Abstract
The data collected in an ethnographic study conducted between 2014 and 2016 in tourist areas in Catalonia, Spain shows that the mastery of Russian has become a profitable commodity in Spanish tourism industry. The purpose of this paper is to show where and how Russian is used in the service industry and trace the commodification of the language over time. Against the background of fluctuating numbers of Russian-speaking visitors, this analysis will contribute to a better understanding of processes of language commodification and decommodification and the relationship between wider political and economic con-texts and valorisation of particular languages and speakers.
Highlights
Tourism is currently one of the largest and most dynamic sectors of the Catalan economy: in 2014 it contributed approximately 12% of the Catalan GDP (Agència Catalana de Turisme, 2015)
The purpose of the present paper is to examine how a particular language — Russian — functions as a commodity in Catalonia’s tourism industry within different moments in time
The purpose of this paper was to examine the uses of Russian in Catalan tourism industry between 2014 and 2016
Summary
Tourism is currently one of the largest and most dynamic sectors of the Catalan economy: in 2014 it contributed approximately 12% of the Catalan GDP (Agència Catalana de Turisme, 2015). In the context of this ongoing influx of visitors, linguistic exchanges become symbolic exchanges of both cultural and social capital that, under certain conditions, can be converted into economic capital (Bourdieu 1986). What this means, in other words, is that languages function as a means of communication, and as a way to add value to particular products and services. In other words, is that languages function as a means of communication, and as a way to add value to particular products and services This double duty makes languages, in the view of Heller and associates (2014) “one of the key sites for a sociolinguistic study of the political economy of globalization” (563). Russian soon became visible on the streets of Barcelona and other touristic and shopping spots along the Catalan coast, prompting us to conduct an ethnographic study of the actual role of Russian and Russian-speaking tourism workers in the Catalan economy
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