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Part of
The Evolution of Englishes: The Dynamic Model and beyond
Edited by Sarah Buschfeld, Thomas Hoffmann, Magnus Huber and Alexander Kautzsch
[Varieties of English Around the World G49] 2014
► pp. 249–266

Does money talk, and do languages have price tags? Economic perspectives on English as a global language

The rise of English to its present position of the world’s undisputed lingua franca and the role of Global English in a multilingual world are core topics of World Englishes research. However, this does not mean that they have not been of interest to researchers in other disciplines, as well – for example in history, sociology and economics. The present contribution reviews a sample of recent analyses of English in multilingual settings written by economists, arguing that in spite of their methodological blindness to some phenomena important to (socio)linguists they have important things to say to the World Englishes research community. Conversely, taking account of the results of linguistic research on World Englishes would greatly help in refining the econometric models.
Keywords: communicative value, English as a Lingua Franca, language spread, multilingualism, World Englishes
Published online: 12 September 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/veaw.g49.14mai
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Farquharson, Joseph T.
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