Language Emergence and Economic Realities
What is it about?
This article shows that economic conditions have a crucial impact on language use. It also shows that, in contemporary society, political power in the hands of the state is not the only and not necessarily the most dominant form of power where transnational economic forces are widespread. This leads to different types of social orientation and it is therefore not only one 'language' that is considered correct or valuable in particular social contexts.
Why is it important?
The article is unique in presenting data from a village that is traditionally highl multilingual and deeply embedded in transnational networks and thus serves as a kind of laboratory for understanding - language development in highly multilingual settings - how (discursive constructions of) languages may have developed historically