The structure of online social networks modulates the rate of lexical change
The structure of online social networks modulates the rate of lexical change
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DOI：
10.18653/v1/2021.naacl-main.178
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发表时间：
2021-04
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Jian Zhu;David Jurgens
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Jian Zhu;David Jurgens
新词汇经常被引入社区，但并非所有这些词汇都在社区的词典中存在。在影响词汇变化的诸多因素中，我们着重研究了社交网络的影响。我们对十年来4420个在线社区中的8万多个新词进行了大规模分析。通过泊松回归和生存分析，我们的研究表明，社区的网络结构在词汇变化中起着重要的作用。除了整体规模，包括密集的连接，缺乏本地集群，以及更多的外部接触的属性促进词汇创新和保留。与离线社区不同，这些基于主题的社区尽管增加了接触，但并没有经历强大的词汇水平，而是容纳了更多的利基词汇。我们的工作为社会语言学假设提供了支持，即词汇变化部分是由底层网络的结构塑造的，但也揭示了特定于在线社区的发现。
New words are regularly introduced to communities, yet not all of these words persist in a community’s lexicon. Among the many factors contributing to lexical change, we focus on the understudied effect of social networks. We conduct a large-scale analysis of over 80k neologisms in 4420 online communities across a decade. Using Poisson regression and survival analysis, our study demonstrates that the community’s network structure plays a significant role in lexical change. Apart from overall size, properties including dense connections, the lack of local clusters, and more external contacts promote lexical innovation and retention. Unlike offline communities, these topic-based communities do not experience strong lexical leveling despite increased contact but accommodate more niche words. Our work provides support for the sociolinguistic hypothesis that lexical change is partially shaped by the structure of the underlying network but also uncovers findings specific to online communities.