ABSTRACT
This chapter will discuss linguistic and discursive aspects of commodification (the reconstruction of, for instance, public services on the analogy of commodity markets) and consumerization (the reconstruction of their publics or clients as consumers). I assume that consumerization is a dimension of commodification, and I mainly use the latter more general term below, referring specifically to consumerization where necessary. I shall discuss first the commodification of public2 discourse, a process which involves the generalization of the communicative function of promotion (of goods, services, institutions or people). I shall then discuss a partially independent but overlapping process affecting public discourse, its ‘conversationalization’—the modelling of public discourse upon the discursive practices of ordinary life, ‘conversational’ practices in a broad sense. Commodified public discourse tends also to be conversationalized. The final section of the chapter links it to the theme of ‘the authority of the consumer’ through a discussion of whether the conversationalization of public discourse is part of a shift in authority in favour of ‘the public’, including a shift from producers3 to consumers. I suggest that the cultural value and significance of conversationalization is more ambivalent, and that the evidence of conversationalization indicates caution about such claims.
