Abstract:With the globalization of economy, there are more and more communications among different cultures, and language plays a very important role in the world economy. The economics of language, as a new interdisciplinary economic branch, spring up in the past 30 or 40 years. Then, (1) What does Economics of Language study? In another word, for solving what kind of questions does Language and Economics as a discipline come into being? What does Language and Economics study, and how? (2) What kind of relations on earth do they have between language and economy? This paper gives a survey of the development of economics of language, and makes an appraisal on its primary theories. Based on the review, the author also discusses some important theoretical problems of economics of language, and comes up with an agenda for future research.

Keywords:language, language and economics, rhetoric, game, institution

JEL Classification:A190 B590 Z000