Publisher's Synopsis
This is an exploration on the economic significance of language and of the influence of economic forces on linguistic development.;Drawing on studies of a wide range of socioloinguistic settings, Florian Coulmas discusses the many ways in which language and economy interact, how economic developments influence the emergence, expansion, or decline of languages; how linguistic conditions facilitate or obstruct the economic process; how multilingualism and social affluence are interrelated; how and why language and money fulfil similar functions in modern societies; why the availability of a standard language is an economic advantage; how the unequal distribution of languages in multilingual societies makes for economic inequality; how the economic value of languages can be assessed; why languages have an internal economy and how they adapt to the demands of the external economy.;Language, Florian Coulmas shows, is the medium of business, an asset in itself and sometimes a barrier to trade. So powerful is their relation that we cannot explain changes in the linguistic map of the world without understanding its economic development.;The book is aimed at specialists and advanced students in sociolinguistics and the sociology of language.
