Editing Functional linguistics (section)

===Economy===
{{Main|Economy (linguistics)}}

The concept of economy is metaphorically transferred from a social or economical context to a linguistic level. It is considered as a regulating force in language maintenance. Controlling the impact of [[language change]] or internal and external conflicts of the system, the economy principle means that systemic coherence is maintained without increasing energy cost. This is why all human languages, no matter how different they are, have high functional value as based on a compromise between the competing motivations of speaker-easiness (simplicity or ''inertia'') versus hearer-easiness (clarity or ''energeia'').<ref name="Vicentini_2003">{{cite journal |last=Vicentini |first=Alessandra |date=2003 |title=The economy principle in language. Notes and observations from early modern English grammars |journal=Mots. Words. Palabras. |volume=3 |pages=37–57 |citeseerx=10.1.1.524.700 }}</ref>

The principle of economy was elaborated by the French structural–functional linguist [[André Martinet]]. Martinet's concept is similar to [[George Kingsley Zipf|Zipf]]'s [[principle of least effort]]; although the idea had been discussed by various linguists in the late 19th and early 20th century.<ref name="Vicentini_2003"/> The functionalist concept of economy is not to be confused with [[Minimalist program#Economy|economy in generative grammar.]]