People
Biljana Scott
Associate of the China Centre, University of Oxford
Dr Biljana Scott was trained as a linguist (BA in Chinese, M.Phil and D.Phil in Linguistics, University of Oxford). She is a Senior Lecturer in Language and Diplomacy at DiploFoundation and an associate of the Chinese Institute at Oxford University. She workshops internationally on political rhetoric, diplomatic language public speaking. Her current research is on implicit communication and the ‘unsaid’.
Related events
New Diplo Workshop on Diplomatic English
Diplo lecturers Biljana Scott and Liz Galvez have developed a new workshop on Diplomatic English designed to help diplomats communicate more effectively both in writing and through public speaking in a range of diplom...
Workshop on implicit communication
What makes one set of words more convincing than another, and how can language best be put to work in the service of diplomacy, international relations, business, and all other aspects of contemporary life? This wo...
[WebDebate] Diplomats as Writers: Marrying the arts and diplomacy
Our March WebDebate will focus on diplomats as writers. Diplomats make a considerable contribution to literature and cultural heritage. This, however, remains underexplored despite the fact that eight diplomats have b...
Workshop: Diplomacy and the power of the unsaid
What makes one set of words more convincing than another, and how can language best be put to work in the service of diplomacy, international relations, business, and all other aspects of contemporary life? Diploma...
Implicit communication in the digital era
How do digital communication channels affect communication and diplomacy? Where and how do misunderstandings arise? Join us for a discussion on the topic with Dr Biljana Scott. Implicit communication in the digital...
Workshop: Language and diplomacy workshop for Serbian MFA
As part of the Strengthening transparency in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs through improving strategic communications with Serbian citizens training programme, DiploFoundation will deliver a Language and diplomacy w...
Public Diplomacy: Language and Persuasion Workshop
Dr Biljana Scott delivered a workshop on 'Public Diplomacy: Language and Persuasion' at the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Pretoria, 21 October 2010). It was attended by 50 di...
Workshop: Intercultural communication essentials
Why do small assumptions sometimes escalate into big misunderstandings? How can we avoid misreading each other? And are we all too hasty in jumping to judgement? This workshop promotes intercultural awareness as a me...
humAInism and Artificial Intelligence
A discussion about artificial intelligence and the future of humanism through the prism of philosophy, politics, linguistics, arts, and technology. On Friday, 20th December, from 17.00 to 19.00h CET, at the Centre ...
The Power of the Unsaid – Diplomatic Communication in the AI Era (Workshop)
So far in our history we have only been able to communicate with other humans using language but with the technological advancements and the rise of ChatGPT we can now converse with an AI chatbot. More surprisingly st...
Related blogs
The power of the unsaid and its importance in diplomacy
Implicit communication, the unsaid – how important is this in an age of supposed transparency and openness? This and other questions were raised in a presentation by Dr Biljana Scott at Diplo’s conference on Innov...
Obama’s 2013 Inaugural: a doctor’s diagnosis
Put your finger to the pulse of language, and you will detect the heartbeat of conviction, the blood pressure of aspiration. The close reading of a speech does not simply expose stylistic flourishes, it provides an in...
A Winning Story
According to Joseph Nye, politics in an information age can be seen as a “contest of competitive credibility”, one in which success is measured by “whose story wins”.[1] In this posting, I consider what makes ...
Mind the Gap (1)
Language is riddled with gaps. Some are yawning gulfs, such as the abyss between what you meant to say and what you actually said when it came out all wrong, or between what you thought you’d said and what the other...
When Mislers misle themselves and us.
In October 2005, Hans Blix, the former UN weapons inspector, said that the US administration misled itself and the world. He went on to qualify: “I've never maintained that the administration deliberately misled" th...
Nul Points!
A diplomatic fall-out from Saturday’s Eurovision contest has embroiled heads of State and Foreign Ministers: apparently some points assigned to the Russian entry by Azeri televoters have gone missing. These would ha...
Fiddling with words while Syria burns
The Geneva II talks have just ended with little to show for them, or so the press claims. They started out with an undiplomatic outburst by the Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem directed at UN Secretary General Ba...
A two-track approach to Syria: unyoking civilians and politicians
There is a mantra in UN circles concerning Syria which says that “the humanitarian situation will continue to deteriorate in the absence of a political solution.” It makes eminent sense to assume that a la...
Freedom of satire
There is a freedom beyond the freedom of speech, and that is the freedom of satire. Freedom of speech is already curtailed in countries which otherwise uphold it as a basic right through the criminalization of hate-sp...
Implicit communication: upcoming two-day event
What makes one set of words more convincing than another, and how can language best be put to work in the service of diplomacy, international relations, business, and all other aspects of contemporary life? How do dig...
Diplomacy as poetry
Can poetry help diplomacy? A joke, surely! Poetry and diplomacy are worlds apart and have nothing in common other than using language as a medium. Diplomacy is devoid of poetry unless, that is, we count the alliterati...
Intercultural communication and logical fallacies
This blog is the first in a series in which I explore intercultural communication through the lens of logical fallacies, linking each fallacy to a current trend or event. I have chosen fallacies in the first instance...
No true Scotsman
No true believer ever wavers! No true warrior dies in his bed! No true Norwegian takes sugar in coffee! No true American dishonours the stars and stripes! The No-true-Scotsman fallacy or ‘move’, as it is formally ...
Humanising immigration: Taking the discussion further
In this blog post, I want to respond to some of the questions that were raised during our recent WebDebate on humanising immigration. This is crucial for keeping the discussion going and doing justice to all the valua...
Has the coronavirus deprived us of choice?
The coronavirus has been credited with catalysing a shift from a self-centred ‘I’ society to another-centred ‘we’ society. The focus on individual well-being and material wealth that has shaped many people’s...
Language during COVID-19: UK case study
We all know that language changes over time, but we rarely have the chance to watch it mutate in real time, and few of us could have imagined that it would change as fast as it has in the last few weeks. From the coin...
Related resources
Multiculturalism for the masses: Social advertising and public diplomacy post-9/11
The terrorist attacks of 9/11 have brought an old problem into new focus: how to unite a population potentially divided along racial, ethnic and denominational fault lines. In the light of unprovoked and indiscriminat...
05 Aug, 2004
A clash of professional cultures: The David Kelly affair
The Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly, the senior British arms inspector in the UN inspection mission to Iraq who was found dead in an English wood in July 2003, offers revealing insights into the contra...
09 Apr, 2004
Framing an argument
Dr Biljana Scott’s article on framing an argument introduces the linguistic and rhetoric aspects of persuasion. The way in which we frame an issue largely determines how that issue will be understood and acted upon....
09 Aug, 2013
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