204 11 Win-Win?! Language Regulation for Competitiveness in a University Context Martina Zimmermann and Mi-Cha Flubacher Introduction It has often been argued that in times of neoliberalism and late capitalism, communicative skills and language competence have become a resource and a veritable work instrument (see for example Boutet, 2008; Cameron, 2000; Heller, 2003), which in turn is linked with the increasing tertiarization of labor and services (Duchêne & Heller, 2012; Spilker, 2010). Apart from being the main instrument for communication and client services, language competence is also used by companies to reach new markets and/or to target specific (linguistic) populations (Kelly-Holmes, 2006; Piller, 2001). In displaying competence in the customer language, certain companies can sell themselves as ‘different’ within a globalized labor market in which the majority of companies oftentimes only fall back on the most widely used lingua francas. On the other hand, individuals competent in these languages can sell this competence to employers and companies, thus turning them into their personal marker of distinction (Bourdieu, 1979) in the process of a job application, for example. Specific language competence thus allows both individuals and companies to create a marker of distinction for themselves and, thus, to become veritable symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1979). In this case, this symbolic capital (i.e. linguistic profiles) can ideally be converted into economic capital (a job, more salary or revenues, more market shares etc.). It is this convertibility