The economic importance of language: Focus on border regions

In the paper, we highlight the importance of language and its link to economic activities in border areas, because they represent a special kind of “natural laboratory”, where multicultu­ralism or multilingualism is an objective reality that needs to be understood and accepted as a result of many different historical and political events.

Language in border areas has a communicative and symbolic dimension, language is an indicator of diversity, and language is not always the most important symbol marking the bo­undary between groups, but it is an important indicator of the status of a group and of relations between groups. The empirical results of the surveys have shown that respondents who have participated in various surveys over the last 20 years do not attach much importance to kno­wledge of the language of a neighbouring country (which is also a minority language in some border areas) for one’s social standing, or for communication within the EU, or for training and study. Knowledge of the language of the neighbouring country is important for emplo­yment in the neighbouring country, but at the same time it is also language skills that make it easier for an individual to adapt to a different environment and therefore be more successful. The results of the above-mentioned studies have confirmed that economic variables influence both the choice and the use of language in specific situations marked by economic categories.