*** Yasser S. Khan and Rizwan Ahmad *** The offending dress (Image credit: BBC) Recently, a woman in Lahore was accused of blasphemy for wearing a dress printed with Arabic…
Rizwan AhmadApril 23, 2024
Figure 1: Multilingual sign in Abu Dhabi with power disparities indicated through order and size of text In the critically acclaimed Barbie movie, released in cinemas in mid-2023, Barbie and…
Sarah HopkynsDecember 8, 2023
New documentary explores identity in the linguistic landscape with a focus on Qatar Focusing on official street signs in Qatar written with non-standard Arabic spellings, Mal Lawal explores the complex interplay of…
Rizwan AhmadOctober 11, 2022
Welcome back to another year of research blogging on and about language on the move! We kick off 2022 with a new episode in our Chats in Linguistic Diversity. In…
Ingrid PillerJanuary 17, 2022
Tapas bar Samsara Strolling in Barcelona’s city center reveals an astounding variety of spoken languages: there are the languages used by the throngs of visitors coming from literally everywhere, and…
Anand Torrents AlcarazNovember 11, 2015
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…
Ingrid PillerJuly 7, 2014
The front cover of the tourist map of multilingual Macau Last week I had the privilege of visiting the University of Macau and in Macau I discovered yet another unique…
Ingrid PillerApril 22, 2013
Is this Arabic or English? Or is that asking the wrong question? (Transliteration: sbaisi tinisi tshikn and shrmb*) I’ve often wondered what linguistic theory would look like if its foundations…
Ingrid PillerApril 17, 2013
Sadly, my sabbatical is drawing to a close and one of the things to think about now is souvenirs. My sabbatical involved visits to Germany, Iran and the United Arab…
Ingrid PillerJanuary 26, 2012
“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…
Ingrid PillerDecember 13, 2011
The United Arab Emirates are celebrating another National Day! And they are doing it in style! I was lucky to enter the country exactly on its 40th birthday and so…
Ingrid PillerDecember 5, 2011
Toiletological English Can you guess what kind of product the following text is promoting? Your well-being is close to our heart rail&fresh areas are bright and friendly and leave nothing…
Ingrid PillerOctober 6, 2011
Billboard advertising the Japanese food fair at Isetan I’ve never felt more welcome in a foreign city than where I am at the moment – Bangkok! It has to do…
Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江February 9, 2011
The world in Arabia I spent my last day in the Middle East at Dubai Mall, the self-proclaimed “Centre of Now.” The mall guide has the heading “Welcome to Everything.”…
Ingrid PillerJanuary 21, 2011
During my recent lecture about “Teaching language, teaching culture” at the Fujairah Women’s College, I spoke about English language teaching materials in Japan and the ways in which they constructed…
Ingrid PillerJanuary 15, 2011
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