Happy birthday, Language on the Move team! Artwork by Sadami Konchi
Readers, it’s our birthday! Language on the Move first went live ten years ago on Oct 04, 2009.
Founded by Dr Kimie Takahashi and myself, Language on the Move was originally intended as a sociolinguistics research dissemination platform that would enable those of our students who had returned to low-resource academic environments in various Asian countries to stay connected. It was also intended as a way to provide low-stakes publication opportunities for our students, and to showcase the research of our team.
Since then, Language on the Move has gone from strength to strength. In addition to our virtual platform, we are now a highly productive research team working in the sociolinguistics of intercultural communication, language learning, multilingual education, and translation and interpreting in a wide variety of global contexts.
As a virtual platform, Language on the Move has enabled us to be at the forefront of innovative global research dissemination in our discipline. In the past ten years, we’ve published 630 blogposts and the video exhibition Japanese on the Move – and that’s in addition to our “traditional” research outputs, of course, including 25 PhD theses. We have received over 4,000 comments and attracted more than 1,113,000 views. Plus our 3,800 Facebook fans and 19,600 Twitter followers. Oh, and we’ve also shared more than 11,000 tweets about bilingual education, intercultural communication, language learning, multilingualism, and translation and interpreting – and related matters.
If you haven’t looked round Language on the Move for a while, one way to celebrate with us might be to (re)read our top-10 most popular research blogposts:
- English and ASEAN
- Multilingual Europe
- Toiletology
- Transliterated brand names
- The magic of English
- Can foreign languages drive you crazy?
- Linguistic discrimination at work
- Strange academic women
- What has Western masculinity got to do with English language learning for Japanese women?
- More on English in Iran
Keeping a virtual platform and a team going for ten years, takes a lot of work, but it’s all been worth it:
Linguistic Intermarriage in Australia, by Dr @HannaTorsh @Palgrave_Ling has just landed on our desk. It joins many other #books by the Language-on-the-Move team 😊
Pro-tip: being part of a fabulous team is the best 🤩#phdchat #lifehacks #ECR @MQLinguistics pic.twitter.com/GIOxqARqK5
— Language on the Move (@Lg_on_the_Move) September 30, 2019
The #Language-on-the-Move team just graduated another #PhD @Macquarie_Uni @MQLinguistics. Congratulations, Dr Rahel Cramer @RahelCramer! 🎉🍾🎊🎈Awarded for thesis about #Nationalism in #Business #Discourse pic.twitter.com/P1cGYVJZhw
— Language on the Move (@Lg_on_the_Move) September 18, 2019
Handed my MA dissertation in four years ago on this day. This article by Piller and Takahashi, "A Passion for English: Desire and the Language Market" from @Lg_on_the_Move, directly inspired my dissertation and my subsequent PhD research. https://t.co/4i3gjY3UqJ
— Owen Minns (@OTMinns) September 24, 2019
What do you like about Language on the Move? What are your favorite research blog posts on Language on the Move? If you let us know in the comments sections below, on our Facebook page or our Twitter feed – at any time throughout this October – you’ll be in the running for a complimentary copy of Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice, the book to go with the blog.
And if you want to celebrate with us in person, make sure to register for the “Sharing Knowledge in the Spirit of Humboldt” conference we’ll be hosting November 22-24, 2019. Early bird registration for this exciting interdisciplinary research event is available until October 20.
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Wishing you the happiest of birthdays, Language on the Move, Prof Piller & team! May this blog inspire many more scholars, researchers, teachers, and students:
‘The mind is not a vessel to be filled,
but a fire to be ignited.’ – Plutarch
This blog never ceases to ignite and nourish my curiostiy towards and passion for sociolinguistics and intercultural communication. I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to learn so much from the fabulous Lotm team. To many more blogging years to come, Lotm!
Happy birthday LOTM! The work of the LOTM team is extremely inspiring for aspiring researchers, and it has made a huge impact in my research interests. Thank you to the whole team for the amazing contributions to the field of sociolinguistics, and for addressing such important issues related to social justice and linguistic diversity. I feel humbled by the opportunity of being a new student member of this team. Keep up the good work LOTM and congratulations!
Happy Birthday, LOTM! So grateful to be a part of this fabulous group of scholars and enthusiasts 🙂
Happy Birthday to Languageonthemove! Over the past seven years, I’ve benefited a lot from reading these blogs even before, during and after doing my PhD in sociolinguistics. It’s my pleasure to stay connected with the languageonthemove and many of the teammembers across time and space:-)