The commoditization of English and the Bologna Process : global products and services, exchange mechanisms and trans-national labour

![CDATA[As a commodity English is constituted as global products and services; it facilitates various forms of exchange and is an integral aspect of the skills-base of trans-national labour. English itself is now sold in various guises by small-to-medium businesses. Further, English facilitates the exchanges necessary to effecting trade between people, including those who otherwise have no common language. Third, workers who are proficient in English enhance the trans-national trade in labour. The internationalization of education, especially the globalization of the Bologna Process, is playing a role in the commoditization of English. Using evidence about teacher education, this chapter explores tensions between the desire for the Bologna Process to lower the informational barriers necessary for securing trans-national student and labour mobility, and the need to form multicultural subjects by respecting linguistic diversity. In this way it captures some of the complexities, if not the unpredictable and chaotic features of language as commodity.]]