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Economics and LPP

Economics and LPP. Main questions. What ideas can be shared between language and economics? What are the main issues in language-&-economics? How does language affect economics? How do economic concerns affect language policy and planning? How do we evaluate the relationships?.

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Economics and LPP

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  1. Economics and LPP

  2. Main questions • What ideas can be shared between language and economics? • What are the main issues in language-&-economics? • How does language affect economics? • How do economic concerns affect language policy and planning? • How do we evaluate the relationships?

  3. Language and economics • Pierre Bourdieu: Linguistic marketplace • Linguistic resources • Whole languages • Knowledge of language styles, including social and situational uses • Utility: roughly equivalent to “satisfaction”

  4. Language and microeconomics • How does language affect earnings or earning potentials? • Language discrimination • Bilingualism as a valuable resource • Depends on the language • Accents: Stigmatized or valorized? • Call centers in India • Grin & Sfreddo (1998) showed that having Italian as L1 in Switzerland in the non-Italian part of the country puts people at an economic disadvantage, earning about 30% less than others

  5. Language as an inexhaustible resource • Becomes more valuable as people use it more—Why? • Language as an attractive resource • The cachet of English, French • Do people really prefer vendors who speak their language? Will it sway their economic decisions?

  6. Language and macroeconomics • Language as a commodity • Costs of translations vs. benefits • EU • Hospitals • Businesses • When do the costs of language accommodation outweigh the benefits? • Costs of misunderstanding • Costs of time lost • Costs of educating speakers, translators • Costs of development and production of materials • Benefits of new markets • Benefits of social concord

  7. Measuring costs (& benefits) • Cost per person-hour • Benefits: ?? • Measure language use • Measure language attitudes • How do we know what the appropriate threshold is? Should there be a minimum fixed ratio of cost-to-benefit? Should the goal always be to have the benefits outweigh the costs?

  8. Case studies • Landick (1999, 2001): Government regulation • Potential conflicts between EU & French law • Labelling products to be sold in France in French • Grin & Vaillancourt (1999) • English-Welsh street signs • Low-cost promotion of Welsh • Use as tourism marketing tool • Has greatly improved language situation

  9. Welsh TV station S4C (1982) • TV station won from British national gov’t • Features original programming, including prime-time dramas and morning cartoons • Some English subtitling • 1996 budget: over £70 million • High-cost way of promoting Welsh

  10. Atkinson & Kelly-Holmes (2007): Free-choice • Looks at language choice in Catalonian newspaper available in both Castilian and Catalan

  11. Discussion questions • When is it appropriate for a government to interfere with language use in the marketplace (understood broadly)? • What argument would you give to someone who doesn’t want to support multilingualism (minority, foreign languages) to change their mind? • What argument would you give to someone who does want to support multilingualism to change their mind?

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