A critical analysis of the comparison between money and language
Résumé
The comparison between language and money is recurrent in Western culture. But does this analogy provide a starting point for a deeper understanding of language activity, viewed as a Symbolic Form? Although money far postdates language in human history, the use of money reveals social, cognitive and semiotic constraints or resources which presumably are also involved in linguistic activity. The analogy is even more valid if we depart from a strictly utilitarian point of view in economy (Aglietta & Orlean), and from a strictly conceptual/referential view in semantics. Indeed, both money and language provide a “general equivalent” for an open series of occurrences by : (i) elaborating abstract and fictive values in a sensible medium, and (ii) creating a fictive but universal and socially constituted reference system which regulates all emergent values, including the most basic and individualistic ones. From this point of view, several functions of language appear to be analogous to those classically assigned to money (evaluation, diffusion, payment, saving).
Our proposal is to link the emergence of languages and the emergence of what we call “symbolic economies”. We provisionally define “symbolic economy” as a complex system in which transactions aim at assigning and transferring symbolic values (e.g. values of acts, roles, or even other signs) through a co-emerging semiotic medium. Our guiding intuition is that functions of human languages should be viewed within the social context in which distinct groups co-exist by means of ritualized protocols (gift, exchange, alliance, payment, sanction). All these protocols involve an exchange of symbols (objects, gestures, or (proto)linguistic signs) whose values stem from their involvement in ritualized actions, which cannot be recognized or achieved without these symbols.
The analogy between language and money may however turn out to be unenlightening if we do not take into account: (i) the archeological and anthropological findings showing various types and functions of “money” in archaic societies, mostly related to social obligations and not only to the exchange of goods; (ii) the work in theoretical economy describing the concurrent emergence of different “currencies” as a result of a mimetic behavior of agents, rather than an application of pre-established values; (iii) the theories in which language activity is primarily considered as a way of evaluating/categorizing actions and roles, and of ‘buying' social positions by trading relevant symbols.
In sum, we (i) describe functional analogies between money and language in human transactions, (ii) present a non-utilitarian “symbolic economies” framework in which such analogies become more effective, (iii) sketch some of the elementary transactions on which a symbolic economy could be based, and (iv) discuss the possible relationship between this speculative model and some general aspects of linguistic categories (e.g. case roles).
Our proposal is to link the emergence of languages and the emergence of what we call “symbolic economies”. We provisionally define “symbolic economy” as a complex system in which transactions aim at assigning and transferring symbolic values (e.g. values of acts, roles, or even other signs) through a co-emerging semiotic medium. Our guiding intuition is that functions of human languages should be viewed within the social context in which distinct groups co-exist by means of ritualized protocols (gift, exchange, alliance, payment, sanction). All these protocols involve an exchange of symbols (objects, gestures, or (proto)linguistic signs) whose values stem from their involvement in ritualized actions, which cannot be recognized or achieved without these symbols.
The analogy between language and money may however turn out to be unenlightening if we do not take into account: (i) the archeological and anthropological findings showing various types and functions of “money” in archaic societies, mostly related to social obligations and not only to the exchange of goods; (ii) the work in theoretical economy describing the concurrent emergence of different “currencies” as a result of a mimetic behavior of agents, rather than an application of pre-established values; (iii) the theories in which language activity is primarily considered as a way of evaluating/categorizing actions and roles, and of ‘buying' social positions by trading relevant symbols.
In sum, we (i) describe functional analogies between money and language in human transactions, (ii) present a non-utilitarian “symbolic economies” framework in which such analogies become more effective, (iii) sketch some of the elementary transactions on which a symbolic economy could be based, and (iv) discuss the possible relationship between this speculative model and some general aspects of linguistic categories (e.g. case roles).
Loading...