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
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
The Blackwell Compass series is organizing an interesting-looking virtual interdisciplinary conference for the second half of October at http://www.blackwell-compass.com/home_conference. It's free and there's still time to sign up. Sneak previews…
Ingrid PillerOctober 15, 2009
Seeing that Kraft’s idea to brand their new Vegemite cheese spread as iSnack 2.0 has just backfired badly on them, I’m not so sure about the wisdom of talking about…
Ingrid PillerOctober 12, 2009
Muslims around the world were celebrating the holy month of Ramadan recently and the greeting de jour here in Abu Dhabi was Ramadan Kareem!, which literally translates as “Ramadan is generous.” Ramadan…
Ingrid PillerOctober 11, 2009
You know you live in a truly multilingual and multicultural place when your local church does not only advertise their times of worship but also the languages in which the…
Ingrid PillerOctober 11, 2009
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