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date: 21 February 2019

Abstract and Keywords

Language commodification refers to processes by which language is constructed as an element that can be brought into a process of economic exchange or accountability. The terms tertiarization, neoliberalism, and globalization are commonly used to express the wide socioeconomic context of linguistic commodification. In the first section of this chapter, these terms are defined and explained. Then three examples of language commodification are examined in detail. The final discussion section explores the implications of these phenomena for the ways in which the scope of language planning, until recently limited to aspects of government intervention on language, should be expanded to new issues and contexts.

Keywords: globalization, economics, language planning, linguistic commodification, neoliberalism, tertiarization

Joan Pujolar

Joan Pujolar received his Llicenciat in Anglo-Germanic Philology (1987) and Catalan Philology (1988) at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and his MA in Language Studies (1991) and PhD (1995) at Lancaster University. He is currently Associate Professor and Director of the Doctoral Program in Information and Knowledge Society at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Director of the Research Group on Language, Culture and Identity in the Global World, President of the Catalan Society of Sociolinguistics, and Vice-Chair of the ISCH COST Action IS1306, “New Speakers in a Multilingual Europe: Opportunities and Challenges.” His research focuses on how language use is mobilized in the construction of identities and its implications for access to symbolic and economic resources. He has conducted research on the use of Catalan among young people in informal contexts, in language classes for adult immigrants, and on the commodification of language in the economic sector, particularly in tourism. He has also examined the interplay between multilingualism and gender. He now leads a project on “new speakers” and the experience of people who ordinarily speak a language that is not their native one.

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