Social network (sociolinguistics)

A social network is defined as either "loose" or "tight" depending on how connected its members are with each other, as measured by factors like density and multiplexity.

Dense networks are most likely to be found in small, stable communities with few external contacts and a high degree of social cohesion.

Social network theories of language change look for correlation between a speaker's order and their use of prestigious or non-prestigious linguistic variants.

Social networks are used in sociolinguistics to explain linguistic variation in terms of community norms, rather than broad categories like gender or race.

This allows researchers to create an accurate picture of a community's language use without resorting to stereotypical classification.

Social networks are at work in communities as large as nation-states or as small as an online dating service.

One way of mapping the general structure of a network is to assign a strength scale to each speaker.

[11] In recent years, computer simulation and modeling have been used to study social networks from a broader perspective.

Advances in computer simulation and modeling technology have been used to study social networks on a larger scale, both with more participants and over a greater span of time.

With the rise of computer modeling, sociolinguists have been able to study the linguistic behavior of large networks without the huge expenditure of time required to individually work with thousands of subjects long-term.

This imitation of desirable qualities indicates that strongly connected agents lead change by spreading norms through network members.

Actors with high levels of prestige in the linguistic led the use of these forms, and enforced them as norms within the community.

[5] Takeshi Sibata's 1960 study of elementary school children[25] provides strong support for the view that insiders, or leaders, in a social network facilitate language change.

He interviewed several elementary school children, and taught them some invented words he created for the purpose of this study.

Each person's use of phonological variables, (ai), (a), (l), (th), (ʌ), (e), which were clearly indexical of the Belfast urban speech community, were then measured.

Deviation from the regional standard was determined by density and multiplicity of the social networks into which speakers are integrated.

In Ballymacarrett, one of the villages the researchers surveyed, unrounded [u] was most often used by young males and females, who had weak ties to the working class networks, but use the variables frequently to project an image of working-class toughness.

One key study that employed computer simulations was Fagyal, Swarup, Escobar, Gasser, and Lakkarajud's work on the roles of group insiders (leaders) and outsiders (loners) in language change.

These findings allowed the researchers to address the major debate in social network theory: whether it is leaders (or centers) or loners who are responsible for language change.

In their findings, the presence of both leaders and loners was essential, though the two types of agents played different roles in the process of change.

Fagyal et al. complicate this claim by suggesting that the role of loners in a network is to safeguard old features, then reintroduce them to the community.

For example, non-native speakers cited in the study use separated letter-style greetings and salutations, indicating linguistic insecurity.