The concept of the language market, proposed by Bourdieu (1998), is pertinent to understanding the field of power relations imbricated in the constitution of languages as symbolic capital in contemporary society, which knows its productive base and the formation of human capital, with linguistic skills adjusted to standardized and effective communication, for the management and commercialization of knowledge by companies.
Addressing his studies, within the field of social sciences, to power relations, hierarchization, and linguistic monopolization, Bourdieu (1998, p. 53) considered that “linguistic exchange is also an economic exchange that is established amid a certain relationship of symbolic power between a producer, endowed with linguistic capital, and a consumer (or a market), capable of providing a certain material or symbolic profit”.
Based on this assumption, Bourdieu (1998) analogously examined that the exchange relationship that occurs in the economic market also appears in a language market, “Characterized by a particular law of price formation: the value of the discourse depends on the relationship of forces that is concretely established between the linguistic skills of the speakers, understood at the same time as their capacity for production, appropriation, and appreciation or, in other words, as the capacity of the different agents involved in the exchange to impose the most favorable criteria of appreciation on their products” (BOURDIEU, 1998, p. 54).
Cox (2008, p. 30), analyzed the “value of speaking from Cuiabá in the language market of Mato Grosso”, and stated that the consequences of this analogy show that “the situation is not confined to the immediate context of interaction, but is impregnated with global structures”. According to the author, “the linguistic and symbolic markets show a certain degree of unification that mimics the unification of the economy and the circulation of cultural goods”.
Likewise, Jordão (2011) enquires how a language’s symbolic and cultural power lies not in its internal characteristics, structures, lexicon, or grammar, but in its social functioning, in how this language is positioned culturally. In other words, […] how a language becomes powerful through the use that powerful people make of it (JORDÃO, 2011, p. 224).
Bourdieu (1998, p. 37) explains that the “politics of unification” and the dimension of the “market for symbolic goods accompanies the unification of the economy”. This means that the process of unifying the market for cultural goods corresponds to the economic circulation of these goods in an exchange relationship that favors those with a greater supply of linguistic or symbolic capital.
References:
BOURDIEU, P. A economia das trocas linguísticas. 2. ed. São Paulo: EDUSP, 1998.
BOURDIEU, P. O poder simbólico. 3. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil, 2002.
COX, M. I. P. Quanto vale o falar cuiabano no mercado linguístico mato-grossense. São Paulo: Vozes, 2008.
JORDÃO, C. M. A posição do inglês como língua internacional e suas implicações para a sala de aula. In: GIMENEZ, T.; CALVO, L. C. S.; EL KADRI, M. S. (Org.). Inglês como língua franca: ensino-aprendizagem e formação de professores. Campinas, SP: Pontes, 2011. p. 221-252.
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