In today’s immigration countries, adherents of the “one nation, one language” idea face a unique ideological problem: to claim that the national language is a sign of national loyalty and…
Ingrid PillerMarch 4, 2013
Chinese: What does the Chinese language mean to Western tourists visiting China? Ingrid’s blog post “Character challenge” has set me thinking about Chinese language learning these days. I have found…
Chen Xiaoxiao 陈潇潇January 4, 2013
Carl Rohling, The Teplitz incidence. Goethe (left) draws his hat and bows to the imperial party while Beethoven (front-center) strides on Over the holidays, I’ve had the opportunity to read…
Ingrid PillerJanuary 2, 2013
So much hot air: the character for "meeting" consists of the one for "cloud" under a roof Before my recent visit to Wuhan and Hong Kong I was planning to…
Ingrid PillerDecember 12, 2012
Multilingual Hong Kong (Katherine Chen and Gray Carper, 2005-2007) During our visit to Hong Kong, Kimie and I met Katherine Chen, who introduced us to a sociolinguistic film she has…
Ingrid PillerDecember 3, 2012
The recent Intercultural Communication Conference at Zhongnan University of Law and Economics was covered by Wuhan TV's evening news. You can either watch the full show on the WHTV website or the…
Language on the MoveNovember 26, 2012
Losing your voice or learning academic writing? (Source: business2community.com) “A latent function of the educational system is to instil linguistic insecurity, to discriminate linguistically, to channel children in ways that…
Grace Chu-Lin ChangNovember 13, 2012
Australia in Asia (Source: unitingworld.org.au) Since starting a PhD in February in a different field to my previous work, I’ve been running a weekly alert with the words “language” and…
Hanna TorshOctober 2, 2012
"Imported Teacher", the British Council's new campaign in Thailand As a language educator in Thailand my in-box is always full of invitations to conferences devoted to ASEAN and English language…
Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江September 20, 2012
Bilingual signage in Lijiang: Dongba pictograms are in the blue banners (Source: Wikipedia) The next seminar of the 2012 series of Applied Linguistics seminars at Macquarie University will be held…
Lg_on_the_moveSeptember 12, 2012
Postnatal depression (Source: rcpsych.ac.uk) Last week I was interviewed for a publication intended to showcase the achievements of women in research. When the interviewer, Meryl Hancock, asked me about the…
Ingrid PillerAugust 20, 2012
Plaque commemorating the work of migrants in the construction of the Mundaring Weir In response to my blog post about the disparity between educational qualifications and employment outcomes faced by…
Ingrid PillerAugust 15, 2012
Underneath the zipped Asian face a Western face emerges: an English school's ad in Bangkok (unrelated to the school in the blog post). Photo by Olan Sawangnuwatkul Thailand is seeing…
Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江August 1, 2012
Mehrsprachige Buecher - multilingual books - ketabhaye chand zabane The release of the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2011 Census of Population data is an invitation to reflect on the composition…
Susana EisenchlasJuly 13, 2012
Eatery on Kat Hing St, Wuhan, site of Chi Li's Life Show (Source: city.ifeng.com) I am very much looking forward to attending the Intercultural Literacy, Communication, and Competence in the…
Ingrid PillerJuly 10, 2012
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