Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T13:49:55.887Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Alienation, Language Work, and the So-Called Commodification of Language

from Part I - Theoretical Orientations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2019

By
John E. Petrovic
Edited by
Thomas Ricento
Thomas Ricento
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
Get access

Summary

Contemporarily, economies are increasingly knowledge and service based, certainly in Canada and the United States. These services always implicate the necessity of language, and this is especially true in language-based service such as the work in call centers. This has led to the claim that language has been "commodified." This chapter examines the notion of the commodification of language. The argument is that if language and language practices must be analyzed through the language of commodification, then it is more productive to understand language as a fictitious commodity: something that is not produced or that does not exist for consumption through the market. Ultimately, what is referred to as the commodification of language is actually the commodification of labor, which should direct our concerns toward exploitation and alienation, not commodification.

Keywords

MarxismKarl Polanyicommodificationfictitious commodityalienationexploitationlanguage worklanguage policy
Type
Chapter
Information
Language Politics and Policies
Perspectives from Canada and the United States
 , pp. 60 - 77
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alarcón, A. & Heyman, J. (2013). Bilingual call centers at the US-Mexico border: Location and linguistic markers of exploitability. Language in Society, 42(1), 1–21.Google Scholar
Althusser, L. (1971). Ideology and ideological state apparatuses. In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, trans. Brewster, B.. New York: Monthly Review Press, pp. 127–86.Google Scholar
Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Block, D. (2019). What on earth is “language commodification?” In Schmenk, B., Breidbach, S., & Küster, L. (eds.), Sloganizations in Language Education Discourse. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, pp. 121–41.Google Scholar
Boutet, J. (2012). Language workers: Emblematic figures of late capitalism. In Duchene, A. & Heller, M. (eds.), Language in Late Capitalism: Pride and Profit. New York: Routledge, pp. 201–29.Google Scholar
Heller, M. (2002). Globalization and the commodification of bilingualism in Canada. In Block, D. & Cameron, D. (eds.), Globalization and Language Teaching. New York: Routledge, pp. 47–63.Google Scholar
Heller, M. (2003). Globalization, the new economy, and the commodification of language and identity. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 7(4), 473–92.Google Scholar
Heller, M. (2010a). The commodification of language. Annual Review of Anthropology, 39, 101–14.Google Scholar
Heller, M. (2010b). Language as resource in the globalized new economy. In Coupland, N. (ed.), The Handbook of Language and Globalization. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 349–65.Google Scholar
Heller, M., Pujolar, J. & Duchêne, A. (2014). Linguistic commodification in tourism. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 18(4), 539–66.Google Scholar
Ives, P. (2015). Language, state, and global capitalism: Global English and historical materialism. In Mai Chen, T. and Churchill, D. (eds.), The Material of World History. New York: Routledge, pp. 35–50.Google Scholar
Jessop, B. (2007). Knowledge as a fictitious commodity: Insights and limits of a Polanyian perspective. In Buğra, A. & Ağartan, K., K. (eds.), Reading Karl Polanyi for the Twenty-First Century: Market Economy as a Political Project. Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp. 115–34.Google Scholar
Kisby, B. (2014). Citizenship education in England in an era of perceived globalisation: Recent developments and future prospects. In Petrovic, J. E. & Kuntz, A. M. (eds.), Citizenship Education around the World: Local Contexts and Global Possibilities. New York: Routledge, pp. 1–21.Google Scholar
Lecercle, J. (2006). A Marxist Philosophy of Language. Leiden, Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill.Google Scholar
Marx, K. (1956). Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (vol. 2), trans. Lasker, I.. Moscow: Progress Publishers.Google Scholar
Marx, K. (1964). Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, trans. Milligan, M.. New York: International Publishers.Google Scholar
Marx, K. (1977). Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (vol. 1), trans. Fowkes, B.. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
McGill, K. (2013). Political economy and language: A review of some recent literature. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 23(2), 196–213.Google Scholar
Park, J. S. & Wee, L. (2012). Markets of English: Linguistic Capital and Language Policy in a Globalizing World. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Paton, J. (2010). Labour as a (fictitious) commodity: Polanyi and the capitalist ‘market economy’. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 21(1), 77–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petrovic, J. E. (2005). The conservative restoration and neoliberal defenses of bilingual education. Language Policy, 4(4), 395–416.Google Scholar
Petrovic, J. E. (2015). A Post-Liberal Approach to Language Policy in Education. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Petrovic, J. E. & Kuntz, A. M. (2013). Strategies of reframing language policy in the liberal state: A recursive model. Journal of Language and Politics, 12(1), 126–46.Google Scholar
Pillings, G. (1980). Marx’s Capital: Philosophy and Political Economy. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Polanyi, K. (1957). The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. New York: Farrar & Rinehart.Google Scholar
Rahmann, T. (2009). Language ideology, identity and the commodification of language in the call centers of Pakistan. Language in Society, 38(2), 233–58.Google Scholar
Ricento, T. (2005). Problems with the language-as-resource discourse in the promotion of heritage languages in the U.S.A. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 9(3), 348–68.Google Scholar
Rossi-Landi, F. (1983). Language as Work & Trade. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey.Google Scholar
Tan, P. K. W. (2008). The English language as a commodity in Malaysia: The view through the medium-of-instruction debate. In Tan, P. K. W. & Rubdy, R. (eds.), Language as Commodity. New York: Continuum, pp. 106–21.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×