…
Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) Procrastination is a fact of academic life, particularly during the PhD period, as every academic supervisor knows. However, judging from ever-increasing institutional efforts to control procrastination…
Yasemin Yildiz (2012) Beyond the Mother Tongue: The Postmonolingual Condition. Fordham University Press. This book review was originally published in Language in Society 42 (4), 463-466. Access pdf version of…
Barely legible today but evidence of 'super-diversity' in the 9th century: Runic graffiti in Hagia Sophia On a parapet in Hagia Sophia’s gallery there is an obscure little graffiti written…
Excerpt from the 1233 Exchequer Roll, a tax record of the payments made by Jewish people in the city of Norwich (Source: nationalarchives.gov.uk) Diversity is today widely seen as a…
Polish refugee section of the Catholic cemetery in Tehran When Kimie Takahashi and myself interviewed participants for Japanese on the Move, our video exhibition of transnational life-stories, one of our…
Migrant children studying in a Brazilian school in Japan (Source: Japan Times) A recent study of the educational pathways of the children of Brazilian migrants in Japan offers a most…
Promoting the University of Bolton's Ras Al-Khaimah branch campus on the streets of Ajman The other day I was stuck in traffic in Ajman, one of the smaller of the…
Ernst Reuter, West Berlin's post-war Mayor, was Professor of Urban Studies in Ankara from 1938 to 1946 (Source: turkishpress.de) While the internationalization of higher education is a hot topic at…
University rankings drive the Englishization of global academia The Intercultural Communication Special Interest Group of the British Association of Applied Linguistics is hosting a seminar at Newcastle University next week…