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.
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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
Perspectives
It is great to share ethnographic experiences with a linguistic audience in this format!
dr britta schneider
Freie Universitat Berlin
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Lobster, tourism and other kinds of business. Economic opportunity and language choice in a multilingual village in Belize, Language and Intercultural Communication, June 2018, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/14708477.2018.1474887.
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