When I first started teaching in Australia, I had a Korean-Australian student in one of my undergraduate classes who sounded like most of the other students in my class, like…
Ingrid PillerFebruary 18, 2011
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
This weekend, if you were out shopping, you couldn't escape the electioneering for the 2010 Australian federal election. I do my grocery shopping in Eastwood, one of Sydney’s most multicultural…
Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江July 26, 2010
Yesterday, the New York Times carried a heart-breaking story about an exceptional school principal forced from her position under No-Child-Left-Behind legislation in order for the school district to obtain federal…
Ingrid PillerJuly 21, 2010
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…
Ingrid PillerJuly 11, 2010
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…
Ingrid PillerJune 26, 2010
If you are a student or a guest researcher (like me) in Berlin and you need to get or renew a visa or need to change your visa status, you…
Emily FarrellJune 4, 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
Japan’s aging population and the growing number of young Japanese shunning ‘3D’ jobs (dirty, dangerous and demanding) has resulted in an increasing demand for foreign nurses and eldercare workers. In…
Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江February 17, 2010
Deborah Cameron noted in 1995 that “linguistic bigotry is among the last publicly expressible prejudices left to members of the Western intelligentsia.” In the same vein, one could point out…
Ingrid PillerJanuary 22, 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
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