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Language As Commodity: Global Structures, Local Marketplaces
Throughout human history, languages have been in competition with each other. As the world becomes more globalized, this trend increases. It affects the decision-making of those in positions of power and determines macro language policies and planning. Often decisions about language (or dialects or language variety) are related to usefulness - defined in terms of their pragmatic and commercial currency or their value as symbols of socio-cultural identity. Languages can be modes of entry into coveted social hierarchies or strongholds of religious, historical, technological and political power bases. Languages are seen now as commodities that carry different values in an era of globalization.
This volume engages with language policies and positions in relation to the roles and functions these languages adopt. It examines the 'value' of languages, defined in terms of the power they have in the global marketplace as much as within the complex matrices of the local socio-politics. These valuations strongly underpin the various motivations that influence policy-making decisions, and in turn, these motivations create the tensions that characterize many language-related issues; tensions that arise when languages become commodified.
This volume engages with language policies and positions in relation to the roles and functions these languages adopt. It examines the 'value' of languages, defined in terms of the power they have in the global marketplace as much as within the complex matrices of the local socio-politics. These valuations strongly underpin the various motivations that influence policy-making decisions, and in turn, these motivations create the tensions that characterize many language-related issues; tensions that arise when languages become commodified.
- GenresLinguistics
248 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
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July 26, 2017
Did you ever race through a book only to get a couple of good quotes? Here are the three passages I plan to cite someday:
"Linguistic instrumentation assumes the continued importance of multi-/bilingualism, so that the language whose economic value is being championed is acquired in addition to English, never in place of it (Wee 2008:42).
"...it is not simply material gain that gives a language its value and that enables us to talk of it as being commodified. Rather, a language is commodified in the sense that it is given a value based on its association with some form of benefit or 'goods' of worth to the society" (Alsagoff 2008:45).
"Indeed, what ultimately galvanizes people around a language is probably not a question of either/or: either the more emotive cultural/national identification with the language or the more practical instrumental uses of language. Both are more linked to one another than has hitherto been argued explicitly" (Block 2008:201).
"Linguistic instrumentation assumes the continued importance of multi-/bilingualism, so that the language whose economic value is being championed is acquired in addition to English, never in place of it (Wee 2008:42).
"...it is not simply material gain that gives a language its value and that enables us to talk of it as being commodified. Rather, a language is commodified in the sense that it is given a value based on its association with some form of benefit or 'goods' of worth to the society" (Alsagoff 2008:45).
"Indeed, what ultimately galvanizes people around a language is probably not a question of either/or: either the more emotive cultural/national identification with the language or the more practical instrumental uses of language. Both are more linked to one another than has hitherto been argued explicitly" (Block 2008:201).
Displaying 1 of 1 review