Band 2021, Heft 270 - Special Issue: The Language Division of Labour Across Occupations; Issue Editor: Amado Alarcón Alarcón

This special issue contributes to understanding the role of language division of labour across occupations. The articles contribute to sociological understanding and critical dialogue with a human capital perspective in the context of the information society, where language has a central role in production processes. Since information as raw material and product is linguistically encoded, language occupies a central role in new forms of division of labour. The main question in this introduction and subsequent articles is to what extent social changes of information centrality at the production level reproduce or create new social inequalities observable through the lens of language division of labour within occupations. Although progress has been made in knowledge about competencies in the information and digital environment, little is known about specific linguistic needs across occupational classifications. Given the widespread use of alphabetization, literacy is today taken as a sine qua non for entering labour markets, instead of a stratifier across occupations and social structure. Nevertheless, in this special issue authors show that language of origin, second-language knowledge, and other literacies, such as communicative skills, become key stratifier factors. This is observable at the territorial level, types of literacies, as well as in specific and sophisticated language professions.

There is a considerable number of studies that analyze the benefits of language(s) in the labor market. It is a sensitive topic because of its relevance for language maintenance, and therefore, for the selective acculturation of immigrants in host societies. In this paper, the effect of non-English language fluency on the occupational attainment of immigrants and natives is analyzed, both in terms of occupational wages and socio-economic status. Results indicate that there is no advantage associated with non-English language fluency, either for natives or immigrants. Rather, a penalty for the specific case of Spanish fluency among immigrants was found. Three explanations from previous literature regarding the benefits of bilingualism in the labor market – human capital, devaluation and discrimination— are discussed in relation to the obtained results. The paper concludes with some recommendations about the recognition of language diversity in the labor market and policies aimed at the integrative acculturation of immigrants.

As a language-intensive profession, translation is of frontline interest in the era of language automation. In particular, the development of neural machine translation systems since 2016 has brought with it fears that soon there will be no more human translators. When considered in terms of the history of automation, however, any such direct effect is far from obvious: the translation industry is still growing and machine translation is only one instance of automation. At the same time, data on remuneration indicate structural wage dispersion in professional translation services, with some signs that this dispersion may increase in certain market segments as automated workflows and translation technologies are adopted more by large language-service providers more than by smaller companies and individual freelancers. An analysis of recent changes in discourses on and in the translation profession further indicates conceptual adjustments in the profession that may be attributed to growing automation, particularly with respect to expanding skills set associated with translation, the tendency to combine translation with other forms of communication, and the use of interactive communication skills to authorize and humanize the results of automation.

The importance of communication skills is increasing on the labour market and a further strengthening of this trend is expected due to Industry 4.0. This development will have significant consequences for individuals’ employability, requirements on educational outcomes and gender equality. This article employs data from a representative survey of Czech employees ( N  = 1,500) replenished with information on requirements on their communication skills (Effective communication, Czech language and English language) in order to explore (a) the distribution of communication skills requirements on the labour market, (b) personal and job characteristics related to work positions requiring highly developed communication skills, and (c) wage returns to these skills. The results show that one standard deviation increase in job requirements on communication skills is connected with 5.8% wage premium. However, not everybody needs well-developed communication skills. Only a quarter of employees needs highly developed effective communication, Czech and English languages, while there is also a quarter of employees that needs only a very basic level of communication skills. The results also revealed that females perform more communication-intensive occupations than males do. Cognitive skills and the need to excel represent other significant factors correlated with higher job requirements on communication skills.

The U.S.–Mexico border is a Latina/o concentrated region and Spanish–English bilingual society. While there are some indications of an economic advantage associated with Spanish–English bilingualism in regions with over-representations of Spanish-origin speakers, the degree of occupational linguistic segregation in such ethno-linguistic context is unknown. Based on data from the American Community Survey (ACS) Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) for 2018, this study calculates the occupational dissimilarity index ( D ) among monolingual-Spanish speakers, Spanish–English bilinguals, and monolingual-English speakers for cities located along the Texas–Mexico border and in the Houston metropolis. Findings show that the highest occupational segregation is found between monolingual-Spanish speakers and both monolingual-English and Spanish–English bilinguals. This indicates that the monolingual-Spanish workforce is occupationally segregated from those with fluent command of English. The lowest occupation dissimilarity indices are between Spanish–English bilinguals and monolingual-English speakers, indicating that these groups are approaching similar occupational placements. I conclude by highlighting an occupational advantage to Spanish–English bilingualism, but only in border cities characterised by concentrations of Spanish-origin speakers. In the non-border city of Houston, being Spanish–English bilingual is not enough to experience occupational upward mobility.

In this short paper, I begin by providing background for inquiry into the division of labour across occupations, examined from an economics of language perspective. I then critically discuss the four papers that compose this special issue on the topic, before closing with three suggestions for factors to bear in mind in future research.

This paper aims to improve our understanding of the social psychology of code-switching by investigating societal attitudes towards two types of Chinese-English code-switching, insertions of English words in Chinese sentences and switching to English at clausal boundaries in Chinese. It examines how subjects’ evaluation of code-switching is influenced by their general language attitudes and language use associated with network exposure. The subjects were recruited from four different cities in mainland China. They participated in an online perception experiment and completed a socio-biographical questionnaire. Quantitative analyses show that clausal switching was rated as the least likable CS mode, but at the same time was considered as having high status as an indication of high English proficiency. Their evaluation was mainly influenced by their general attitudes towards English language and culture. Network exposure also played a marginal role, affecting their judgement of the speaker’s English proficiency.

This study aims to qualitatively document the histories of Singapore’s Chinese multilingual elderly. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven Chinese Singaporeans aged 75 years and above on how and why they acquired the languages they speak and their attitudes towards these linguistic varieties, of which many are declining in usage. Five participants were multilingual and spoke three or more languages fluently; two spoke only two languages and were included for a balanced and holistic perspective. Common themes from the interviews were identified and discussed. One key finding was that communicative necessity and practicality naturally fuelled language learning. Outside of the home, multilingual individuals acquired varieties from conversing with friends, relatives and customers, or as an educational requirement. Language was tied to ethnic belonging, but, generally, pride to speak a linguistic variety was linked to its functional value, not its associated ethnic identity. Unhappiness was expressed at the waning of the Chinese vernaculars and Baba Malay in Singapore today. Such language loss was seen as a sombre, but unavoidable consequence of Singapore’s globalisation and modernisation.