ABSTRACT
As shown in Figure 4.1 at the beginning of the preceding chapter, the wage premiums that accrue to persons with certain skills may be seen as an indicator (some linguists might call it “the trace”) of a deeper process through which these skills contribute to value creation. We have assumed this process to be characterised by language use as opposed to mere competence. One reason why economists working on language, however, have so far stressed competence more than use, as shown by the literature review in Chapters 3 and 4, is that the structural relationships between competence and use are still not very well known. Another reason for economists’ focus on competence is the lack of hard data on language use, particularly of data sets that could serve to connect language use to earnings.
