Turning language and communication into productive resources. Language policy and planning and multinational corporations

Abstract

Sociolinguistic production has recently turned its attention to the analysis of language and communication in multinational corporations. Scholars have explained that, under current capitalist conditions, language and communication have been resignified by managers, consultants, and marketing specialists as economic assets that contribute to the individualization or customization of products and services. This chapter discusses the techniques, tactics, and forms of expertise through which language and communication are governed and then turned into productive resources within multinational corporations. Drawing on an ethnographic documentation of the management of language and communication within a Swiss multinational, the chapter demonstrates that corporate actors’ policing of language and communication is not merely linguistic policing. Rather, it is a means to discipline and express control over those actors producing language and communication. That is to say, such forms of policing are a method of enhancing multinationals’ productivity and securing their competitiveness under changing market conditions.