• The Conference
  • Home
  • Programme
  • Venue & directions
  • Organizing Committee
  • Scientific Committee
  • Exhibitors & sponsors
  • Satellite events
  • Conference Party
• Past & future
  • Previous symposia
  • Finland 2014
  • Spain 2016
• About FU Berlin
  • University homepage
  • Humanities at FU

Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 750

Part of Session 125: The legitimate speaker in a transforming political economy (Other abstracts in this session)

Commodification of linguistic repertoires on the Moldovan labour market

Authors: Weirich, Anna-Christine
Submitted by: Weirich, Anna-Christine (Goethe Universität Frankfurt, Germany)

In a sociolinguistic context the term „commodification“ has mainly been used in order to point out two kinds of processes in which in the context of globalisation language becomes an economic resource. On the one hand there are international business activities where certain languages serve as lingua franca for communication across national, cultural and first of all linguistic boundaries. On the other hand linguistic varieties which are associated with tradition and authenticity have contributed to the marketization of certain goods (Heller 2006). This latter process has been seen as one chance of linguistic minorities finding their place in modernity.

Tracing the term back to its Marxian origins offers us the additional opportunity of taking a closer look at what happens to speakers and their linguistic repertoires under those conditions, both on the level of ideology and of practice. Work force as the only commodity that disposes of the prerequisite to create surplus value is at the same time crucial for profit making as for individual subsistence. This being, the (re)production of their work force lies in the sole hands of the workers themselves, including linguistic competence which is a central component of work force under the conditions of modernity.

Using examples from my fieldwork in various enterprises and institutions in the Republic of Moldova, I will try to shed light on the various shapes commodification of linguistic resources takes on in different types of labour relations. The analysis will take into account different language ideologies as well as their impact on the processes of „language learning“ (Blommaert/Backus 2011) and “restructuration” of linguistic repertoires. While doing so I have a focus on two groups of minorized speakers presently facing an emergent new majority – the Russian population as the formerly dominant and largely monolingual one and the Ukrainian population which displays strong traits of assimilation to that formerly dominant group.

Due to the concomitant processes of nationalization and heavy economic problems which lead to a fundamental temporary or permanent exodus of the population, while studying the Moldovan case we are confronted with several seemingly contradictory ideologies. The linguistic nationalism promoted by Romanian speaking elites tries to unify the „weak state“ (Heintz 2008) on a discursive level, creating a strongly purist discourse (referring to the exogene Romanian standard which is foreign to almost the entire population), thus shaping in particular education discourses and practices. At the same time, transnational enterprises have started to exploit the multilingualism of the region's workforce, resulting both from the multiethnicity of the state and the heavy labour migration to European and CIS countries. At the same time „post-modernist ideologies of flexibility, variability and hybridity“ (Gal 1989) are being promoted by EU and US development programs referring to that multlingualism combined with low labour costs as decisive features of Moldovan competitivity.