ABSTRACT:
The paper is divided into the following parts: 1. Linguistic work‚ or immaterial work‚ in global communication-production system; 2. Linguistic work and linguistic use; 3. On the homology between verbal and nonverbal human communication; 4. Ideology and linguistic alienation; 5. Doctrine of ideologies and semiotics of social communication programs; 6. Ideology and false consciousness; 7. Social reproduction.
Rossi-Landi elaborated such concepts as linguistic production, linguistic work and linguistic capital in social reproduction identifying homological relations with material production. As revealed by certain expressions now in use in everyday language such concepts are recognized as describing factors that are no less than fundamental in today‚s social reproductive cycle. The expressions we are alluding to include Œimmaterial resource‚, Œimmaterial capital‚ and Œimmaterial investment‚, which circulate with the statement of awareness of the fundamental importance for development and competition in present-day knowledge society of education, information and specialized knowledge. Until quite recently material production and linguistic production, in the form of manual work and intellectual work, were conceived to be separate though related homologically at profound genetic and structural levels. The novelty is that in the world of global communication linguistic production and material production have come together and become one. With the advent of the computer in which hardware and software come together in a single unit the connection between work and material artifacts, on the one hand, and work and linguistic artifacts, on the other, has been evidenced unequivocally to the point that the superior capacity of linguistic work, which is Œimmaterial work‚, is obvious. In other words, linguistic work leads the processes of production and development. |
