LAIZER EDWIN N

BAPRM 42691

Language as a corporate asset

Although interest in academic research of the economics of language is of recent origin, by the end of the seventeenth century many philosophers already had started to recognize the relationship between economics and language. Coulmas (1992: 2) observes, ‘The analogy of money and language which is so conspicuously encoded in language itself has often been regarded as mere stylistic decoration.’ He translates an example from the early seventeenth century thinker, Stefano Guazzo, who used the analogy in making the point that in public speech the valuable must be separated from the worthless, as follows: ‘Just as all sorts of coins, golden, silver and copper issue from a purse, expressions and other words of greater and lesser value come out of the speaker’s mouth’ (Coulmas, 1992: 2).

Late in the seventeenth century, Locke referred to word as ‘the common measure of commerce and communication’ (Locke, 1959: 154). Locke’s contemporary, Leibniz, alluded to the link between language and money, drawing an analogy between words as aid to thought and logic and counters as aid to computation (Leibniz, 1983: 5). He was looking for precision in valuation through both linguistic nomenclature and economic measurement. According to Coulmas (1992): Leibniz did not believe that, as a matter of principle, the expressive power of one language was greater than another. Nevertheless, he realized the advantage of precision. The smaller the unit, the greater the exactitude of the transactions that can be carried out in a system that uses it (Coulmas, 1992: 3).

 A few decades later, Hume (1964) moved beyond the metaphor. He saw parallels in the development and functions of language and money: In like manner are languages gradually established by human conventions without any promise. In like manner do gold and silver become the common measures of exchange, and are esteemed sufficient payment for what is of a hundred times their value’ (Coulmas, 1992: 3).

 According to another seventeenth century thinker, Adam Smith, the currency of a country ‘is the exact measure of the real exchange able value of all commodities. It is so, however, at the same time and place only’ (Smith, 1904: 39). Correspondingly, explains Coulmas (1992: 4), ‘the value of words is contingent upon temporarily and locally limited common practice’. Coulmas quotes Hamann, a contemporary of Smith, to make his point:

Money and language are two objects whose investigation is as profound and abstract as their use is common. Both are more closely related to each other than should be conjectured. The theory of the one explains that of the other; they seem to issue from common grounds. The wealth of all human knowledge is based on the exchange of words life, on the other hand, are related to money as their universal measure.

 Coulmas (1992: 4) goes on to explain that ‘words do not derive their meaning from their material substance but from the purpose they serve in transmitting nonmaterial content, and likewise the value of money is not based on its material embodiment, but on the function it fulfils as a common means for the exchange of goods’.