New Books in Language and Translation

Ingrid Piller, a leading voice in migration and language studies, is joined by her co-authors Donna Butorac, Emily Farrell, Loy Lising, and Shiva Motaghi Tabari, who collaboratively examine the experiences of 130 migrants in Australia. They tackle the significant barriers these individuals face in securing employment due to perceived language proficiency. The conversation emphasizes the need for systemic changes to better integrate skilled migrants and recognizes the resilience and empathy required in navigating their new environments.

Ingrid Piller, Donna Butorac, Emily Farrell, Loy Lising, Shiva Motaghi Tabari, and Vera Williams Tetteh are co-authors of a compelling new book on migrants' language and settlement experiences in Australia. They delve into how migration reshapes identities, exploring personal and emotional challenges faced by newcomers. The discussion touches on societal biases, the impact of language barriers on employment, and the vital role of collaboration in academia. Their insights illuminate the intricate ties between language, identity, and community in a multicultural context.

In this debut conversation, we speak to Dr. Nina Beguš, a researcher at UC Berkeley and the founder of InterpretAI who holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Harvard University. Listen to learn about Nina’s path at the intersection of AI and the humanities, the challenges and rewards of working across disciplines, what questions to ask as an ethical researcher, and practical advice for how to succeed in a multifaceted, multidisciplinary career in today’s fast-changing digital landscape.Beguš' first book, titled Artificial Humanities: A Fictional Perspective on Language in AI, is currently under an advance contract with the University of Michigan Press.Towards Knowledge is a Latent Knowledge podcast series where we interview industry and academic leaders about research in the real world — from career development to the most pressing philosophical questions in today’s changing research landscape. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/language

Brynn Quick speaks with best-selling author and linguist Gretchen McCulloch about her 2019 New York Times bestselling book Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language (Riverhead Books, 2020). Gretchen has written a Resident Linguist column at The Toast and Wired. She is also the co-creator of Lingthusiasm, a wildly popular podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics.Because Internet is for anyone who’s ever puzzled over how to punctuate a text message or wondered where memes come from. It’s the perfect book for understanding how the internet is changing the English language, why that’s a good thing, and what our online interactions reveal about who we are.For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/language

Emily Pacheco speaks with writer and researcher Jessica Kirkness about her memoir, The House with All the Lights on: Three Generations, One Roof, a Language of Light (Allen & Unwin, 2023). Jessica has published in Meanjin and The Conversation, as well as other outlets. Her PhD focused on the ‘hearing line’: the invisible boundary between Deaf and hearing cultures. She is also a teacher of nonfiction writing at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.The House With All The Lights On explores linguistic and cultural dynamics within Deaf-hearing families. Jessica shares her experience having Deaf grandparents and navigating the cultural borderline between Deaf and hearing cultures. It is a wonderful memoir about family, the complexities of identity, and linguistic diversity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/language

The Politics of Naming the Armenian Genocide: Language, History and 'Medz Yeghern' (Bloomsbury, 2021) explores the genealogy of the concept of 'Medz Yeghern' ('Great Crime'), the Armenian term for the mass murder and ethnic cleansing of the Armenian ethno-religious group in the Ottoman Empire between the years 1915-1923. Widely accepted by historians as one of the classical cases of genocide in the 20th century, ascribing the right definition to the crime has been a source of contention and controversy in international politics. Vartan Matiossian here draws upon extensive research based on Armenian sources, neglected in much of the current historiography, as well as other European languages in order to trace the development of the concepts pertaining to mass killing and genocide of Armenians from the ancient to the modern periods. Beginning with an analysis of the term itself, he shows how the politics of its use evolved as Armenians struggled for international recognition of the crime after 1945, in the face of Turkish protest. Taking a combined historical, philological, literary and political perspective, the book is an insightful exploration of the politics of naming a catastrophic historical event, and the competitive nature of national collective memories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/language

An Introduction to Language and Social Justice: What Is, What Has Been, and What Could Be (Routledge, 2024) is designed to provide the who, what, where, when, why, and how of the intersections of language, inequality, and social justice in North America, using the applied linguistic anthropology (ALA) framework. Written in accessible language and at a level equally legible for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, this text connects theory and practice by sketching out relevant historical background, introducing theoretical and conceptual underpinnings, illustrating with case studies, discussing a wide range of key issues, and explaining research methodologies. Using a general-to-specialized content structure, the expert authors then show readers how to apply these principles and lessons in communities in the real world, to become advocates and change agents in the realm of language and social justice. With an array of useful pedagogical resources and practical tools including discussion questions and activities, reflections and vignettes, further reading and a glossary, along with additional online resources for instructors, this is the essential text for students from multiple perspectives across linguistics, applied linguistics, linguistic anthropology, and beyond. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/language

The Rise of English: Global Politics and the Power of Language, which has just been reissued in paperback by Oxford University Press, with a new preface.The Rise of English charts the spread of English as the dominant lingua franca worldwide. The book explores the wide-ranging economic and political effects of English. It examines both the good and harm that English can cause as it increases economic opportunity for some but sidelines others. Overall, the book argues that English can function beneficially as a key component of multilingual ecologies worldwide.In the conversation, we explore how the dominance of English has become more contested since the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly in higher education and global knowledge production.For additional resources, show notes, and transcripts, go here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/language

What are the histories, constraints, and possibilities of language in relation to bodies, origins, land, colonialism, gender, war, displacement, desire, and migration? Moving across genres, memories, belongings, and borders, River in an Ocean: Essays on Translation (Trace Press, 2023) invites readers to consider translation as a form of ethical and political love—one that requires attentive regard of an other and a making and unmaking of self. “River in an Ocean, as the title implies, blurs borders between self and others, between translators and their subjects, inscribing the process of translation…on the page.” – Ibrahim Fawzy, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal. In this episode, Ibrahim and Nuzhat Abbas discuss translation as “decolonial feminist work” and the process of editing this volume, which includes essays by poets, writers, and translators. Ibrahim Fawzy is a literary translator and academic based in Egypt. His interests include translation studies, Arabic literature, ecocriticism, and disability studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/language

Listen to Episode No.10 of All We Mean, a Special Focus of this podcast. All We Mean is an ongoing discussion and debate about how we mean and why. The guests on today's episode are Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, professors at the University of Illinois, and as well, John Jones, assistant professor at SUNY Cortland. In this episode of the Focus, our topic is Image as Form in a Transpositional Grammar: The Example of Photography.Bill Cope : "Every time a new medium turns up, it does new things. So, in the case of photography — our example medium today — its form is Image, and in our grammar, the Image is the human's way of representing the world on a two-dimensional plane. Now, of course, the Image has been around for a very long time, but when photography develops, it adds new things to the Image — it makes the Image much more accessible. You know, how many zillions of photographs are taken every day now, and most of them pushed across space and time via the Internet, right? So we ask, what does that massification of the ability to create the Image do?"Links Cartier-Bresson, The Decisive Image Muybridge's Moving Images Robert Fielding Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/language