The economy of language

Abstract

This article reviews the contribution made by the Catalan linguistic community to the socalled “economy of language”. The economy of language comprises two subfields: 1) the study of the relationship between language and economic activity and, 2) the study of the social dimensions of language strictly from the economic method. The output from this field of research amounts to barely a tenth of total research studies. These studies bring to light a scientific perspective that is characterised not only by an emphasis on the exchange value of language but also on its use value. Moreover, another focus of the research is the economic and political competition between linguistic groups. Despite the relevance of the problems addressed, we have not seen a specialisation of scientific activity in this field. One of themain problems of this situation is that research is being replaced by dominant social representations of major languages as market languages and irreplaceable instruments of economic
growth.

KEY WORDS: economy of language, economic method, use value, economic competition.