In sociolinguistics, the notion of linguistic marketplace, also known as linguistic market, refers to the symbolic market where linguistic exchanges happen. On linguistic markets, linguistic capital - a subtype of the broader concept of cultural capital according to Pierre Bourdieu - is exchanged, and different languages and varieties have different symbolic values.
On the standard linguistic market, standard languages usually enjoy more value due to the high overt prestige associated with them while on linguistic markets that value non-standard varieties, vernaculars can also enjoy a higher value. This concept has been proven to be useful in understanding other sociolinguistic concepts such as language variation and change and gender.
References
Linguistic marketplace Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA