In Japan, “English as official language policy” (英語公用語化) is currently trending on social networking sites. Two large Japanese corporations, Rakuten and Uniqlo, recently announced the adoption of English as their…
Multilingual sign in Namtso (Image Credit: Wikipedia) Italian version of my blog post about Chinglish. Translated by Emanuela Moretto Per un attimo provate a pensare che il New York Times abbia…
Persian version of my recent blog post about the (over-)consumption of English language learning. Translated by زهره قرایی (Zohreh Gharaei) حدود ده سال پیش یک دانشجوی خارجی که از کره ی…
In 2009, I contributed a chapter about the social inclusion of migrants in Australia to an edited book about immigration policy published in Japanese in Japan. The book is doing…
When I lived in Abu Dhabi, I once visited a university in another Middle Eastern country. As part of the visit I did a guest lecture about my research, I…
Rashid is an overseas graduate student at an Australian university. He is a Muslim from the Middle East, and this is the story of how he inadvertently ate pork during…
Multilingual sign in Namtso (Image Credit: Wikipedia) Persian version of my recent blog post about Chinglish Translated by Tahmineh Tayebi (تهمینه طیبی) & Vahid Parvaresh (وحید پرورش) تصور کنید که…
This is the story of a young Pakistani man, let’s call him Reza. Reza spent his early years in what was then East-Pakistan and what is today a different country,…
Multilingual sign in Namtso (Image Credit: Wikipedia) Korean version of my recent blog post about Chinglish Translated by Sun-Young Chung (정선영) 뉴욕타임즈가 독자들로부터 그들의 재미난 금발머리 농담이나 유색인종 사람과 관련된 배꼽…
Multilingual sign in Namtso (Image Credit: Wikipedia) Malay version of my recent blog post about Chinglish Translated by Ridwan Wahid Bayangkan sekiranya akhbar New York Times meminta pembacanya menghantar ‘blonde jokes’…
Multilingual sign in Namtso (Image Credit: Wikipedia) Chinese version of my recent blog post about Chinglish Translated by Zhang Jie (张洁); 译文:张洁 设想某日《纽约时报》向读者征集最喜爱的金发女郎笑话或者有色人种所做的最滑稽的事。再设想该活动开展后迅速充斥了整个网络空间,任何对性别或种族问题有所兴趣的人都在博客、facebook和微博上热烈讨论着,甚至连从事性别和种族研究的学者们也开始群情激昂地对金发女郎或有色人种的荒谬行径提供种种分析。 (more…)
Multilingual sign in Namtso (Image Credit: Wikipedia) Imagine the New York Times asked readers to send in their favorite blonde jokes or to report the funniest thing they’ve ever seen…
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…
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…
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…
I am deeply saddened by the passing of Erwin Koller, one of my teachers and mentors, in Lisbon this weekend. It’s a special gift when teacher and student become friends…