Language, commodification and labour: the relevance of Marx

Abstract

Language commodification, a term now current in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, describes how language has become reconfigured for market purposes and treated as an economic resource. One aspect of this is the commodification of workers' language skills for use in sales and service work. This article explores, through a Marxist lens, the nature and extent of language commodification in work situations from three perspectives: firstly, as a component of the commodity of labour power in the exploitative labour process; secondly, from an ideological perspective, the influence of the dominant neoliberal narrative of commodification which marketizes everything; and thirdly, the active social agent dimension of ‘language workers’ who resist, in various ways, attempts at commodification of their language.