Routledge Handbook of South Asian Politics by Brass Paul R.;

Author:Brass, Paul R.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Interdisciplinary Studies
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2009-09-17T04:00:00+00:00

Language and class conflict

Besides being symbolic of ethnic identity, language is also part of a divide along socioeconomic class lines. This is because certain varieties and styles of a language, in the words of Pierre Bourdieu,“can function as linguistic capital, producing a profit of distinction on the occasion of each social exchange.”39 If a language is used in the domains of power—of the state or the corporate sector—it can be exchanged for wealth, power and prestige. That is why the educational system sells it and consumers buy it. Bourdieu puts it as follows:

The position which the educational system gives to the different languages (or the different cultural contents) is such an important issue only because this institution has the monopoly in the large-scale production of producers/consumers, and therefore in the reproduction of the market without which the social value of the linguistic competence, its capacity to function as linguistic capital, would cease to exist.40

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