Migration – Page 10 – Language on the Move

English as a global language

Language work in the internet café

A locutorio shop front in Barcelona (Source: El Periodico) There is now a well-established body of work exploring the language work provided by service workers in call centres and tourist…

Ingrid PillerSeptember 22, 2014

Language deficit in super-diversity

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

Language and migration

Superdiversity: another Eurocentric idea?

Website of the German Club Montevideo, founded in 1866 The current issue of Begegnung (“Encounter”), the magazine of German International Schools, has a feature about the German School in Montevideo,…

Ingrid PillerJune 4, 2014

Language at work

Linguistic penalty in the job interview

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

Intercultural communication

Inventing languages

Excerpt from "The Haunted Lotus" by Australian-Hazara artist Khadim Ali (Source: Milani Gallery) An objection that is commonly raised against Esperanto and other auxiliary languages is that they are “invented.”…

Ingrid PillerFebruary 13, 2014

Intercultural communication

Emergency service provision in linguistically diverse societies

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

Language at work

Monolingualism is bad for the economy

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!”

"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

Language learning

Bilingualism delays onset of dementia

Multilingual Hyderabad (Source: Wikimedia) It is by now widely known that bilingualism delays the onset of dementia. What is less widely known is the fact that this knowledge is almost…

Ingrid PillerNovember 11, 2013

English as a global language

Music on the Move

Carnatic singer Prema Anandakrishnan and her accompanists performing for the monthly Sydney Music Circle concert An important element of language relates to its aesthetic use, in other words, how we…

Mahesh RadhakrishnanSeptember 5, 2013

Language in Australia

The burden of multilingualism in Australia

English-Only Australia? (Source: blogs.crikey.com.au) In recent Australian political conversation, there is an increasingly bipartisan recognition of the value of cultural and linguistic diversity. So it’s fair to ask, what is…

Hanna TorshJuly 28, 2013

Migrant children studying in a Brazilian school in Japan (Source: Japan Times)

Language in education

Educational outcomes of migrant children

Migrant children studying in a Brazilian school in Japan (Source: Japan Times) A recent study of the educational pathways of the children of Brazilian migrants in Japan offers a most…

Ingrid PillerMay 28, 2013

Multilingual histories

Internationalization of Higher Education, 1933

Ernst Reuter, West Berlin's post-war Mayor, was Professor of Urban Studies in Ankara from 1938 to 1946 (Source: turkishpress.de) While the internationalization of higher education is a hot topic at…

Ingrid PillerMay 14, 2013

Language at work