Finally, today on Day 3 of our conference on Fostering Multiliteracies Through Education: Middle Eastern Perspectives someone asked “Where is the Arabic?” “How come a conference devoted to multilingualism and…
Ingrid PillerDecember 20, 2009
Exciting first day at the conference on “Fostering multiliteracies through education: Middle Eastern Perspectives” at the American University of Sharjah. Suresh Canagarajah, who blogs on academic writing and publishing in…
Ingrid PillerDecember 18, 2009
If you could choose to learn a foreign language, which one would it be? And why? Such choices are usually constrained by what is on offer. However, someone must choose…
Ingrid PillerDecember 14, 2009
The current global order has thrown up yet another bewildering language problem: the monolingual sniffer dog! I glean the following from a recent NYT article about Rabbis in Montana: with…
Ingrid PillerDecember 11, 2009
I’ve been prodding my (former) students to join me as guest-bloggers or even just to respond to my blog posts. So far with little success. I know that they (or…
Ingrid PillerDecember 9, 2009
A few years ago I wrote a paper about the sexualization of public space in Switzerland. The paper will be published next year as “Sex in the City: On Making…
Ingrid PillerDecember 7, 2009
I took a picture of this sign during a family holiday in Cairns. My then-six-year-old daughter noticed the German “Achtung” and so asked why it didn’t say “Warning” in her…
Ingrid PillerDecember 4, 2009
Terms of address in intercultural communication can be a tricky business as Kimiesan pointed out recently. One would think that airlines with their international customer base and tons of market…
Ingrid PillerNovember 30, 2009
Ridiculous English signs English speakers sometimes like to amuse themselves with ridiculous English signage from around the world. www.engrish.com is a typical example and I have to admit that there…
Ingrid PillerNovember 26, 2009
I’ve always thought that it would do the field of linguistics (and the humanities generally) a whole lot of good if linguists were also doing literary studies. I’m an old-fashioned…
Ingrid PillerNovember 22, 2009
Some people just can’t win it seems. Second language speakers are in that category. I can’t even begin to count how many people who have read a fraction of the…
Ingrid PillerNovember 19, 2009
Until Language on the Move came along, Web of Language was my favorite language-related blog. Now it’s my second-favorite … A few days ago, the blogger, Dennis Baron, Professor of…
Ingrid PillerNovember 16, 2009
This chocolate wrapper turned up in my child’s trick-or-treat bag and now we don’t know which language Prestÿ is! Anyone out there who can help? One dad in our trick-or-treating…
Ingrid PillerNovember 2, 2009
One of the hats I wear is that of book review editor of the journal Discourse and Society and as such I am always on the lookout for reviewers. Book…
Ingrid PillerOctober 28, 2009
I enjoy reading the (auto)biographies of multilinguals. The current issue of Begegnung (“Encounter”), the magazine of German International Schools, has a feature about one of my favorite actors, Jasmin Tabatabai.…
Ingrid PillerOctober 18, 2009
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