As we prepare for the “Bridging Language Barriers” Symposium to be hosted at Macquarie University next week on March 16, we take a step back and ask how language barriers…
Lg_on_the_moveMarch 7, 2017
Supposedly Kriol signage at Rapid Creek, Darwin When I shared this Kriol sign on Facebook as an example of a bad Kriol translation, a first language Kriol speaker commented: Im…
Greg DicksonJune 30, 2016
One way of looking at the outcome of the British referendum is to understand it as an act of self-sabotage: "...and in the end, Britain, which had colonized the world,…
Ingrid PillerJune 25, 2016
"You have the right to remain silent" (Source: Tumblr) “You have the right to remain silent” is an expression familiar to many English speakers. But what is involved in understanding…
Diana EadesDecember 2, 2015
"The English" migrated to their "ancestral homeland" in the first few centuries of the Common Era (Source: Wikipedia) “Indigenous languages” and “immigrant languages” are much discussed in language policy research,…
Dave SayersAugust 12, 2015
Trial by fire depicted in a medieval manuscript (Source: Wikipedia) In the Middle Ages those suspected of witchcraft were often subjected to a ‘trial by fire’ to prove their innocence…
Ingrid PillerJuly 15, 2015
Bilingualism has a gender A while ago, I reported on the findings of a US study that demonstrated that children of immigrants who achieve high-level bilingual proficiency in both English…
Ingrid PillerMay 6, 2015
Diversity in early childhood education: valued or silenced? (Source: easternct.edu) Bilingual education presents a major conundrum in contemporary diverse societies: on the one hand, bilingualism and diversity more generally are…
Ingrid PillerMarch 18, 2015
Australia-China Youth Dialogue 2014 I recently returned from the Australia China Youth Dialogue in Beijing, my head buzzing with new ideas. The Dialogue promotes “more sophisticated cross-cultural understanding among Australian…
Alexandra GreyFebruary 18, 2015
Linguistic diversity in Sydney (Source: Sydney Morning Herald) The media in Anglophone countries regularly engage in a bit of a bragfest about the linguistic diversity of their cities. In Sydney,…
Ingrid PillerAugust 20, 2014
Auburn parking ticket (left: quadrilingual on back; right: city logo on front) In Australia with its persistent monolingual mindset coming across any kind of official institutional multilingual communication always feels…
Ingrid PillerJuly 7, 2014
Success levels of different candidate groups in job interviews for low-skilled jobs (Source: Roberts 2013, p. 89) A common explanation for the un- and underemployment of migrants is that their…
Ingrid PillerMarch 31, 2014
The challenges of providing equitable services in linguistically diverse societies A few years ago, emergency service provision to speakers of languages other than English in Australia came under scrutiny when…
Ingrid PillerFebruary 6, 2014
Losing their heritage language decreases the earning potential of 2nd-generation migrants In most countries of immigration, linguistic diversity is by and large ignored by policy makers. If there are language-related…
Ingrid PillerDecember 4, 2013
"Speak English or Die!" Vilification on a Melbourne bus caught on camera About a year ago, a video of a language-related altercation on a Melbourne bus was widely reported in…
Ingrid PillerNovember 19, 2013
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