Trade is a domain of interest where there is a clear case of contact, where groups come together for exchange. Put another way, trade situations are fruitful for investigating the relationship between groups.
For this questionnaire, trade is characterised by two aspects. The first is that there is a clear understanding by participants that there will be immediate gains or returns. If not immediate, there is an explicit understanding of future returns. “Explicit” here includes strong cultural norms, such that violating the norm of expected return would result in a predictable and clear penalty.
The second characteristic of trade in this questionnaire is that the acquisition of objects, money, or service, is a clear motivator of the exchange. This domain thus excludes acts of exchange whose purposes can be characterised more-so as building relationships, such as gift-giving. Exchanges that are simultaneously a transaction and relationship building are considered trade transactions for this questionnaire. The key point of interest is that there is some transaction involved.
We define trade narrowly in an attempt to distinguish it from social exchange, even though much has been written about how difficult it is to separate these activities from one another (see Strathen and Stewart 2012). For the purposes of this questionnaire, we consider trade to be distinguishable from other kinds of exchange because (1) it is mostly based on the (immediate) exchange of unlike items, (2) it may involve bargaining and value setting while gift and ceremonial exchange tend not to have this process, and (3) trade can occur between people and groups that are not necessarily connected with each other by kin or other types of close interpersonal relationships. The Domain of Social Exchange is covered in a different section of the questionnaire.
Linguistically, trade contexts have been hypothesised as or resulting in a range of linguistic consequences. These include trade jargons (Rickford and McWhorter 1997:240), conventionalised trade registers (e.g. Chinook Jargon, Thomas 1953), and these varieties may even come to be spoken outside the domains of trade (e.g. Pidgin Fijian, Siegel 1987). These linguistic consequences can arise from different power dynamics in trade, such as between two groups of relatively equal power (e.g. Russenorsk, Pidgin Yimas) or asymmetries in power (e.g. Swahili).
Case studies of language use in trade have also revealed various dynamics at play between individuals, groups, and group conceptualisation. For example Connell (2009) found that language use in a multi-ethnic and multilingual market place of Cameroon shows “language choice appeared most strongly correlated with interactants’ “ethnicity” (p.138). In this case study, Mambila varieties were used among individuals primarily identifying as Mambila, while Grassfields Bantu language Bamoun [bax] was used with visiting Bamoun traders. Verschik (2011) found that Finnish tourists and Estonian service providers both may accommodate to each other, although with slightly different strategies due to the amounts of prior exposure of the other language. Both these case studies suggest that the larger language ecology and milieu are indeed reflected linguistically in this inherently relational domain.
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