Abstract
It’s Valentine’s Day today. Valentine’s Day is a truly global event inextricably linking the emotional life of individuals with the capitalist world order. Young women around the world dream of romantic love and many men do their best to meet those dreams, showing how much they care by buying flowers, chocolates, lingerie, jewellery or any of the other consumer goods that have come to symbolize romantic love. Those that do not engage in the consumption bonanza also find their lives touched by Valentine’s Day: for instance, an estimated 198 million red roses are grown specifically for Valentine’s Day and that’s a huge amount of one particular crop to get ready, to harvest and to bring to market for one single day: the socio-economic structure of whole counties in Kenya, Colombia or Ecuador has been changed to make way for this floral industry.
Original language | English |
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Specialist publication | Language on the move |
Publisher | Language on the move |
Publication status | Published - 14 Feb 2013 |
Bibliographical note
Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.Keywords
- 200401 applied linguistics and educational linguistics
- 200405 language in culture and society (sociolinguistics)