The high price of multilingualism When society doesn’t value something you, as an individual, do, you, the individual, end up paying for society’s lack of valuation. That’s the case with…
Christof Demont-HeinrichJune 18, 2012
Hungarians in RomaniaUp until a few decades ago, the academic consensus – along with public opinion – was that bilingualism is detrimental to the individual and society. Nowadays, that has…
Ingrid PillerFebruary 20, 2012
English and ASEAN Ever since I arrived in Bangkok in 2011, I’ve being witnessing the amazing spread of English fever. At the national level, Thailand is wholeheartedly invested in the…
Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江February 3, 2012
I know some people think what I am doing with my daughters – speaking German to them one-hundred percent of the time even though German is a second language for…
Christof Demont-HeinrichJanuary 30, 2012
USD 254,000: that is the cost of raising two children bilingually in English and German in Denver, Colorado. That’s a lot of money, and inspired me to do some number-crunching…
Ingrid PillerNovember 25, 2011
KOALA Buchstabenhaus (Adapted from: Urbanek, R. et al. (2006): Tinto grün. Arbeitsheft 1. Schreiben. Berlin: Cornelsen) Contemporary Germany is the 3rd largest immigrant-receiving country internationally. In 2008, 15.6mio inhabitants (19%…
Victoria BenzSeptember 13, 2011
I was so grateful to read Ingrid Piller’s in-depth critical post on German language politics, where she offered a profound analysis of the assumptions underlying the campaign “Ich spreche Deutsch”.…
Bettina KleinerAugust 31, 2011
Source: Kang 2009, p. 201 Every linguistics undergraduate student is by now familiar with the fact of linguistic imperialism in academic publishing where the pressure to publish in international journals…
Ingrid PillerAugust 26, 2011
Pretty much everyone I know wants to learn English or improve their English – with the exception of those who consider themselves native speakers, obviously. What is more, everyone I…
Ingrid PillerAugust 16, 2011
Ads for a campaign to speak German are currently all over Germany. The campaign is called “Ich spreche Deutsch” (I speak German) and aims to convince migrant youths to learn…
Ingrid PillerJuly 20, 2011
My daughter attends a public elementary school in NSW where the children are taught French for one hour each week. In 2009, she was away from her school for one…
Ingrid PillerMarch 4, 2011
A most amazing book has just landed on my desk: Do you speak Swiss, edited by Walter Haas, is the final report on a Swiss National Research Project devoted to…
Ingrid PillerFebruary 14, 2011
Last year the British Council initiated a dialogue about language policy and particularly language-in-education policy in Pakistan, and their report was recently published. The introduction includes the following two statements:…
Muhammad Ali KhanFebruary 5, 2011
The United Arab Emirates are celebrating their 39th national day this month. Trucial Oman, as it was then known, became independent from their semi-colonial relationship with Britain in December 1971…
Ingrid PillerDecember 5, 2010
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
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