The Institute for Language and Culture

Research stories

Click the links below to read stories from our researchers.

Berlin Lives: Multilingual Metropolis by Patrick Stevenson

We know a great deal about multilingualism – but not as much as we might think.  Read more…

 

The ‘international university’ and English Medium Instruction by Jennifer Jenkins

Universities around the world are increasingly identifying themselves as international. This involves, among other things, recruiting large numbers of students and, to a lesser extent, staff, from outside their own national borders, and using English as their primary lingua franca on campus, particularly as their medium of instruction. Read more…

 

The art of Ana Clavel by Jane Lavery

Ever since my undergraduate years at Cambridge University (1994-97), I have been fascinated by the representations of women and questions of gender in the fiction of Spanish American writing by female writers and in particular the writing of Mexican boom femenino writers (1970 -). Read more…

 

Mapping Knowledge in Culture and Science, past, present and back to the future by Mary Orr

Mapping – cartographical, cultural, linguistic, scientific – has been central to development of European networks of knowledge and exchanges with other cultures, but saw a period of particularly important development in the early nineteenth century. Read more…

Race and Place in Mexico by Laura A. Lewis

Until the early 18^th century, Mexico and Peru had the highest number of African and African descent people in the Americas. Today, the coastal belt of Mexico’s southern Pacific Coast  – the “Costa Chica” or “the small coast” — contains many historically black communities. Read more…

Monstrous Flowers: Literature, Women and Botany by Aude Campmas

It all started in the great greenhouses of the Muséum d’histoire naturelle in Paris, beneath the shade of the palm trees. Read more…

 

Languages and cultures through English as a lingua franca by Will Baker

The link between languages and cultures has long been of interest to researchers.  Do languages reflect, or even contain, the cultures and thoughts of nations and peoples?  Can there be such a thing as a culturally neutral language? Read more…

 

It’s all in the name: road signs and language memory in Brittany by Dick Vigers

Discarded in the hedgerow on a minor road in western Brittany, France was a signpost to Goulitquer; three metres away by the road, upright and mounted on a shiny new pole, emblazoned with a tiny coat of arms a sign to Goulitkêr. Read more…

 

Global Wine Drinking Cultures…Translating Terroir? by Marion Demossier

Despite the diversity of contemporary societies, global citizens have increasingly demonstrated an interest for local foodstuffs and products or for highly territorialised items that they could identify precisely in their imagination.  Read more…

 

Languages at War by Michael Kelly

Language is an issue in almost every aspect of conflict: in training and preparation for action, in intelligence work, in talking to people on the ground and in different military units communicating with each other.  Read more…