Readings on language & consumption

[Niko Besnier]

Friends

In a Baby Ling Anthro course I am about to teach, I am hoping to include a
section on "language and consumption" (including perhaps both "language AS
consumption" and "language OF consumption").  The motivation is the fact
that consumption is such a timely topic in socio-cultural, and I'd like to
try to link ling anthro concerns to developments in our understanding of
consumption from socio-cultural anthro (e.g., D Miller et al., Wilks,
etc.), works that generally do not deal with language.

Does anyone have any good suggestion of readings (relatively simple,
ethnographically focused) on the topic?  I was thinking of Spitulnik on
Radio Zambia talk, Jaffe on greeting cards as gift/commodity, and a paper
of mine still to be finished on the cultivation of "sophisticated talk" at
the Nuku'alofa (Tonga) flea market.  Anything else comes to mind to
anyone?  (I'm less interested in purely linguistic works on the language of
advertising, which often lacks an ethnographic component.)

Many thanks.

Niko

Niko Besnier