Dr Laura Smith-Khan
banner
lauraskh.bsky.social
Dr Laura Smith-Khan
@lauraskh.bsky.social
Australian Senior Lecturer, language, law & society. #LLIRN. lawandlanguage.org
External CESSMIR UGent. @languageonthemove.bsky.social member.
Asylum, migration, disability, human rights, legal ed/prac, access to justice
ENG, FR, ES, IT, اردو, پښتو
"This election is also yours"
Election placards have just gone up in Copenhagen and only one party that I can see has engaged multilingualism as part of their campaign.
October 26, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Really enjoyed the Hidden Cities tour in Copenhagen. Check out all the cities covered via the website
historycityapps.org
October 25, 2025 at 11:10 AM
Just wrapped up a very full and incredibly insightful and collegial two day workshop experience on (Re)constructing credibility on refugee status determination.

I think my head will be buzzing for days or weeks to come!
October 24, 2025 at 7:01 PM
A great way to end the first day of a great workshop on refugee credibility at Copenhagen university- a keynote from Hilary Evans Cameron, reflecting on the work we do and why we do it
October 23, 2025 at 3:24 PM
🤗🤗
October 22, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Not near as cool as the Habibi banner, but this final post for Hamburg comes courtesy of a lift at the station: I always appreciate an explanatory legend for clarity - even in English I often find lift button letters very ambiguous!
October 22, 2025 at 9:01 AM
Spotted these banners on the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe. Was curious to learn about the story behind the Arabic one. It's an approximate transliteration of the Museum name, plus "habibi" ("my love").
Sounds like a cool initiative: www.mkg-hamburg.de/en/habibi
October 22, 2025 at 8:32 AM
There are even things to notice in the toilets 🙈
These public health signs are (one) in German and (the other) in English, but don't actually share the same information. Again, I'm left with questions!
October 19, 2025 at 5:08 PM
An exhibition of items from Africa noted the v. questionable and obscure processes by which so many of the objects came into the possession of Europeans and ended up in museums. Along with videos and more re colonialism, some displays noted items that have already been returned- an ongoing process
October 19, 2025 at 5:00 PM
It was really special to see this rauru (traditional Maori meeting house), and to even be able to go inside it too. Trilingual signage and info sheets in German, English and te reo Maori
October 19, 2025 at 4:49 PM
And another part of the exhibition introduces some information about the Hangeul alphabet
October 19, 2025 at 4:43 PM
This desk showing an example of a Korean student's homework features some language learning 😊
October 19, 2025 at 4:40 PM
This exhibition was bilingual German and English (with Korean in the title/ headings only)
October 19, 2025 at 4:36 PM
The exhibition on modern day Korea was quite cool, and this metro section made me think of @michaelchesnut.bsky.social and this podcast episode
www.languageonthemove.com/multilingual...
October 19, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Some interesting patterns include: the exhibit with treasures from south America have information in German, English and Spanish, while next to this, the Ancient Egypt section has German, English and Arabic. An exhibit on the South pacific/Oceania: German, English, French
October 19, 2025 at 4:06 PM
And of course, lots of interesting things going on related to language choice of the explanatory signs and information. Always wondering what determines choice of language, keeping in mind exhibitions are set up at different points in time, which can also be a factor..
October 19, 2025 at 3:59 PM
I really liked how much critical discussion was built into many of the exhibits regarding the problematic practices of "collecting" objects and even sometimes human remains and bringing them back to Europe to display. The kids section also featured an intro to colonialism
October 19, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Bit of a change of pace from drink labels, but today was a visit to Museum am Rothenbaum
Kulturen und Künste der Welt (MARKK)
October 19, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Eg, this bottle of Apfelschorle (sparkling apple juice) has some little English touches, firstly mentioning "organic apple" as a translation, and then this "fight plastic" towards the back of the label - I'm guessing it's some kind of campaign (in Germany? Beyond Germany too?)
October 18, 2025 at 4:44 PM
Lots of products that appear more or less monolingual here, though when you start to look closer, there are some exceptions..
October 18, 2025 at 4:39 PM
No language stuff here, just a beautiful day with plenty of moments reflecting on the incredible privilege of being able to travel overseas and visit new places.
Photo: Außenalster www.hamburg-tourism.de/sehen-erlebe...
October 18, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Here I'm being hosted by the wonderful Ingrid Piller ( @languageonthemove.bsky.social )
and the LiDS centre at Hamburg Uni. It will be lovely to catch up with Ingrid after last meeting in Sydney almost exactly one year ago for her farewell ...
October 17, 2025 at 8:58 AM
New trip, new linguistic landscape. First stop in Hamburg is this delicious and multilingual kebab wrapper. The ordering process was much more monolingual (plus some added gestures and facial expressions to supplement my clumsy attempts at German)
October 16, 2025 at 4:48 PM
@superlinguo.bsky.social : once you start learning about gesture you notice it everywhere.
If I've understood it correctly, this one manages to combine both an emblem and a non-emblematic gesture, which is pretty cool!
June 6, 2025 at 10:57 AM
One minute, I'm chatting with @englangblog.bsky.social about Australian car seating laws and how we may find out about laws from TV or google, and the next minute the algorithms are onto me!
May 30, 2025 at 4:41 AM