92 posts · 71,037 views
Language on the Move is dedicated to language and communication in multicultural and transnational contexts: language learning, multilingualism and intercultural communication, in short, in Language and Communication on the Move (L.CoM)! The blog is part of the sociolinguistics portal www.languageonthemove.org created by Ingrid Piller and Kimie Takahashi. Visit www.languageonthemove.org to find out more about our work.
Ingrid Piller
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Kimie Takahashi
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Language on the Move
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- February 13, 2011
- 06:09 PM
- 1,557 views
Do you speak Swiss?
by Ingrid Piller in Language on the Move
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 Linguistic Diversity and Language Competence in Switzerland. Initiated by the … Continue reading →... Read more »
Walter Haas (Ed.). (2010) Do you speak Swiss? Sprachenvielfalt und Sprachkompetenz in der Schweiz. Nationales Forschungsprogramm NFP 56. NZZ Libro. info:/
- February 17, 2011
- 04:08 PM
- 1,535 views
Long-term English language learners
by Ingrid Piller in Language on the Move
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 a native speaker of Australian-English. The daughter of Korean immigrants, … Continue reading →... Read more »
Menken, K., & Kleyn, T. (2010) The long-term impact of subtractive schooling in the educational experiences of secondary English language learners. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 13(4), 399-417. DOI: 10.1080/13670050903370143
- May 22, 2010
- 01:37 AM
- 1,392 views
The f-word on the move
by Ingrid Piller in Language on the Move
Installment #7 in the mini-series on multilingual signage
When I lived in Basel in Switzerland, my then-preschool child was just learning to make sense of the alphabet and to sound out words – a development I obviously encouraged as much as I could by seizing every literacy opportunity. Generally speaking, pretty much everything can be a [...]... Read more »
Jørgensen, J. (2008) Urban Wall Languaging. International Journal of Multilingualism, 5(3), 237-252. DOI: 10.1080/14790710802390186
- May 19, 2010
- 02:17 AM
- 1,327 views
French – the brand
by Ingrid Piller in Language on the Move
Installment #6 in the mini-series on multilingual signage
Multilingualism sells! Some forms of multilingualism that is. In the world of marketing, languages operate like brands: they are a signifier for something else but they are devoid of substance. To phrase it in Marxist terminology: the exchange value of languages has in some contexts come to overshadow [...]... Read more »
LEE, J. (2006) Linguistic constructions of modernity: English mixing in Korean television commercials. Language in Society, 35(01). DOI: 10.1017/S0047404506060039
PILLER, I. (2001) Identity constructions in multilingual advertising. Language in Society, 30(2), 153-186. DOI: 10.1017/S0047404501002019
- August 1, 2010
- 11:10 PM
- 1,279 views
Multilingualism 2.0
by Ingrid Piller in Language on the Move
The social networking market research site Inside Facebook has some intriguing language stats. In July, the fastest-growing languages on Facebook were Portuguese, Arabic, Spanish and French. The Portuguese growth rate was a staggering 11.8%. Arabic grew by 9.2%, Spanish by … Continue reading →... Read more »
Otsuji, E., & Pennycook, A. (2010) Metrolingualism: fixity, fluidity and language in flux. International Journal of Multilingualism, 7(3), 240-254. DOI: 10.1080/14790710903414331
- November 6, 2010
- 02:44 AM
- 1,269 views
German is so funny. Not.
by Ingrid Piller in Language on the Move
Earlier this term I intercepted a note my 7-year-old had written to her teacher: “Ger Ger Ger; Don’t be so rude.” She was objecting to a reading comprehension exercise about sneezing, which included the following information: If someone nearby sneezes, … Continue reading →... Read more »
Roberts, C. (1997) Transcribing Talk: Issues of Representation. TESOL Quarterly, 31(1), 167. DOI: 10.2307/3587983
- December 25, 2009
- 03:56 AM
- 1,264 views
The burning children of globalization
by Ingrid Piller in Language on the Move
I’ve been wondering what would be an appropriate Christmas post for the Language on the Move blog. Seeing that I’m deeply skeptical about all those claims about the wonderful advantages of bilingualism, a good news story à la “bilingualism helps to ward off dementia” was never going to be an option. That’s when the first [...]... Read more »
Abdelmajid Hannoum. (2009) The Harraga of Tangier. Encounters: an international journal for the study of culture and society, 231-246. info:/
- September 12, 2010
- 05:30 PM
- 1,264 views
The Dark Side of TESOL
by Kimie Takahashi 高橋君江 in Language on the Move
The latest issue of Cross-Cultural Studies (published by the Center for Cross Cultural Studies, Hyung Hee University, Korea) includes an article about the dark side of TESOL authored by Ingrid Piller, Kimie Takahashi, and Yukinori Watanabe. Based on case studies from … Continue reading →... Read more »
Ingrid Piller, Kimie Takahashi, & Yukinori Watanabe. (2010) The Dark Side of TESOL: The Hidden Costs of the Consumption of English. Cross-Cultural Studies, 183-201. info:/
- May 19, 2011
- 08:22 PM
- 1,247 views
Glocalization à la Suisse
by Ingrid Piller in Language on the Move
When I lived in Basel, a city in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, I often found myself performing an involuntary field experiment in language attitudes. As likely to speak English as German in public, I was regularly confronted with strangers’ … Continue reading →... Read more »
Moser, Urs . (2010) Entwicklung der Sprachkompetenzen in der Erst- und Zweitsprache von Migrantenkindern. Do you speak Swiss? Verlag Neue Zuercher Zeitung, 105-107. info:/
- April 3, 2010
- 10:51 AM
- 1,231 views
French Language Day
by Ingrid Piller in Language on the Move
I missed the UN’s French language day! It’s not the fact that I missed it that bothers me – I’m late for pretty much everything – it’s the fact that there is such a thing as a UN-sponsored French language day that I find surprising to say the least. Why the French language?! I mean [...]... Read more »
Alexandre Duchêne. (2008) Ideologies Across Nations. Mouton de Gruyter. info:/
- July 21, 2010
- 12:58 AM
- 1,222 views
Refugee children left behind as eagle lands on the moon
by Ingrid Piller in Language on the Move
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 funding. It’s an instructive tale about the standardized-assessment tail wagging … Continue reading →... Read more »
Ruairc, G. (2009) 'Dip, dip, sky blue, who's it? NOT YOU': children's experiences of standardised testing: a socio-cultural analysis. Irish Educational Studies, 28(1), 47-66. DOI: 10.1080/03323310802597325
- July 7, 2010
- 02:57 AM
- 1,214 views
Men, English, and international romance
by Lachlan Jackson in Language on the Move
“Japanese guys aren’t the most popular creatures on earth when it comes to romance. Sad but true.” That’s the claim of Meiko Mochizuki Swartz, self-professed bilingual, bicultural ‘expert’ and author of an online book titled Nihonjin no Otoko wa Motenai … Continue reading →... Read more »
Piller, Ingrid . (2006) A passion for English: desire and the language market. Aneta Pavlenko. Ed. Bilingual minds: Emotional experience, expression, and representation (Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 59-83. info:/
- June 2, 2011
- 07:44 AM
- 1,183 views
Language revitalization and liberation
by Ingrid Piller in Language on the Move
I’ve recently come across the story of Chibana Shoichi, who burnt the Japanese flag in 1987 to commemorate the Okinawan victims of WWII Japanese militarism. The story is intriguing not because of the flag-burning incident but because Shoichi also keeps … Continue reading →... Read more »
Heinrich, P. (2004) Language Planning and Language Ideology in the Ryūkyū Islands. Language Policy, 153-179. DOI: 10.1023/B:LPOL.0000036192.53709.fc
- March 3, 2011
- 06:29 PM
- 1,178 views
National Languages Curriculum
by Ingrid Piller in Language on the Move
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 year and did not receive any French instruction during that … Continue reading →... Read more »
Clyne, Michael. (2005) Australia's Language Potential. UNSW Press. info:/
- June 27, 2011
- 01:06 AM
- 1,173 views
Not knowing English good for business?
by Ingrid Piller in Language on the Move
The current global orthodoxy holds that learning English is good: individuals who know English are supposed to have an advantage in the job market and countries with large English-learning populations are supposed to be “developing” and “modernizing.” Critical sociolinguists have, … Continue reading →... Read more »
NEIL M. COE, JENNIFER JOHNS AND KEVIN WARD. (2012) Limits to expansion: transnational corporations and territorial embeddedness in the Japanese temporary staffing market. Global Networks, 12(1), 1-26. info:/
- July 19, 2010
- 02:43 AM
- 1,165 views
English-Only at Bon Secours
by Ingrid Piller in Language on the Move
From what I read, there is a nursing shortage in the Global North. From North America to Japan and from Europe to the Gulf countries, rich societies suffer from a “care deficit,” which they fill by importing – mostly female … Continue reading →... Read more »
Piller, Ingrid, & Takahashi, Kimie. (2011) At the intersection of gender, language and transnationalism. Nik Coupland. Ed. Handbook of Language and Globalisation. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 540-554. info:/
- August 5, 2010
- 12:16 AM
- 1,163 views
Language and inflation
by Ingrid Piller in Language on the Move
Some Language-on-the-Movers based here in Sydney had the opportunity to attend Professor Masaki Oda’s lecture about the current state of the English language in Japan yesterday. With major Japanese companies announcing a switch to English as their official company language … Continue reading →... Read more »
Park, Joseph S.-Y. (2009) The local construction of a global language: ideologies of English in South Korea . Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110214079
- May 6, 2011
- 02:26 AM
- 1,154 views
Can foreign languages drive you crazy?
by Ingrid Piller in Language on the Move
On The Science Show they recently had a program about how unfamiliar sounds, rhythms and tonalities can drive people crazy. I learnt that neuroscientists have been experimenting with the idea that when confronted with unfamiliar musical patterns the brain releases … Continue reading →... Read more »
Lehrer, Jonah. (2007) Proust was a neuroscientist. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. info:/
- June 20, 2011
- 04:13 AM
- 1,151 views
Tyranny of Language
by Ingrid Piller in Language on the Move
Our contributor in Karachi, Md. Ali Khan, has alerted me to what seems to be a fascinating book: The Tyranny of Language in Education by Zubeida Mustafa published by Ushba Books. I’d love to read the book but trying to … Continue reading →... Read more »
Han, Huamei. (2011) Social inclusion through multilingual ideologies, policies and practices: a case study of a minority church. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 14(4), 383-398. info:/
- April 28, 2010
- 09:17 AM
- 1,145 views
English, the non-language
by Ingrid Piller in Language on the Move
Installment #2 in the mini-series on multilingual signage
Much of the signage that can be found in contemporary public spaces is commercial. It is a form of advertising, and language choice in commercial signage such as shop names is a good indicator of the values associated with a particular language. The basic idea is that the [...]... Read more »
Piller, I. (2003) ADVERTISING AS A SITE OF LANGUAGE CONTACT. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. DOI: 10.1017/S0267190503000254
Ritzer, G. (2007) The globalization of nothing 2. Thousand Oaks, CA, . info:/
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