In Language and the Market by Holmes and Mauter, the forces and interworking that contribute to a market are all examined through the context of language. Through a variety of contexts and cases sociolinguistic factors are examined in their association to the market. The overall theme of the book is the relationship between language and the market. Language in the broadest sense possible, that is. The book seeks to bring together language ideologies and practices with the “rituals’ that are involved in a market and economy. The table of context gives a more in depth breakdown of each case study that is reported in the book.
This source helps me answer my research question because it provides data from a wide range of places. There is a study on the call center industry in India. This study shows that Indians who are able to speak multiple languages have a clear advantage and earn much more than their parents (Kelly –Holmes 34). The benefits of being multilingual are especially highlighted here. Maid agency advertisements in Singapore and recruitment ads in Sri Lanka are much more favorable to multilingual applicants due to what the author describes as “valorized” English. People who knew English and other languages were more likely to be requested by customers. In France, there is a “lingual fetish” to multilingualism and even people with minimal multilingual skills are hired to produce single words to put on advertising (Kelly-Holmes 88). In each of the above scenarios being multilingual was beneficial to the potential employees, but they also helped improve the businesses.
This source is friendlier to the benefits of multilingualism than the other two were. While the previous two sources showed how multilingual could be a crutch to economic development, this book showed how multilingualism provides benefits to employers and employees. Most of the case studies in the book are centered on English’s effect on multilingualism and the market. It would have been better if more language groups were portrayed. This source also does not take into account the already existent market structures that were in place before the introduction of English and general multilingualism. Source one also failed to account for the nonlinguistic skews in the data.
This source helps me answer my research question because it provides data from a wide range of places. There is a study on the call center industry in India. This study shows that Indians who are able to speak multiple languages have a clear advantage and earn much more than their parents (Kelly –Holmes 34). The benefits of being multilingual are especially highlighted here. Maid agency advertisements in Singapore and recruitment ads in Sri Lanka are much more favorable to multilingual applicants due to what the author describes as “valorized” English. People who knew English and other languages were more likely to be requested by customers. In France, there is a “lingual fetish” to multilingualism and even people with minimal multilingual skills are hired to produce single words to put on advertising (Kelly-Holmes 88). In each of the above scenarios being multilingual was beneficial to the potential employees, but they also helped improve the businesses.
This source is friendlier to the benefits of multilingualism than the other two were. While the previous two sources showed how multilingual could be a crutch to economic development, this book showed how multilingualism provides benefits to employers and employees. Most of the case studies in the book are centered on English’s effect on multilingualism and the market. It would have been better if more language groups were portrayed. This source also does not take into account the already existent market structures that were in place before the introduction of English and general multilingualism. Source one also failed to account for the nonlinguistic skews in the data.
GERLINDE MAUTNER holds a chair in English Business Communication at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria. In recent publications she has explored the application of corpus linguistics in critical discourse analysis. Her current research focuses on the transfer of market-oriented discourse to other social domains.
HELEN KELLY-HOLMES is a Lecturer in sociolinguistics with new media at the University of Limerick, Republic of Ireland. Her research interests revolve around the interrelationship between media, markets and languages, and she has published widely on all aspects of these issues.
HELEN KELLY-HOLMES is a Lecturer in sociolinguistics with new media at the University of Limerick, Republic of Ireland. Her research interests revolve around the interrelationship between media, markets and languages, and she has published widely on all aspects of these issues.