The Iranian-American comedian Maz Jobrani has a routine about the stereotypical views of Iranians as fanatics often presented in the Western media: Every time they show us on TV they…
Ingrid PillerJanuary 6, 2011
Even a casual observer of the linguistic landscape in Iran will have to conclude that Iranians have a collective fetish for English. Almost all public signage is bilingual in English…
Ingrid PillerDecember 30, 2010
Divine linguistic diversity I’ve spent the past two days convening the first-ever Language-on-the-Move workshop at the University of Tehran. The idea was to explore language contact and multilingualism in the…
Ingrid PillerDecember 23, 2010
In the year in which I’ve been away from the UAE, the fervor for the use of “Arabian Gulf” instead of “Persian Gulf” has certainly heated up here. This map…
Ingrid PillerDecember 20, 2010
We are pleased to announce an open call for applications for the ALMA Award 2011! We started the Award with two awardees, Muhammad Ali Khan and Lachlan Jackson, in 2010,…
Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江December 17, 2010
“What is the secret to successful intercultural communication?” This was one of the questions I was asked after my lecture on “New directions in intercultural communication” at United Arab Emirates…
Ingrid PillerDecember 15, 2010
Have you ever felt a wall of textbooks around you, obstructing your vision and thinking, rather than widening your horizon? That’s how one of my research participants, let’s call him…
Muhammad Ali KhanDecember 13, 2010
Jenny Zhang, a member of the Language on the Move team, received a 2010 Higher Degree Research Excellence Award from the Faculty of Human Sciences at Macquarie University. Congratulations, Jenny!…
Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江December 12, 2010
This is the first in a series of blog posts about my experiences undertaking an ongoing research project. In this series I will be detailing some of the methodological challenges…
Lachlan JacksonDecember 8, 2010
The United Arab Emirates are celebrating their 39th national day this month. Trucial Oman, as it was then known, became independent from their semi-colonial relationship with Britain in December 1971…
Ingrid PillerDecember 5, 2010
In December and January Ingrid will be visiting universities in Iran and the United Arab Emirates and she will be speaking about her research in the sociolinguistics of multilingualism, language…
Lg_on_the_moveNovember 30, 2010
Condoms in translation It’s been impossible to escape this week’s media coverage of the pope’s comments about condoms and male prostitutes. There has been a lot of debate about what…
Ingrid PillerNovember 28, 2010
I love public libraries. Here in Sydney, our family regularly spends time in our local public library and in the Persian library in Parramatta. We treat public libraries a bit…
Ingrid PillerNovember 24, 2010
Joe Hill front cover Today 105 years ago, on November 19, 1905, Joe Hill was executed in Utah. Although his name is rather forgotten today, Joe Hill was arguably one…
Ingrid PillerNovember 19, 2010
Language in the catfish war I’ve just read False Economy and in addition to learning many new intriguing things about economic history, I’ve also learnt that the catfish war, was,…
Ingrid PillerNovember 13, 2010
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