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
“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
Persian version of my recent blog post about the magic of English Translated by Behnam Keimasi (بهنام کیماسی) در چند هفته ی آینده دانشجویان من در درس مبانیِ جامعه…
Ingrid PillerOctober 24, 2010
Space challenged Shinjuku, Tokyo (September 2010): Photo by Kimie Takahashi Tokyo is getting more and more linguistically diverse every time I go back there. During this trip, I was really…
Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江October 15, 2010
I had been led to believe that Japan was a very monolingual place interspersed with Engrish ads, commercial signage and T-shirts. Well, that has turned out to be just another…
Ingrid PillerSeptember 28, 2010
Persian version of my blog post about transliterated brand names Translated by Setareh Felfelian (ستاره فلفلیان) London Dairy ad on a building in Abu Dhabi, UAE Igloo ad on truck…
Ingrid PillerAugust 12, 2010
As someone who is concerned about Australia’s monolingual mindset and the damage it does to individuals and our society as a whole, I probably should have been pleased to discover…
Ingrid PillerJune 17, 2010
Installment #7 in the mini-series on multilingual signage When I lived in Basel in Switzerland, my then-preschool child was just learning to make sense of the alphabet and to sound…
Ingrid PillerMay 22, 2010
Installment #6 in the mini-series on multilingual signage Multilingualism sells! Some forms of multilingualism that is. In the world of marketing, languages operate like brands: they are a signifier for…
Ingrid PillerMay 19, 2010
Installment #5 in the mini-series on multilingual signage Signage not only appears in public space. Through our consumption of all kinds of products, we bring a multiplicity of signs into…
Ingrid PillerMay 15, 2010
This work is licensed under a