In this latest installment of Chats in Linguistic Diversity, I talk to Professor Aneta Pavlenko about multilingualism through the ages. We start from the question whether the world today is…
The rise of China has been one of the defining characteristics of the early 21st century. The increase in China’s economic, geopolitical, and military clout has been accompanied by a…
The Sumerian Empire under King Shulgi (2094 to 2046 BCE) (Image Credit: Wikipedia) Do you know in which language the Sumerians started the written chronicle of humanity? It is a…
Remember Joseph speaking to his brothers through an interpreter? Joseph is sold into slavery in Egypt by his jealous brothers Academic interpreting often labors under the assumption that the profession…
Chinese signage on churches is increasingly prominent in Sydney’s linguistic landscape. These signs are surprising because they are bilingual in a predominantly English monolingual linguistic landscape. They are also surprising…
You can order free hard copies of the booklet Have you received your COVID-19 jab yet? Are you thinking about getting vaccinated? Are you confused by all the conflicting information…
Easter chocolates in the supermarket (Image credit: Wikimedia) I’ve been thinking a lot about chocolate lately. Maybe because it is Easter and supermarkets in my part of the world…
There is a lot of talk about “cancel culture” these days. For instance, we are told that Dr Seuss recently got cancelled because his name was not mentioned during some…
Language on the Move is back from our summer break! And we start the year with a quick intro to language and social justice. How and why are language and…
Carla Chamberlin, Ingrid Piller, and Mak Khan in conversation TESOL and social justice One of the thrusts of my research has been a critical examination of the social consequences of…
The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed language barriers in societies around the world. It has become obvious that the fact of linguistic diversity had not been incorporated systematically into emergency…
Readability scores of the two selected public service information texts by the NSW Government This morning I googled “nsw corona/covid restrictions”. The top hits all refer to NSW Government websites,…
Few people have ever heard about a fascinating form of visual communication used by Indigenous Australians: message sticks. When I teach about the invention of writing, I usually mention them…
One of countless internet memes about crazy English spelling (Source: angmohdan.com) During a dreary German winter in the 1980s, I would get up early each Friday morning, wrap myself up…
The Phoenician abjad - the ancestor of almost all scripts in use today (Image credit: Wikipedia) Today, literacy has become near universal with the global literacy rate around 85 percent.…
My "audience" as I was recording the first online lecture for the new term Yesterday, I spent six hours pre-recording a puny little lecture of 15 minutes for the postgraduate…