Economic Considerations in Language Policy

Economic considerations in language policy constitute a relatively new development. Traditionally, policy discourses about language have tended to rely on one of three main perspectives: a legal one, in which language policy often takes the form of the enunciation of language rights in given contexts; a culturalist one, in which languages are mostly seen as manifestations of culture, confining policy to a set of measures affecting corpus or, at best, support for literary creation or publication; and an educational one, focusing on language teaching. By contrast, economics is not often thought of as a discipline relevant to language. This situation has changed in recent years, as a result of an evolution taking place on two distinct planes. On the one hand, a certain degree of interest in language matters has always existed in the economics profession, resulting in the progressive development of a small but exciting body of literature raising questions that practitioners of language generally omit. On the other hand, an increasing number of specialists in language issues have come to realize that the types of policies they often advocate have economic implications. These congruent (though not necessarily converging) concerns have so far led not to a unified economic theoretical perspective on language, but nonetheless to the development of a range of interrelated propositions on language policy. This chapter offers a critical review of this set of propositions