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
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
Installment #4 in the mini-series on multilingual signage Toilets as an object of sociolinguistic research?! Not likely?! Think again! Today, I am going to discuss toilet signage as an indicator…
Ingrid PillerMay 7, 2010
Installment #3 in the mini-series on multilingual signage The lovers of English poetry among you will recall how the phrase “Betreten verboten” (“No trespassing”) encapsulates his alienation from Berlin and…
Ingrid PillerMay 3, 2010
Installment #2 in the mini-series on multilingual signage Much of the signage that can be found in contemporary public spaces is commercial. It is a form of advertising, and language…
Ingrid PillerApril 29, 2010
Over the next few weeks my introductory sociolinguistics students are doing a group work task in which they explore the linguistic landscape in their suburb and relate the visibility of…
Ingrid PillerApril 27, 2010
The supermarkets of Germany are the site of a more sinister example of multilingual diversity marketing. The pictured chip packet leaps off the shelf with its mix of German, English…
Emily FarrellJanuary 18, 2010
London Dairy ad on a building in Abu Dhabi, UAE Igloo ad on truck in Abu Dhabi, UAE I’ve just come across a 2006 University of South Africa MA thesis investigating…
Ingrid PillerJanuary 15, 2010
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
This work is licensed under a