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Keywords: Linguistics

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The struggle to resist linguistic empires

    • Ellena Savage
    • 06 July 2012
    10 Comments

    Letting languages disappear is a crime against humanity, asserted a recent article. But reader comments shouted that if a language could not keep up – or rather, if the language was not English – it should die, die, die, as though it were a simple matter of natural selection.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Sympathy for the dodgy salesmen of Australian politics

    • Zac Alstin
    • 12 June 2012
    34 Comments

    Duplicity in politics is not new. Every utterance is tainted by the subtext of scoring points. If it is painful for us to listen, how much worse must it be for the politicians? It is dispiriting to constantly undermine one's own integrity, and the 'dodgy salesman' is no one's ideal of human flourishing.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Cold showers for unprincipled Labor

    • Zac Alstin
    • 06 March 2012
    15 Comments

    Labor must have anticipated the negative response to its axing of the solar hot water rebate scheme, yet it went ahead. Does this suggest determination, arrogance or desperation? One thing's for sure, the decision contributed to the impression this government has lost its way.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Once upon a time in multicultural Australia

    • Zac Alstin
    • 20 January 2012
    17 Comments

    Embracing an individualistic Australia that transcends ethnic heritage would leave us with a culture that is young, thin and commercialised. If we wish to promote unity and equality, the best thing we can do is learn our own forgotten stories of ethnic heritage.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Myths of wartime good and evil

    • Zac Alstin
    • 15 August 2011
    22 Comments

    It is a weakness of human nature that we forgive in our friends what we despise in our enemies. If Germany or Japan had achieved a nuclear weapon and launched it on an Allied city, our condemnation would be unrelenting.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Aborting abnormality

    • Zac Alstin
    • 12 July 2011
    112 Comments

    Research suggests that 85 per cent of Australians support legal access to abortion for 'severe disabilities', and 60 per cent for 'mild disabilities'. While we encourage tolerance and diversity in our multi-ethnic society, our medical culture is moving in the opposite direction.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Forgiving Japan

    • Zac Alstin
    • 23 June 2011
    27 Comments

    The disasters in Japan early this year left scenes of destruction reminiscent of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Australian experiences of Japanese wartime cruelty have never been forgotten or forgiven. But the problems are not all on the Japanese side.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Prodigal father

    • Various
    • 31 May 2011
    2 Comments

    All day, every day since you have gone, I stand on the road shading my eyes from daylight's harsh reality — you are gone, too far away for me to see. How harsh is your reality?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2010: The crucifixion of Christine Nixon

    • Moira Rayner
    • 05 January 2011
    15 Comments

    No firestorm of blame would be raging in the media were Christine Nixon not a woman, a decent and strong woman, a prominent woman and an ethically sound woman of an age and with the experience to possess a raging integrity of her own and, by her very being, to offer ruthless men a soft target.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The crucifixion of Christine Nixon

    • Moira Rayner
    • 09 April 2010
    79 Comments

    No firestorm of blame would be raging in the media were Christine Nixon not a woman, a decent and strong woman, a prominent woman and an ethically sound woman of an age and with the experience to possess a raging integrity of her own and, by her very being, to offer ruthless men a soft target.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Talking turkey for a cliché-free year

    • Tom Clark
    • 10 December 2008
    15 Comments

    Sick of singing from the same song sheet during a perfect storm? Try our innovative 12-step cliche evasion program and see if, at the end of the day, it impacts your speech and enhances your conversation, going forwards into 2009.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A linguist's vision for multicultural Australia

    • Michael Clyne
    • 18 November 2008
    6 Comments

    Bilingualism trains the mind and encourages more flexible problem solving. Such qualities go unnoticed in a society with a strong monolingual mindset. Social inclusion policy must also move beyond the socioeconomic dimension to prevent the exclusion of significant sections of Australian society.

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